As with most every city I've visited, one of the highlights of my trip to Dublin was touring the churches. The two primary cathedrals in Dublin are Christ Church, which is Catholic, and St. Patrick's, which is the only Protestant Cathedral in Dublin. Christ Church Cathedral dates back to around 1030, and took its present shape in about 1186. A major, seven year restoration of Christ Church was undertaken in 1871 by George Edmund Street, a well-known English architect of the time who also designed the Royal Courts of Justice in London. One of the walls in the nave has been out of perpendicular by 18 inches since the collapse of the roof and another wall in 1562. The crypt in Christ Church is the oldest structure in Dublin, and is atypical of most crypts in that it stretches the entire length of the cathedral. St. Patrick's cathedral sits near a holy well where St. Patrick is said to have baptisted Irish converts. A Celtic church dedicated to St. Patrick had existed on the site for some time, but the basic layout of the current building was begun between 1191 and 1270. The cathedral has undergone numerous restorations through the centuries, due to damage by fires, floods, and collapses. The site of St. Patrick's was once an island in the River Poddle, which is now diverted underground, thus flooding is a problem up to the present day. In contrast to the large crypt in Christ Church, St. Patrick's has no basement due to the high water table, approximately 7.5 feet beneath the floor. Jonathan Swift was Dean of St. Patrick's from 1713 until his death in 1745. He is buried in the cathedral, along with his friend Stella. Also of note is that the premier of Handel's Messiah in 1742 was given jointly by the choirs of Christ Church and St. Patrick's.

Late Friday afternoon, I set off for my most anticipated stop during my time in Dublin: the Guinness Storehouse. For those of you who haven't seen the light, or just don't drink beer, Guinness is saturated with nitrogen and a small amount of carbon dioxide, rather than carbon dioxide alone, which gives it less of a bite than carbonated beers. Lest you think that it goes down easy, it is a heavier beer called a stout, and the production of Guinness uses 10 times the hops of other stouts, so it has the reputation of being a "meal in a glass." In 1759, Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease for St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, which was vacant at the time. He once vowed to defend the brewery to the death, when the city of Dublin claimed he was using more water than allowed, even though his water source was seperate from the city's main water supplies. The Guinness Storehouse was built in 1904, in the new "Chicago" skyscraper style, and was the tallest building in Dublin at that time. It is now a museum on the production of Guinness. Also of note is that one of Guinness's employees, William Gosset, better known under the pseudonym "Student," was responsible for developing Student's t-distribution and t-test. Yes, this is the same company who publishes the famous Guinness Book of World Records.

On Saturday, I took a tour through the Wicklow mountains, south of Dublin, which are the source of Guinness's spring water. The weather that day was foggy and rainy, but we did get enough of a break in the rain to visit St. Kevin's monastic site, which was built between 500-600. This is the only surviving monastic site in Ireland, with some parts of the buildings still standing. The tower, around 70 ft tall, served both as a secure place from intruders and as a marker for pilgrims walking through the land, since the tall tower could be seen from far off. On Sunday, I spent most of the day at Trinity College, which has a long and rich history, with alumni such as Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker, and Samuel Beckett. Trinity College was first incorporated by Queen Elizabeth I in 1592, but a university had been created on that site by the Pope in 1311. Women were first admitted to Trinity College in 1904, after the death of George Salmon, who had been provost since 1888. He had said that women would be admitted over his dead body, and he did end up being buried near an entrance to the campus. From the campus tour, I also found out that Trinity College has some old campus laws which have yet to be repealed, one of which is that a student is allowed to carry a sword on campus. It also has its own superstitions, once of which is that a Trinity undergraduate is doomed to never graduate if he or she walks under the Campanile, the bell tower. Another point of interest at Trinity College is the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated, or ornately illustrated, version of the four Gospels transcribed by Celtic monks around 800. This can be seen at the Trinity College Library.

Two Saturdays ago, I took a day trip to Bath. I left Paddington station on an 8:30 train to Bath, and the weather was still cloudy with light rain falling when I arrived in Bath at 10:00. After getting my bearings and finding the Tourist Information center, I decided to go on a 2-hour walking tour of the city, as I decided this would be more entertaining than going it alone. As one might expect, the history of the city is centered around the hot springs, which are the only such springs in the UK. Since people attributed healing powers to the water, the town has been a popular tourist destination off and on since Roman times. Queen Mary of Modena (wife of James II of England) bathed in the waters, and finally gave birth to a male heir in 1688; however, the Glorious Revolution occured later that year, in which the Catholic James II was overthrown. William IV, Prince of Orange (who married Princess Anne, daughter of George II) bathed in the waters in 1734 and his health improved dramatically. A small circular garden in Bath (the "Orange" Grove) was named in his honor, and an obelisk was erected using public funds. Beau Nash, who was the leader of the city's elite, chose to levy a tax on the city to pay for the obelisk, rather than use private funds from the wealthy visitors. Nash served as the Master of Ceremonies in Bath from 1704 until his death in 1761. He was basically the "fashion police" for the entire city, keeping a tight reign on the city's appearance to create the proper atmosphere for the members of high society who visited the baths in the city center.

