Recon....

First full day in Dublin and I did a lot of walking. After breakfast, I set out around 08:00 to find the place I will work at. Again, I knew the rough area, but had to ask a friendly cabby for detailed pointing into the right direction.
No problems there.
Then, I decided to do some sightseeing while here and of lack of better stuff to do.
As probably mentioned in my previous post, I got a touristy map from the hostel, pointing out a bunch of interesting places to see.The map was devided into sections of interest, e.g. the Temple Bar district (seems to be a lot of pubs), the medieval and viking section (just that: plaques pointing you to very old things), the cathedral district (as the name says) etc.
I started out with visiting the sights nearest to the hostel:

The Famine Memorial reminding people of the potato famine in 1848

 

 

 

and

The Custom House built in 1791 and playing a big role in the Irish Civil War in 1921

I went on to visit the famous Trinity College

Apparently, they have a so-called Book of Kells dating back about 800 A.D. THAT is old (didn't see it, wasn't in the mood to pay for it.)
After Trinity College, I went down to see St. Stephen's Green, dating back to 1663.
There, they had the Dublin Fusiliers Arch built in 1904. In the arch, they have engraved all the names of soldiers of 1 and 2 battalion who were KIA during the Boer War in South Africa from 1899 to 1900.

Above the arch, it reads Hartshill and Ladysmith, glorious moments for the regiment. The arch is also commonly called Traitor's Arch, because the men were fighting for the hated British Empire.

Next was the highlight of the day, a cathedral dedicated to me, Patrick...Well, not really, it is St. Patrick's Cathedral (1192), a HUGE tourist magnet.But only were the buses could park. The in the back is a church yard, which was very nice to sit in and enjoy the sun.

The fountain on the right side of the picture is supposed to be at the site of Saint Patrick's Holy Well. St. Patrick supposedly drove the snakes out of Ireland, which I'm very grateful for, because I'm not a huge fan of reptiles.
In the park, they had a wall, celebrating VERY famous Dublin poets. When I say VERY , they are.

Leaving St.Patrick's Cathedral, I headed over to the Medieval and Viking District, where I saw Christ Church Cathedral (1030),

and a place where Georg Friedrich Händel first presented his "Messias".

Heading back to the Hostel, I crossed Temple Bar District. I have to admit, those pubs didn't really impress me.
What DID impress me, though was that it seemed buildings back in the day were built to last, with their purpose firmly imprinted on the buildings:

Today, the smaller stores just had either a plywood sign or a plastic sheet as business label. To me, it seems, quick profit is key.
Further, I was surprised by all the hidden churches and the small amount of trees ligning the streets. Maybe, I'm spoiled growing up in Berlin, Germany and now spending most my time at work in the woods.

As a contrast, there seems to be a scheme out to remove even the trees they have. I didn't take the time to look closer at the trees and their vitality. From their foliage, their didn't seem to be a need to consider their removal:

But maybe it's a symptom of today to worship different gods than yesterday. The traditional god certainly seems tro have lost the battle, comparing the size of "temple" he inhabits compared to the modern element of worship.

Being a church-going person, I was brought up to believe,  to "fill the earth and subdue it" (PoGP, Moses 2:28). It is just very difficult if not impossible for me to not question traditional practices. In my opinion, subduing the earth at any cost is outdated. We need to find ways to live and work WITH nature. Putting it into a believer's context, one might say all the catastrophies we are facing today are the wrath of God due to poor stewartship over our planet executed by us.
The argument might be valid, if not a little extreme. I say, it's us enabling nature to react on us being stupid.
We certainly need to learn to make a living and feeding the world (which IS possible), without destroying nature and thus ourselves. 
I recently read a book, which really impressed me. It's called "What has Nature ever done for us" by Tony Juniper. To explain my above thesis, I will use that book as a source. In 2005, hurricane Katrine largely destroyed life in New Orleans. A few weeks later,  hurricane Rita with the same intensity as Katrina hit the coast 500km to the west of Katrina. Katrina killed 1800 people, causing 150 billion Dollars in damage.
The second hurricane killed "only " 34 or so people (still tragic) and destroyed goods worth 10 billion Dollars. 
The reason for that difference was in the managing of the coast: in New Orleans, swamp lands and marshes were gone because of canals being build for large vessels to enter New Orleans harbor. Thus, a natural buffer was gone.
The landfall area of hurricane Rita was largely unimpacted by human alterations. Again, according to Tony Juniper.
If protecting the environment for your children and grand-children is not reason enough, maybe the financial aspect could be more convincing. Because in the end, we ALL pay. Dearly.