We took a city bus from the airport to our hostel in Dublin. Our room had 2 sets of bunk beds & a really tiny bathroom! The shower wasn’t quite big enough for someone Sebastien’s size to turn around, and the water stream only stayed on about 30 seconds & then you had to push the button in again for more water to come out. I didn’t love it! Our roomies were 2 other guys, one of which we didn’t see hardly at all & the other was a French guy named Sebastien! He hung out with us some & went to a bar with us & to the Guinness Factory.
This was our room: (My very first hostel!)
There are of course the usual things to do in Dublin – castles, drinking, museums, drinking, & of course drinking, but when you’re poor students the most you can do is poke your head inside the castle door and see as much as you can until they ask you to pay! We did that many times. But here are some things we thought were worth paying money for & some that are free!
Here are some pictures from the Guinness Factory:
By the “water” because water is one of the ingredients in beer J They had big displays of each of the main ingredients.
And after visiting the entire factory, we took our vouchers for a free Guinness up to the very top floor to the Gravity Bar! I tried to find a picture of the factory because it's shaped like a pint glass, but I couldn't find one. I actually gave my voucher away because I’m not a big dark beer fan, but I LOVED that the bar tender put a clover in the foam of our beers! We took a picture – hope you can see the clover!
The Temple Bar area in Dublin is really neat. There are lots of bars & fun places to eat & to people watch. One of my favorite things we did here was sit & have a Guinness & listen to Finnegan’s Wake. They are an Irish band that played real Irish music! The whole bar got into it, & we were even singing though we didn’t know the words before we got there. Very cool!
And here is our big Guinness & baby Guinness J I had to give it one more try!
Another great night out we found this guy at his bachelor party! Sebastien (the roomie not the bf) and I thought it would be nice to get a picture with him while my Sebastien was wooing some older women with his Johnny Cash impression!
We visited Trinity College, which was founded in 1592. The campus was really neat, & even has the Book of Kells! This is a picture of us by the Bell Tower. Notice my scarf/turban - the weather there is not a friend to curly hair!
Most of the countries we visited had great public parks, so a recurring theme on this trip we took was people watching in these parks! I wish I could remember the names of the ones we visited, but alas it was too long ago!
We even found some deer-like animals while we were watching a hurling match! And no that isn’t a throwing up competition. Hurling is a sport unique to Ireland; it’s also called Gaelic football. Below I'm trying to get a picture with the animals, but I was a wee bit scared!
And last thing that I thought was really neat there was a store that we went to at one of their malls. We needed an alarm clock since we no longer had cell phones, & here is how we went “shopping.” The store had a bunch of stands with these catalogs, we looked up what we wanted, wrote it down, handed it across the counter, & someone went back into the warehouse area to get it for us! We took a ticket, paid for our purchase & then picked it up. Very efficient – shopping for the laziest people alive! Haha. Here's what it looked like:
**Ireland Tid Bit: The official languages of Ireland are English & Irish Gaelic. Do not make the same mistake my travel companion made & ask them if they speak "Irish or English" - it's the same! J
Happy Travels!
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