Ireland

Got back from Ireland the day before yesterday, and heres a general summary of what we did:

The first day, we had to catch a train to Mainz, and then a bus from there to the frankfurt Hahn airport. We arrived the night before, because our plane was scheduled to leave at 9 in the morning. So, we booked a hostel that claimed it was near the airport, which was not the case. Because it was just cheaper to stay at the Frankfurt Hahn airport hotel than to pay for the room at the hostel +taxi to and from, we just stayed there. Even if we do have to pay for the first hostel, it's still cheaper than taking the taxi out there. Plus, this way we got our own bathroom and a TV.

The next morning, the flight was fine, though Ryanair is a shady, shady flight company... they hand wrote all our names on our boarding passes. I guess thats what you get when you pay a cent/ticket. We arrived in Dublin just fine, and arrived at our hostel (which was bright blue), which was a block from the main street in Dublin. We got settled, and then walked around for awhile. There was this really cool statue of James Joyce right outside our hostel, I got a picture of it (pictures to come in awhile, when i've loaded them) but only with a fake James Joyce in front of it. That day we just walked around town a bit, took some pictures, looked in some shops and came to the realization that if we wanted to eat, it was going to cost us between 10-20euros/meal, unless we went to McDonalds. That night we went to a movie theater and saw Superbad, which I highly recommend to anyone who likes gross out sex comedies with a bit of heart. The weird thing about the movies there is that, while they show commertials like they do in america, the comertials are terrifying. Not so much the comertials, but the Public Service Announcements. There was one for speeding that was just beyond graphic. After that we checked the map and went to find a bar in the popular "Temple Bar" district, hopefully with traditional Irish music. We found one... which played Irish music for about ten minutes and then switched to classic rock (read: "Sweet Home Alabama"). So after eating some free, rediculously good, chicken appetizer things, we went home.

The next day, we did some more shopping, but actually bought some things. I needed to buy a bag because I packed so lightly, that I didn't have any room to bring anything home... or for that matter a purse to carry my wallet in. So, I bought a beautiful plaid green/brown one that was acutally extremely cheap for its size, compared to all the bags that I had looked at previously. Then we went in search of the National Art Gallery, which was near Trinity College. We got extremely lost in terms of where the gallery was, but never in terms of where the hostel was. We found this really amazing park across the street from the gallery with this sweet statue of Oscar Wilde, and play grounds and big grassy areas. It was my favorite place in Dublin that we found. That night, we got all dolled up (we had to, I bought the most beautiful pink heels. They've got this really cool antiqued rose look to them) and went out. We quickly learned that all the bars advertising "traditional Irish music" actually played "classic rock" and were filled with the 45+ crowd. So, we found a club a little more suited to our tastes and watched this random 55 year old man drink in the middle of the room all by himself (the rest was filled with the 20something crowd). We named him "Awkward Dad". We enjoyed a couple guinness, which was good, but beyond expensive and then booked it home.

the day after that was saturday, and Janessa (the girl i've been travelling with) had an appointment to get a Tattoo. We spent most of the day doing that, because it ended up being really big. It's also one of the most beautiful tattoos i've ever seen. It's a Saint Christopher that takes up most of her left side. That day was boring for me, because they wouldn't let me in the parlor to hold her hand while it was getting done. I had to sit in the lobby with the artist's creepy friend, being creeped upon by him until Janessa came out and said it was going to be another hour or so, so I could go do something else if I wanted... So i went to the hostel and took a nap and read some James Joyce. That night we went back to the movie theater and saw The Kingdom, which I wanted to like, but It just left me with this awful sick feeling afterward. We both just felt physically ill after seeing it, so we went home.

On Sunday, we wanted to go to mass in an irish cathederal, but we didn't get up in time, so we just caught the bus to Galway. Overall, Galway was a much prettier and better city than Dublin. It was cleaner, prettier, and just more likeable. Plus, our youth hostel was amazing. it was the best youth hostel i could have asked for. Super well maintained. I would definately recommend it to anyone. When we got there, the guy at the desk said that if we were interested there was a market going on in town, but only for about another hour, so we dropped off our stuff and then booked it to the market... which turned out to be half a block of people selling things out of the backs of their cars. Its ok, though, because we got to see the main pedestrian street.

Monday, we went on a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher... and we almost missed our bus back to Galway. We were right on time. The tour was super interesting, I wish that we had done more of them. The cliffs were beautiful, but it rained the whole time. I figure, what's Ireland without a little rain, but it's not so much fun to be drenched. We also got to see a ton of O'brian Castles and Tree circles and this old tomb. The Tree circles were really interesting because they're protected by the Faeries of the underworld as the legend goes.

Tuesday, we puttered around the city and discovered this amazing mexican food resturaunt. They don't do Mexican here in Germany, and as U of M students who eat Chipotle and Burrito Loco on a regular basis, we were really excited to get some burritos in our stomachs. Tuesday was really nice and we had a lot of fun walking around town, taking pictures and things (there was another statue of Oscar Wilde that we found. Apparently, Oscar Wilde has a brother - also a writer - who knew?).

Wednesday, we had to check out of our Youth Hostel by 10:30, but we weren't leaving the city until 1:15am on the bus to the Dublin Air Port. I woke up with the worst sore throat and no voice. It was awful. Again, we just puttered around and played some cards with some people we had met at our Youth Hostel. It was fun, but I started to feel more and more sick, and Janessa really wanted to get moving back to Germany, so we caught the 6pm bus instead of the 1:15am one and ended up sleeping on some benches in the Airport. As the day went on, I felt sicker and sicker, and i'm sure sleeping on the benches didn't help. The worst though, was that I had really, truely fallen asleep when a police man poked me and woke me up, asking to see our Passports and flight confirmation number. Of course, it took me forever to find my confirmation number, and it was really scary... and disorienting, having just woken up (and by this time, i'm positive I had a fever). It all turned out Ok. We got on our flight at 7am the next morning, hopped th bus to Mainz, got an earlier train ticket back to Freiburg, met some really nice people on the Bahn and got back by 3pm... at which point I promptly passed out and have been nursing the Flu ever since.

I did go out for pizza last night with my friends, it's so nice to be back in Germany. Leaving Germany made me really home sick for Wisconsin/Minnesota, and coming back to Germany helped, if only to have a group of people around me who are willing to go buy me Ramen(as close to campbells as we can get) and generally help me get over being sick.