Harteminks in Ireland: The End of Ireland*

We have departed Ireland! I have to add the asterisk because technically we will be in Dublin one more day for our return flight to the US. It turned out to be financially and logistically advantageous to book our GR-DUB-GR flights separately from our other travels, so we have to go back. But I think that day will be mostly sleeping/recovering/repacking and thus it's not really part of our adventures.

Since our flight from Ireland to Cairo was at 11 am, and Dublin is 3 hours away, and we would want to get to the airport 2-3 hours early, we decided to drive to Dublin a day early, see a few more things, and then get a hotel so that our departure morning would be more smooth (spoiler alert - we settled into Cairo at 3 am, so I am glad we spent the night in Dublin the day before with a 7 am wake time, rather than arise at 3 am in Clonmel to try to make it all in one day).

So Monday morning we had an emotional goodbye at the Castle and set off with a FULLY loaded car. Our fifth and final rental was the nicest of the five, but also the smallest unfortunately.

In Dublin we first toured the National Museum of Ireland. I had hoped to tour the Dead Zoo (the local name for the museum of natural history, which is my favorite kind of museum), but it was closed for renovations, so instead we went to the NMOI where the Dead Zoo had moved a few exhibits. This museum was quite extensive, including exhibit halls on natural history, military/war history (ancient and modern), coin history, silver history, crystal history, clothing history, as well as several art exhibits. A very reduced selection of photos is below.

With our remaining hours, we walked the river in Dublin, seeing the many bridges as well as some local art and architecture, the famous Temple Bar, and grabbed some dinner before crashing at our hotel.

Our transition from Ireland to Egypt was going to be about as extreme a transition as possible:

Cold/Hot
Wet/Dry
Western/Eastern
English/Arabic
Christian/Muslim
Old/Really Old
Quiet/Busy
Rural/Urban
Non-tipping/Tipping
Non-haggling/Haggling
Euro/Egyptian Pound
Driving/Driver

We were fortunate that Sam found us a place to store half of our luggage (souvenirs and cold/rain gear/boots) so we would not have to lug it around Egypt with us.

One concerning piece of news was that the largest storm in some time was going to hit Ireland the day of our departure. When we arrive at the airport, we learned our flight was delayed at least 3 hours, and many other flights were canceled. If we missed our connection in Istanbul (4 hour layover) that would really mess up all our plans - our arrival time in Cairo was already 1 am, and we had a full day in Cairo planned with a hired guide. But fortunately the delay shrunk down to 2 hours, and then 1, and then we ended up departing about 45 minutes late. PHEW!

Packing up!

Snake skeleton at the museum

Hard to see the black skeletons in the photo of this temporary exhibit with black walls, but these are two massive giant Irish deer/elk. The antlers are about 15' wide, 100 lbs.

One my favorite scientific names: camelopardalis: camel-leopard, which makes perfect sense.

You can't tell in this photo, but these anemones are handmade of GLASS. In the 150 years after they were crafted by the Blaschka family, there has never been a glassmaker as skilled. There were about 100 different sea creatures made of glass with such exquisite detail. This brought back memories of the glass flowers at Harvard, which were one of the most spectacular things I have ever seen, and I just learned THEY WERE MADE BY THE SAME FAMILY!

These are not glass, just beautifully preserved Venus's Flower Baskets, which are, ironically, a variety of sea sponge called "glass sponge".

This was supposedly an Irish military exhibit, but I think it was just Harrison Ford character props.

New coin proposals at the start of the new country of Ireland in 1922.

This "counting board" was a tool like an abacus, on which the seller places pseudo-coins ("jettons") at different distances to tally sums very quickly