Eireann go braugh!

For our second bank holiday (yup, we got off just because it was the last Monday in May) we decided to go to Dublin, Ireland. While going through security for our flight, Bekah’s purse got flagged; and just in case she was a dodgy character, they swiped it for drugs. Instead of being required to take off your shoes when going through security, there is a post-security scan section for just your shoes. Suze and Bekah found this to be quite odd. The flight was a little under an hour, and before we knew it, we were in Dublin.

The city bus took us towards our guesthouse… the Elvis Presley Guesthouse that is. The directions from the confirmation email were a bit vague, and none of the bus stops were announced. Of course, we did not know where ours was precisely, and thus missed our stop. Luckily this bus mishap only required us to walk an extra 3 minutes on level surface, unlike the uphill battle we had in Oxford. After dropping off our stuff, we decided to make our way into the city for some dinner. Since we had no idea where to go, we just hopped off the bus at a stop that seemed popular. Thanks to a map we found at the guesthouse, we navigated our way to the Temple Bar area where we discovered that Dublin was an expensive place! After dinner, we headed home, stopping for Magnum ice cream bars on the way. Bekah had white chocolate and Suze had Temptation, which had caramel and chocolate pieces in the ice cream. In Dublin, it stays light really late. Despite the fact that it was after 9 by the time we were heading home, it was just getting dark.

The next morning, Suze awoke before 8, and Bekah was up shortly thereafter. We went down to breakfast, which was included in the cost of the room. Cereal and milk, tea, instant coffee, and fruit were available on the table. And our hostess from the night before offered to make us fried breakfast consisting of two fried eggs, two sausage links, cheese and toast. This was a highlight of our trip considering we were expecting just some toast. Plus, we needed to fuel up for our day of walking. We walked back into town to walk through Temple Bar which had both a food and jewelry/fashion market. After this, we headed to Christ Church, where we did not go in, but took pictures outside. We moved on to Dublin Castle, which is more like pieces of a castle that was just randomly incorporated into the city. We took some photos there, but again did not go inside as it did not open until later that afternoon. Next we walked on to St Patrick’s Cathedral. There we did go inside, and it was beautiful. It is built on the site where St Patrick is said to have baptized many people in the 5th century. After the church, we headed to the Guiness Storehouse, where they were celebrating 250 years of making Guiness! They took us through the whole process of how the beer is made. Then we went to the very top to the gravity bar which offers a 360 degree view of Dublin. There we were treated to our complimentary pint of Guiness which neither of us finished. Bekah didn’t even come remotely close, but Suze made it halfway. After this, we headed in the rain to the Epicurean market where we wanted to eat lunch. They had many different types of food represented there..Indian, Chinese, Mexican, etc. But we settled on bagels, which were soft and delicious. From there, we headed to do some shopping. We were a bit disappointed in ourselves that we hadn’t bought souvenirs for anyone yet and were hoping that Ireland would be the place. However, we were not that successful. The shopping was terrible or expensive. But we did do a ton of walking! We were really interested in finding some affordable Irish jewelry, but did not have much success, as the two stores we had heard about were no longer there. Amidst our shopping, we stopped off at an internet café to connect with the world, rest our bones, and determine if there was some great shopping area that we were missing. After a long day of walking and not so successful shopping, we were extremely tired. We decided to head to a pub for a traditional Irish meal. We headed towards the guesthouse to try a nearby pub since it would mean a shorter walk after dinner. But, when we got to there, we learned that they did not serve food. So Suze had a beer there and we watched the celebration following Leinster’s win over Leicester (a rugby championship with Leinster representing Ireland. And it is pronounced Linster). We then decided to pick up Indian food on the way home from this little take out place that smelled delicious and was close to where we were staying. We fell into bed exhausted that night while watching Britain’s Got Talent. If you want to see something strange, check out Nick Hell or Darth Jackson. (neither of which are entertaining or talented……….just bizarre. How they advanced to the semi-finals we’ll never know)

Sunday morning we slept in a bit. We had breakfast at the guesthouse, this time prepared by a guy. Suze went down first to have breakfast, and this man ate her toast. She had ordered eggs and got toast with it, but it came on a separate plate. This guy, who did not even have a plate, took a piece of her toast. She was indignant. After Bekah ate as well, we headed for the Dublin Zoo. It was on the opposite side of town from our guesthouse, and we walked about an hour to get there with some of that being uphill! At the zoo, we saw many different animals including farm animals, lemurs, African animals, penguins, and a whole lot more. With the exception of the big cats, the animals were so close, that we could have reached out and petted a rhinoceros if we wanted to! We shared a pizza at the zoo, and then headed out to, you guessed it, shop some more! This time however, we met with some success. We enjoyed the warm sunny day in Ireland, with both of us coming out of the day with small sunburn. We ate dinner that night in a pub.…Bekah had the traditional Irish stew, and Suze had a vegetable soup, which was pureed (we’re not quite sure why but it seems to be the way they prefer their soup in the UK). For beverages, one beer was over 5 euro! So expensive! After that, we headed back to the guesthouse to get some sleep since our flight was at the crack of dawn. Our taxi needed to pick us up at 4:30 a.m. We again watched Britain’s Got Talent (we only had 3 stations, but since we don’t have a tv at the Nurses Home we were quite amused). We saw Susan Boyle sing, and advance to the final round.

On Monday, we woke around 4 am. We made it to the cab, and the cabdriver was way too chipper for that early. After a short 1 hour flight, we were back in England. Following a train ride and bus trip, we finally arrived back home and both passed out!


Word of the Blog: Fringe - what we know in the states as bangs. “After going to six different places in Putney, Bekah finally got a new London-do and some full fringe!”