Easter Break: Dublin

Tomorrow, when I turn in my last assignment I will finally be done with school in Montpellier! This is kind of sad though because mostly everyone will be leaving the next day. I know I haven’t talked a lot about school stuff I have been doing, but what can I say school is school no matter where you do it. Soon, though, I will post my thoughts on the classes I took! But now to continue with my Easter break posts. Only two more cities to tell you about.

After spending 4 nights and 3 days in Amsterdam we were feeling anxious to get moving to Dublin. I had fun in Amsterdam and was very happy to see it, would even go back again someday, but I didn’t fall in love with it like I have with Montpellier. The day we left we were catching an afternoon flight so John decided to work on a paper in a park, though I’m convinced he was mostly feeding pigeons, while I walked around a bit more. I walked down a street with all the fancy, designer stores and by the Rijksmuseum one last time. Then I headed to H&M to look around. The H&Ms in Europe are soooo much better than the one at Mall of America. Literally, in every city I’ve been to I’ve gone to an H&M. After that I stopped and got a snack at a place called “Chipsy King”, it’s a French fry chain I had been eyeing up the whole time I was there. After that it was on to the airport and then to Dublin.

There is a discount airline called “Aer Lingus” that we just had to take. I think it is much better than RyanAir and the planes are so stereotypical Irish! 

We got there in the evening so we just checked into our hostel, walked around a bit, and ate. Above is a picture of a spire that is in the middle of the town that I had no clue about. The hostel was called the Townhouse and it was really nice for the budget price. Free breakfast, coffee, and tea! 

Our next day started off again with a lot of walking. Warning! Be careful because in Ireland they drive on the wrong side of the road and you are habituated to looking right before you cross the street. They have these “look left” reminders for all the stupid tourists. John told me they have these in London, as well.

First we saw the outside of Dublin Castle.

Then we saw Christ’s Church.

Then we followed the signs to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. John, who is born on St. Patrick’s day, with the Cathedral.

Then we followed the signs to the Guinness Storehouse. It’s museum dedicated to nation’s extremely popular and unique beer in an old storehouse at St. James’ Gate. The making beer process is cool and what not, but what I found the most interesting is that Arthur Guinness, in 1759, signed a 9,000 YEAR lease on the land. How does that happen??? Looks like Guinness will be around for a long, long time.

 I also really enjoy their old advertising campaigns.

At the end you get a pint of Guinness and get to take in a 360 degree view of the city. The rest of the day we walked around some more, passing many hip shopping areas and pubs. I believe we also walked around Trinity College in the afternoon for a little bit. 

Friday we were super tired and hung out at the hostel most of the morning. This was just fine by me because we had a TV with shows in English and I got to watch the royal wedding live! We did see Dublin’s oldest pub (established in 1198) and had a nice evening stroll alongside the Liffey.

Saturday we toured the old Jameson Distillery, yet another important and famous Irish export. Then went to two free photography exhibits and got snacks in a main area called, Temple Bar. Then we walked to Pheonix Park, which is enormous. After only seeing a tiny portion and feeding a swan we were super tired and just wanted to take a rest. 

It is the largest walled city park in Europe and is home to a wild herd of fallow deer, the Dublin zoo, and a few monuments. We only saw Wellington Monument and a little bit of a cricket game.

Later that night we enjoyed our last views of Dublin at night and our last dinner of our trip. 

The next day our plane to Frankfurt wasn’t leaving until 8pm, so we had made plans to visit this huge and free decorative arts museum in an old military barracks and then take the tram to the pier. Our plan didn’t work out so well because when we showed up to the museum at noon it wasn’t open until 2pm! We wanted to leave for the airport early by 3:30pm because John had more paper writing to do, so that was a bust. The building was still cool to look at.

Then when we took the tram all the way to the end we realized the further parts of pier were a longer ways away than thought and not very accessible by foot. We walked as long as we could then turned back around and left.

Me excited to be on the top level on the double decker bus on the way to the airport. Overall Dublin we really enjoyed Dublin. It certainly wasn't as pretty as Amsterdam, but all the people we welcoming, there were free things to do, and the food was delicious. Especially the complementary Irish breakfast we got at our hotel every morning. Irish breakfast includes...sausage, thick bacon, beans, fried tomato, fried egg, hasbrowns, toast, juice, and coffee! I also ate "banger and mash" or sausages and mashed potatos, a meat pie, and had a bite of John's Irish stew. 

Ok one more last random thing I liked about Dublin. The Irish accents, of course, and that all the signs were in English and in Gaelic. Took this picture for my Nick back home. 

Next post I will be sharing about my return to the dreaded Frankfurt-Hahn airport and the long, but well worth it, journey back to Freiburg!

P.S. Wishing my momma good travels on here way to Montpellier tomorrow night/Friday.