Jon Across the Pond: Bristol and Dublin Part 2

Although its been awhile since our trip, I haven't posted part 2 yet! So here goes.

I was (well we all were) pretty excited about going to Ireland and I think we overall had a pretty "Irish" experience while there. We first arrived on that Friday night. We had to wait quite awhile for a taxi since we got out of the airport just after the last bus had left to the city. Therefore, the taxi line was pretty long but very efficient. Our taxi driver was a cool old man who talked to us about how all the rabbits in Ireland were exterminated by a medical experiment... who knew. We put our stuff at our hostel and walked around a little bit, soon discovering that we had severely underestimated the number of tourists in Dublin that weekend (U2 was performing every night that weekend and since they are from Dublin, it was basically a mecca for all U2 fans). That's also why when we got back to our hostel (interestingly named "The Shining") and found that our room was already taken. We had to switch rooms, but it was okay considering the new room had a bathroom adjacent to it. It was my first experience in a hostel, sharing a room with about 18 other people. But you can't beat 20 dollars a night in Dublin.

Our Hostel: The Shining

The next day found us pretty tired, so we decided to take it easy and visit Trinity College and some museums (Book of Kells, Yeats exhibit, Museum of Archaeology, etc.). That night we went to a traditional Irish pub where we listened to Irish music and saw a great performance by a traditional dance group. I discovered I quite like the Irish style of music. I forgot to mention the great parks that Dublin has. There are plenty of awesome gardens/parks to walk around in and sit and eat, whatever really.

Trinity College

Sunday was a long day filled with some more great experiences and walking a lot. The great thing about Dublin, however, is that you can walk from one end of the city to the other and not have to take a bus, taxi, or anything else. We began the day by visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral. We actually attended the service as well and the sermon spoke of the treatment of women in the Church... it was neat and a great experience going to church in an Irish cathedral. We had lunch in a nice cafe afterwards and watched some skateboarding boys trying to do ridiculous stunts so the Monster energy drink truck would give them free energy drinks. We had some time to kill and it was entertaining. Towards the afternoon we did what every tourist in Dublin does: go to the Guinness brewery. It was quite a walk to the outskirts of the city where the brewery was located but it was definitely worth it. The visitor center itself was about 7 stories high, complete with an interactive tour of how Guinness is made and a skybar at the top that had a 360 view of the whole city.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Skybar at Guinness Brewery

Our flight was leaving at 4 or 5 the next morning so we ended up going to the same Irish pub, hanging out for a bit, and then catching a taxi to the airport around 12. Most of you know I can't sleep unless I'm in a bed somewhere so 3 of us stayed awake at the airport getting coffee and trying to do some homework, which failed. We were all feeling exhausted on the plane and train rides back but we finally made it back to Oxford at around 10:00 am. I'm glad I didn't have class that day... I took a nap for a few hours after getting back to my room.