random dublin

we arrived in dublin late, well not as late as we had been staying up but late enough. carissa and i were both rather exhuasted so we caught a airlink bus to o'connell street and hoofed it to our hostel the abraham house. we got in the hostel and it was less than impressive. it did not have the same aura that castle rock had and we were rather diappointed. of course we did not expect a castle out our window but it was really battered and worn. we did get free towels, internet and breakfast in the morning. so we got our keys and started off to find our room. we walked the maze, and when i say maze i really mean maze of passage ways to our bunks. up, down, left, right, up, down and left, right. we could not find our room number. well our room really wasnt a number it said G1 and we had not found anything anywhere with letters indicating a room. so we ask. and it turns out that we haveto do another left, right, up, down then left again. we get to the room and there are two doors and totally blackness. i found a light and flip the switch but nothing happened so i opened door number one and was the right guess and there were probably 11 bunk beds scattered all around the bed room, then the lights went out. the room was full of people sleeping and someone woke up and greatly disturbed by our presents in the rom turned the lights off and we were lefted in utter darkness. we found two empty bunks, changed and went to the loo and hit the sack. in the morning we wiped our eyes, showered and found our way back through the maze to the breakfast room. after eating, we packed up once again and were readdy to get out of the very shady place. i did not feel comfortable there at all. i slept with my camera and my zune under my pillow, along with my passport. i dont know what it was about the place but it just didnt feel right. we crossed o'connell square and headed towards the liffy, which is the river that runs through central dublin. we were lucky enough to get a hostel just a few streets down from temple bar, which is the central bar and music hang out of the area. we found the place easly and checked in. ok. so we knew that there were four other groups of our travelers hanging out in dublin so when we checked out of abraham house we tried to see if some had checked in there yet (knowing that htey were staying there), but they hadnt. so the four courts (our second hostel) we knew another group was staying and checked to see if they were still in. no luck. but we did find a very interesing note. apparently chris and jason (the guys we knew that were staying there) had a very good night previously and two girls that they met had left them a little note. it just told them that they had a good time and wished them luck on their trip. but it was very funny nonethelesss. well it turns out when we got back to oxford they had checked out early in order ot save money cuase it was getting to expensive for them in dublin. we cursed them the whole time because we were expecting them to meet up with us and hang out at night for alex's birthday. but we couldnt find anyone, and without cell phones you cant really organize anyhting. so we tried facebook but who knew when they were going to check it. we ll we couldnt get our rooms yet at the four courts so we decied to strike out and conqure dublin on our own. we wondered around saw the front of the old castle which was nothing compared to the edinburgh castle and only the one tower was still standing becuase of a fire. it has been rebuilt but in the victorian style becuase it was rebuilt in the 1800s. we got euros out of hte bank, becuase we left the uk and had left the terrible pound behind. thank god too cause we get a soo much better exchange with the euro than the pound. as we were walking we heard music down by the river, so being the avid music fans we followed our ears. it turns out that we had caught a rowing race between trinity college and UCD (university college dublin). it was an old rivrally between the two colleges and UCD had a better winning record against trinity (17-11). they had two double decker buses that took fans of the two teams along the river, following the rowing teams up the river to the end, carissa made an executive decision and jumped on the trinity supported bus. we cheered and shouted and routed for trinity college along with real fans. it was such an awesome experience. however our team lost and driving back, carissa says "hey that looks like zemple and karl". well two people from our school was on the other team bus! when we got back to the start of the race for the second round we hopped off our bus and joined the two boys. second round was more exciting. it was the UCD and trinity college boy team. UCD was behind for the first few legs then towards the end they started to close the gap and then pulled ahead, winning it in just hte last hundred meters. we jumped off at the finish line. we chated it up with karl and zemple and after a brief chat we decied to tour the guinness storehouse together. the line for the storehouse was crazy!!! it wrapped all the way around the building and down the street. we were hungry and not wanting to stand in the line headed over to a pub for lunch and to pregame the guinness. after lunch the line was smaller but not by much. we waited in line for probably an hour total before being able to enter the storehouse. i didnt think that i would really enjoy it at first, cuase i really dont like guinness so why would i like the tour of the factory and history of it, however i thought it was cool. guinness is such an institution in ireland you cnat not go there. it has had such an impact on the economy and history it turns out of ireland. there are 5 (or 7 shoot it dont remember off hand sorry) levels and each level was a lesson on how the ale was made and who made it and how it is shipped and why it was so popular. the best part of the tour (well for the boys, i gave them my ticket) was the free pint (not really free cause you have to buy a ticket to do the tour) and the view from the top of the bar. it is called the gravity bar and is completely