My trip with Ashley and Anna to Dublin began far too early last Wednesday morning. We got up at 2:30 a.m. and were at the Buchanan Bus Station by 4 a.m. to catch our bus to Prestwick Airport. The bus ride wasn't so bad, but we ended up with a solid hour and a half after going through security of waiting in the Prestwick Airport.
Once we boarded our flight, it only took about 45 minutes to get to Dublin. We arrived at around 8 a.m., got our passports stamped and found the bus to our hotel in Clondalkin, about a 45 minute bus ride from the city centre.
Luckily, when we arrived at our hotel, we were able to check in early and drop off our luggage before heading to the city centre. We ate lunch at Eddie Rockett's, which was mediocre and overpriced.
After lunch, we went to explore Dublin Castle. Our attempts to find the inside of the castle were futile for quite some time. While trying to discover the inside, we explored the grounds area, taking many pictures. When we found the inside, we discovered that you can only see it in tours and tours were booked solid for a couple hours. So, we continued exploring and enjoying the grounds on a lovely, sunny 45-50 degree day.
Our mission after Dublin Castle was to find a shop in which St. Patrick's Day apparel could be purchased. We found a shop and we each purchased a new t-shirt for St. Patrick's Day, as well as some temporary tattoos.
We wandered through the Dublin city centre for a while, until we came upon Christchurch Cathedral. We took some pictures outside and continued to enjoy the beautiful day. Seeing the cathedral sparked our desire to see St. Patrick's Cathedral, so we set off again. Along the way, I took a picture of something odd in Dublin: all signs are listed in both Gaelic and English.
We arrived at the rather large St. Patrick's Cathedral and proceeded inside. Due to some confusion at the till, we ended up not having to pay the entrance fee. We wandered through the cathedral filled with statues, plaques, and other memorial items for a number of persons, including (strangely at first) Jonathan Swift the satirist. Apparently he was involved in St. Patrick's Cathedral.
After our visit, we went to catch the bus back to our hotel in Clondalkin for the night. This was when we discovered just how unreliable Dublin route 69 is when we ended up having to take a different route back that dropped us much further away from our hotel.
Day Two
The second day of our Dublin visit was St. Patrick's Day. We got up fairly early, grabbed breakfast, and headed out to catch the bus. The 69 bus was once again unreliable. It never showed up. We ended up taxi-ing with a couple from West Virginia. We arrived in the city centre around 11 a.m., about an hour before the start of the parade. We nabbed a good spot towards the end of the parade route and waited...until nearly 1:30 before the parade reached us. At least it was another beautiful day in a row.
The parade was both awesome and very strange. There were people dressed in costumes that made sense. For instance, someone was dressed as Dracula (a character created by Irish author Bram Stoker). Other parts of the parade made less sense. One of the bands was playing "Firework" by Katy Perry and another part of the parade was playing Michael Jackson's "Thriller." This upset Ashley because dead fish to "Thriller" was disrespecting Michael Jackson.
Overall, the parade was pretty cool. There were some interesting acrobatic elements. There was a pair of people doing tricks on a pole and a guy with bouncing stilts. Most of the costumes were really colorful and there was a great deal of elaborate makeup.
After the parade finished, we picked up some chips and cheese (fries with shredded cheese on top) before heading to THE Temple Bar of the Temple Bar district. It was extremely crowded! We were getting shoved everywhere in our attempt to get to the bar to buy the 6 euro pint of Guiness and in an attempt to find somewhere to stand or sit. Eventually, we ended up in a little platform up a little set of stairs.
We spent a few hours in Temple Bar talking to some boys we met who were from Austria, Alex, Matthew and Seth. While we were chatting with them, we noticed some men wearing How I Met Your Mother themed t-shirts. (MacLaren's Irish Pub on the front, Haaaaaaave you met *insert name* on the back.)
Around 7 or 8, we decided it was time to start heading back to our hotel. After waiting nearly an hour, we finally caught 51c back to Clondalkin after 69 failed to show up yet again.
Day Three
On Friday, the sole item on our agenda was to tour the Guiness Brewery. We decided to avoid the 69 bus stop and to go straight to a different route's stop. Ironically, we ended up taking bus 69 anyway. Silly bus 69.
We arrived at the Guiness Brewery around 2 p.m. to stand in a really long line. We realized that the day after St. Patrick's Day is probably one of the Brewery's biggest days of the year. The wait in line wasn't so long--about a half hour outside and 15 minutes inside. The tour was pretty much self-guided. We went through rooms with TVs telling us about the brewing processes.
It started with the ingredients. First, Barley, which we got to touch, then hops and water. Following ingredients were brewing, roasting, mashing, fermentation and maturation. After we went through all the sections, we got to taste Guiness Draught.
At the end of the tour, we had the option to use our free pint vouchers to either pour our own pints or to get one from the Galaxy Bar. We chose to pour our own pints and then headed up to the Galaxy Bar to observe the 360 degree views of Dubin on yet another beautiful, sunny day.
After we finished up at the Brewery and purchased some souvenirs, we headed back to our hotel.
Day Four
On Saturday, Ashley and Anna went to the Dublin Zoo while I explored a few literarily nerdy museums. I went through the city centre, past the Spire and O'Connell Street, to visit the Dublin Writer's Museum on yet another beautiful day.
The Dublin Writer's Museum had a self-guided audio tour (by a phone) through the exhibits. The museum had biographies of important Irish authors, such as Jonathan Swift and James Joyce. Parts of the exhibits included original editions of the authors' works and letters written by the authors. The museum was overall very interesting.
I went to the James Joyce Centre after finishing up at the Writer's Museum. The James Joyce Centre had articles belonging to James Joyce during his lifetime, his biography, his family history, and the difficulty in publishing Ulysses. There were three documentaries in one of the rooms focusing on different aspects of James Joyce.
Still having some time before Ashley and Anna finished up, I headed to take a picture of the James Joyce statue and the Molly Malone statue. They were pretty crowded with tourists, so I ended up snapping pictures with random people in them anyway.
Saturday night, we grabbed a Guiness in the hotel bar and packed up for our return to Glasgow.
Day Five
On Sunday, we journeyed back to Glasgow. For our route back, we chose to take a train from Dublin to Belfast, a ferry from Belfast to Stranraer, and a train from Stranraer to Glasgow. It ended up being quite a long day.
Since the bus doesn't run until 11 a.m., we ended up taking a taxi to the train station to catch our 10 a.m. train. The journey was pleasant, overall. There were some noisy people on the train, but the scenery was beautiful.
We arrived in Belfast with barely enough time to taxi to the harbour and catch our ferry to Stranraer. The ferry ride was a little long, but it was likewise beautiful.
We arrived at Stranraer at around 4:30 and were disappointed to realize that it is a pretty boring town. There wasn't anything near the ferry/train station, nor was there much inside the station. Luckily, there was a snack bar to grab dinner from. It was a long three hour wait for our train back to Glasgow.
The train ride itself was also rather lengthy. But we finally were back in Glasgow and at our flat at around 10:30 p.m. We were sad to leave Dublin, but at least it was going back to Glasgow, and not returning to North America.
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