Ireland: Part 1

Our plane left for Ireland at 10:25pm on Thursday. (At the airport, I, of course, set off the metal detector (probably with my belt) and was lucky enough to be chosen to give a sample of the liquids I was carrying on board. lol. Other than that, there were no problems with the airport.) We arrived in Ireland shortly after midnight and took a cab to our hostel, The Shining (bad omen 1). The cab driver wasn't sure where it was, so he tried calling them, but the number was disconnected (bad omen 2). We pulled up to a doorway in between a bunch of locked up shops in a sketchy area. We walked into the hostel, only to be greeted by a man who barely spoke English and worked very slowly. He copied our passports, handed us sheets, and took our money (we had to pay cash because the credit card machine was out of order). In order to get to our room, we had to walk outside, across a dimly lit patio with kids making out/smoking on it and up a few flights of stairs. When we walked in the room, we were greeted by 16 bunked beds and the loud snoring of a kid passed out on the floor. We all scoped out beds and put our sheets on them (in the dark, this was no easy task). As we walked across the floor, our shoes squeaked because it was so sticky. There was a puddle under my bed (who knows what it was) and there was a swarm of flies hanging out underneath the attic trap door. The bathroom was dirty, smelled disgusting, and the toilet ran all night long. There were no lockers in which to put our things, so I slept (a total of maybe 3 hours) with my backpack in my bed.

We got up at 8 the next morning and immediately decided that we were not staying at this hostel again. We asked to speak to the manager, but he wasn't in, so the staff told us to come back at 5. We went to an Internet cafe and scoped out cheap hotels in the area and then walked around trying to find a place to stay. We secured a room at the Wynn Hotel for that night (Friday) and they promised to let us know if anything opened up for Saturday and Sunday.

We put the hostel situation behind us and bought tickets for a combo hop-on hop-off Dublin Tour bus and Castle & Bay Tour. The Dublin Bus tour ticket lasted 24 hours (although we stretched it out to 36) and went to all the major sites in the city.

On the bus ride, we saw the former house of Parliament:

This is no longer the house of Parliament because at the time, it only represented Protestants.

Our first stop along the tour was Trinity College. It is a beautiful campus and it houses The Book of Kells.

Entrance to Trinity College

Archway in center of Trinity College campus

Trinity College Campus

Book of Kells tour entrance

We saw The Book of Kells and learned about how it was written. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside that tour, though. It is an exquisitely detailed book, and it has lasted for quite awhile. Pretty impressive.

We hopped back on the bus to our next site. Here are some pictures from the bus:

Dubliners have pretty, multi-colored doors. Apparently, when Queen Victoria died, they were told to paint their doors black; but, the Irish did not like being told what to do, so they rebelled and painted the doors rainbow-colored.

The fanciest door in Dublin

A rainbow of doors

The mayor's residence

Next we stopped at Dublin Castle. It was huge, but we didn't want to take a tour because we had plans to tour a castle the next day. So I took a few pictures and we moved on to the cathedrals.

Entrance to Dublin Castle

Dublin Castle

Part of Dublin Castle (maybe the State Apartments?)

We walked from Dublin Castle to Christ Church Cathedral. It was originally a Catholic Church, but then changed to Anglican-Episcopalian after King William came to power and brought Protestantism with him.

There were religious relics everywhere, and then there was this exhibit. Read below for the explanation.

"The one [cat] presumably chasing the other [rat], were trapped in an organ pip in the 1860's and became mummified." lolol. Now honestly. Why would you save this and put it as an exhibit in a cathedral?

Eagle lectern. It symbolizes the word of God being carried from one end of the earth to the other.
There was a crypt in the basement of the cathedral and it was quite interesting and creepy. We weren't allowed to take pictures in a lot of areas, but this is one I did take.

After our self-guided tour, we walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

St. Patrick's Cathedral park

The altar

Another eagle lectern

Knights and flags on the side of the altar.

We hopped back on the bus and went to the Guinness Factory. We took a self-guided tour of the factory and got a paperweight with a drop of Guinness in it as a souvenir, and we all got a free glass of Guinness at the Gravity Bar, which is encased in glass and overlooks the city of Dublin. The Guinness is not actually made here, but it's a fun tour and the number one destination in Dublin for international tourists.

Here are pictures from the tour:

There is lots of water in Guinness! Hence the waterfall.

Lots of barrels. I probably should have rotated this picture, but if you turn your head, you'll get the gist.

Tasting lab and lots of barrels of Guinness.

Looking down into a vat.

Katie, Meg, Nate, and Diana on the escalator at the Guinness tour.

View from the Gravity Bar.

View from the Gravity Bar.

View from the Gravity Bar.

View from the Gravity Bar.

Katie in the Gravity Bar. She wasn't a big fan of Guinness.

Meg and Diana in the Gravity Bar

Friends in the Gravity Bar.

All of us in the Gravity Bar.

After the tour, we went back to the hostel to ask for a refund. The manager wasn't there, but we were told he'd be back in an hour, so we went to dinner.

Diana, me, and Katie at dinner in a pub.

We were starving (because we hadn't eaten since 9am) and dinner was amazing. Our waitress messed up some of our orders because she didn't speak English well, but we made friends with the bartender, so it was a fun time.

After dinner, we went back to the hostel, argued with the manager for a little bit, and finally managed to get a good chunk of our money back. We lost the deposit and the money we paid for Thursday night's stay, but we got the rest back. Success.



We were exhausted after our long day on very little sleep, so we went back to our hotel around 11 and went to bed.

So, just from Part 1 of our trip, I learned:

- (the hard way) that I will never ever again book a hostel
- I can survive a crisis (hostel situation) while in a foreign country
- there are no Catholic cathedrals in Dublin
- I'm not a huge Guinness fan

Now it's time for me to get ready for class, but I will be sure to update about the rest of my trip to Ireland soon.