fulbright blog.: Frische Luft!: Winter Break in Ireland, Part I

End of the rainbow...start of the trip.

I went to Ireland for winter break! It was beautiful and the air was so fresh! (Seriously fresh. I commented on it at least once a day.) I went with my friend/fellow ETA Hannah, who lives in Chemnitz. We met at Schonefeld Airport in Berlin, where our flight was delayed about an hour.
After our delayed start, we finally got to Dublin! The airport there is super nice, and I was delighted to discover that all the signs in Ireland are in both English and the Irish language! We also found the end of a rainbow while walking towards passport control, which seems like a good sign.

Dublin Bus!!

The passport control was another good thing - since Ireland isn't part of the EU's Schengen Area, we had to get our passports stamped and checked. But since we were non-EU citizens, we got to go to the non-EU line, which wasn't a line at all, but a bored person waiting at a booth because our entire flight was EU citizens, who were waiting in a very long line for their green stamps.

We then took a bus to our hostel in central Dublin. They really do drive on the left side of the road there! During the trip I mostly got used to it (I just looked both ways before crossing the street.), but I would still get confused when I'd glance up and a car without anyone in the front left seat was driving down the road!

Childcare for Giraffes? Giraffes take care of your child?

We met our friend David, another Fulbrighter, at our hostel. He was only with us in Dublin because he met his parents there the day we left for Galway. That evening we went out to eat at an Irish place - I had beef & onion stew, which was delicious! The waitress was so nice to us, which was odd after being in Germany where staff will be polite but not chatty. We walked around the city for a bit as well.

When we got back to our hostel, we met our South African roommates. I was washing my face when they came in. (The room had a room with a shower and another room with the sink and toilet.) Apparently one of the South Africans thought I was taking too long so he peed in the shower! There were 4 of them and they were all 18. They mentioned some stuff about how they supported the white party in South Africa and they all believed that the black party was screwing the country up. (We did not ask them about their political views. They were in a sharing mood.) Then they used the n-word a lot. They would prove to be interesting roommates in the day to come...

Dublin: Tag...

...und Nacht

The next morning we got up, ate the hostel breakfast (toast and cereal), then went on a free walking tour of Dublin. We saw a lot of interesting places, including Trinity College, old City Hall, the place Obama stayed when he visited Dublin, and St. Stephen's Green. We also heard some fun myths about Dublin. (Mostly to do with the scholarship students at Trinity...who are apparently allowed to carry a sword at all times.) We also saw the hotel that Bono owns, which reminded me of that episode of Gilmore Girls where Lorelei and Rory are late coming back from Europe because they were staking out that place.

After the tour we were hungry, so naturally we walked around for a very long time before landing at this Brazilian cafe where we saw cakes in the window. We ordered our cakes, then had to wait a really long time before the waiter brought them out to us. The cake was amazing though - it tasted like a magic cookie bar!

EngSoc: very 1984

We also walked down Grafton Street - I saw the place where the first scene of Once was filmed, which made me happy. There were two guys loitering there, so I didn't take a picture of it.

Once we were done with that, we went back to the hostel. The South Africans were in our room drinking a lot of beer, despite the fact that it was only late afternoon and drinking isn't allowed in the rooms. So we left rather quickly. (But one of the South Africans had a major creeper mustache and said something about how he hoped to find some "hot dolls" that evening. I liked his '50s slang.)

That evening we went to Tesco to get dinner food. (Eating out in Dublin is outrageously expensive.) I was delighted to discover that you can buy Pop Tarts in Ireland. They were a bit pricey (because Ireland is a bit pricey), but I still got a box!

Trinity College: Sunday Morning.

We ended up just grabbing some bread, sliced chicken, and cheese for dinner. It was a really good sandwich! We ate in the hostel common area while watching figure skating and booking our bus tickets to Galway the next day.

Some sort of Doctor Who villain in hiding.

At some point, Hannah & I ran upstairs to put something in our rooms. One of our South African roommates was asleep on his bunk, so we just turned on the bathroom light. As we turned to leave, Hannah noticed a foot sticking out of the bathroom door. One of the South Africans was passed out in the bathroom! We went downstairs to the front desk and told them that one of our roommates was passed out in our room. The girls working reception (they couldn't have been much older than me) went upstairs to check on him and clean up the mess. Then one came back down and was on the phone for a while. After a few minutes, an ambulance pulled up and the paramedics ran upstairs! (We were just sitting in the reception area/common room/kitchen area and watching tv in case the hostel girls needed us for some reason.) After a while longer, the paramedics walked out and one of the hostel girls came over to us. They switched us to a private room for the three of us because we had had such a bad experience. This was good because I hadn't taken a shower in the other room because someone had urinated in there.

Guck mal! You can see Hannah & I in the globe if you look
carefully.

The next morning, Hannah & I got downstairs after David. He was sitting at a table talking to someone. When we walked up to them, we could see that it was one of the South Africans. The conversation that followed was ridiculous and hilarious and sad at the same time. (I can't remember who said what...so the first person is South Africa guy and the second is me & Hannah's comments, together.)
"Can you tell me what happened last night?"
"Well, we saw someone passed out in the room so we told reception?"
"Was it me?"
"Uh..we don't know. We just saw his shoes."
"Did you call the ambulance?"

New Library - Trinity College

"No, that was the hostel."
"Do you know how much an ambulance costs in Ireland?"
"Umm...no."
"Well, I have this stomach condition. I have a very sensitive stomach, so I must've eaten something that disagreed with me."
"Okay."

After this we somehow made our graceful escape from the hostel. It was a really nice hostel, it just happened to be playing host to some...rather interesting South Africans. Hannah & I said our good-byes to David and left our stuff in the hostel luggage room before leaving for the Old Library at Trinity College.

A bit of Grafton Street.

The Long Room/Book of Kells is really cool (supergeil). It's the most beautiful library I've ever seen. The Book of Kells was okay - it was interesting to see such an old book - but for me the main event was definitely the Long Room. It looks like every library should look!

After the Long Room, we went on our merry way to eat Mexican food for lunch!! David had eaten a burrito there before we got there and he recommended the place to us. I had a burrito with carnitas. The man who owned the restaurant was very friendly and told us that he was going to Chicago next month to eat at Fronterra (Rick Bayless's restaurant). He lucked out because he was talking to two of the only 20-something Americans who watch Mexico: One Plate at a Time. The food was so good! We had to sit in the empty downstairs area because the upstairs seats were all taken, but that was for the best because we were so giddy that we kept on dancing to the music that was playing!!

The British built this, so Justice is facing inwards toward
the British, not outwards toward the Irish people.

After lunch we went to this cute shop we'd seen earlier. It was Cath Kidston, and we both ended up leaving the shop with new purses! (They're both cute, but we looked like matchy-matchy twins for the rest of the trip.)

After that we went to the bus station and headed out to Galway!

This tower used to be a prison!

The state apartments where Obama and Queen Elizabeth II
stay when they're in town.

The wall the Irish built to keep Queen Victoria from
seeing the slums of Dublin. Also this area used to hold
the black lake for which Dublin was named.