OCTOBER 1ST, 2008 (Wednesday)
Well after leaving home 36 hours ago we arrived it to the Bunkhouse Hostel on Parnell St, Dublin, in one piece. Our flights went well. 10 hours Sydney to Hong Kong. We were only there for 40 minutes which we didn't realise. What a huge airport, it was unbelievable. We saw an amazing escalator which covered 3 or 4 storeys. 13 hours on Swiss Air to Zurich followed. Here we were going to have a shower, but at 8 euros ($15AUS) each we didn't really feel the need so we wondered round and waited the 2 hours until our final leg. It was 2 ½ hours to Dublin. But unfornately it appears that flights within Europe are the same as trans-tasman flights, but even more budget, so there was no TV or anything. There was only a small snack rather than a much hoped for breakfast. We arrived at Dublin to a pretty normal overcast Irish day.
I was through customs in literally 2 minutes, it was so easy with an EU passport. I don't really understand why it is so easy for someone who has never been to a country before in their life to get into the country, but I was not complaining. Em took a lot longer. After waiting at the wrong bus stop we were redirected to the right place and successfully caught the bus to our hostel.
After checking in and sorting out our gear, we thought we had better go for a walk. We went into central Dublin, found Trinity College, where Freshers week had started. We also walked around Temple Bar, and had our first Guiness at O'Neill's bar in Temple Bar. After this we were both starting to feel a bit jaded, so we decided to pick up a gourmet dinner on the way back to the hostel. We found a loaf of bread and ready made mushroom soup which did the trick. Lucky Em didn't fall asleep with her face in the bowl.
After a few emails to say we had arrived safely, and eating our dinner we went to bed at 6pm, which we thought was a reasonable effort. We were in an eight bedded room in the hostel, but there were only 2 others in there, and apart from being woken at midnight, we both slept solidly through to 8am on Thursday morning.
It was surreal to be here finally, after so many months of planning. There were a few sticking differences that we noticed. The houses are built in blocks that are all the same (huge estates filled with identical houses), there are no high rise buildings in Dublin, which is quite strange for a city of more than one million people. The other suprising thing was that Dublin is choc-a-block full of tourists.
