Hey guys! So I've just last weekend had another grand journey and can't wait to tell you. I would have told you yesterday, but alas I had school and then homework for today and stuff like that. So here I am now!
Anyway. So after last week's happiness, I had, well, school again, until Wednesday afternoon. Nothing terribly thrilling happened during those days, though I did participate in a study that required me to go and drink milk then rate it, which was pretty fun, since I love milk, and also when I complete the study this week I get a 5 pound gift certificate out of the deal. So basically it's a win all around for me, cuz I get to drink some yummy milk and get paid for it. Oh, actually there's another happy thing that happened on Wednesday- one of my friends' birthdays was on Monday, so Wednesday night we had cake for her and watched Saving Mr. Banks and just general hanging-outy-ness, which is always a blast. Plus, you know, cake.
Then Thursday I was actually surprisingly productive. A few weeks ago I signed up for something called "International Friends," where a family from the area becomes my "host family" and every so often takes me to see some local stuff and try some local fare. Thursday I got to meet my family; they were completely lovely and took me and a friend of mine out for coffee and pastries in Portstewart. After they took us back, too, my friend and I walked to town so I could buy granola bars and ended up getting to take a look around inside one of the lovely cathedrals in Coleraine, and then we stopped at a cute little cafe for lunch.
Oh! actually you know what else happened? I finally caved into my coffee addiction and bought some instant coffee, due to my lack of coffee maker, and it was actually not bad! However, due to a certain stupendous anime, I can never look at instant coffee without mentally translating it into "commoner's coffee." You can blame Tamaki for that.
Earlier in the week one of the girls I've been traveling with had the spur-of-the-moment idea of heading to Dublin this weekend, and so, we decided, what the heck? So Thursday I was packing, and I got more than half of my homework for this week done, and I also did a good chunk of research for some of my essays that I'm working on. That night, too, I made some delicious banana-oatmeal snacky things that are delicious to take with us on the trip.Happy day for Amber! I felt extremely accomplished.
Friday morning came, and me and my three amigos headed to the train station. We had to take a train to Belfast first, then switch to a train for Dublin. It was a solid three and a half hour trip, but it was actually quite lovely outside, and I brought some crocheting (I'm making a scarf).
When we made it to Dublin(!!!) we almost immediately got lost, which unfortunately was not at all an uncommon occurrence that weekend. We either got lost or ended up aimlessly wandering, looking for stuff, basically every time we went out the door. But anyway, so we finally stopped in a money exchange place (they use Euros in the Republic, and all I had was pounds) and they gave us directions to our hostel.
Right, so this is the first time I was ever in a hostel! It was kind of exciting and a little strange; we stayed in a room with a handful of people we'd never met before, but it was super cheap and the people at the desk were really nice and friendly. We each had a bunk and a bin underneath it to store our stuff, and everyone in the whole room shared a bathroom, which was mostly just a little inconvenient.
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| This was my bunk. |
After getting settled in, we headed out. We stopped by Trinity college, though didn't go in since it was almost closing time, then we also stopped by Dublin Castle. It was almost closing time there, too. Closing time for most stuff like that, we found,was between 4 and 6 which was a bit of a bummer. We did stop in this "library" at the castle, though- some guy's personal collection of books, all in display cases. Those books were just... wow. They were old and ornate, some were huge. It was exquisite.
After that, too, closed, we wandered to a rather famous section of Dublin- Temple Bar. We didn't actually go to a bar in Temple Bar (it's uber expensive there) though we did stop at a restaurant for dinner. We had something called Boxty, which is a great traditional Irish food, all made of potatoes, and it was soooooo yummy. We did wander the streets a bit after that, because Temple Bar is a fascinating and lively place that has such a colorful atmosphere.
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| ITS SO DELICIOUS. All of these are potato-based "boxty." mmmm. |
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| Temple bar during the day. |
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| Temple Bar at night :) |
That wasn't even the end of our day, though it felt like it definitely could have been. That night we had plans to go see some Irish Traditional music in a pub. However, as we have developed a propensity for getting lost and wandering, our group also seems to be starting a trend of getting places at the complete wrong time. So, we found a great bar with traditional music, but we found it an hour and a half too early. And so, we walked around Dublin.
It is really a lovely city at night, and there are a good number of spiffy bridges over the water. We were actually taking pictures of one when an Irish guy who offered to take our picture for us informed us that that one was a "nothing bridge" and we should really go see the famous one (the Ha'penny bridge). He said some other amusing things as well, which I, accidentally, caught the audio of; I think I went to hit the off button on my camera and instead hit the record button after I put it in my pocket. That encounter just made the whole walking-around because-we-were-uber-early thing totally worth it, and now I have an amusing, muffled rendition of the whole thing.
We did head to the Ha'penny bridge next, though, and it was very cute. Despite a sign that is clearly ignored, there are a number of locks fastened onto it, each with a little heart or message on it, which I think is adorable.
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| This is the not-nothing bridge that is famous. |
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| This is super mushy and cheesy, but I think it's adorable. |
So, after a while, we did finally go find a pub with live music. It was really fun- we got pulled in by the doorman jokingly proposing to one of the girls I was with, and the musician was quite good. I actually tried a pint of ale! It was super exciting and I actually liked it, which I wasn't sure I would since I hadn't especially liked beer. It was a good evening, though, and the musician played a song I had had stuck in my head literally since we decided to go to Dublin, just because of the first line.
I'm actually missing the first line here, the one that got the song stuck in my head in the first place. It goes, "In Dublin's fair city, where the girls are so pretty," hence why I kept thinking of it. It's called Molly Malone, if I'm not mistaken.