At one point while I was on the tour, shortly before noon, I looked down and saw a large, white spot on my pants, near the knee. My first reaction was frustration, especially knowing that paper towels are hard to come by in most restrooms in the UK, due to their greater environmental sensitivity, so I would probably have the bird droppings on my pants for the rest of the day. My next reaction was one of great relief, realizing that if I had been half a stride further, my predicament would have been far worse. I eventually found paper towels at the pub where I ate dinner, but that was about 6 hours later. While on the walking tour, I did learn some intersting trivia about several of the green spaces in Bath. The Circus, which is a ring of Georgian row houses built in the 1760s, has small acorns adorning the front edge of the roofs. As the legend goes, King Bladud (the father of King Lear) was studying in Athens, around 860 BC, when he contracted leprosy. Feeling that an imperfect ruler could not take the throne, upon his return to England he diguised himself as a pig herder. He herded the pigs around the valley of the River Avon, looking for acorns, and the pigs contracted leprosy from him. When they arrived at the hot springs now known as Bath, legend says that the pigs rolled around in the hot mud and were cured of their leprosy. King Bladud saw this miracle, and likewise rolled around in the mud and was cured. Thus the the acorns were place on the roofs to remind people of the legend. The houses in The Circus are quite expensive: Nicholas Cage recently purchase one that used to be a nursing home, to the tune of £4 million. Another green space, that inside the Royal Crescent, has a unique place in history. It was here, in 2003, that the Three Tenors gave their final concert together, to celebrate the the opening of the Thermae Bath Spa, which didn't actually open until 2006, due to project delays. Bathing has been forbidden in the old Roman Baths since 1978, when a girl swallowed some of the water and died five days later from amoebic meningitis. While the Roman baths are clearly the highlight of a visit to the city, and are spectacular considering that all of the plumbing is Roman, visitors are sternly warned to not even touch the water, lest someone else become sick from the water. This is a bit ironic, considering the miraculous, healing powers that were once attributed to the water.

During the afternoon, I also had time to visit the local abbey. Bath Abbey is constructed on the site of an old Norman cathedral, which was completed in 1156, but fell into disrepair and was ruined by 1499. The Norman catheral was so large that it could have contained the current abbey inside its nave. A smaller abbey was under construction in 1539, when Henry VIII dissolved all of the monasteries in England in concentrate his power as the supreme head of the Church of England. The townspeople stripped the unfinished abbey of all its lead, iron, glass, and anything else of value. In 1574, Queen Elizabeth set up a national tax to pay for the restoration of the abbey. Today, visitors are led on tours to the top of the bell tower. On the tour, I saw the ringing room, where the 10 bell-ringers can play for as long as 2-3 hours for events such as coronations. I got to see the bells themselves, 7 of which date from 1700. The top of the tower provided a breathtaking, panoramic view of the city.

A couple of weeks ago, I went back to the Imperial War Museum and spent quite a while going through the exhibits from WWI & WWII. They have a mock-up of some trenches made to resemble those of WWI, and a lot of uniforms and weapons from that time period. My favorite WWI exhibit was related to the Red Baron: the engine from the plane in which he was shot dead. My most important stop at the museum was the Holocaust Exhibit, the first such exhibit I have been to, as I haven't visited the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. While the exhibit was emotionally and psychologically distressing, it serves as a reminder of the consequences of unbridled racism. At the time of WWII, Anti-Semitism was present in many parts of the world, not just in Nazi Germany. Both the US and the UK were initially reluctant to grant asylum to thousands of Jewish refugees. I didn't have time to see the other exhibits on more recent episodes of genocide, such as that in Rwanda in the 1990s, but I hope to make it back to the Imperial War Museum some time before I leave.

Last Saturday, I took the boat to Greenwich. I set out to take a 45-min cruise down the Thames, but it turned into a much longer affair. I got on a boat at Embankment Pier around 11:15 AM, and it went as far as the Tower Bridge, where I had to disembark at another pier and take another boat the rest of the way. Unfortunately, the company I bought my ticket from had a boat break down, and I had to wait until 12:45 PM for the next boat. Trying to be efficient, I went for a quick tour through the Tower Bridge. At the top, there is a small museum and historical information about the bridge. The walkways provide a great view of the city. I ended up missing the boat at 12:45, but decided I would take the next one a half-hour later. Due to a lack of space, I was going to have to wait until 2 PM to possibly get on a boat down river, so I ended up deciding to take a refund and try another company. Their boats were larger, but quite full on a sunny Saturday afternoon. The boat I ended up getting on went back up the river to Westminster, then down to Greenwich, where I finally arrived about 3:30 PM. Since most every tourist attraction here closes at 5 PM, I didn't have much time left. I dashed up the hill to the Royal Observatory and had about an hour there. I got someone to take my picture with me straddling the Prime Meridian. Of course, they use a laser now to accurately show the meridian, where all time begins. Outside in the courtyard, I saw the public standards of length. In spite of my short stay in Greenwich, I did enjoy being at the "center of the universe" for a few hours. This is another place I'll revisit, if possible.