Washington DC Dulles to Dublin First Day in Ireland - Tom's Visit to the Green Isle

 

Here is a young man, Erik from Northfield, who I met in a restaurant in Dulles Washington DC international A section of the airport.  He is a Rotary Scholar, spending his first year in college in Zimbabwe.  He shared that many of his Northfield Classmates are blogging their experiences around the world.  Fun to see how the younger generation is getting along with the online and tech tools of today.  

 

I arrived in Dublin on the Aer Lingus "red eye" flying from Washington DC Dulles at 5:20 PM and arriving in at 5:30 Eugene Curran on the right was kind enough to meet me outside of customs and drive me to All Hallows College Campus, here in Drumcondra, part of the north of Dublin.  Here he is chatting with one of the student staff of the college by the green early in the day. 

 Early in the day, the central green with Eugene meeting a colleague.

 

There is a lot of green in Ireland, including this Post Truck that arrived as we were going to get some coffee. 

 Early morning view of the green with Purcell Building in front, and Drumcondra to the right, taken from in front of O'Donnell, the dorm where I have a room on the second floor.

 
My entry door to O'Donnell, with bikes on the side.  

 Drumcontra Building where Eugene has an office on the 3rd Floor.

 Drumcondra Building with a plane, sycamore tree on the right.

 Canopy of the plane tree, sycamore on the green.

 The mild climate here allows medicine plants, pe juta oyate, Tansy on the front  left and rosemary on the front right to grow together here in Dublin here on the campus.

 
While driving around Dublin, Eugene took me up into Phoenix Park where has a huge memoral obelisk for the Duke of Wellington, a native of Ireland.  We drove past that onto Wellington Road and this overlook looking to the south over the War Memorial Gardens where both Queen Elizabeth and Barack Obama have visited in recent years.  


Eugene Curran, a great tour guide and native to Dublin, showing me the stockade the Brits built, overlooking Dublin....on Wellington Road .  After this he drove me by the Guiness Brewery  south of the Liffy and through amazing Georgian 4 story building neighborhoods, when Dublin was built to be the second city of the Empire in the 1700's.   We had a local dinner north of the Liffy at Ely brasserie
http://www.elywinebar.ie/restaurants/ely-bar-brasserie

Quite the day, introduction to Ireland !