I'm trying to catch up on my blogging since, I have been
internetless for a few days now. Not gonna lie, it's been ROUGH. No Internet and no cell phone. Not a good combination.
So from
Galway to Dublin is roughly a four hour drive by coach. So instead of driving directly to Dublin and allowing us the entire day to explore the biggest city in Ireland (80% of the country lives there) we had to stop at every little place along the way. I may sound bitter (partly because I am) but I hate group travel I'm discovering. Anyways...
Our first stop was William Butler
Yaets' grave.
Riveting right?
Haha Well the gift shop place had great soup and brown bread which had become my staple in Europe. Everywhere we go I know I can count on the soup to pull me through my starvation. The interesting thing about Ireland and their graves is the face that they are so ornate! They are HUGE and all granite and marble. It's quite crazy because the people who are still alive in relation to that person keeps up the grave. There are fresh plants planted and weeds taken out. Very different from the graveyards in America. Actually kinda creepy in my opinion.
After that little stop off we went to this huge estate of
Lissadell Estate. I know what you're thinking who/what/where is that? My point exactly. For those who have seen Hearst Castle, this tour and mansion seems to be a smaller, less impressive version of that. Not much more to say about it but the tour guide was really well dressed and I was craving water the entire time.
Then we did the final leg of our trip. Off to Dublin!
We arrive in Dublin around 6:30pm and show up to yet another hostel. Lucky us!! This one looked a little better than the one in
Galway, but given anything, it's still a hostel. It's down this little street leading to the Temple Bar district of Dublin which is where all the major pubs and clubs are. In an effort to not clog up the lobby with 25 Americans and their luggage, we all waited outside in the little
alleyway. So remember... there are about 20 girls just standing outside right up the way from the major pub area.
Four guys who are already "pissed" (drunk) stumble on up the
alleyway and the one who had a shirt that read (no joke) "F*CK moderation. Let's get drunk!" (classy right?) said to all of us "So is this a lesbian show?"
Wowwww.... Well he proceeds to be a little crude and just plain drunk which gets more and more funny. Making comments about "Hillary Bush" and "Starbucks!!" and then we hear one of his friends who has walked down the street a block or so start going "
wooooo!!!" and of course we all turn our heads and look, and sure enough, the kids has unbuttoned his pants, dropped everything to his knees and lifted his shirt above his shoulders. Full frontal male nudity... WELCOME TO DUBLIN!
Then we get our room assignments. Unlike the hostel in
Galway where we had four person rooms and one 12 person room, this time we were all in six person rooms. The room wasn't much bigger and there was only one bathroom, but at least the shower was a billion times better.
Well the first night Kate and I decide to walk around and try to find food and maybe find new friends. However, since we got there so late, and by the time we'd dropped our stuff off at the hostel and then changed and got ready to go out after being on a bus all day, it was already late. So we walked around everywhere and tried to get food, but the nightlife scene was well underway and the kitchens were closing. We finally found a place and had some good food and then went walking around Dublin.
After walking all throughout the Temple Bar pubs and not liking what we saw, we made the hike over to Grafton street which is where more pubs and shops should be. We forgot how late it was and how everything but pubs would be closed. We found a lot of pubs over there, but every single one of them had too many old, balding men. No thanks. So we hike it back to the Temple Bar area and try our luck again down there. Nothing. So about ready to give up, Kate and I get an ice cream cone and sit on the street curb and just people watch. What happened next we're still laughing about...
Well we're just sitting there licking our cones, minding our own business and all of a sudden about five or six
Scottish boys come up to us and say that our cones look so good. So we told them where we got them and so they got one too. If our "accents" didn't give it away enough, they asked where we were from and we told them California and they were all excited and wanted to hangout. So they asked if we knew any good pubs, we said no, we kept talking and then decided to walk around with them because they were all hilarious. Well we ended up finding this little place called Pal Joey and it had an American music night with two girls singing everything from Kelly
Clarkson to
Evanescence. It was really funny. Eventually there were about ten of their friends in the pub with us and we were just hanging out until two of them (slightly drunk) started to sing "Save Tonight" after the two girls had finished their set. Kate and I thought that looked fun and so we decided to join them and we were all BELTING "
Saaaaave tonight!" without any music or even in the right key. It was hilarious. It has become our song of the trip.
After that we went back to the hostel, got some sleep and started day two in Dublin...
Checklist for the ever so fortunate hostel dweller...
- A lack of desire to ever look completely ready
- Ear plugs
- Lysol
- Patience
- Eye mask
- Shower shoes
- Breakfast food
- Loads of sanity
I type all of those to explain this... While trying to get ready with five other people to one bathroom and a couple people who won't change in the room because lord knows I'm going to stare, gawk and wonder what anatomy they may have that I don't, Kate and I had to get up earlier to make sure we showered and had time to get hair dried and straightened in time for breakfast. Well we did the shower thing just fine, but while trying to straighten our hair, the entire second floors circuits go out. So at this point half of my head is straight, the other half just really isn't. Not
ok. So I throw on my SD hat and call it a day. I could tell I wasn't going to love Dublin that much because bad mornings usually equal bad days. Another horrible thing about a hostel is the fact that their "free breakfast" is just toast. Toast!? What a scrumitious breakfast! We I grab a couple pieces of plain bread, some butter and call it a morning. Good thing I brought some energy bars to munch on.
The day was going to be mostly to ourselves, but we first went and saw a writer's museum and then to
Trinity College to see the Book of
Kells. It's the oldest manuscript of the Bible. It was interesting, but too many people in the exhibit. The college itself looked awesome and I wish I could have see more of the college instead of just the
gift shop and the outside of the buildings.
Then it was off to the reason why we wanted to go to Dublin. The Guinness Factory at St. James Gate Brewery. It was SO MUCH FUN! But, it leads me to this
blog's travel tip.
Always have a map, or know where you're going when you plan to walk somewhere. Seems brainless right? Well we thought we could just walk in the direction we thought the smokestacks and factory was... but about 45 minutes later, we decided to hop on the tram and have it take us there. Once we were inside, it was SO COOL!!
I thought it would just be a couple rooms that said random facts about Guinness, but I was so wrong! It was AWESOME! I learned all about hops, wheat and barely and how water makes a difference in beer. Also, we learned about
Aurthur Guinness himself and how he came up with the recipe and everything around it. It was awesome. Then at the end of the tour you went to the "Gravity Bar" which had a 360 degree view of Dublin. SO AWESOME! Probably one of the best parts of the trip.
Then it was off to our first group dinner. It was at an Irish Dinner Show Party. I have never been to something quite like this. The food was great, the entertainment was cool, but I was SO TIRED from all the walking and late nights, that I was wanting to just crawl into bed. What the show was was a group of people playing traditional Irish music and telling us the history and the differences between instruments and showing us
river dance and teaching a few how to do it. It was funny, and so good. Then we walked back to our hostel and pretty much called it a night. Kate and I were exhausted, and had a long day ahead of us.
The next morning we left for Belfast which is in Northern Ireland. I showed my stupid American side when I asked if Northern Ireland was different than just Ireland. And for those like me who don't know, yes they are different. So we changed our money from Euros to Pounds and kept driving up the island to Belfast.
We've been in Belfast for two days, but I'm tired and don't want to type about it yet. But if you're bored, you should do some research on crime and battles here in Belfast. This is why I hate it here pretty much. Yikes! Put it this way... the Catholics live on one side of a huge wall and the Protestants live on the other and they used to bomb each other.... as recently as 3 years ago...
bleh!!
Current Cravings:
Olive garden's soup salad and
breadsticks, and taco bell double
decker tacos.
