I realized on the bus on the way to the airport in Pisa that my camera was still safely in my apartment, so Dublin lives on mostly in my memory, not in pictures. I arrived on Thursday and proceeded to get incredibly lost attempting to find the apartment I was staying in with some family friends, Anna and her mom Ursula. The bus dropped me off about 4 blocks from my final destinations, and I proceeded to walk in circles around the same 4 blocks for the next hour. After finally finding it, I went out exploring and after walking for about 2 minutes it started to downpour, so I went to an adorable little cafe and ate some lunch. The rain cleared while I enjoyed a chicken and avocado sandwich on some hearty wheat bread-- something I had been missing in Italy, and I was able to wander through Saint Stephens Green for awhile, before doing a little window shopping. While wandering the streets of Dublin I encountered a band performing on the street playing Wagon Wheel which really just made the day perfect. I had dinner back at the apartment, and then went out to some pubs. We ventured out to Temple Bar where Ursula bought me my first beer which I -almost- finished! This pub featured two middle aged men performing butchered Johnny Cash numbers (is just doesn't sound right with an Irish accent!) but was still a lot of fun!
The next day was Ursula's Birthday, so we ate carrot cake for breakfast, since, you know, carrot is a vegetable so its healthy. We then visited Trinity College and saw the Books of Kells, and had lunch on O'Connell street, where I enjoyed some traditional Irish lamb stew. I then check into my hostel-on my walk over I ran into two friends from UNC- and Katie arrived! We met up with our friend Nicole (all of Chapel Hill was in Dublin!) and enjoyed a Thai dinner. After this we went to a pub that features some slightly better music, and made friends with a group of slightly intoxicated 30 year old men. They continually invited us to a party they were having the next day-- we declined-- and we eventually left them after one, for reasons unknown to us, decided Katie was a street performing and gave her very in-depth tips on where to perform when. We then headed to a club, where the DJ played lots of Mumford and Sons and Ferris Bueller's Day Off on was being projected on a loop, needless to say, we loved it! After having danced all we felt necessary, we left the club and were met by a wonderful scent-- burgers! We ducked into a little late night burger joint, where I enjoyed my first cheeseburger in quite some time, as well as some delicious fries (I learned not to call them french fries here). We also encountered some friendly boys who go to Trinity college, and they had fun making fun of America tourists while we made fun all the Hollister they were wearing.
Maybe it was because it was Saint Patrick's Day weekend, or maybe Dublin is just always crazy, but we decided to go home and get some sleep at this point, and there were so many people still out and about that we thought it couldn't be later that about 1am, only to discover it was 3am! We all headed home at this point to get some rest.
The next morning, after a quick breakfast of porridge, we went on a bus tour of Dublin, but not just any bus tour, our "bus" turned into a boat and went into the river and we wore viking helmets and screamed at other tourists all along the way
It was a great time, and the driver pointed us to the oldest fish and chips place in Dublin, which we happily enjoyed after the tour
I discovered that I LOVE FISH AND CHIPS! (yeah Dad, I like fish!)
After lunch we went to food fair of sorts, with food from different places all over the world, and I was DELIGHTED to find Turkish Delight, something I've been searching for ever since Edmund enjoyed it in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe when I read it in 3rd Grade. The women selling it did not really understand my delight but was happy to sell it to me. While discovering it was fun, it wasn't really all I dreamed of.. Somehow sweets without chocolate never seem complete to me.
