Valentine's Weekend

Here's another picture-heavy post for you about my Valentine's weekend with Kalen. (Totally just realized that makes it sound like we're dating, but we're not. Really.)

We decided that we would make Valentine's Day fantastically morbid by going to see the real remains of St. Valetine himself. I had no idea that these were kept in Dublin, but apparently they've been here since 1826 when the Pope at the time gave them to an Irish priest as a strange gift. "Here, have this dead saint. I'm not using it." (?) Apparently, when that priest died a few years after, poor St. Valentine was shoved in a box and put into storage for a hundred years. In the 1950s, they decided to dust him off and build a proper shrine for him at Whitefriars Church in central Dublin. And that's where he stays now. Kind of an interesting story, so I just thought I'd share that with you.

We decided to begin our adventure at St. Patrick's Cathedral since neither of us had seen it yet, it's just around the corner from Whitefriars, and St. Patrick's closes earlier. Here's St. Patrick's from across the street.



And up close.



It has a lovely little garden on one side... (please ignore the surrounding super-slummy neighborhood)



with a fountain...



and flowers! In February! I had to go touch them to see if they were real. They are.



More flowers on the other side.



And a wee little cemetary.



We're going in. Here's the part where we hold our breath to see if we burst into flames. Hasn't happened yet!



This neat little crest is mounted on either side of the door.



We made it inside without bursting into flames! Hurrah!



The floor is like a tiled quilt.



Damn, I sure do love vaulted ceilings. (Yeah, that's right. Huge nerd.)



And I love stained glass. Not for the religious imagery, but for the pretty colours and appreciation of the mad skills needed to create this.



One of the impressive scenes just inside the door. I'd like to point out that this is built right into the wall and is about 20 feet high.



Down the mandatory Hall of Important Dead Guys.



This is a little wooden model of the cathedral. I'm guessing it was probably just as difficult to build as the real one, and the miniature was made by just one person.



The Door of Reconciliation. It's very old.



This chest dates back to the 12th century. I love it.



Part of the church. That (lectern? pulpit? uh...carved thing with the marble columns underneath) is quite impressive. Oh man, St. Mary's would be so ashamed of me right now.



Anyways, here it is close up.



This is a memorial to all the people who have died in all the wars, ever.





These flags are hella old. Pretty neat-o.



One wing of the cathedral.



Random super cool spiral staircase in the middle of the church. Kalen and I wanted to go climb up it so bad, but it was roped off. :(



Over on one side of the church is St. Peter's Chapel. It has a beautiful cloth on the altar.



From the chapel, you can look through these windows to the main church.



There are lots of references to St. Patrick's knights in the cathedral. Pretty cool. Also, I think I might have to start writing "of" like that from now on. I like it.



Do you see the knights?





Here they are up close. Sweeeeet.



I don't know who this Whatley fellow is, but he has the most frightening tomb I've ever seen.



Doesn't it look like he could just open his eyes, get up and walk away? *shudder*



Hard to see in the photo, but this is a stone carved with the celtic cross, and it dates back to the 10th century.



There's a lot about Jonathan Swift (think Gulliver's Travels) in the cathedral as well. This was the document that Queen Anne signed to appoint him as the Dean of St. Patrick's.



They also had some weird things, like his death mask...



and his skull.



And that was about as much St. Patrick's as we could handle. So then we left and walked around the corner to Whitefriars Church to go visit St. Valetine. Now, Whitefriars is a Carmelite church, and I'd like to just say right now that it is officially the strangest church I've ever been in. It was oddly modernized. Here, let me show you.

This is the front door.



When you go in, there's a little room off to the side with this in it:



You guessed it, those little taps dispense holy water. Into...yogurt cups?



After finding more amusement in the holy taps than was probably appropriate, we went down the hall to the chapel. Through these doors...



Once through the doors, we discovered that, in this church, Mary lives in a styrofoam rock wall. (I sincerely apologize to the guy lighting the candles in the picture. But I'd also like to point out that I wasn't the only one taking pictures.)



Some things were sort of similar to a regular church. Very ornate.



That dome is all done in mosaic.



And those columns are made of marble.



They were missing a lightbulb. It really bothered me.



Love that gate.



Fancy Schmancy.



I liked this copper crest on the wall. The three castles is the symbol for Dublin.



There's St. Valentine! He's really in there. Creepy.



Happy Valentine's Day! <3



Back outside the church, I noticed this plaque. I think perhaps the church has changed a bit since 1274.



Today we went to the market and then walked down by the pier in Dun Laoghaire since it was a really nice day out. When we stumbled upon a little rocky beach area, we suddenly regressed to being four years old again, and skipped stones and left with lots of little rocks and shells and beach glass. *joy*

These ducks (or maybe they're terns?) were drying their wings in the wind.



These little birds were quite plain looking...



...until they spread their wings. Then you can see the neatest pattern on their backs.



There are no words for how much I love this picture. I couldn't even really tell you why.



There were tons of sailboats out in the harbour today. It was very pretty.















And there's my awesome Valentine's buddy! <3!