Day Three (continued)

Unfortunately, as we were touring Knowth, my migraine started to come back (I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that I had a lot of migraines during this trip). I needed water to take my pills, so when we left Knowth we headed back inside the main bilding ti the cafeteria and we got lunch. Strangely enought, when we were waiting in line to get food, we noticed that the cafeteria menu was provided by Bewley's, which was where we had eaten breakfast that morning. Anyway, we sat down to eat lunch and then headed back down to catch the bus to Newgrange.

Newgrange is a 5000 year-old burial mound that has been preserved from a single drop of water damage by an ingenious architectural design. It also served as a ritualistic solar observatory as the entrance hall leads directly to the burial site, and is facing exactly in such a way that for 15 minutes on the winter solstice, the whole interior chamber can light up with natural light. The tour guide gave us an artificial demonstration of this by turning off all of the lights inside until it was pitch black, and then turning on a very strong bulb to try to mimic the sun shining through the entryway. The effect was pretty cool.

But what was even cooler was that when I turned around inside, on the stones behind me was carved graffiti from the 1800s when the mound had been raided for treasure. It's so cool to be able to look at something that is well-preserved enough to be clearly legible, yet says "Joe Murphy, 1872." Unfortunately, we also weren't allowed to take pictures in this place, but Jon took one of Jean as she was exiting anyway.

We left after being allowed to explore the exterior on our own for awhile. Evan got this pretty sweet picture of the entrance stone.

The van/bus ride back to Dublin seemed shorter than the ride to Newgrange- possibly because the driver had the aful music turned down. We were dropped off somewhere near Dublin central. I had a hard time walking back because of my hip, but I dealt with it. We meandered around in the direction of the hotel for awhile. I saw a converse store along the way and had to go in. I tried on an awesome pair of red sparkly ones that could have made for a great Dorothy outfit. Unfortunately, they didn't have my size.

We headed back to the hotel, and Jon decided that we should have dinner at an Indian restaurant around the corner. They asked me if I wanted to come or lay down at the hotel, but I was a little hungry and I didn't want to fall asleep so early, and it's better to be with people than alone in a strange hotel room if you're going to be awake and you aren't feeling well. So, we went to the Indian Ocean restaurant. I ordered chicken curry, but by the time it arrived I had become so nauseous from the migraine that I couldn't eat. Jean packed up my food and hers, and we headed back to the hotel so that I could sleep.

I don't know how long I was out, but it was long enough for Jon to raid all of my bags and take an inventory of my medications. Then he went into doctor mode and started asking me all of these questions about my prescriptions. I waited for about an hour and a half before I finally threw up and then I felt better. Shortly thereafter, I fell asleep.