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Around the World in 210 Days

On the Emerald Isle

IRELAND | Wednesday, 19 September 2007 | Views [836] | Comments [6]

Yes, people, we made it. We left NYC at 7pm (8:30 with the wait on the tarmac) and arrived here at 7am the next day. We rode a (double-decker, cool) bus to the hostel, which allowed a beautiful view of the longest tunnel I've ever seen, followed by a tour of Dublin's industrial district, which had at least 50 cranes sticking up (I was quite pleased by the Gaelic/English road signs everywhere).

We arrived at the hostel with our giant bags and determined we were in for an interesting time. The place was full of noisy kids eating brown bread with jam (As opposed to now, where the noisy kids walking by are eating alcohol with alcohol). We couldn't check in until 2:30, so we rented a locker for our bags and stashed them away. Free of the weight, we started walking aimlessly through the streets. They were full of little cars on the wrong side of the road, really old buildings, and foreigners (really, I was surprised how many non-Irish there were walking around...) We made our way over the river and ended up in front af a castle-like building that turned out to be the National Art Gallery. Although it is starred in our European travel book as something we wanted to do, it was a complete accident finding it. Nevertheless, we entered and were delighted to see the "free admission" sign.

The museum was full of mostly Irish artists, and had mostly paintings and a cool room of pencil drawings. We got about halfway through when our grogginess started to set in. We left and hitched a bus back in the direction of our hostel.

The bus pulled in to it's last stop about two blocks later, so we walked back across the river and I spied a Burger King. After hearing Daniel's complaints about Great Britain's big mac prices, curiousity got the best of me and I wanted to see what kind of burger inflation I was dealing with. We checked out the Whopper combo and determined it to be only slightly too pricy for us. Then we went to the McDonald's next door, and determined it to be a better deal. Although this was only a price-finding mission, the smell got to us and so we had our first Irish lunch... McDonald's hamburgers and curly fries.

Afterward, we trudged back to our hostel in hopes that they would let us in to our room, as we had determined sleep was quite necessary. They wouldn't let us into the rooms, but we could get into the basement/lounge area. We grabbed a puffy leather couch and were asleep before we knew it. Even the noisy "foosball" players did not disturb us, and we slept, brick-like, until our dorm opened. Now, ordering two beds in a 16-person dorm can be daunting... but ours turned out to be quite pleasant. We climbed the three flights of stairs to our room and quickly found our 1/8 of the room. Maybe it was the charming atmosphere or the incredible jet-lag, but neither Alex or I had trouble sleeping the afternoon away. Our (bunk) bed is actually in an area more resembling a 4-person room, by the way, as you have to turn two corners to find them. That privacy only spoils you, though, when you have co-ed bathrooms and showers. Alex and I decided early evening showers would be the best way to avoid too many awkward "getting dressed in the shower" moments, and also would allow us all the hot water we needed. That evening, we set out to find a supermarket in order to save some money on our meals. We were directed to the Super Value around the corner. It's a nice place to pick up some food, and we decided to do some super saving by buying: a loaf of wheat bread, a block of cheddar, three tomatoes, a giant bottle of water, a bag of salt and vinegar chips (my pick), and a tube of chocolate-dipped cookies (Alex's pick)-- totaling 7 euros. For dinner, we had cheese and tomato sandwiches with chips and two cookies. It was quite tasty, and we needed only to visit the self catering kitchen and smell the strange mix of cooking aromas to determine our meal was a good choice.

Although we had initially planned on getting a pint that evening, our afternoon nap only partially restored our energy, so we opted instead to spend the rest of the night watching weird european tv shows (like Scrubs and Friends) in the basement. After a gripping episode of Grey's Anatomy, we climbed back up to our room and passed out for the night.


-Andrew

Tags: On the Road

 

Comments

1

let me get this straight. You went out of our country and were overwhelmed by all the foreigners you found?
Then you ate McDonald's hamburgers? I guess Mickey D's sounds Irish but I was waiting to hear that you ate potatos and clover and stuff. Keep me posted. International travel is very exciting to me.
I want to hear all about Alex's chocolate dipped cookies.

  Rrrricardo Sep 20, 2007 9:08 AM

2


Sounds just like home!

  Jean Farris Sep 20, 2007 1:08 PM

3

Where did my message from last night go?! Ack! Well, it went something like this:

Hi Alex! Remember me? No? Well, I remember you! You're the girl with the cute bob and big, blue, blinkingly innocent eyes. The one who said she would be a vegetarian and quit eating sweets. And I said, "Yeah! Right! Together we can do it!" (Or I said, "Yeah right! I don't believe either of us." I either said this or the exclamation before this parenthetical. One of them.) But then I read the blog entry above and am like, "How can this be! Why would Alex betray me! Why would Alex be eating McDonald's hamburgers and rolls of chocolate cookies???" And then I realize, with a great big sigh of relief, this isn't MY Alex and Andrew's blog, this is a DIFFERENT Alex, who eats dead souls and corporate poison. Shew. I'm off to find the other "andrewalex" around-the-world blog...

>:[

  annie Sep 21, 2007 1:47 AM

4

Hello--little annie....just so you don't explode, I didn't eat any hamburgers, not a one. In fact at one point andrew ate the meat out and put a potato on the bun so I could see if I liked it....as to the sweets, it's not real chocolate, its just transfat :)

  Alex Sep 21, 2007 3:01 AM

5

"big, blue, blinkingly innocent eyes"

Oh Annie! Preach it girlfriend.
Who among us hasn't already fallen victim to that old trick of hers?

  Rrrricardo Sep 21, 2007 4:03 AM

6

Andrew are you stereo typing, how do you know the were foreigners, did you ask them? Need I remind you guys you do represent all americans so please, pleasee do not embarass us all at home with these snap thoughts and how could you eat that kind of food you should eat only the local food so not to appear to think it's not good enough for you. I can't belive you two are doing the same things there that you do here, sleep, eat junk food and watch junk tv, did you really have to go around the world to see if ti would feel different or what? I want to hear about you guys getting immersed into the culture, food, music,every aspect so no one will be able to know that you to are from a different place that they will mistake you for a local. Annie after all this time I cannot belive you fell for that we will be healthy, maybe when you two are 70 ro 80. You will fall behind the great food and snacks if you don't remember all the times you and shannon where going to do this before. love you miss you mom

  mardi Sep 21, 2007 3:41 PM

 

 

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