Love is in the Air

Duncan and I both (somehow) had today off. I was told to take the day as both my supervisors were going to be out of the office, and as of Friday they had nothing for me to do. So, rather than sit around and do absolutely nothing for eight hours, I decided I'd be obliged to take the day. Likewise, no one was at Duncan's place of employment today... so we had one more day to recover from the tiring weekend.

We started today by visiting the Chester Beatty Library (which we had attempted to peruse last Monday with no luck, due to the Bank Holiday). The library is host to many very old and beautiful religious relics. There were rooms devoted to Buddhism/Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Not only were all of the items intriguing for their age and aesthetic qualities, but the information included in the museum was quite informative. I (not the religion major, of course) felt as though I learned a lot about the different religions, and found myself compelled to draw parallels through each one. So, here is a very brief list of things I learned:

* Hinduism is the oldest of the religions aforementioned, and believes that there are many different Gods that are only aspects of one ultimate God (which reminds me of when I attended the Hindu Temple with Duncan's World Religions class and the Hindu man looked at each of us and said... "You love Jesus Christ, so do I. He is the same God as mine.").

* Buddha offered that part of enlightenment was recognizing the emptiness of all things (which Christ also taught... "for treasures of this world shall be eaten and destroyed," etc...)

* At one point, Muhammad led a group to destroy religious relics but spared all images of Christ and Mary.


That's all for the short list.

We were also able to see papyrus manuscripts of portions of the New Testament from Egypt dating from 200-250 A.D.... these were considered the oldest manuscripts until the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. They were quite amazing, and the translations were the same things I have read in my Bible, which made me feel good in that through centuries of copying manuscripts, the message is still the same.

I also enjoyed this exhibit because I picked up a book entitled, "A Concise History of the Modern World." Due to our rather intense discussion on the way home from Belfast, and my ignorance (as I saw it) of world history, I thought I had better educate myself. I do believe our public school systems fail in the sense that I never learned much before colonial America, or after World War II. Anyway, obviously a lot of history revolves around religion, so it was a treat to be able to see artifacts from topics I had been reading about.


Following our time at the library, we ate at a "Mexican" café. Now, I was ecstatic to see Mexican that we could afford. However, to my dismay, it was not real Mexican... there was no salsa to be found, and was really more of a sandwich bar, but it was reminiscent of Mexican, which was better than nothing at all. They lied about getting salsa with my quesadilla, too!

We also saw both Christ Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral from the outside, and have made plans to tour at least one of them (they are quite large!). The presence of large quantities of small children deterred us from entering today. It's hard to get a sense of the majesty of cathedrals with hordes of squawking children playing tag up and down the pews.

We visited the antique district, only to find that antiques here are actually much nicer and older than antiques back home, which meant we could not afford anything. So, that was kind of a bust.

We did, however, find a store with antique jewelry which we drooled over for a few minutes. We have found that we both have a great love for old jewelry, and spotted the most stunning pearl necklace. It would have been a perfect wedding necklace... but one of those things that you could buy first and find the dress to match it, etc... but one look at the price tag, and... again... bust. €1,360 was a little more than either of us could afford. So the search for antique wedding jewelry continues.

We did have fun looking, though.

Duncan even said that he should just give in to his roots and become a preaching jeweler (and I, of course, said I would be okay with that. It would make for great Christmas presents).

Then we visited St. Stephen's Green again when the sun was actually shining. It was packed with people, which was quite the opposite of the last time we visited.

This is where the title comes into play...

Apparently it is mating season for all of the birds here in Ireland. We saw two pigeons rather quickly mate, and then a whole gaggle of mallards attack a female which cumulated in one lucky male having her for his own.

Duncan found this entirely too amusing, while I just laughed at let him have his fun.

And we just finished up the day by eating a thoroughly German meal of potatoes, sauerkraut and sausage.

We're not sure what we will do the rest of the night, so we're off to figure that out!

Cheers!
Whitney

P.S. By Duncan...

Yes, the mating birds were endlessly amusing to my juvenile self. I don't know why, but I was almost sad to miss a picture opportunity of the two love-pigeons mentioned above. I tried to make up for it by taking a far-off picture of mating ducks, but as they did not have a pre-getting-it-on ritual like the pigeons did, it was a sad replacement.

Guys, I hope you can relate to my giggling fascination with animals who are getting freaky. I would hate to be the only man to find that funny...

P.P.S. I tried some whiskey to help with a sore throat the other day. Even if it didn't help, it sure felt like it did:-)