Christmas Break Part 3: Dublin, Ireland
By the time we found ourselves in Dublin, the sun had long since set and the chilly weather that we thought only pertained to Norway, had increased five-fold with the Irish wind. We had gotten ourselves through the overabundance of checkpoints and lines in a decent amount of time, even being officially welcomed by a not un-attractive Irishman at the immigration desk. It was still unbelievably good to be spoken to in English! The other highlights of our arrival? I was finally able to withdraw money from an ATM, and once we asked where to catch the bus to our hostel, we also asked where there might be some cheap food around and were told that McDonalds was just upstairs. Hoorah!After eating more of McDonald’s warm and homey food we shouldered our bags and headed outside to wait for the bus. It was cold. And the bus was sitting there, but without a driver. So really we weren’t exactly waiting for the bus… The driver finally arrived once we had just about reached the point of real frustration and when he told me he had no idea which stop the Dublin International Hostel was at, that was the last straw. It was late, we were tired, and although our bus had finally begun it’s voyage, we had NO idea where to get off… So I pulled out various maps and the directions the hostel provided and alerted the others to the landmarks we needed to keep an eye out for…but the bus was so warm and the air outside so cold, that the foggy windows mainly obscured chance of seeing things. There was only one spot I could look out of and that was the hand-print drawing of a young child who had just left. I was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to see any of our landmarks and would just ride the bus pointlessly. I was praying fervently that this would not be the case when all of a sudden I glanced up though the handprint to see exactly the thing we were looking for. We pressed the “I want off” button as quickly as we could, but ended up getting off a stop later than needed, and hiked back to our landmark; the Guinness Time clock. From there we walked slowly, following the printed directions until finally we found our road and our hostel!
The staff were exceedingly nice and gave us all kinds of information and our sheets, and we went up to our room, made our beds and fell right to sleep. In the morning we went down to breakfast at 8, and had some orange juice, toast, coffee, milk and cereal. A very decent start to the day. Then we asked the guy at the desk where we should to go buy the tickets to the hop-on hop-off bus tour of Dublin. He told us we could by them from the hostel, which we did and then headed out to find the bus. A little ways past our first landmark we found it. We were the first people on board so we headed up to its second level and straight to the front. All the better for taking pictures. After a friendly chat with the bus driver and the arrival of many other passengers, we were off. We saw the Spire, some important statues, Trinity College and more, and finally hopped off at the stop for Dublin Castle.
We walked to where the entrance to the grounds was, since this is supposed to be a very popular pedestrian hangout, but to our dismay, the grounds were closed that day. So we pulled out the map and headed in a prosperous looking direction where we eventually found a market and a cheery man who sold me a dress and gave us a long list of places we needed to see as first time tourists of Dublin, and how to get to them. So we left in search of Temple Bar. Following both the written and verbal directions we found ourselves in a very colorful street full of pubs and restaurants. Probably the most colorful place I’ve ever been. We took a lot of pictures and then after failing at finding Christ Church Cathedral, made our way back to a bus stop.
The second place we hopped off at didn’t look like much, but it was indeed a goldmine of goodness, for we had spotted a sign for Subway and exited immediately. After following several arrows we finally reached subway and ate our first meal of American food in 5 months. I love America.
As we waited for our bus to pick us up again, we had an interesting experience which involved watching two hobo-esque men climb over the wall which, we understood from our tour, was containing the Dublin Mental Institute. We’re still not sure whether or not we were witness to an escape, but we were a bit terrified nonetheless, and our bus could not arrive soon enough. Once we were on the bus again, we rode it all the way back to our original street since it was dark now, and we decided to watch a movie at one of the theatres on O’Connell St. We bought some candy and watched Avatar and loved it and deemed it epic, and went back to our hostel, e-mailed our families, and went to bed.
The next morning, after another decent breakfast, we hopped back on our tour bus and hopped off at Grafton street to do some shopping. After both Laura and I were in possession of IRELAND bags we found ourselves again waiting at a bus stop, but this time, in the rain. Oh yes. It was freezing rain. We even sang about it in a parody of Potter Puppet Pals.
After seeing the equivilant of the White House in Dublin, we saw the zoo from a good distance and some other stuff that was a bit blurry due to the rain, and then headed back to O’Connell St to hit up a gigantic book store we had spotted the other day. I love books. We all love books, so three and half hours later, we finally and forcefully removed ourselves from the thousands of wonderfully shelved books and made our way up the street in search of food and an open post office. McDonalds we found, a post office, we did not. So we walked in the rain back to our hostel with the wind making the journey particularly difficult.
After we had warmed up a bit and napped some, we were again hungry and headed down to ask the helpful staff where the nearest Thai food restaurant might be. He told us, once again, that we could order right there. So after a quick look at the menu, he handed us the phone, and one slightly confusing conversation later, we were in the lobby waiting for our curry to be delivered! Yay for curry!!! With our stomachs full of pure deliciousness we decided to head out to the internet café the man had told us was nearby and there we spent a good hour talking to our families and being creeped out by the overabundance of Nigerians and then finally we headed back to the hostel and to bed.
