Placards | Tales from the Hutt

Spring, in Dublin. 2025

Dublin is pretty all year round. But for now, here’s a few views from spring, 2025.

In full candor – this MBA was kicking my butt. Term 2 kicked off pretty well, but quickly became a bit overwhelming… constant groupwork, near-infinite readings, and constantly conflicting schedules and overwhelming deliverables took their toll.

I wasn’t able to get out of town at all, in the spring, and my time in the gym dropped down to a quick workout once a week, at best. Now, I did get my daily bike rides to and from campus… but that can only keep energy going for so long. Climbing? Nope, the trip there and back was too much – I legitimately didn’t get a single day of climbing in between February and… well, July or August.

But!

I had my phone on me, and was able to carve out a few seconds here and there to appreciate the beauty of this city that I now live in. Europe is great, even when I’m overwhelmed and busy, and it helped to remember that by snapping a few quick shots as life flew by.

One neat set that I’ll keep separate from the others: These were a series of placards on a nearby building, telling stories from some of the residents. Very neat, and nice to include in a neighborhood quickly gentrifying.

Monday, 13-May-2024, a bit of Tuesday, 14-May-2024, and a little bit more on Friday, 17-May-2024

Silfra Fissure isn’t the only thing to see in Þingvellir park.

I know, shocker right?

After my friends had headed out to get checked into their hotel, I took a bit of time to wander around and take in the scenery of Þingvellir. I walked the nature trails, looked at signs, and appreciated the views and the lovely (absolutely staggeringly lovely) weather. It was cool (but not cold) and sunny (but not overly bright), and thankfully there weren’t too many tourists clogging the trails.

I’ll let the placards speak for themselves, but the summary is this: Þingvellir means “Assembly area” in Icelandic. Which makes sense, since it’s where the Icelandic chieftains would assembly for their annual parlament, the Alþingi. Pronounced, vaguely, “Allthingy”.

I’ll include a wikipedia link at the bottom, but the short summary that I learned is that the Chieftains would convene for as long as it took to discuss laws, review cases where laws had been broken, and pass judgement. They’d trade during that time, or their followers would, and they’d reside in smallish houses that they’d build each year for that express purpose.

Not even considering the history, it’s an absolutely beautiful park. Adding that history in, and… well, that’s really cool.

(Yes, I was able to fly the drone around a bit! Drone flights are limited to before 9am and after 6pm, though, so… thanks to Iceland for forcing me to fly at golden hour!)