dublin bog bodies

Happy Monday! And welcome back! In case you were wondering, I took yesterday off in honor of Father’s Day. Did you do anything fun to celebrate? Or did you at least call/video chat your dad? My dad is on the east coast, but we chatted for a bit in the morning; otherwise, I continued working on a new DIY project I’ve started and got a new flower to have alongside the homemade DIY pallet garden. I also did some yoga in honor of International Yoga Day and had a nice dinner at home. It was a somewhat busy but easy Sunday and was exactly the kind of day that feels like a nice rest and recharge for the week.

If you didn’t get a chance to read Saturday’s blog post - “thank you! round 4!” - you can click right here to read about how grateful I am to you for your support and votes for me to be the next #MaximCoverGirl! Also, if you didn’t get the chance to cast your free daily vote for me to be the next #MaximCoverGirl, you can click here to vote or click here to read about why it’s important to me (and then vote!). You can vote once every twenty-four hours for free, and I’d be so grateful for your support! I'm still in the running and in the top 10 of my group! Voting for round 4 ends this coming Thursday June 25th, so I’d love your support to make it through to round 5 and the top 5 of my group! Thank you for everything so far!!

My last travel-related post was about the magical tattoo I got for myself while living in Dublin. Since a lot of my writing has been a few posts about Dublin sandwiched between posts about my travels to Rome, Edinburgh, and London, I figured it’d be great to bring the conversation back to Dublin and one of my favorite places: the National Museum of Ireland. Featuring artifacts thousands of years old excavated from Ireland’s shores, fields, and bogs, the National Museum of Ireland is an archaeological treasure trove. With everything from clay pots to viking gold to long boats to beautifully decorated metal dishes, there's something for everyone.

One of my favorite exhibits from the National Museum is that of the bog bodies. Not only did I visit the museum with my Embodied Practices professor, I then took nearly every single person who came to visit me in Ireland to see the bog bodies… including my dad! The first time he came to see them with me, we gazed in wonder at how well the bodies were preserved by Ireland’s peat bogs. We marveled at the science of the bog body exhibits - how scientists were able to tell what time of year the people died based on their diets, as well as what their social status was based on a bracelet or use of hair wax - and I joked that one of the bodies looked like Conan O’Brien. The second time my dad came to visit, my mom came with him, so we of course took her to see the bog bodies, as well. She was also amazed by the sights, and when she got a bit emotional, my dad and I decided to goof around and make up some silly songs on the spot about the bog bodies to cheer her up. Wonder where I get my musical comedy inclination from? Look no further than Papa Walsh.

Do you have any similar stories where a somewhat morbid experience you had somehow turned into a funny, silly one? I’d love to know about it! Subscribe in the e-mail submission box below and reach out, follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and reach out to me on the “contact” page. I’m so happy you're here and that I’ve been getting a lot of really great, fun-to-read stories, questions, and feedback from a community all over the globe from all different chapters of my life (and from people I don’t know *yet*)! The other stories of people’s travels that I’ve gotten to read via e-mail, text, tweet, DM, etc. recently bring me such smiles, and I am so grateful for all of it! I hope I get to hear all about the crazy stories you’ve been thinking about as we’ve been on this virtual journey together! I couldn’t do this without you! So THANK YOU! From the bottom of my heart, truly, thank you.

And please, if you have 10-15 seconds to spare, I would really appreciate your daily vote for me to be Maxim Cover Girl 2020. Click here to vote! Voting for round four ends this Thursday June 25th, and I would really appreciate your help and support as I continue to try and become the next #MaximCoverGirl by moving ahead into round 5 and the top 5 of my group! Thank you for your support! Click here or on the photo above to vote!

Sincerely,

Johny

P.S. - If you want to catch up from the beginning on this series of adventures, here's a cheat sheet to the posts (in order in which they were published):

1. Won't you join me?

2. grateful for starbucks and sandymount strand

3. Once Upon a December in the National Gallery

4. plant a smooch for that gift of gab

5. may the 4th be with you: Dingle style

6. cinco de mayo: the best Mexican food in Dublin

7. pizza in roma

8. mussolini’s window and the philosophers’ metro stop

9. father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife

10. it's the vatican, not the vatican't

11. spoiler alert: i did not lose my hand

12. more pizza and gelato and Neptune, oh my