I had a week between my family leaving and my good friend Kaleen coming. During that time I did some work and a lot of laundry in preparation for Kaleen's visit, but it was quickly time for me to make a trip to Dublin, Ireland to meet her! It was a long journey to Dublin, but a nice relaxing one and very picturesque.
Instead of flying I decided to take the train and a ferry. It was going to be my first time on a ferry, so I was really excited! I departed on April 2nd and took the train north up to Holyhead which is technically in Wales, and because it was a thursday the train wasn't too busy so I got nice seats the whole way there and that allowed for a lot of gazing out of the window at sheep, grass, water, and windmills in water! I had never seen windmills in the middle of water before and when I did it blew my mind. When Kaleen and I made the trip back from Ireland I found the windmills so fascinating that I had to point them out to her. I got to Holyhead and safely made it onto the ferry. It was much bigger then I thought it would be. There were more then 9 floors! I sat down next to a window and somehow started talking to two other girls my age sitting next to me. One was from the US and was doing an exchange in Austria, and the other girl was working in Oxford. They were both really nice and talking to them made the 4 hour boat ride go faster. I liked taking the ferry. I didn't really notice the rocking of the boat except for when I stood up and moved around and then it felt really awkward. At one point I went up onto the outside top deck and enjoyed the rain and the wind along with the view of never ending water! I have been out into the ocean before, but this felt different. You couldn't seen land on any sides and it made me feel very small. On a map the distance between the two points didn't seem that big, but once you're on a boat you realize how much space and water there actually is! Once I made it to the docks I realized that I had forgotten to take out Euros, so there was no way for me to pay for a bus ride or a taxi, so I walked an hour to my hotel. Once I had gotten out of the dock district it was a pretty nice and easy walk! That night I spent my time in my hotel room enjoying having easy access to a TV, since I don't have one in my room at Oxford, and planning how to get to the airport the next day to get Kaleen.
The next morning I hopped on a bus that went directly to the airport and it stopped right outside the hotel I stayed at that night and the hostel Kaleen and I were going to be staying at. It was a quick ride and I got there just after Kaleen's flight was supposed to arrive, but like most flights it was late. It was fine because there was an Ireland tourist information centre where I went and picked up a bunch of maps and pamphlets about things to do. When Kaleen arrived we got back on the bus and dropped our stuff off at the hostel where we had gotten a private two person room. In order to keep Kaleen awake we decided to explore the city. We wandered around the shopping districts and saw what was in the vicinity of the hostel. A lot of the tourist attractions, like museums, were closed it being Good Friday. The whole weekend was pretty much us wandering around finding something to do. We didn't really think it through when we chose to go to a Catholic country on Easter weekend. We saw Dublin Castle which isn't that much of a castle. We achieved our goal of keeping Kaleen awake until after we ate and into the evening. When we went back to the hostel later that night the guy at the desk asked if we wanted any suggestions on stuff to do. We didn't, but he said how he and the other staff were trying to find places for people to go drinking since it's illegal in Ireland to sell alcohol on Good Friday. The only place that was selling alcohol was the dog racing, so they were sending everyone there. That didn't appeal to Kaleen and I, also she was very tired, so we just stayed in and chatted.
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| Me trying to climb onto a chair in the Leprechaun Museum |
The next day we headed out to find something that was open. We spent the day checking out and wandering around Dublin. The first thing we did that day was going to the National Leprechaun Museum which is a tour led museum where a guide takes you around to different furnished and decorated rooms and tells you Irish myths, legends, and tales. We heard stories about leprechauns, fairies, and giants. It was really an interesting concept and the story teller was really engaging, but the stories could have been more diverse. I had already heard some of them and I have little experience in Irish folklore. I liked the rooms, it made the stories more immersive and fun. After that we decided to get on an hop-on hop-off bus tour with the goal of getting to the Kilmainham Gaol which is an old jail. By the time we got there all the tickets had been sold out for the day, so we continued on the bus. The bus tour gave us some really interesting information, especially related to Guinness which takes up 60 acres of land, if I remember correctly, in Dublin. It seemed to go on and on. We got off the tour and wandered into Trinity College. It was pretty, but I like Oxford better. We also got souvenirs and went to a cafe which had really good looking brownies, but they were sadly dry and over priced. That night we planned on going on a ghost tour, so we got tickets to 'The Gravedigger Ghost Tour' which is a bus ghost tour. It takes you to different locations around Dublin and gives you scary stories, ghost or true, about what happened there. The guides were really good and were done up in full makeup to look like ghosts. The one thing I would have to say is that one of them, who was pretending to be a plague victim, coughed on us too much and it was kind of gross. The stories were really good and interesting. The last story ended at a pub which backs onto a graveyard. They told us that when there grave robbers used to work there they would put their shovels through a slit in the pub's wall with money on it and would pull their shovel back out and a pint of beer would be on top. Both Kaleen and I enjoyed the tour, especially the stories.
