Another day in Dublin and I am pleased to report that the sun is shining! Today's highlight was a visit to the Natural History Museum which has a huge range of stuffed animals etc. You enter and see these enormous antlers on these huge Irish deer (that I presume are now extinct though I never saw an explanation - I think you are supposed to know about them like we know about moa at home.) There was a hippo that made you realise how big they actually can be. There were also some whale skeletons and a small moa and some kiwis. There were jellyfish and beetles and a huge number of Irish birds. There were lots of different kinds of stuffed primates like lemurs etc and animals from Madagascar. After what I learned at the Durrell Zoo last week I hoped they still existed. Children were fascinated at this museum and so was I.
I gave my France RoughGuide to the second hand Oxfam shop to lighten my pack, but then I discovered a book I really wanted to read in another bookshop. Oh well, it is lighter than the guide I guess.....
I realised that what I like so much about Dublin streets is that a lot of the shopfronts still have wooden parts and they haven't all been converted to total glass anonymity. Another thing is that it is very lively, certainly in the summer anyhow and Grafton St is full of buskers. My favourite group yesterday was back again today: - seven string players who seem to be Irish students, who were playing well known classical pieces. There was also what looked like a family group today playing various instruments - or maybe two families, but the children were certainly a range of ages and they already played so well like they had grown up with improvising together from the cradle.
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