Happy Christmas from Dublin!

Today is St. Stephen's Day, the day after Christmas.  Nearly everything is closed, including the train.  I know this because when Juliette dropped me off at the train station today, it was a ghost town.  Not wanting to pay for a cab, I walked the 5 miles home.  In the rain.  Well, it stopped raining halfway through my walk, but still.  Ggrrr.  There may or may not have been grumblings mumbled under my breath.

Anyway, moving on to the fun stuff!

On Christmas Eve, I walked to Christ Church Cathedral for 11pm mass.  It was beautiful.  The same chorus was there as from the Carol service I attended - they were phenomenal.  On my walk back home, I walked through Grafton Street and other parts of city centre to not only check out the beautiful lights, but also to experience a silent and empty Grafton Street!  This area is always so hustle-bustle, it was kinda neat to see it so quiet.  Here are pics:

Anne Street

Bank of Ireland, College Green

Fallon & Byrne

upscale market - like Oliver T's in Michigan, yet foolishly more expensive.

(expensive as in, 8 euro for a box of kellogg's cereal...seriously?)

nice selection of cheese though; also said to have a great bakery

Exchequer Street

Fallon & Byrne on left

Dunne's market on the forward right - this is where I do most of my grocery shopping

near top of Grafton Street

near bottom of Grafton Street

Brown Thomas ("BT") on left - upmarket department store.  Think Neiman Marcus.

During the daytime, they have "snow" machines that blow out onto the street every half hr or so - fun!

(you can see the snow machines just below the Ireland flags in this pic)

Wicklow Street

Check this out - this group of guys you see standing under the lights above just randomly began singing Christmas carols!  Hardly a soul on the street to hear them, but they seemed to be having fun.

So that was Christmas Eve.  I couldn't fall asleep until around 4am, so when the alarm went off at 7am, I snoozed it and ended up missing morning mass.  I had planned to walk to St. Patrick's Cathedral for Christmas morning mass, but that didn't happen.  I was satisfied with attending Christmas Eve mass.

I then had a refreshing Christmas morning run down to Blackrock - this is the first long run I've had since I moved here, and it felt great.  It was cold, but also a beautiful sunny morning.  Arriving at J's, I quickly got ready for the Christmas party at her friend's house, which was very nice.  From there, we went back to J's house, then later to her other friend Caitriona's (pronounced Katrina) house.  Caitriona's father had recently died, so this was their first Christmas without him.  She and her mom seemed to be in good spirits though.  It was nice to spend time with them.

We then walked back to J's house and opened her Christmas gifts from her family in the States.  Her sister sent her a SNUGGIE.  Yes, that's right - the snazzy "blanket with sleeves" wonder.  In leopard print, no less.  Hilarious.  We had so much fun with that damn thing and decided to put on an impromptu Snuggie Fashion Show, experimenting with all of the endless possibilities that only a Snuggie can bring.  Standby for pictures in a separate post!

I just now saw that they describe this as the "wild side" snuggie.  Genius marketing.

(Lexi, does "roarrrrr" come to mind?!)

The next day was St. Stephen's Day, as discussed above.  We had a lazy morning of watching TV, then Caitriona called in for a short visit, then it was high time for me to go back home.  Fast forward through the walking home 5 miles bit and I was soon home in my cozy dorm room. 

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas!  Thank you, Mommy, for the great Christmas gifts! 

Happy Christmas!