Trip to the Emerald Isle

Note: I wrote this post on either Monday or Tuesday, and just now realized that I hadn't posted it yet. So, my apologies, and here you go:

I spent this weekend in the beautiful (and expensive!) Irish city of Dublin with four of my lovely friends.


We flew out of Glasgow Prestwick airport on Thursday night. I've never encountered an airport that is MORE sad and derelict than Binghamton Regional, but Glasgow Prestwick might come close. It only does RyanAir flights, a budget airline that is incredibly cheap but involves riding in planes that were built circa the Paleolithic Era (ok, I don't really know when that is, it will be super embarrassing if THIS is the paleolithic era...whatever). Also, the flight attendants are forced to wear these absolutely awful outfits. They're bright blue and they come down to the mid-ankle. They look like bathrobes. The best thing about the flight to Dublin was that it was only a little over 30 minutes long. It actually took us longer to GET to Glasgow Prestwick from my flat (about 1.5 hours counting walking, the subway ride, and a busride!) than it took to get to Dublin. But arrive we did, and we were exhausted. We had wanted to go out for a bit after we put our stuff away in the hostel but it didn't really seem worth it, since we were getting up for sightseeing about 6 hours later.

The hostel was pretty nice, clean white sheets and a FULL IRISH BREAKFAST included in the price. So we got up and were fed eggs, toast, cereal, baked beans, hash browns, coffee, and some of us had sausage and bacon as well (when they realized I was vegetarian, they gave me an extra egg!). The coffee left something to be desired, but I'm cool with it so long as it has some caffeine.

Out we walked into Dublin. We were in a really good location, just off O'Connell street, so there was lots to see. It was a bright sunny day to start off with (though it got rainier as the day went on...but we're used to that!) and so we strolled down O'Connell, peaking into touristy shops and generally enjoying the city. Here are some photos taken on O'Connell street (you can see what a nice morning it was):


Above is a statue of O'Connell, with a bird on his head. Below is the Post Office (obviously).


And here's one from the bridge, from which you can see the Ha'Penny Bridge and the River Liffey:


Close by was Grafton street, the main shopping district in Dublin. We toured around, and saw all these beautiful flower stands (mind you, it was February!):


Then we met up with a family friend of Shauna's, who works for the Dublin Tourist Department. She took us out for coffee at an adorable French creperie, and then lavished us with Dublin-tourist treasures. We got passes to go on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour that took us all around the city whenever we wanted. The buses came about every 10 minutes, so whenever we were done with a sight, we could just hop on and off we went. It was extremely convenient and the trip would've cost LOADS more if she hadn't helped us out. She also gave us passes that got us in to many attractions (ie, the Guinness Factory, all the churches, etc) for free! So we had four of each of these passes, and five people traveling. Splitting the cost of one ticket to each attraction 5 ways meant we did a lot more than we would've otherwise.

After we said goodbye to Joan, the woman who'd helped us out (and planned to meet up for dinner!), we went walking around the city a bit more. We passed through St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park near Trinity College. Again, lots of flowers and general merriment.



From here, we walked towards the political buildings, which are all grouped together. The prime minister in Ireland is called the Teasioch, pronounced tea-shock. The National Art Gallery was just around the corner, and we popped in for a visit. Unfortunately, we didn't have all the time we wanted to tour the gallery--it's huge and we only had two days in Dublin! So on we moved to Trinity College where we saw the Book of Kells. This is probably the oldest thing I've ever seen. They have a really cool museum there, where you learn all about how the book was made and what the symbols and pictures mean. It was incredible! At the end you go into a dark room where two of the books (it's a multivolume book, which we didn't quite get until just then...) are on display. They also display another book or two, and these books are rotated so that whenever you go it's a different one. Definitely one of my favorite things in Dublin.

Back on the tour bus, we traveled to Christ Church. On the way, we met a group of French tourists. They wanted us to be in their video of Dublin, so they filmed us each separately. When the guy with the camera got to me, he said "Oh! You must be the real Irish one!" because of my hair. Since English was (clearly) not his first language, he didn't notice my American accent. I played along, telling him that I was just showing some friends around the city (in the most American accent I could possibly muster, of course). Christ Church was beautiful, even though the clouds were gathering at this point and it had started to sprinkle a bit. We wandered around the grounds, but decided against going in:


Next, we went to St. Patrick's. Briana and Alyssa went in, but Crystal, Shauna, and I decided to explore the area around it. We took a peek inside first, of course. While we were outside, we stumbled upon the oldest library in the UK! When people went there to look at books in the old days, they had to sit in little cages and the books were chained to the wall so no one could steal them. Very intense. I probably would not have done much reading...

But I may have done this:


Yum, flowers.

Next up was the obligatory visit to the Guinness Factory. Pretty much the only reason for going is the "free" beer, and the fact that the bar at the very top has some of the best views in Dublin. This just in: I really don't like Guinness...

We rushed off to the Temple Bar district to have dinner with Joan and her 22 year old son Simon. It was a pretty fancy place with tons of gourmet pizzas (ok, so it wasn't THAT fancy) and Shauna and I split one with artichoke hearts, asparagus, and black olives. DELISH. Wandering around Temple Bar district was fun afterwards, but it was just so crowded that we decided not to go in to the actual Temple Bar. Oh well, I think I can live without that one. But it was a cute area:


The fun continued on Saturday, when we went to Kilmainham Gaol. We had to wait about an hour for the guided tour to start, so we snooped around the museum connected to the gaol. It was a really cool place, filled with all sorts of memorabilia, particularly from the 1916 Easter Rebellion leaders who were kept and executed at the Gaol. I don't know a lot about Irish history, so it was very educational. The Gaol itself is terrifying. They kept men, women, and children there! Definitely worth a visit if you're ever in Dublin.


Outside was a really nice memorial to the 14 leaders of the Easter Rebellion who were executed at Kilmainham:


We needed something a bit lighter afterwards, so we headed to Phoenix Park. It's the biggest enclosed park in all of Europe! Very beautiful, and again shocking because it was so green and the flowers were already out. Crystal spent most of the time there searching for clover, but she never found any. Alas, we didn't have enough time to visit the zoo that's part of the park. Someday...


Back to the city, we split up to do a little shopping. Shauna and I wandered around the windy streets of Dublin, looking in all the fun boutiques. Very kitschy. But we didn't stop for long because it was almost time for the Six Nations Rugby game! Ireland was playing England, and Dublin was CRAZY because of it. We finally found a pub about 45 minutes before kick off, and the game was excellent. Ireland won 14-13. Everyone laughed at me because I knew the words to the Irish rugby song, "Ireland's Call" (thank you, MCWRC).

At 7:30, the game was finished, so we headed to Subway for some "cheap" dinner. Shauna had never been to Subway before. At first she didn't really get how it worked, but then she got the hang of things. She loved it. I was a little disappointed that we didn't do something less American, but honestly ever Irishman I've ever met LOVES SUBWAY and Simon was in charge of finding us somewhere to eat. So I guess it was a real Irish experience? Simon and his friend Neil took us to a pub where lots of Trinity students hang out afterwards. It was fun, but crowded and expensive. We're always complaining about spending money in Glasgow--if I were in Dublin this semester I'd be broke already!

Phew, this has been an incredibly long and potentially boring post. Oh well. Check back again for more adventures, same bat time, same bat place.