Week Eight & Week Nine

Cheers everyone!


These two weeks have been quite hectic and I apologize for not updating this. Last we left off, I was in Ireland and had a few days left. Now I can tell you how it went! I know there's thousands of you hanging on my every word... I'm sure the suspense was just killing you! ;)


Well on Friday we walked around during the day. The weather was just unheard of for Ireland. It was in the high 50s with endless sunshine... Absolutely amazing. So we walked around all of the touristy sites again but only went into Trinity College to se the Book of Kells. I was initially told wrong information on what the Book of Kells actually was, but a super brief summary of it is that it is the Gospel written in Latin by monks in about the year 800. It was set up to be like a museum in a way, where they had different rooms with different magnified images  of it and other writings form the time, and then the actual Book in a separate room. I had never heard of it before I had been to Ireland so it was interesting, yet not what I would consider a huge part of the trip. Everything else we did in Dublin wasn't the most exciting thing either, but we had fun through the whole trip. We mostly walked around the other sites like I said, which were Christ Church Cathedral,  Dublin Castle, Temple Bar (the hotspot area for bars), and O'Connell Street. After all of the walking around on Friday, we went to a concert for a band called Mumford & Sons. We saw them back home at Lollapalooza last year, but since they're from London they had a lot of UK shows and we got to go to one! That was really exciting because they are one of my favorite bands and it was just really cool to go to a concert in another country. It really was no different than back home though, haha.


Saturday is tied (with Sunday) for my favorite day in Dublin and it does not consist of much, which I think is the beauty of it. While the rest of the group went to Cork, Dave and I stayed back in Dublin. We, again, walked around the city to all of the major sites and didn't do much. We went to a cafe where Dave had a really terrible panini and I ordered soda bread that was NOTHING like the Irish soda bread I know. Oh well. It was the only place that offered soda bread, so I'm going to go ahead and guess that we Americans make it a bigger deal than the Irish do. I don't care. I like my Irish soda bread on St. Patrick's Day and I don't care if it's not authentic! It's delicious! Anyways, after all of that walking around, Dave and I were made aware of a huge rugby game that was going on that night at 5 pm. It was the national teams playing, and who do you think Ireland was playing? England. Not only are the two huge rivals, but I was torn! Do I root for the country that has treated me well for the past two months of my life, the country I chose to stay in and can now call my temporary home? Or do I just conform to what the locals around me do in order to avoid any sort of trouble? The latter won by a long shot. I love England, but when in Rome, you do as the Romans, not your other favorite country. I was in Ireland, so I cheered for the Irish... which paid off since they won big time. The final score was 24-8, but they were ahead by about 15 for most of the game. But what Dave and I did for the game was sat and watched it at one really crowded and rugby intense pub, and then just did a bit of a pub crawl down Temple Bar. We would have a drink at a pub and move onto the next. I think we visited about 5 pubs that night. The most popular bar, Temple Bar (it's a bar, a street, and an area,... I don't come up with these things) was a popular one for a reason. When first entering we though it's only one small room that has way too many people in it to be considered even slightly safe, but then after walking a bit, we learned that there were about 4 or 5 rooms within it, each very different. One had TVs on playing sports, one had a live musician playing on a stage, and another was kind of outside. Despite drinks costing an arm and a leg at each pub, I'm so glad that's how we spent the night because I feel like I can say I truly experienced Dublin pubs. Isn't that what Dublin's all about? Oh, and the culture, right. :)


The next day, Sunday, was another amazing day. This was mostly due to my friend from freshman year at Marquette meeting up with us. Sam goes to Marquette but is studying in Galway this semester, so she was kind enough to meet up with us for a day in Dublin. We went to the Guinness Storehouse together and then... walked around the city and went to pubs. I really enjoyed Dublin, but honestly walking around - if you are blessed with nice weather - and pubs are about it. Again, despite what sounds like a bland and plain night, was actually an amazing end to Dublin. Dave, Sam and I went to a pub while everyone else went back to the hotel (which I know I did not say originally, was a 40 minute bus ride. It was worth it though because it was a super nice hotel and since it was far, it was cheap). We spent the night at Farrington's, where there was a man playing music with his guitar and singing. The pub was pretty empty but the musician was playing a great selection of songs. I hadn't seen Sam in a several months, I hadn't seen Dave in two months and the two of them had never met. It sounds like a recipe for a super awkward night but it felt like I was just sitting with my two best friends having a few drinks. It was such a great and relaxing night. 


As all great things, our trip to Dublin came to an end Monday morning, when we flew back to England. Dave stayed in Leicester, where there isn't too much to do, but we walked around the city centre and through the city market a few times. We did go out to a bar with a bunch of the guys one night, which ended up being a great time. Dave and all the guys really got along and enjoyed his time in Leicester. 


Friday night Dave and I went to London for the weekend. His flight home was Sunday morning, so we figured we could go early to see a bit of London. And when I say "a bit", I mean it. London is not the kind of city you can do in a day. Friday we got to London and headed straight to the hotel (which was a 45 minute tube ride to central London) and did no sight seeing. The only sights we saw were the insides of buses, trains and subways. Saturday, however, I made a route for us to tackle London in one day. It was quite ambitious, yet I can proudly say that all things on the list were seen. London, when done correctly (aka, when you have ME as a guide), can be done in one day! Honestly I think some one who wants to see London properly needs at least 4 days. We were a bit rushed and didn't go inside to many museum or take tours but we saw the main and mostly touristy places. 


I have to finish this later... Maybe tomorrow? Sorry!