The next day was very very full. Our first stop was Trinity College, to see the Book of Kells and the old library's Long Room. Okay, so the Book of Kells is over 1000 years old! It's one of the oldest Celtic texts in existence, a Latin rendition of the four gospels, in beautiful calligraphy with ornate and detailed illustrations. It was stunning, and- ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh- I could read some of it! I couldn't read much, but it was so thrilling being able to see and understand a 1000 year old Latin text. YEEE!!!! ^_^
Kay, but it gets better. Because, for real, the library. OH. MY. GOSH. I literally had to catch my breath when I entered the room. One of my friends asked if I was going to be okay; I answered yes, of course, but in all honesty I didn't know if that was accurate or not. This library is just... you know Beauty and the Beast? It's BETTER than that one! I have never been so in awe of a room as I was of that one. My heart was doing the most energetic little happy dance, and I was having trouble forming real words.
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| FOR REAL OH MY SWEET GOODNESS BE STILL MY HEART *strangled adoring/overwhelmed/doingbestnottodieofhappiness noise* |
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| There's even a spiral staircase!!!! |
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| There were busts of famous scholars lining the bookcases. |
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| Me, doing an impressive job of not jumping up and down like an idiot. |
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| UNNNNNGGGHEHSJHGLSJDFLKSJDFLKSDLFHSDKGHSDHGLFLSKDJFLKSDJFLKSJDF |
So, yeah. That room kind of made my... well, like, life. Pretty sure this will be forever one of the highlights of my existence. So yeah. Hehe. After that we went in search of the childhood home of Oscar Wilde, which we were disgruntled to find had been changed internally into a college. Lame. But across the road there was a sweet little park with a seriously sassy statue of Mr. Wilde lounging on a boulder. So we went over there and took some pictures with the author of my current favorite novel. : )
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| Seriously, dang. Look at all that snark. |
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| I attempted to match the sass, but I don't think I quite made it. |
Then we headed for the National Museums. First was the National Gallery, where we saw all sorts of beautiful paintings- I recognized a few from some of the classes I'm taking, and then there was a Rembrandt and a Picasso!!! The next museum was the National Museum of Natural History; it was really cool, but kinda creepy. There were a whole bunch of really interesting animals, but they were all, you know, stuffed.
Between that and the next museum we found a park, where we saw some ducks and some swans swimming around ( ^_^) and also got asked to "Irish Dance" by some girl who needed it to complete a challenge. We did, but were really just hopping around so that on the camera, which caught us from the waist up, it would appear we knew what we were doing. Then they kinda just left, and we were left totally confused as to what had just happened. Then we were on our way to the next museum, and detoured through some streets lined with shops and cafes, and a number of street musicians! It was really really cool.
The next museum was more than a bit mind-boggling. It was the National Museum of Archaeology. Dang. Just.. dang. Were you aware that it was even possible for an artifact
made of wood to even survive for over 4000 years? No? Okay, good, well me neither. But apparently that's a thing that happens in Ireland, because of their bogs. I'm sorry WHAT?!?!?!?! Just... HOW IN THE HECK?!?!? You know what's even crazier than a dugout canoe from 2500 B.C.? A handful of
really really well preserved murdered people also found in the bogs. Also from B.C. Because apparently a bog was an excellent place to hid a body, and at least 5 people in 200 and 300 B.C. did so. But no, you don't even understand because
I COULD MAKE OUT FINGERPRINTS!!!!! On a dead guy. From 230 B.C.
FINGERPRINTS. The museum had mummies too, but see I wasn't even interested in those, because... okay, I'm sorry I need a moment.
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| Yup. This baby was found in a bog. |
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| Seriously, read for yourself. I'm not crazy, I swear. |
So yeah. That happened. By that point it was 5:00 and everything was basically closed, so we found a place to eat, then headed back to the hostel to play cards for a couple of hours till it was time for the night life. Okay, so we decided we didn't want to go to a pub that night, and decided instead that we wanted to go to a pastry shop, a little bakery or cafe or something. Apparently all of those close by like, 8. We only headed out by 8:30, and ended up wandering for 2 hours unable to find an open one. Plus side, more exercise/ seeing Dublin at night (again) and more bridges plus a pretty cool boat.
We finally cut our losses and went to a convenience store for hot coco and cookies. The guy behind the desk at the hostel greeted us when we got back with, "Hello, girls! Did you go to the pub, then?" and we, abashedly, had to answer, "Nooo.... we went to Tesco." We could hear the guy in the back belly-laughing and the guy in front of us wasn't doing a good job holding it in either. We smiled awkwardly and headed to our rooms with our quarry. Since it was only ten, we ended up staying up chatting for a while before finally crashing. In the morning, we walked far enough to by some touristy post cards and then hopped on a bus back to Belfast.
Happy day for us, it was a Sunday, which meant St. George's Market was open. So, after getting lost, again, and in the rain this time, we had some delicious lunch there, followed by delicious pastries, followed by me buying the coolest earring ever.
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| I'm super giddy about this. I named her Akira. *shrug* It seemed like a good name for a dragon. |
It was a weekend full of awesome. And a whole lot of walking. I felt no regret whatsoever in buying an extra pastry at the market as well as eating more chocolate when I got home. It has been a really great week, though regrettably quite a pricey one, so probably no outings are going to happen for me this coming week. S'ok, though- I've had quite a lot of adventures this past week, so I think it'll hold me over.
Okay, well that's all for now. Talk to you again soon! ^_^
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