You can't come in here, it's closed.

Day 8- just for my own thoughts and purposes, i'm also going to note that "Day 8" is Thursday, June 3.

group meeting before class, then back to the dorms to prepare for some sight-seeing.

Hillary and i went to the National Gallery of Ireland (a big important museum). the place was huge and we spent about 2 hours inside.

SIDE NOTE: in one of our pre-departure meetings at UT, our prof told us that a big part of the Irish culture is the tendency to 'bust each others chops.' this gallery visit gave us a great taste of that.

ex. the older men that work in the museum were all too excited to tell us things like "you can't come in this room, it's closed." me- "oh, okay. sorry." old irish man - "hahaha just kidding, come in, love!"

but back to the gallery - along

with the standard religious art that you see in every museum in Europe, there were a couple

Van Gogh pieces, a Monet, a large collection of Jack B. Yeats (brother of W.B. Yeats) pieces and a pretty cool section with new acquisitions.

above (right) is a picture of the entry hall that we started in. notice the sweeping staircases in the back. i have a thing for big, pretty staircases.

i think my favorite part of the gallery is the National Portrait Hall. it holds portraits of famous and influential

Irish people (from Bono to athletes to politicians) and it's truly a testament to the pride that the Irish have in their country.

this is a portrait of Maeve Binchy, an award winning

Irish writer. i happen to be reading one of her books right now AND i had it in my bag, so i was Super excited to take this picture (i'm a huge nerd).

p.s. you aren't really allowed to

take pics in the gallery. the attendant "turned around" and let us take the picture, then when we were done yelled "no pictures in here" with a wink lol

outside of the gallery (literally across the street), we

visited Oscar Wilde's house. the building is now a part of the

Irish American University.

like my bag? it was 3 euro at Penny's! we'll see how long it holds up :-P

anyway, all of this activity left us weary, so we strolled on over to Merrian Square Park to enjoy the sunshine (and the granola bars that we were packing).

this may seem creepy, but while

we were in the park, there was a group of 'primary school' children on what seemed to be a recesss break.

they were all dressed like Madeline dolls....so we (discretely) took pics of them.

tooooo cute!! lol

we continued our day with a stroll down Grafton Street (a big shopping area in the center of town) and who did we find?? but MUTEFISH playing on the street again!!

NOTICE: Irish Johnny Depp plays in their band!! (keeping the beat in the black t-shirt in the back right)

after being a groupie for a little while, Hillary, Cindy and i decided to grab some dinner.

SIDENOTE: when i was in Scotland last year (shout out to Auntie Moe! <3)>amazing Indian food and i have been dying to get some 'on this side of the pond' again.

we found an Indian place with a pretty decent 'early bird' special and decided to pop in. little did we know that we were walking into a gourmet restaurant. the meal was pretty incredible, but i'm still in search of some coconut curry.

this is a pic of my appetizer, a samosa. mMMmmMmmm

after dinner, our bus home was delayed by 45 minutes because there was a protest going on in the city. the main street we were on was shut down as members of the garda (police) walked the protesters from the city centre to the embassy. (we watched at a distance as they passed. pretty intense.)

anyway, i was going to go to bed early....but a big group of the girls wanted to go out, so i obliged.

someone received a (failed) tip from a local about a place called Bar Code, so we decided to check it out.

some of the group with the sign (me, Hillary, Ashley and Krysten)

the place was HUGE but absolutely dead and the cab driver told us to 'watch out bags' while inside, so we were pretty

sketched out. (it was on the far North side of Dublin, *see below)

after a drink or two, we headed back to Temple Bar, hitting several places including finding a karaoke bar (score).

(the 2nd cab driver told us that bar code is a club, so it doesn't start to pick up until around 2am. whoops, yall)

^please enjoy this humorous sign on the wall of this 'club'

Notable incidences of the evening:

- meeting an Irish guy that watches/loves American Football (rare). the thing is that they don't get the games on TV here and they can only upload them online MUCH later than the games occur, so he was going on and on about Vince Young's recent win with UT (not that it's a subject i mind discussing) lol

-in conversation, Irish guy- "what's your name?" me-"Rachel." Irish guy- "Nice, OT. i like it." me- "um, what?" Irish guy- "Old Testament" (you know you're in 90% Catholic country when you're hit on with biblical references)

-they LOVE the song "Sweet Home Alabama, " but each time we heard it (which was 5 in one night, granted at different pubs) it was slightly different and several of the bands got the words wrong.

*North vs. South Dublin. the city is clearly divided by the River Liffey (one of my new favorite words to say). according to the locals, the North side is 'the bad part of town.' ex. joke told to us by a random bus driver - "Why did the woman from the South side marry a man from the North side? to get her purse back"

on a final note - i thought i was spoiled by the live music in Austin, but Dublin is on a whole other level. musicians litter the streets (and they don't mess around, they have amps and microphones with them) and fill the pubs. there is free live music everywhere.

here is a video i took at The Purty Kitchen. enjoy :)