Ireland = Check

This weekend, Thursday 12th-Today 15th, Jenon, Allie, Erin, and I made a trip to Dublin, Ireland! Here is how the weekend went down.....

Thursday:
Today was mostly filled with our adventures getting to Ireland. We took the Southern rail from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport about 35 minutes from central London. The girls and I got to the airport and made it through security without much problem. Jenon and I got patted down as we walked through security, I also got wanded after I was patted down. I'm not really sure how I feel about that part of the flying experience, but I know they have to keep everyone safe but apparently I look sort of like a felon. We were pleasantly surprised with the size of our plane. The four of us decided to find the cheapest airline, which sounds good, but sometimes they can be a little sketchy. Luckily the plane was not a nugget and we made it safely to Dublin International. Once we got into Dublin, our hostel was super easy to find. It is right in the center of the city so the bus took us right there. We didn't get to our hostel until about 7:30pm or so and by the time we did we were starving! After dropping off our bags we went on a mission for food. It turns out Dublin is even more expensive than London, which I was definitely not expecting. We wandered around in search of moderately priced food when we found Eddie Rockets. Eddie Rockets is an American Diner, one that is decorated like the 1950's. We caved and all of us had cheeseburgers, fries, and shakes. It was delicious and well worth it! After we inhaled our food we headed back to the hostel for bed. Although we had to share a room with 8 other girls, the hostel was much nicer that expected. Some of the girls staying in our room live at the hostel permanently. I couldn't even imagine living their for longer than a few days. It was nice and all, but it would mean living out of a suitcase and other not fun things. I couldn't imagine!

Friday:
Today was much more eventful. Our hostel offered free walking tours of Dublin, so we gave it a try. Our tour guide was a younger Irish man who is a writer and a musician. Normally I get a little bored on tours, I reluctantly admit. But this tour was really interesting. Our tour guide, Ali, was very good. He did a really good job of telling the stories and history of Dublin in a way that was interesting and humorous at times. I learned quite a bit about the history of the city and of Ireland in general. It was fun to see how proud the Irish are their heritage and their Independence. It's like they celebrate becoming Ireland all the time. It was refreshing in a way because London is different in that respect.

Anyway after our tour, which lasted about three hours, we walked to the Guinness Factory. Oh my goodness, I knew I didn't enjoy beer, but Guinness is a whole other story. I am not sure how people drink that, but now that I have tasted it I can say I won't taste it again. With our ticket to get into the storehouse, you could get a complimentary pint. Allie and I opted for the complimentary soft drink, while Erin and Jenon went for the Guinness. Both had about one sip of it and were done. It was much too much for any of us to handle.

Friday night we decided we needed to go out because well we were in Ireland. We went to a nice pub which was ridiculously expensive. It was the first time my ID has been checked since I've been in Europe and it was sort of odd to get used to. We didn't stay at the pub super long because we had started a mission to find some berry mentos. After we left the pub, we stopped in every little convenient store possible in search of some mentos. We failed at finding berry flavored ones, but we founds some fruit and strawberry flavors. On the way we had a speed walking race in the city centre. It was an overall good day in Dublin.

Saturday:
Today we decided to go on a small day trip to Howth, which is about 25 minutes outside of Dublin that is along the coast. We packed jelly sandwiches for lunch and headed out the door after breakfast. Luckily the train to Howth wasn't too expensive, as we were finding lots of other things were. We hopped on the train, later find out that Howth and Howth Junction were not the same. After one stop we figured out which train we needed to get on and were once again on our way. Try number two worked out well and we made it to the little town. Once we got off the train we asked information for a map so that we could get familiar with the area, he told Jenon that a map was unnecessary because Howth was so small that we could find our way. He was right. Howth is an adorable little town that made me think of home. We walked out to the lighthouse and the boardwalk. We even met some older Americans whose son graduated from Iowa State a few years ago. It's amazing what a small world it really is. We spent about an hour just looking over the water and taking in the scenery before we sat down by the lighthouse to eat our dinky lunch.

After spending a few hours in Howth, there wasn't much else to do. We headed back on the train and had time for a quick nap before supper. Since we were in money-saving mode we opted to eat at "supermacs" which is like a McDonald's only not. Anyway, they had cheap food so once again we ate American style. This weekend was just not our weekend for trying new food. Since it was Valentine's Day and all of us were away from our boyfriends we decided we deserved/wanted ice cream. On the tour the previous day we noticed that there was a Haggendaiz ice cream shop in Temple Bar. We headed there and ate too much of the best ice cream. Yummy. Our mission for Saturday night moved from mentos to microwave popcorn. We looked and looked and finally found some! It happened to be in the same isle where an older woman was opening bags of chips and sampling them and then walking away. Anyway we got our popcorn and m&m's to go with and headed back to the hostel. The theme for the weekend was "whatever we're in Dublin."

Sunday:
Today was filled with returning to London and laundry. I have officially been in London one month. After traveling to Dublin it made me realize how much I really do like London. I can't believe how fast this term is going, but I also miss everyone back home. I am really looking forward to this week. I am going to do a lot of exploring and get caught up or ahead on my course work...... :)