Ireland, Day 3, part 2

Ok...it's morning now (Day 4) and back to typing. Kinda like working on a term paper. Let's see, where did we leave off? Ah, Trinity College. Again, it's a really great looking campus. Full of some old and odd traditions. Like, only Fellows of the College are allowed to walk across one of the many lawns. And, in the Exam Building, if you require a drink during a test and have run out of water, all you need to do is ask the proctor for a glass of brandy from the celler. Neat, huh? Also interesting is that an old and stoic University such as Trinity also had to deal with the 70's. Their "Arts and Sciences" Building (don't recall what they called it) is supposed to look like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, but actually is a blob of concrete and glass. The concrete's pH is too high to support plant life, so its original purpose is kinda lost. And a majority of the classrooms have no windows or any type of proper ventilation, so it's not a great place for class. In all, the students kinda hate it...but, it won so many architecture awards, it's a Listed Building (similar to our Dept. of Interior Registered Building), so unless there's an earthquake, they're stuck with it.
Two other non-school things we saw was an exhibit on Bubbles in the school's free Science Gallery. Though generally for kids, two real neat things were a bubble that had a laser shot through/around it, which, when cast onto the wall and ceiling, gave off the impression that you were inside of the bubble. And since we were sitting on beanbags, I reckon it's like a LSD moment. The other was a set up with a webcam shooting a bubble, and then the spectrum was broken down and altered into soundwaves...so, if you blew on the bubble and make the skin move, it would register as altered pitches. I'm sure there's more physics envovled in that explination, but...there you go.
Additionally, the College is well-known for holding some of the old Irish Gospels. Particularly the Book of Kells. There was a really interesing exhibit on how the books were made: the vellum being processed, what the inks were made from, the binding process. Also some of the scholarship that was done on the Book itself. They (scholarly folk) are pretty sure that only four monks worked on the project. Looking at the book, it's pretty impressive. No touching though...bad tourist.
Finally on our tour of Trinity, the Long Room, which is the main room of the library. It's about 65 yards long, full of mable busts, an exhibit on Napoleon and writings about him, and 200,000 texts that few people in the word can actually read (in Greek and Latin).

GAH!! Running out of time again...got to get to St. James for the Guinness tour...back later.

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