Days Five and Six: Glastonbury and Dublin

A mixture of a long day and no wireless made posting yesterday quite unappealing. As a result, today's post is two tales in one!

Yesterday, we set out early for Bristol, but because of tube repairs, ended up having to take the later bus. When we got to Bristol, we still had to drop off our bags at the hostel. The directions on our reservation only said that it was about half a mile away. Luckily, Bristol (unlike Salisbury) has excellent street signs, and we had bought a map. We dropped off our things, then headed out to the bus station. we just managed to get on the bus to Glastonbury, but we were still quite late. By the time we got there, it was verging on three thirty.

However, we also got off a stop too early, so we ended up not in the town, but in a neighborhood about three miles out. We could see the Tor from where we were, so we simply started walking towards it. We soon realized we were lost when we could see nothing around us except hedges and cows. LOTS of cows. We turned back around, and ended up asking directions in the local hospital. The women at the desk were really sweet, and very helpful. Before we left, one of the women took my hand and said, "If you're feet get blisters, be sure to come back, dearie, and we'll fix you up."

Now pointed in the right direction, we set off down the road. The only problem was, we weren't exactly sure when the next bus would come, and we were supremely unhappy with the idea of having to miss our flight the next morning. On top of this, the walk was long. By the time we got to the Abbey, it was almost five fifteen. By this time, most everything was closed. However, we were able to get into the Abbey, where we got lunch and were able to walk among the ruins. The Abbey was built in the eleventh century, and despite now being in ruins, you can still see parts of the colored decorations that had been painted on the walls, and sections of the tiled floors. Most interesting, however, is that King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were said to be buried next to the high alter! We got to see their graves, which are now simply a marked-off plot of land. There was once a grey marble tomb, but it was destroyed some time in the sixteenth century.

After that, we simply sat in the square and people-watched, as most everything was closed. It would have been nice to climb the Tor, which is said to be the entrance to Avalon, and to drink from the Chalice Well, but we just didn't have time. However, we got to see the most exciting part, the Abbey, which was said to have been founded by Saint James, Jesus's brother-in-law, thought the current Abbey was built later.

When we got home, we went straight to sleep, as we had to wake up at five this morning in order to get on our plane by eight. We made it, though, and boarded just in time. We made it into Dublin by ten, signed into the hostel, then set out to see the sights. First, we went to Trinity College, where Burke, the author of "The Nature of Beauty and the Sublime' was once dean, and where the Book of Kells now resides. I got my picture taken with Burke's statue, and then we went inside to see the book.

I got in trouble almost immediately for taking pictures. A security guard said, "put your camera away or I'll have to shoot you." I said, "With a camera?" and he responded, "With a gun!" In print this sounds rather off-putting, but in the moment it was quite funny. The Book of Kells itself seemed quite small, actually. You were only able to see two pages, which makes sense, but I wish I'd been able to see more. I feel like there had to be a way to make more of the pages visible.

From there, we went to the First Christ Church, which was huge, beautiful, and full of an assortment of strange things, from an iron heart reliquary to a mummified cat and rat that had gotten stuck in the pipe organ. After that, we came back to hostel to chill for a bit. We'll be going out tonight, where hopefully we'll get to meet tons of new people. Tomorrow we'll be bussing to Cork, to see Blarney Castle!