Dublin- Day Three

Dublin
Day Three
March 11, 2009 (Wednesday)

We had to be up early today because we had a 10am tour scheduled. So I think we were up at like 7:30. Today we took the tour of the Northern Coast and Malahide castle. The tour guide wasn’t as interesting today, but the scenery was pretty. The castle wasn’t too big, it reminded me of Castle Hoensbroek in the Netherlands by our house. The grounds of the castle were huge though, lots of grass, the dogs would have loved it! We took a short tour of the castle. It was interesting, it was owned by the Talbot family for hundreds of years, the last heir and person who lived there had just died about three weeks ago. After the tour we stopped and had some fish and chips that were pretty good.
Then we went and looked at the Christ Church Cathedral. It was a nice church, nothing to special about it, i think if you have seen one church you have seen them all. Most look alike here, with the exception of the Mary Magdalene church in Rome, I loved that church it was gorgeous! After that we went and had pastries at Queen of Tarts since it was on the way back to the hotel. We stopped at the hotel and dropped off the backpacks that we took on the bus tour. Then we went to Trinity College to explore. I think in a bit we are going to get dinner at an Irish pub that is in the Frommers book, we saw it this afternoon, it looks cool. It is bright yellow...so thats positive!
Back home in Germany! Long day, the flight was late. Weather in Germany is rainy, the weather in Ireland was much nicer!! Nice to be home though!

Dublin-Day Two

Dublin
Day Two
March 10, 2009 (Tuesday)

There is nothing like being woken up in the middle of the night by a drunk man screaming obscenities. I now feel like I have truly experienced Ireland! Twice last night the same guy woke me up yelling and screaming...it was pretty funny except I was tired and just wanted to sleep. This morning we got to sleep in! Yay!
This morning we got to sleep in until 8! We got up and met for breakfast at nine. We had a Southern Coast bus tour scheduled to depart at eleven, so that gave us time to enjoy the morning and move at a more leisurely pace. The bus tour was a lot of fun actually, our guide was hilarious and the Powerscourt Estate was beautiful! We got lots of pictures and walked around the gardens. When we got back we did something.....trying to remember what it was. I think that we may have went to drop our bags off and have a quick break at the hotel. Then we went and got dinner at this little 50’s diner called Eddie Rockets. The food was alright, typical diner food but we couldn’t understand our waitress, she was Japanese with a heavy accent...that made things more difficult, when you are going “what,what, what” over and over again.
After that we did the ghost bus tour. It didn’t start until eight and ran two hours. It was a theatrical performance where they take you on a tour around Dublin and tell you about the myths and creepy history of the city. It was interesting I like all that historical stuff. We stopped at a graveyard and they did a fake body snatching demonstration, which I thought was kind of lame. It was an interesting tour and fun and different thing to do. After that we headed back to the room and crashed. Luckily the crazy man decided not to grace us with his presence so we were able to sleep peacefully.

Dublin-Day One

Dublin
Day One
March 9, 2009 (Monday)

Our day started at 3:00am....which is never a way I like to start my days, I prefer starting them at like at least 8! Our flight left at 7am so we had to be at the airport by 5:30. We had not used the airport before so we left earlier in case we got lost. So we headed out but as soon as we got in the car the GPS decided not to work....it’s Murphys Law, if something can go wrong it will. I think that might be the motto for our week! What with the truck having something wrong with it and deciding to cause problems when we were supposed to pick up the parents! Not a great week.We got to the airport around 5-ish. Got all checked in and through all the security and customs. This was the first time Luke and had flown RyanAir so I was a little anxious. All I knew is that they were cheap and charged for everything. The flight turned out to be pretty good. It was only like an hour and a half to Dublin. I think my favorite part was when my dad ordered a four dollar soda and they brought him this tiny four ounce can that barely filled a cup! The look on his face was priceless, like “you have got to be freaking kidding me!” So we arrived in Dublin at 7:45 am. By the time we got through passport control and our baggage it was nearly 9, so that was good that we burned some time. We took a shuttle into the city center and got checked into our hotel. Our hotel is pretty nice, right by Trinity College which is convenient.
So after we checked in we were all starving so we headed out in search of food. We ended up at a trendy breakfast shop but the had really good food! I had a sausage, ham and egg sandwich which was fatty and delicious. There bacon is more like ham here but a bit saltier, which I like! After we finished breakfast we decided that it was nap time, so everyone slept for a few hours....well except for me of course!
After we banged on my parents door, twenty minutes after we were supposed to meet, and woke them up we decided to head to a tourbus office to make some reservations. Tomorrow afternoon we are going to do a 4 1/2 hour tour to the south of Dublin and into the countryside then tomorrow night we are going on the Ghostbus tour, which is a creepy tour of the dark side of Dublin. Should be fun I love that kind of stuff. I want to a walk, called Walk Macabre that was a walking tour kind of like the Jack the Ripper tour in London but focusing on Dublins violent history. We got all set up for that and began the long hike to the Guinness Brewery! I think we walked more today then we will the rest of the trip because the Guinness Brewery was all the way across town. I think we saw most of the other sites on the way to the brewery!
The brewery was actually really cool. I am not a big beer drinker but we are in Ireland so we HAD to go to Guinness! The tour was a self guided tour and had a lot of interesting information. Everyone got a free beer at the end at the gravity bar which overlooked the city. I choose to save my ticket because I knew I wouldn’t drink a whole beer. I tried some of Luke’s though, it wasn’t too bad compared to other beer I have tried. We did some shopping, I think Luke bought out the store. I got a cute pink and grey beanie and a green Guinness shirt. I keep calling Guinness...Guineas because that is what my mom says instead of Guinness and I was making fun of her for it and now it is in my head!
After the factory it was dinner time. We found this pub called Legend. It was pretty good. I had fried garlic mushrooms and fish and chips, they were good, the mushrooms were fresh and the fish was good. Luke got a penne pasta with chorizo it was excellent! The atmosphere was nice and the service was great! After dinner we went to The Queen of Tarts, a pastry book mom had found in her Frommers book. Luke and I shared a chocolate fudge cake with chocolate ganache and creme. It was great. Normally anything with chocolate in the name more then once is heavy and makes you miserable. But our cake was really light and well balanced and we were able to easily polish it off! So we were all sufficiently miserable by then so we staggered slowly back to our hotel.
Now I am exhausted, I have been up since 3am and it is 9pm now and I have had no sleep! I am surprised that I had so much energy today, usually I am not a fun person to be around when I don’t get sufficient sleep and the past three days I have been up at 5am or earlier! I really am liking Ireland. There is a real diverse population here and everyone has been friendly. The city is pretty clean, not as clean as Munich but definitely cleaner then Rome. One weird thing here is that they drive on the opposite side of the road. So when you cross the street you look right instead of left. Of course a few days ago I read a story about a guy who got hit by a car because he looked left and stepped into the street without looking right. That would be a horrible way to die....just by doing something stupid...so I have been careful to look both ways, because I refuse to die being stupid! At least my death should be interesting not something someone says, “Wow serious blonde moment!”