6.18 Dublin

Are we there yet?!
After returning from Barcelona at 7pm, we were off the next morning at 3am on a two hour bus to get to the airport for our 6:30am flight to DUBLIN. I remembered that my mom mentioned wanted to go there. Since it hadn't worked out to take a weekend there in the short time we had, I thought a day trip could be fun. I didn't realize how strenuous it would be, especially after coming back from Barcelona late the day before. I got an amazing deal, the plane tickets were only about $30 USD per person. What a steal!

We arrived in Dublin exhausted! First we checked out Trinity College. We got a Hop On Hop Off bus (the red, double-decker ones you always see in London) ticket and rode that throughout the day. We did a little shopping. Coming from London where the fashion is expensive casual and Barcelona where the fashion was varied but people really worked their style, Dublin was kinda a dud. People were wearing bland clothing all in the earth tone family.

For lunch we went to an amazing little pub where they had live music (which sounded so Irish) and good roast beef. It was a quaint atmosphere. At this point I was wearing down. It started pouring rain. I put my scarf over my head and ended up looking like a beggar child.

We went to the Guinness factory as well. I had been to the Heineken factory before, so all beer is pretty much the same. It was interesting to see, much like how Detroit was built around factories, Dublin was built around the Guinness factory. The entire town revolved around this beer making industry. Also, I loved seeing the old advertisements. One said that pregnant mothers were prescribed a pint of Guinness because it makes you "robust" and healthy. How time have changed. Also the political incorrectness of racism apparent in the ads is also interesting.

We continued to the airport at about 7pm, exhausted. We got back to London at about 11pm, exhausted. We took the bus home and got back to Hatfield at 1:15am, exhausted. As tiring as it was, I was so happy to go. We were planning on going (once again) to the walking tour in London the next day. That didn't happen. We slept in and read our books all day and relaxed after two days of intense traveling. This is the point I realized I would have been in Barcelona, London, Dublin, London, Boise, and Hanover, NH all in a seven day period.