Ireland & Scotland Trip Part 2: Dublin

(Friday, May 1)
My bus from Limerick arrived in Dublin around 5pm. I had forgotten to check where my hostel was before getting on the bus, but much to my surprise the bus actually had free Internet access and I had my laptop on me so that was easily sorted out. When I got to my hostel I checked in and worked on some homework for my online English class. About 2 hours later I got a message from Dennis that he and the group (Katie, Stacey, Oleg, and Marianna) had arrived at their hostel on the other side of the city. We made plans to meet up near my hostel an hour later, so I went back to my room and got cleaned up.

We met up at the O'Connell Monument near my hostel, which is pretty close to what you would say is the center of the city. From there we walked to the Temple Bar district which was only a few blocks away. We walked up and down the streets looking for a reasonably priced dinner, but this wasn't easy cause Temple Bar is probably one of the most expensive areas in the city. We ended up splitting up, with Katie, Stacey, and I going to a small cafe in the district and Oleg, Dennis, and Marianna going to Burger King which was back where we had started the walk.

After dinner we all regrouped at a pub in the district which was really nice. They had some live music playing and I had the best pint of Guiness I've ever had. We hung out here for a few expensive rounds then went in search of a club. We found one just down the block. It was 5 stories tall with a different theme on each floor. The cover was pretty steep so Oleg and Marianna decided to go back to the hostel for the night while the rest of us went in to dance. We stayed there for probably 3 hours or so and then headed out. Thankfully my hostel is right on the border of the Temple Bar district so it only took me about 10 minutes to walk back while Dennis, Katie, and Stacey had about a 40 minute walk ahead of them. I was feeling pretty hungry so I grabbed some Subway on my way. Back at the hostel I wolfed down the sub and did some finishing touches on my English paper before submitting it and going to bed.


(Saturday, May 2)
I got up fairly early so I could snatch some free continental breakfast in the kitchen at my hostel. The breakfast was pretty lame, but it was at least something. After breakfast I met up with the rest of the group and we walked along the Liffey River, which runs through the center of Dublin, to the Guiness Storehouse. We paid our entry fee and set off on the self-guided tour of all 7 floors. It was like an adult version of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. Along the way their was a tasting area so we downed a few half pints while we were there and kept on going. At the top there was a restaurant and with your entry you get a free pint of Guiness so we stopped into the restaurant to redeem our coupons and get something to eat. They were serving some hot sandwiches and I had probably the best roast beef sandwich I've ever eaten in my life. After lunch we descended back to the lobby, bought some souvenirs, and headed out.

Katie and Stacey decided to go back to their hostel for a nap while the rest of us pressed on to see more of the city. The first stop on our walk was Dublin Castle. The name is quite deceptive as only a tiny part of it still looks like a normal castle. Most of it looks like some kind of Victorian palace or something like that. Next stop was Christ's Church. We didn't bother going in, we simply walked past it but it looked kinda neat. After that we walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral is fairly plain from the outside and we didn't want to pay to go inside, but the park outside of the cathedral was nice so we laid down in the grass for a quick siesta. Next up was St. Stephen's Green. This was certainly the best part of the afternoon. St. Stephen's Green is a beautiful park in the southern part of the city. Its filled with criss-crossing footpaths that take you along little ponds and past flower gardens. We walked around the park for a bit before coming to rest on a patch of grass near one of the ponds. We all laid down for a bit and I fell asleep for probably about 30 minutes. Our last stop on our tour of the city was Trinity College. Sadly by the time we got there it was starting to rain so we didn't walk around it as much as I would have liked. I'm sure its a nice campus to walk around and I will go there if I make it back to Dublin again. When we left Trinity College we headed back to my hostel which was fairly close by.

Back at my hostel we all relaxed on the couches in the lobby and checked our email on my laptop. We made plans to meet up with Katie and Stacey in an hour so while we waited I went back to my room and shower up. When I came back to the lobby Dennis, Oleg, and Marianna were all asleep on the couches. I shook them around a bit and reluctantly they got up. We left the hostel and met back up with Katie and Stacey. The first order of business for the evening was dinner. Since it was Dennis' birthday we let him decide and we ended up grabbing some lackluster Chinese food. After dinner we walked once more into the Temple Bar district in search of some drinks. The first place we came to was a bar on the bottom floor of a hotel. The place was pretty fancy and it was really busy so we decided to join in. We managed to find an open table and I headed to the bar for a round. It took me about 30 minutes to get a drink, which led to our decision to leave after that round. When we left there were some people in the street handing out flyers for a nearby strip club so we decided to go there so we could embarass the birthday boy. When we got to the door of the club they said that no ladies were allowed to come in so we nixed that idea and instead went looking for a pub. We ended up going to The Temple Bar, which was one of the coolest pubs I've ever been in. It was completely packed so there wasn't a whole lot of space to move around, but the atmosphere was great. We had a few drinks there before we called it a night. We walked out to the main street then said our goodbyes cause I was going to Edinburgh in the morning by myself.

Dublin Photos