Dublin

We arrived in Dublin yesterday afternoon. The flight went well....I cannot believe how easily we got to the airport and figured it all out!! The landing was a bit bumpy as it was pretty windy. We found the airlink bus and for 10 euros got a return ticket, so that was a good value.

We were pretty excited to find our hostel, and found it quite easily on Gardiner Street, just off of O'Connar Street. The cute little sign reading, "Globetrotters Hostel" hung neatly from the wall and after figuring out the buzzer we were let in. The woman at the counter was so nice and helpful and got us all the information we needed quickly. She informed us that our beds were ready in our 12 bed mixed dorm and gave us our room key, Room E: Bed 1 & 2.

We left the cute lobby, of painted Irish Paintings and cozy furniture, to the stairwell, where the reality of hostelling set in. The dark corridor and stair well was heavy with the stench of cheap mens cologne (Adidas body spray) and the rose covered carpet. We looked at eachother with concern and proceeded to find E Room. I cannot explain the reaction on our faces when we walked in, there was bunks shoved everywhere in the small room, with unmade beds, garbage, cans, and clothing covering the floor and the SMELL.......I cannot explain the smell. Rotting old food, stinky feet, and mainly, an overpowering odour of that stupid mens body spray!!! The room was dark and there were old heavy curtains covering any sign of light, with an old chair beneath that looked like it had been dragged through the alley!

Our beds were unmade and still had the lasts guests bedding on, and the "lockers" we were told about were drawers under the bunks....some had an area to add a lock and some did not. We found two around the room that did have a locking hook and managed to shove all our stuff in..somehow!! Then, our roomies came in! A group of 6 young people loudly came in and said hello in broken english and proceeded to jump on the furniture, throw their clothing around and then straddle one another. We were a little concerened but thought maybe they would be nice....but turns out, they dont speak English and they are pretty much some of the most anti-social people we have met...we tried to make conversation many times. Our other roomies turned out to be a quiet girl who sits on her bunk staring at everyone looking like she is afraid of everything that moves, and the other guy is a harry potter look a like who sits on his computer...he was pretty nice for the brief 2 minute talk we had before he left.

We decided to head out and get some food, and fresh air! The air here I must say is amazing, its so fresh and crisp and brings me right back to the fall afternoons spent getting firewood back in 100 Mile House. The streets were pretty busy with locals and tourists, with touristy shops jammed with four leaf clovers and green shirts and then restaurants and so many dollar stores!!! We made it to the end of the street to a restarant called KYLEMORE. It was full of locals and it was a cafeteria style restaraunt.I ordered, mashed potatoes with peas and carrots and chicken, and Breanna ordered mashed potatoes with veggies and meatballs..It was soooo good and satisfied all my Irish cliches!

For the rest of the day we looked around at all the little shops, found an awesome Graffiti covered street where did a photoshoot, then we came back for the free hostel BBQ. It was funny, we walked out into the BBQ area to find a few people nibbling on burgers all staring awkwardly at one another...like they should be talking or something. We got some burgers which came to us in 3 pieces, and proceeded to take some "salad", which turned out to be the lettuce for the burgers, haha, people were wondering where all the lettuce had went! we ate it very quickly to dispose of the evidence haha. Later that night we had wine outside and listned to some music and waited for anyone to maybe visit...no one came....then videotaped ourselves singing to some ridiculous song, where we realized the computer guy from our room was watching..how embarassing :( We went out for a walk that night to the busy area and thought we might go into a bar for a beer, but the ones that were busy were too full and not too exciting. We went home and went to bed, scared to go back to the hostel, but no choice. Thank goodness for sleepsheets, earplugs, and eyecovers!

This morning we got up around 9am and went down for our free traditional Irish breakfast which was great! Baked beans, fried egg, hashbrown squares, tomatoe, bacon and hashbrown! A good way to start the day. Then, we got talking to a fellow traveller who was wanting to do the tour of Dublin as well, and decided to all head out. We ended up taking a hop on hop off tour around Dublin for 16 euro. It was interesting...we got to see the St. Patricks cathedral, Trinity University and some other important sights, with a highlight being the Guinness Brewery. The tour of the brewery was great, they took you through the ingrediants, how to taste it, through quizzes, and then a pint of Guinness up in the 7th floor lounge with glass walls so you could look out over Dublin.

I must say though, that Dublin really is not what I thought it would be. The streets are dirty, the walls are graffitied, and there are so many abondaned buildings. Yes, the one main street is the cliche Irish stuff, but who wants to just spend their time walking down one street looking at crappy souveniers. There are lots of people walking around in suits sipping coffee (not sure to what buildings), and pretty much it looks like a corner of LA or some uncharacteristic city.

Tomorrow though, Im very excited becasue we are adventuring to the most western side of Ireland to the cliffs of Moher! Look it up if you get the chance...look soo amazing! Yea, Im pretty sure that the countryside of Ireland will be what we love and not neccessarly Dublin. On Friday, we are planning to visit the Northern part of Ireland to maybe Derry or something. Im really looking forward to the countryside!

Anyways, all is well here and I had better go as this 80 year old man is sneaking a mickey of vodka out of his bag a couple of computers down and is laughing at himself...kinda odd. haha. Anyways, hopefully we will check in again soon....sorry for not having much updates but I can only update via computer desktop and not off of my IPOD, so I will whenever I can get to a computer. I must go now and try to cook up a mean meal at the hostel. :)