Germany? England? No, Ireland! On November 15, I left for Dublin. I went alone, again, but through the tour company Bus2Alps. So pretty much I just had to book my flights, and the rest was all planned out.
After getting in fairly late, and figuring out how to navigate the bus system to get to the hostel, I finally arrived. Because I booked this trip alone, I didn't request any specific roommates, because I didn't know anyone who was going. Much to my surprise, I showed up, and found out I had 2 boys in my room. At 11:45 pm, and after a long day of immigration stuff with my school, then traveling, I was NOT having it. Personally, I felt extremely uncomfortable having 2 males in the room in which I would have to sleep, get dressed, shower, etc. I requested that I be moved, but was told nothing could be done until the next day. I think I got a total of 8 hours of sleep that entire weekend because I was so anxious the entire time that something would happen. SO, if you're reading this, and plan to book trips through Bus2Alps, make sure you specify that you are not comfortable sleeping in the same room as 2 random male strangers (whom they don't do background checks on). You would think this would be an implied thing, but welcome to the 21st century, folks.
Anyway, Friday morning I woke up bright and early to do a walking tour of Dublin. We saw the Dublin Castle, and learned all of the history behind the name "Dublin" itself. It means "black pool" because of the deep pool that used to flow around the castle. After eating some authentic Irish food, I had corned beef and cabbage and mashed potatoes, we walked around for a little bit, and then headed towards the Guinness Brewery to do a tour of the museum.
After the museum, I headed back with a couple of girls I met, and stopped at a grocery store to get some apples, and found Belvita Bars! My first taste of American food in awhile. Simple pleasures, ya know. I wasn't very hungry that night because of the heavy lunch, so I found this really cool salad place. You pick the ingredients that you want, and everything is whole, not chopped up yet. The restaurant is called "Chopped", so after you pick everything, they dump it all on a huge cutting board, and make it into a chopped salad. It was SO good, and SO refreshing. It could have probably fed the whole country of Ireland, though.
After eating, I went up to my room and got ready for bed. We had to be up at 7:30 to get on the bus to head to the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway.
I woke up extra early to get STARBUCKS for the first time in 2.5 months, and some "Porridge" of course. It only took 5 minutes for the cashier to understand that I wanted Porridge, not "Oats Milk". I tried ordering "Oat Meal" 5 times, and she kept asking me "what size?" Who knew I could get a venti oat meal! Then she pulled out the Oats milk and poured me a fat glass of it. I then had to explain what I meant by "oats" and remembered the wise words of my Dad, "it's porridge". After holding up the line, I got my porridge, and latte, and was off to the bus. I slept the entire bus ride to the Cliffs, and good thing I did! My friend, Ashlynn, and I literally ran from one side to the other to make sure we saw all of the #views, and got all of the pictures we possibly could. We only had an hour there, unfortunately. I've already decided that I will be back here. I could've spent all day there. Looking out to the Atlantic, I realized that the only thing separating me from home was a huge ocean. It was the closest to home that I have been my entire time here, and that somehow brought me a lot of peace.
We were told over and over to not get too close to the ledge of the cliffs. It was muddy, slippery, and SO windy. There are no fences blocking the edge off like there would be in the States. It was so crazy just watching how powerful the water was as it crashed into the rocks over and over again. How loud it roared as the waves rolled in. There was something so peaceful about just watching nature do its thing.
After loading back onto the bus, I slept again until we got to Galway. There were so many windy roads, all just 2 lanes, and the huge bus plowing through them made me a little bus sick. After getting off the bus in Galway, I decided to branch off on my own, and explore a little bit. I stopped in a small Irish Fudge shoppe that looked intriguing. All it had was chocolate, a huge list of a variety of hot chocolate, and caffe mochas. Naturally, I had to get one. I opted for a mocha with peppermint extract. It was so tasty, and such a nice treat to warm me up from the cold. This was also the first taste of cold weather I have had (40 degrees). I am so used to the warm weather in Italy that it was a rude awakening!
I shopped around the rest of the time, and got a small snack at a cute health shop. I had a bunch of mixed veggies with chopped chicken, and teriyaki sauce. As you can tell, I'm ready for some different cuisine than what I have in Italy. I've been craving some good Chinese food, sushi, Mexican, CHILLI U, and pretty much anything other than Italian food.
We met back up on the bus at around 5:45 pm to head back to Dublin, and got back around 8:30. I hadn't eaten since 11am, so I was starving. First, we headed to the first bar in Dublin, Brazenhead, and found out they weren't seriving food anymore, so I found a cute pub right in the center of the Temple Bar area, and got dinner, which ended up turning into a 4 course meal (oops). I got fish n' chips, and finished it off with an Irish coffee, and Baileys Cheesecake. It was heavenly. Another bonus about traveling alone is that no one judges how much you can consume in one sitting ;) Anyway, after, I met up with some people I met earlier at a pub, and then rolled home. Most people had their flights booked for 6 am Sunday, but luckily, I had mine at 1:30pm.
I got woken up by the roommates waking up to catch their flights at around 3:45 am, and then fell back asleep until 7:30. I wanted to go for a run around Dublin, so I did! It was so quiet, and COLD, but was quite impressed with the amount of trash that accumulated in the streets by all of the pubs.
After, I showered, and packed up to head to the airport for Manchester to visit my cousins, Chris and Daniel.. Stay tuned for my next post!
Much love,
Marisa
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