I knew that Rosh Hashana would fall during our first few weeks here and that I most likely wouldn’t know anyone or have anywhere to go for services or dinner. Plus with Jeff just starting work and us not being moved into our house yet, it all just felt a little chaotic to try to make any real connections with the Jewish community here. There is a small community of Jews here, and I do want to connect with it at some point soon but didn’t want to pressure myself to do it now.

I figured if nothing else I could at least celebrate the holiday with a round challah and apples and honey. I had read about the historic Bretzel bakery, which has been around since 1870 and is I think the only Jewish and kosher bakery in Dublin. So I called them and reserved my round challahs and then headed over the next day to pick them up.

The Bretzel is located in an area called Portobello, which used to be known as Little Jerusalem. In the early 20th century, Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe who found their way to Dublin settled in this part of town. Many later emigrated to America or Israel and the majority of the remaining Dublin Jews moved a few miles further out to another suburb. But the Bretzel bakery still remains, and there’s also an Irish Jewish museum a few blocks away which I will check out at some point.

I hadn’t had my coffee yet by the time we got to the bakery, and I was hoping they would have some there, but it was purely baked goods. So I went around the corner to a cute tea and coffee shop called Wall and Keogh. It felt like somewhere that would be in Brooklyn or San Francisco. We sat for a few minutes while I had coffee and we all shared yogurt and a croissant.

With the challah mission complete we started heading back toward town. We weren’t far from a place I had heard of called Iveagh Gardens so I decided we’d walk through there. It’s a beautiful green space in the middle of the city and when you’re in it you feel totally tucked away from the busy city life. There’s no playground but there were grassy areas to run around and some cool fountains and a rose garden. I saw lots of people there on their lunch breaks, just leisurely sitting with friends and co workers on the grass or benches around the park. No one seemed in a particular hurry to get back to work 🙂 From what Jeff has said, too, people seem to take their lunch break seriously. At home he usually ate lunch at his desk but here he said it’s considered kind of a faux pas to do that.

After we left the park and started walking in the direction of our apartment, both boys ended up falling asleep in the stroller! I thought “ok I have a little time to do something grown up and boring that they wouldn’t like.” Gotta get creative with how I do my site seeing! So with sleeping boys in tow, I wandered the streets surrounding Grafton street which are filled with all kinds of cool cafés and boutiques. I passed by the famous statue of Molly Malone, which is based on a song about a 17th century poor girl who sold fish in the streets of Dublin and died of a fever. There’s debate about whether a “real” Molly Malone ever existed, but the song is sort of a Dublin anthem and she’s a Dublin mascot of sorts.

I was not too far from Dublin Castle at this point and the Chester Beatty library, which I was positive I could never take the boys to awake!. So now was my chance. The library is the huge collection turned museum of a man named Chester Beatty (duh) who had amassed beautiful, old, and rare manuscripts from all over the world. There are writings/books from so many civilizations and religions — China and Japan, the ottomans, the Persians, Buddhist and Hindu and Muslim and Christian and Jewish texts. There was even a papyrus parchment with one of the original letters from Paul (of New Testament fame). I couldn’t believe this actually still existed and that someone had collected it. The museum was definitely very interesting! I couldn’t take any pictures inside so just took one of the outside.

The museum is located on the grounds of Dublin castle so I walked around that a bit too. There’s a lot of history of the castle and it saw many various ruling powers (Vikings, Normans, British, and independent Irish). Too much history to recount. For now I will Just post some pictures of it.

On a side note, Isaac had started at a school last week but after a few days I realized the commute was going to be stressful, especially compared to the school right around the corner from our house. So we decided to switch him to there and have him start next week once we are moved in!