The next city on our Spring Break agenda was Dublin. As excited as I was about going to Ireland, the day was definitely dampened by how early and time consuming our travel day was. We were up an out of the hostel by 3am, on a bus by 4:30, at the airport and on a plane by 6, on another bus in Dublin by 8, and we actually checked into our hostel in Dublin early enough to enjoy the free pancake breakfast for the day. Talk about a long commute for a meal.
First impressions when we arrived in Dublin weren’t exactly the best. There was a rugby match the night before between England and Ireland. Ireland won the match, so that meant that the entire country was hung-over the day we go there. There wasn’t a single shop open in Dublin until around 2 in the afternoon. It was like a ghost town. We did manage to find our way to Trinity College and take some campus pictures. Trinity is also known for its unique library, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see it because they were charging a 10 euro entrance fee; a bit steep to look at some books.
We did take the dart out to Howth that day too. Howth is a little ocean front town on the outskirts of Dublin, but it had a pretty cool peninsula that we hiked around and took pictures on. It seemed like it took hours to climb to the top of the hill and around the steep trails, but the spectacular views of the water, cliffs, and Irish countryside were well worth the climb.
(the Dart station, aka Irish version of London's Tube)
(yes, that is someone's house)
(The trail we hiked around the peninsula)
That night we, of course, went out to experience some of the famous Irish pub scene and let me tell you, there is a strong possibility that there are more pubs in Dublin than there are bad teeth in England. Of course, we drank with some of the locals and learned some drinking songs (not so much learned as followed along). I was kind of surprised at how hard it was to understand some of the Irish accents, and it gets even worse when they’ve been drinking.
(Temple Bar District)
We spent our other day and a half roaming around the touristy sights in town. One of the best experiences was the Guinness factory. The whole museum is in the shape of a 7 story pint glass and at the top there is a 360 degree view “gravity bar” where we got a free pint of Guinness to enjoy while we took in the view. That day we also walked around the gardens of the Dublin castle, it was a little underwhelming, and went downtown to see the newer side of the city and take pictures of the harp-shaped bridge. I don’t know how I never realized it before, but the harp is the national symbol of Ireland and it’s everywhere. Look at a can of Guinness or the logo for RyanAir and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
(one of the parks in Dublin)
(castle gardens)
(Gravity Bar)
Our last night in Dublin was probably the most eventful of the whole trip, and the one I will remember the most. Ireland is a part of the UK so the cars in Ireland drive on the left side of the road like they do in England. Just to be helpful, most of the streets have signs painted on the ground that tell pedestrians which way to look because its sometimes a little confusing to figure out which way cars are coming from. Well, that night we were walking back downtown to go check out as many more pubs as we could and we were walking, literally, five feet behind this Indian looking man. We got to an intersection and, ignoring both the light-up sign and the signs on the ground, he didn’t look before crossing and proceeded to cross the road. Well, it didn’t take very long for a car to coming speeding through the intersection. Someone tried to yell for the guy but it was too late. The car hit him, he rolled onto the hood of the car, and one of his shoes went flying off down the street. We hurried out in the street to help the guy, but he just kept saying that he was ok. Obviously his body was pumping with adrenaline, but I’m pretty positive that he at least had a broken leg or ankle.
I was the scariest thing I’ve ever seen.
Besides the fact that I’ll forever be afraid to cross the street without looking, Dublin turned out to be an interesting place. Another quirky characteristic was that all the signs are written in both English and Gaelic. While in Ireland, I never once heard anyone speaking in Gaelic, but every time there was a stop on the dart they pronounced the name of the town in both languages. It was a little strange. I thought Gaelic was the strangest language I had encountered…that was until we experienced the Dutch language in our final spring break destination.
Expect the next blog post tomorrow! I'm already way behind in my postings!
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