worth the money if you are on the edge of wanting to go or not to go. it gave us a 360 view of the whole of dublin. goregous. the mix of green and urban was...just no words. i think that overall we spent 4 hours at the storehouse, yeah who knew beer was that interesting. we left karl and zemple with intentions to meet up with them at temple bar for drinks at 8. we hoofed it back to our hostel to clean up for a night on the town. Temple Bar. it is a bar/pub but it is also a district that was tons of food and pubs. the best area for night life in the city. it is really touristy but it was amazing to see how many ages and nationality groups there were. young, old, black, white, asian everyone just came down for a good time. music. carissa and i knew what we wanted. music. we headed first to try and find our friends at temple bar, but the place was packed. you could not move at all. you could hardly push your way to the bar so many people had packed in to listen to the traditional irish music. it was AMAZING! we gave up again on trying to find anyone in the crowd after roaming and pushing our way through the several rooms of the pub. finally we surcome to the music and found a place to stand and listen to the band. awesome! the music is like you always hear and see and just wante to listen to when you go to ireland. the band finished after a bit and pop music started to play in the speakers overhead and we pushed for a table that was being vacated by a group of italiens. not being the only ones looking for a spot to rest, another group joined us at the table. one irish man(allen) who was entertaining his frinds from danemark (mia, another girl who i completly lost her name but wanted to add me as her facebook friend, red shirt boy-again cant remember his name it was danish and hard to remember especailly after a few pints, amiel-who was mia's brother, and another guy who never spoke becuase he didnt know any english) they were the best. we talked for a few hours at the pub drinking and discussing everything from ireland, music, politics, weather, danmark, USA and movies. we danced a little, but then allen suggested that we go to another bar across the street which had a live band and we were all for that and headed out. on the way over we run into toni, tim, and alex the group that we were looking for the whole tim. we had wanted to meet for dinner for alex's birthday but never could get a hold of them. we introduced them to our new friends and they followed us to the next pub. there we danced to a knew band who was freaking fantastic and played a sorts of rock, tradtional, and pop songs. i danced with amiel and he bought me a drink. and he was really funny cause he asked if he could have a kiss (and lets face it i was a drunk) so i said yes then he ased for another and another. so he got four little pecks out of the deal. so yeah me! i really had to go pee after a bit so i pushed my way to the loo and on my way i lost my watch! i had just bought a new battery for it and everything! damn it! i really loved that watch too! i got it for x-mas from my aunt shirley and i was (and still am) sad! well the night finally came to an end when at midnight carissa suggested (well told me cause i wanted to stay longer) that we should head back cause we were going to meet up with toni, tim and alex for church the following morning (easter!!). we said good by to our lovly new friends, who said that we were wimps for leaving so early in the night. we told them that we were going to church and they said so were they after they finished their drink so wait. carissa and i looked at each other and i asked (rather stupidly) "are you going to midnight mass" they said that the church was a church that had been turned into a night club. sadly we had to decline the offer to go to church with them and headed back to four courts. back at the hostel i kept asking carissa if we could go back and she was seriouly debating going back but i the end momma said no and we slept. the next morning we got up like good little girls and went to mass at Christ Church just up the road. i cant believe that we went there! it was amazing! it was a very tradtional service-very different from the services that we have back home- but the church that we went to! i cant believe that people can go there! it is goregous! i dont know how they keep people's attention cause i was listeing but mostly my eyes were wondering around the vast space! the choir was perfect and the organ was just...wow! after the service we caught upp with toni, tim and alex and a friend that they brought. her name was margie and what a chararcter and a half. she was great! she was in dublin for the weekend from a village not far away. she was from california and was renting a cottage in ireland for 5 weeks and ended up bunking with the three in at the hostel by chance. she is short, black brown hair, and as bubbly as could be. man did was have some stories and was she ever witty! she hung out with us the whole day as we went to lunch, got a pint, and toured the dublin castle. like i said earlier the castle wasnt as grand and impressive as edinburgh but the history was still interesing. it had to be a guided tour cuase they still used the space for governmental use. they had the table where the good friday agreement was signed and we got to visit the room where the irish president was ingaugrated. then was visited the founations of the orignial castle below and saw the underground river. after all the history we had to have a pint so we stopped in at O'Neils. Margie bought us all a round and we drank and watch a football (soccer) match. it was chelsea vs arsenal (know ideal really about any of the teams but we found our selves taking sides and cheering for the footballers anyway!) our drinks were gone and margie wanted to still drink so she bought us all another round! we drank and chated and drank. margie had a few and was begining to get a really strong irish accent. she said it was from drinking and haning with the locals so much in the village she was staying at. she also said that is was so much easier to talk wit the