About half of the people in our class were going to Dublin for the free weekend. Four were going to Belfast, one to Paris, and the rest were spending time in and around Galway. Four of us were staying at the same hotel. So the four of us took a taxi to the train station and arrived around 9:00 for the 9:30 train. We were shocked to find them boarding the train right around 9 and even more surprised that the train left the station at 9:30. The big joke over here has been Irish time. Apparently, the trains are NOT on Irish time. They leave on time and get in on time. We arrived at 12 noon as scheduled. The train was nice and three of us worked on our papers on the ride. Mine was done, but I needed to edit it, which I did. Then I did research for my final group project. I was just finishing that up and contemplating whether I wanted to listen to music or read a book or both when we pulled into the station (on time!). We found a taxi--took us a minute as we looked on the wrong side of the station--and went to our hotel. The ride was fine, minus one "shortcut" where the taxi driver told us "this is not a touristy area, there is a methodone clinic on this street." Thankfully, we stayed in the touristy areas during our visit and our hotel was in a good location. We dropped our stuff off at the hotel (rooms weren't ready yet as it was only a little after noon), asked the concierge for some information including where to go for lunch and then followed his suggestion and went to lunch at O'Neill's. The food was good and the portions were big so if you're ever in Dublin and need a place to go eat, check it out. Then we went to sort out our hop on/hop off bus tickets. After that, we went to Trinity College to walk around a bit. Jen and I decided to do the tour and Aimee and Margaret decided to head back to the hotel. The tour of Trinity was about a half hour. It was interesting and then we were free to go see the library and The Book of Kells on our own. I was fascinated by the library. I'm not sure my pictures (below) do it justice, but it was really cool to see. The Book of Kells is cool too, but it's like you look at it, you say wow, and then move on because you can only see a couple of pages. In the enormous library (The Long Room) we also saw what I think is the oldest or one of the oldests harps in Ireland. It's something significant, but of course, now I can't remember. Google says it was Brian Boru's harp (he was a High King of Ireland once upon a time). Okay, enough on the history lesson. Following Trinity College, Jen and I went back to the hotel only to find out that the room she was sharing with Margaret and Aimee was messed up and instead of three beds like they were supposed to have, they only had two. It didn't seem like it was going to be sorted out any time soon so I asked about adding another person to my room. They changed my double to two twins and Margaret became my weekend roommate. Aimee and Jen wanted some down time, but Margaret and I were eager to go explore. It was getting close to closing time for many attractions in Dublin, but there was a wax museum still open and close by so we headed there for an hour or so. It was cute. (I posted a few pics below, but I'll spare you the whole thing.) I felt the need to pose with several of the figures including Ronan Keating since he sang my wedding song. It was nice to see what he looked like. :-) After that, we wandered around Dublin a little bit and also visited the Ha'Penny Bridge. The wind was ridiculous so pardon my hair. I almost didn't post it.
(Natalie, does that picture remind you of our windblown styles in Boston?)
Long story short: finding a restaurant for dinner was a bit of a challenge. There are too many to choose from combined with the fact that some were really hot. (It was the first time I'd been hot yet this trip.) Ironically we ended up eating Italian and Mexican food at an American restaurant in Ireland. Yeah, random, right? We didn't eat until about 10:00--unlike Galway you can get dinner at that hour in Dublin and we were pretty tired when we finished eating so we did not go out after dinner, but instead went to bed.
Trinity College
Since I recently read "Harry Potter," I posed for a picture with him.
Ronan Keating. I spared the world from my singing when I saw him.
(Above) I tried my first cronut. It was pretty good. :-)
1 comment:
Your great grandmother was an O'Neill. Obviously, on Dad's side!
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