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| Kaleen taking a picture the right way! |
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| Guinness factory, we actually went inside |
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| Us on the ghost tour bus! |
The next day was Easter Sunday, so we found Kaleen a Catholic service to attend. As she did that I wandered around trying to find an open coffee shop or something. Instead I found a ceremony commemorating the Easter Rising which took place 99 years before, so next year will be the centennial. The Easter Rising is when the Irish people rose up against the English on Easter Sunday and stormed the postoffice before heading over to the castle and taking that. This was one event that began the revolution towards Irish independence. The ceremony was taking place outside the postoffice. The military was there along with some important men. At one point a man pulled up in a fancy car and got out and greeted the military leaders. I assume this man was the president, but I can't be sure. A lot of what was happening was in Irish and I was farther away, so it was hard to see. I only stayed for just over an hour and went back to meet Kaleen. We decided to head to a close by seaside town. Our first destination was going to be Howth, but we had just missed the train by a minute and the next one wasn't for an hour, so we decided to go to the seaside town of Dun Laoghaire instead. Dun Laoghaire is bigger then Howth, from what I could tell. The guide book I got describes Dun Laoghaire as "a vibrant exciting place; a melange of the old and new nestled beneath the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains." There's more, but it's a lot to type! When we got there we decided to walk down the East Pier to the lighthouse at the end. We could see Dublin from the pier and there was also an island that had fog around it making it look like Avalon, the island from King Arthur! The pier is 1.6km each way. It was quite a windy walk. When we walked back we got some ice cream from a place recommended to us by the guide book called Teddy's. The ice cream tasted like cream! After the pier we decided to wander into town, but Dun Laoghaire had less open then Dublin, so after a while we caught the train back into Dublin where we wandered around some more and then got ready to head to England the next day.
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| Lighthouse at the end of the East Pier |
We didn't have to catch the ferry on the 6th until 2:30pm, so we decided to head out for a stroll. Where there had been a ceremony the day before there was now a festival on celebrating the year 1915, the year before the Easter Rising. There was music, people dressed up, rides, horses, fancy cars and more! It was fun to wander around and get the atmosphere of everyone being so jovial and celebrating. The music was really cool! There were children singing Irish folk songs that were published in 1912 and a band planning ragtime music. It was exciting to wander around there and see people out after not seeing many people the previous days, but sadly we had to collect our stuff and go get on the ferry. The ferry ride was shorter then I thought it would be, taking only 3 hours this time. However, it was still late by the time we got there and the trains were running on a Sunday schedule, so I quickly booked us a hotel in Birmingham, an hour train ride from Oxford, because that was as far as we could make it that night. Our trip to Birmingham was pretty exciting. We saw the Welsh town with the world's longest name! I'll post a picture because I don't think I'll be able to spell it! Also, we passed this amazing looking castle which we were both tempted to get off the train to see, but we didn't have time. We had to transfer trains at one point. It was close to 8pm by this point. We had just gotten off the train and we assumed just missed one connection and the next was in 45 minutes; however, when we checked the train time tables we saw that the train we were supposed to get onto was delayed 2 minutes so we ran up and over the platforms via a bridge and jumped onto the train, just making it and getting to Birmingham 45 minutes earlier then expected! It was such a thrill and for the rest of the trip Kaleen and I were comparing rest of our train catching to that one. That night we watched Avatar and then went to sleep. The next day we headed off to Oxford!
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| Place with a really long name! |
The next day was Easter Sunday, so we found Kaleen a Catholic service to attend. As she did that I wandered around trying to find an open coffee shop or something. Instead I found a ceremony commemorating the Easter Rising which took place 99 years before, so next year will be the centennial. The Easter Rising is when the Irish people rose up against the English on Easter Sunday and stormed the postoffice before heading over to the castle and taking that. This was one event that began the revolution towards Irish independence. The ceremony was taking place outside the postoffice. The military was there along with some important men. At one point a man pulled up in a fancy car and got out and greeted the military leaders. I assume this man was the president, but I can't be sure. A lot of what was happening was in Irish and I was farther away, so it was hard to see. I only stayed for just over an hour and went back to meet Kaleen. We decided to head to a close by seaside town. Our first destination was going to be Howth, but we had just missed the train by a minute and the next one wasn't for an hour, so we decided to go to the seaside town of Dun Laoghaire instead. Dun Laoghaire is bigger then Howth, from what I could tell. The guide book I got describes Dun Laoghaire as "a vibrant exciting place; a melange of the old and new nestled beneath the Dublin and Wicklow Mountains." There's more, but it's a lot to type! When we got there we decided to walk down the East Pier to the lighthouse at the end. We could see Dublin from the pier and there was also an island that had fog around it making it look like Avalon, the island from King Arthur! The pier is 1.6km each way. It was quite a windy walk. When we walked back we got some ice cream from a place recommended to us by the guide book called Teddy's. The ice cream tasted like cream! After the pier we decided to wander into town, but Dun Laoghaire had less open then Dublin, so after a while we caught the train back into Dublin where we wandered around some more and then got ready to head to England the next day.
We didn't have to catch the ferry on the 6th until 2:30pm, so we decided to head out for a stroll. Where there had been a ceremony the day before there was now a festival on celebrating the year 1915, the year before the Easter Rising. There was music, people dressed up, rides, horses, fancy cars and more! It was fun to wander around and get the atmosphere of everyone being so jovial and celebrating. The music was really cool! There were children singing Irish folk songs that were published in 1912 and a band planning ragtime music. It was exciting to wander around there and see people out after not seeing many people the previous days, but sadly we had to collect our stuff and go get on the ferry. The ferry ride was shorter then I thought it would be, taking only 3 hours this time. However, it was still late by the time we got there and the trains were running on a Sunday schedule, so I quickly booked us a hotel in Birmingham, an hour train ride from Oxford, because that was as far as we could make it that night. Our trip to Birmingham was pretty exciting. We saw the Welsh town with the world's longest name! I'll post a picture because I don't think I'll be able to spell it! Also, we passed this amazing looking castle which we were both tempted to get off the train to see, but we didn't have time. We had to transfer trains at one point. It was close to 8pm by this point. We had just gotten off the train and we assumed just missed one connection and the next was in 45 minutes; however, when we checked the train time tables we saw that the train we were supposed to get onto was delayed 2 minutes so we ran up and over the platforms via a bridge and jumped onto the train, just making it and getting to Birmingham 45 minutes earlier then expected! It was such a thrill and for the rest of the trip Kaleen and I were comparing rest of our train catching to that one. That night we watched Avatar and then went to sleep. The next day we headed off to Oxford!
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