The next morning was our big touring day and we were hoping for a good bit of sunshine. Unfortunately, however, it turned out to be the worst day yet with ice for rain and hurricane force winds. So we bundled ourselves well and set off for the lobby where, once again to our amazement, our tour guide would be picking us up. After not too long, we found ourselves in a van with Aymen, our Irish guide, and some Spanish girls, and a group of French students, all headed off into the mountains and lakes of Ireland. Except not, because, on arrival to the official departure station, we were told that the weather made driving on the icy mountain roads impossible, so our tour was switched to the lakes and shores tour. Blah. So instead of magical Irish hills we saw humongous waves crashing over walls, and got a lot of pictures of raindrops on the windows instead of the wonderful things beyond them.
However, the tour was still enjoyable. Our guide spent a little time speaking to us in Gaelic which I can’t compare to any other language I’ve ever heard. Then we saw a Neolithic burial portal which sort of looked like a mini Stonehenge, and had some tea on a lookout of the Irish Sea. By this time the rain was pretty bad so we all piled back into the van and headed into the hills. After some time shivering and a freezing bathroom stop, we arrived in Glendalough; one of the glacial lakes decently high up in the mountains. It was gorgeous. But we were drenched and freezing, so one could only stay outside so long. After we finished there we were taken on a tour of an ecclesiastical village from the 600’s and we got to see TONS of ancient stuff, but none of us were too excited about it at that point in time because I was literally able to ring ice water out of, not only my hat, but my jacket, and the sweater UNDERNEATH my jacket. My boots had become a mini waterfall for my feet, and my camera was slowing down due to the cold just like my hands which were becoming far too white to be healthy.
Our guide knew we were miserable, so we cut things a bit short and he took us to the restaurant on the stop which, I’m sure he thought was very nice (as did everyone else really), but we felt that 22 euro each was a bit much to pay for a meal, so we stayed in the tiny gift shop so as to be out of the wind and rain, and complained about being hungry until the nice lady at the counter informed us that there was an older woman who lived across the street that sometimes served food to passersby. Not wanting to lose out a chance like that, we scurried across the road to knock on the door of the home.
After a bit of nervous waiting and not knowing whether or not we should indeed ask this lady if she had food, the door opened to reveal a young man. We were all taken aback and stuttered for a while before managing to ask if the woman of the house was serving food that day. He disappeared for a minute before coming back and welcoming us into the house, assuring us that she was indeed serving food. We were ushered into a little room with a few tables and one large window, where the young man took our coats and draped them over the feebly productive heater and handed us menus.
At that moment, I’m not sure if life could have been better. We had ordered vegetable soup and a pot of tea and the food that was steaming before us was some of the best I had tasted in life. The soup was thick and hot and the homemade brown bread was cut into heavy slices which we topped with fresh butter. The tea was delicious and soul-warming, and all in all we were delighted to be in Ireland. We spent a good deal of time chatting and laughing and eating more happily than we had in a while, and when we paid our measly 6 euros each for the meal and left, we thanked the blushing woman profusely for our meal, saying it was the best we’d ever tasted and wishing her a Happy New Year, and on our way back across the street the young man waved to us out of the upstairs window and we shouted thank yous to him as well.
When we got back to our hostel we were again so cold we were gasping for air in our rooms and shaking uncontrollably. We each got into our beds and it was the warmest thing we could think to do, but we didn’t have long because Laura and I had seen an open post office on O’Connell Street and planned to send off our Norwegian reindeer skins since they didn’t fit in our backpacks. So, 40 minutes later we threw back our covers and, still shivering, put our dry-er clothes on and headed back out into the worst weather ever recorded. We practically ran the entire way to the post office with the wind pushing us at top speed and the rain soaking our faces. My hair actually froze into its ponytail shape! Nevertheless we made it to the post office and managed to stuff our furs into the correct box and pack it off for a mere 13 euros. Thrilled as we were, we were also hungry, so we braved the weather once again to run to McDonalds and pick up some of their poor-college-child-friendly food and started out on the far too long walk back to our hostel, yet somehow the forceful wind was still at our backs and helped make the uphill journey somewhat easier.
Once we arrived back at the hostel and had begun to wring the water out of our clothes and place them on the heater, we also began to pack since we were going to have to take a taxi to the airport at 3:30 AM that next morning. So as we finished stuffing our bags with slightly damp clothing we went to bed and sure enough, “morning” came too soon. We stumbled down the stairs to the lobby to turn in our keys and made sure to thank the ever so helpful staff before running out into the rain to get in our taxi.
The airport was nice and warm, and we thanked the man for his early morning run, and made our way back upstairs to the McDonalds we had eaten at our first day. There we ate some good ole egg and cheese biscuits and drank some orange juice in order to fortify ourselves for our tightly packed day.
The plan? Board flight from Dublin to London Stansted and 6:25 am. Land in Stansted at 8:25 am. Board flight from Stansted to Pisa International at 8:45 am. Land in Pisa at 10:45 am. Sound Impossible? It pretty much was.