accent when you were drunk too becasue everything was basically slurred and you didnt have to open your mouth very wide. well........after a bit i started catching whatever she had and was going around speaking with a REALLY think irish accent as well.....and let me tell you it is easier to speak that way when you are drunk!! i dare you try it sometime it is great fun! (oh also i had never swore so much in my entire life omg! the curse words were flying out like tickle me elmo on black fridaty!) we started to get hunry so we headed to the other side of the bar where you could get some real food. there was a hot and cold line. well us being hunry and intoxicated we chose the hot line where the food was like mom's home cooking. strips of lamb or beef with three potatoes, carrorts, broccoli, stuffing and bread. take all that and put gravy on top. yeah that was the best meal ever!! all for only 12 euro! best deal ever! we ate and drank then got restless for music and new atmosphere. as we were leaving we ran into some people from NY and Boston. they made fun of us for being from MN so i spout back (remember i had a few pints) in the thickest MN accent i could muster "oh now you have to come over now you hear for some hotdish! dont you know!" i think that i scared them slightly.......lol. we wondered a bit after that not knowing really where we wanted to go, but somehome we ended up back at Fitzsimons (the second place that we had hit up the night before) for some music. we didnt really stay very long cause we all got tired and headed out after the first set was over. we wished margie a good night and hoped to see her in London. (she was saying how she wanted to go over there to see a boy that she had hooked up with the night before thus also her being so tired!) we got to bed and the next morning headed to the train station to go in to the countryside of ireland. we talked it up with tim the night before and he suggested going to this town that they had gone to the day before. it was along the coast and form the pics that we saw goregous!! well being slighly drunk and not really paying complete attention we got two tickets for Bray, which was the town we thought that he suggest but turned out was a town in the completly opposite direction. well it turned out it was a different town, but our folly was also our enjoyment. we got there and Bray was specatular. i just dont know what to say about it. i will but pics up but even those didnt capture 1/8 of the beauty. it was a sea coast town that reminded you of like cape cod or some place in the northeast. then it had this awesome hill/cliff that you climbed to get an even better view. carissa and i being adventrous and young we hit the rough trails and end up climbing a verticle hill to the top. well carissa got tired and didnt want to climb the rest of the way so she started down and on her instance i climbed the rest of the way, planning to meet her at the bottom. the top. 360 of the coast and hte pastoral countryside that is ireland. it was like we see in movie and tv. it was perfect. green and perfect. i started my trecherous way down and when i got the the bottom i couldnt see carissa, thinking that i could have beat her (the way i took down was much easier than we had gone up so i thougt was was taking her jolly good time since we had been stopping ever few feet for new photos up i thought she was doing the say on the way down). i am waiting and strolling the walk way but no carissa. i began to worry i like do and senerios keep going through my head, like she has dying on the hill or broke her leg or someone took her so on and so on. well i decied that if i couldnt find her in a half hour i was going to get help. finally a women walks by and stops and stares at me...."you looking for friend?" she asks in broken english. "yes" i replied "she over there looking for you" i jump up and run to carissa. apprently she was running the same senarios in her head and was asking everyone she saw if they had seen me at the top! by this time we were hunry and headed down to a pizza place. let me first tell you this place could never make it in Bemidji...ready....it was called Apache Pizza...and guess what their slogan was......"feed the tribe!" lol! we both got a personal pizza and ran for the 3 o'clock train. we got slightly turned around but finally found it (we have this habit of not paying attention to where we are and what streeets are called and becuase of this took us a few tries to find the train station in dublin as well). in dublin we stopped in at a gift store where we got the must-haves (postcards and such) i got a couple post cards, backpackers badge to go with my england and scotland one and a claddagh ring. it is a traditional irish ring that is quite popular. i has two hands as the band and are holding a heart and a crown on top. the hands are friendship, heart love, and crown loyalty. you where the ring with the heart pointing out if your heart is for the taking and the heart pointing you if you are taken. mine is silver and has a green stone as the heart. after that is was rather uneventful. we gathered our stuff together and went to the bus stop to make it back to the airport. our plane was fine and we had quite a wait before we could get on the plane because we didnt not want anytthing to go wrong. so we waited and waited and flew back to gatwick hopped on a bus to oxford and fell completly into our beds.

the holiday was a success. it was a rough start (a very rough start) but we learned things. we exhausted but i would do it again. i loved it. i dont know and i dont think i will ever know what my favoite part was because it was such a rush (although i can tell you which i didnt like...like the airport screw up). i am soo happy that we did all that we could and took advantage of the time complety. i know that we spent a lot of money, but i am never going to have this chance right now again and i wanted to take the reins and so all that i could! i LOVED ireland. i really want to go back the people were awesome! friendly, lively and overall just so relaxed and wanting to have a good time!