After this we lounged at the hostel drinking coffee (or hot chocolate in my case) and watched the cold rain from the comfort of warm couches. We signed up for a pub crawl, (because we didn't go to enough on our own?) and then enjoyed some wonderful Indian for dinner. We then headed to the Temple Bar area, where we ran into yet another friend from UNC
(Lauren, Me, Katie and Nicole)
Our experience with the pub crawl was less than stellar, we somehow missed the free drinks at every pub, did get the free pizza but we had just finished an insane amount of Indian food so no one had any desire for "especial vegi-table" pizza, as our Spanish tour guide called it, which featured corn and onions. Nicole's wallet was stolen in one of the pubs, which definitely put a damper on things, we dropped her off at her hostel to sort things out but, it being my last night in Dublin, and because her hostel had very strict rules that didn't let us stay there with her, we ventured back to the pub crawl, which had made its way to a club, where we met an Irish girl who attempted to teach us Gaelic, and an adorable girl from Louisiana, who we went to The Temple Bar with. This is the most famous pub in Dublin, and a mad house! A stranger painted a shamrock on my face without asking me (he did a pretty good job, so I was was okay with it) and then told me repeatedly that he was from Argentina and the pope was his dad. We also meant some guys from Tuscany, (the region of Italy that Florence is in) one of which could not resist to urge to touch my dimples, which I did not appreciate at all and quickly got away from him. We then met an Irish guy named Conor who seemed to think we were annoying but proceeded to hang out with us for the rest of the night, coming with us to a diner for milkshakes (all of the late night food in Dublin is American!) and walking us back to our hostel, covering me and Katie's eyes when we walked past a drunk man being put into an ambulance on the way there. We got to our hostel and considering it was near 5am quickly fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning, sadly packed up all my things, and we met Nicole for a traditional Irish breakfast, which included 3 kinds of sausages and tomatoes (I'm sticking with pancakes). We watched the Patty's Day parade, and found more interesting than the actual parade the people watching it. People do all kinds of things to get a good view, from bringing a ladder to standing on telephone booths, and everyone does it, we saw an entire family on top of a telephone booth and and elderly couple perched on a window ledge. The parade shut down most the roads in the center of the city, so we had to walk for awhile to find a cab to the airport, but I eventually did, and sadly had to leave Dublin. I found another friend from UNC at the airport, and was on the same flight as 4 girls on my program in Florence.
This flight was to Rome, and this is where things went downhill. I had looked into the trains back to Florence and was sure there were many, but somehow miscalculation and there was only 1 more train leaving for Florence that evening from Rome. We got there around 11pm and the train left at 11:30, the other girls already had tickets so they went to find seats,and I attempted to buy a ticket. The ticket booths were all closed so I had to use an automated machine, which said there were 2 seats left on the train, however for some reason would not let me buy a ticket. When I was trying it at my 3rd machine, a man was lingering behind me, I am really not sure why because there were lots of open machines, he may have been attempting to pick-pocket me, but I asked him for help, and he proceeded to try about 10 different machines, I am really not sure why, each said the exact same thing, and he did not speak English or Italian so I really had no way to communicate with him, all in all he was not much help. The customer service desk was still open but the women there just told me to go buy my ticket from the machine and if it didn't let me she couldn't help me. I eventually accepted around 11:29, one minute before the train left, that I was not leaving Rome that night, and bought a ticket for the 6am train. I then wandered through the station trying to find something open where I could hang out for the night, but the entire station shut down at midnight, so I called a friend in Florence to get help finding a hostel for the night, since a new pope had been elected 3 days before and Rome was pretty crowded. She found one for me that was available and close to the train station, and tried to direct me, but somehow I never seemed to end up where I should, and after about 15 minutes of wandering lost, a homeless man cam running down the street, screaming, and waving his arms at me. I was terrified and ran into the nearest hotel, desperate to be somewhere other than on the street. I asked the man at reception if they had any rooms available and he replied with "a double room?" which somewhat confused me since I was clearly alone. Maybe be was hallucinating two people because his was looking 3 feet to my left the whole time, never at me. I told him I would prefer a single room, but would take anything, and ended up paying 60 euro for a double room in a pretty shabby hotel. I went up to my room, thinking of taking a shower, and discovered that the towels were the material of tablecloths, and also that the shamrock from the night before, which I had not been able to get of that morning but though nothing of then, was still on my face. I scrubbed it off and attempted to get some sleep, glad to not be eaten by a homeless man but still very nervous. I got on the train at 6am and was back Florence, exhausted but glad to be alive, by 10am on Monday.
Sometimes you make it out of Dublin on Saint Patrick's Day unscathed but a homeless man tries to attack you in Rome.
