Ireland!

Wednesday morning we got up bright and early and made our way to the airport. A large group of us flew on the same flight to Ireland on Ryanair, which is apparently the joke of London air travel. I happened to be asleep when we landed, and it the roughest landing I've have ever had. For a second, I thought I had woken up dead after some sort of explosion. Then they played a lovely trumpet fanfare congratulating us for being one of Ryanair's like 95% of flights that was on time...it was entertaining. At the airport, I split off with the group of us that were staying in Ireland the whole time, which consisted of Christian, Allan, Jason, Richie, and me. For some reason, all the girls said I was "brave" for traveling with the boys, but I'm not sure I agree. I felt quite safe traveling around Dublin surrounded by guys. Anyway, we took a bus to the hostel where we checked in, and dropped off clothes and such. We had lunch at a pub called Malloys. I think we looked like little lost puppies walking into the pub and standing there looking around like, "what do we do...?" The kind lady told us to take a seat, and she brought us all water...apparently if you don't know what to do when you got to a pub, they know you're not there to drink. Anyway, they had pretty good food. Then we hopped on the "hop on, hop off" tour bus and got a good feel of what was in Dublin. We did hop off once and went inside St. Patrick's cathedral. It was quite amazing. After the tour, we walked around Temple Bar (it's a street with restaurants and pubs and such). Went up and walked around the outside of another church (I'm don't remember what it was called...). At point, I really needed to use the restroom, but they are hard to come by in Ireland. In London it's hard to find trash cans;in Dublin it's hard to find bathrooms (or toilets as they call them here in Europe). We went to a Church, where I asked a sweet old lady where a restroom was. She said didn't know because she wasn't from there (which seemed like an odd excuse), and she said we should ask the priest was just walking in the door. So, she asked the priest, and he looked a little confused and asked how many of us there were. I wasn't quite sure what our numbers had to do with the bathroom, but I said, "I'm with a group of five, but I'm the only one who needs the restroom." He had me follow him outside where he started saying it was kind of late, but there might a place in this or that direction that was open and would accommodate us...I was feeling very confused and wondering why he wouldn't just accommodate and me and let me use the restroom, and as he continued talking I realized that we didn't seem to be talking about the same thing. So I told him I was just looking for a toilet, not a restaurant. He looked a little confused (apparently they don't use the word restroom at all in Dublin), and he showed me to the toilet. Meanwhile, the group of guys were watching and trying to figure out why the priest first took me outside. After that, we went and got some food at Tesco, ate, and went to bed because we were all exhausted.
Thursday, we bought tickets for our Friday day tour. We caught a bus to Bray. In our attempt to find the ocean, we wandered into this pathway that had a random bridge that wasn't connected to everyone and appeared to be where the local teenagers go to party. Then we ate lunch at another pub that was quite delicious. After lunch, we found the beach, which we walked along. It led us to this path along the side of a hill along the the beach. We hiked up the trail as a group for a couple of hours, and then Jason, Allan, and Christian headed back while Richie and I continued up the trail to Greystones (a small city). In Greystones, Richie and I found a real beach (with more sand and considerably less gravel). Off in the distance, we could see this awesome looking tree on this ledge hanging over the ocean. When we got there, it was very disappointing. It wasn't all near the beach, and it wasn't even just one tree. Anyway, we caught a bus from Greystones back to Bray, and then to Dublin. Richie and I at wraps at O'Briens that were pretty yummy, and then we walked through Trinity college. We stopped at a store and got a small thing of ice cream that we shared on our way back to the hostel and finished eating at the tables in the lobby, talked, and looked at pictures. When I got back to my room, my German roommate decided to talk to me for a bit, and then I crashed.
We got up early Friday morning to catch the bus for our day tour. Our bus driver was fun, but she wasn't handsome with a sexy accent like the other tour's pamphlet promised...bummer. Our first stop was a gas station for a pit stop...that was where my belt broke, and I still have yet to buy a new one. It's okay, my pants only feel like they're going to fall off when I bend over, and luckily I brought lots of undershirts. Driving through the Irish countryside was amazing! Ireland really is covered with rolling fields of green and fences made of stone. I loved it! The next stop was at the cliffs of Moher. You may know them as the cliffs of insanity from The Princess Bride. They were amazing! There was a castle far off in the distance that I was very excited about. I took lovely pictures with the castle in. When I got to the castle...I discovered that totally not legit. It was just a gift shop built for tourists, so they could make you pay to go to the top. Lame. Talk about ruining all of my pictures! It was like the tree on the beach all over again. However, the cliffs were still amazing and beautiful. Then the bus took us to lunch at yet another pub, where I got some seafood chowder that was absolutely delicious. The next stop was the burren thing...I didn't really understand what it was, but I took pictures! I think it was some sort of burial site. Anyway, then we went to an Abby. Drove past a castle, and made our way back to Dublin. Where we ate dinner at this fairly cheap sandwich type place and headed back to the Hostel.
Saturday, we slept in a wee bit and then made our way to the Malahide castle. We took a tour of the castle and walked around the grounds. Then we came back to Dublin and had lunch at Gallagher's Boxty House. I got corned beef and cabbage that was to die for! I loved it. We walked through Trinity College and stopped to watch some cricket. A nice old British man came over to explain the game to us be kept commenting on how it didn't make any sense. I still didn't quite get it. Then we found the hyperbolic crochet coral reef exhibit. It was pretty neat, but I didn't understand the math part. After that we went a park where we just chilled for the next several hours until it was time to head to the airport. At the airport as we were walking to our gate, Christian and I saw the most hilarious thing. There was a clothing shop with manikins out front modeling underwear. This curious little girl walked over the female manikin, stuck her hand in the elastic of the underwear, and peeked inside. Then she did the same to the male manikin. It was so funny! Anyway, our flight landed at about 11pm, but it took us about 3 hours to get home because of the tube station closed and bus craziness. So, I got back to the flat and waited for my computer to boot up, so I could email Rodger to let him know we were safe, and that was pretty much the end of our Ireland adventure.