Gleann da Lots-of-Rain.

Day 2! I started it off taking it easy, just wandering around town. I went and explored Trinity College (most prestigious college in Ireland and one of the oldest in Europe, est. 1592), but decided to skip the 9 euros to see the Book of Kells. I've waited in line to see an old document before, with the Constitution, and it was distinctly anti-climatic. Trinity College is pretty, with lots of big, symmetrical, grey Georgian buildings and perfectly manicured lawns with signs telling people to keep off. Personally, I think UCLA is prettier. But I know I'm biased. One thing I loved was all the ivy growing across the buildings. I supposed when a school has been in place for over 400 years, ivy has a lot of time to grow.

Ivy-covered building #1

Symmetrical Georgian building. The famous Book of Kells resides in there. I just brought a pair of binoculars and looked through the windows. (Kidding)

Ah, more grey Georgian buildings! This one looks like a palace and is one of the buildings that connects the school to the street. There aren't any places where the school opens directly to the street - you have to go through a building.

I'm sure this is symbolic in some way, but not having taken a tour, I'm going to make up a story and say it was designed by Queen Elizabeth I to serve as a constant reminder of the power of the Church of England.

I saw a man using a wheelchair on these cobblestones. And I thought disabled people at UCLA had it bad...

I also did a little exploring and a lot of awkward-selfie-picture-taking in St. Stephen's Green, a city park in the heart of Dublin. It is GORGEOUS, and I only saw about a quarter. Ireland somehow manages both to change fall colors and stay green at the same time. The effect is really impressive.

See what I mean about the golden fallen leaves beneath the green and gold trees?

The least-awkward selfie of the bunch, and you can barely see the park behind me haha.

It reminded me of Central Park and the Tiergarten in Berlin.

A nice German couple took this one and somehow it is more awkward than the selfies.

But the highlight of my day was Glendalough. It's a glacial valley with two lakes about an hour and a half from Dublin. I was a little worried that all of my time spent looking at pictures of the place online had created a false hope in my mind's eye, but it did not disappoint. It is UN. REAL. how beautiful that place is. I took tons of pictures, but they seriously don't do it justice. I also wish I was some great poet so that I could accurately describe it... The hills are about 50 different shades of green and gold, and I have never seen so many ferns growing in one place (you know they need standing water to germinate.... that tells you how much water the place gets). The walkways take you from glass-still marshes at the bottom of one lake to a moss-covered glen to a wooden bridge spanning tumbling waterfalls. And speaking of waterfalls, I now fully understand the term "babbling brook". I kept thinking there were people near me, but when I turned and looked, I just realized it was the little stream that invariably ran next to every pathway.

The tower is a ruin from a monastic settlement founded in the 6th Century. The graveyard had tombstones from as far back as the 1700s (and probably earlier, but the engraving had worn away).

More monastic settlements, but this actual building doesn't date from the 6th Century.

I actually took way more pictures than this of the graveyard.

The old cathedral.

Trying to capture the solitude of the settlement.

That opening is actually the doorway; it was about 10 feet off the ground so that the monks could go inside it and hoist up the ladder as a last line of defense.

Pretty pretty.

More pretty pretty. This waterfall was much more impressive in person.

Hey, self!

If you squint really hard, you can make out the outline of the Upper Lake. No dramatic views for me today. =(

Tra la la, walking in the clouds.

I like the brown and gold ferns.

See? Colorful.

Because my views were sub-par from my 8 km walk, I decided to go back up to the Upper Lake. This made my walk about 11 km total (or 6.5 miles) in the pouring rain.

I couldn't get enough of this stream crossing.

Oh and did I mention it was raining? Hard. The whole time. You know that quote: "Life isn't about waiting out the storm, but learning to dance in the rain"? Well, I have a new one: "Visiting Ireland isn't about waiting out the storm, but learning to walk through the rain." I wish I had thought to go yesterday, because the weather was so perfect, and today I didn't get to see those breathtaking views I had so looked forward to. By the end of the day I had a feeling of what it might be like to experience trench foot, and my jeans were a uniform color - because they were soaked through. I'm still very glad I went, but it was nice to get back and change into dry clothes.

PS - The last time I got that wet on a hike, it was when I traipsed a mile upstream to a waterfall in Tanzania.