An amazing first day in Dublin!
I woke up really early at 5:30am to shower and get ready and to meet Danny at 
Poor Mike though was at the airport for a good 20 minutes waiting for us because our train took a good hour or so. I guess that’s the bad thing about not taking the Gatwick Express, it’s not the “express” service lol.
After some debating we finally decided on Garfunkels I think it was. Danny and Mike got massive “American” breakfasts and I just got a side of hash browns and a cappuccino. Mmmm I love coffee!! I would have coffee on a permanent IV into my blood if I could lol. We were sitting there for quite some time when we realised that we should really be making our way to our gate to board the plane. When we showed our boarding passes this is where our pictures came up that the guy took at the beginning of security. Haha I looked like an idiot! Guess I totally didn’t realise a picture was being taken. Because we were at the end of the queue we didn’t think we were gonna be able to sit together but luckily when we got on the plane there was still 1 empty row so we all got to be together
So our plane officially “took off” at 10:35am when it was supposed to depart at 10am but oh well.
Dublin airport is really nice actually and modern looking. I quite liked it. Immigration was a breeze, the guy just asked me how long I was planning on staying and then stamped a little visa thingy in my passport that was valid until the 15th of June.
After lunch we said good bye to Helen as she had to go to work and we decided to have a wander around. We went to a Pharmacy place so Mike could buy some toiletries etc and then we went to a little ice cream shop and got some really yummy ice cream. Across the street from there was a little souvenir shop so we spent some time in there and looked at all the cute Irish themed stuff. After we left there we realised it was after 2:30 and went back to the hostel to collect our bags and put them in our room. We were on the second floor in room 203 which wasn’t too bad as there was no lift. We were in a 6 bed dorm which so far we could tell had 1 other person staying in it.
Our hostel is located in Temple bar so we got to walk all through that area and see all the little pubs etc. Our first stop that we made was at Trinity College to see the Book of Kells and all the old books. Trinity college is an amazing place and the grounds are soo pretty! I would love to be a student there but it’s also a very expensive school to go to. To get into the library is 7 euro for a student and 8 euro for an adult. You can sign up for a tour of the grounds which includes entrance into the library for 10 euro which is a better deal. We only paid to get into the library but oh well. The book of Kells is made up of 4 books that were written a long time ago in Latin about the life of Christ and are very lavishly decorated.
After we left the library we walked through the grounds some more and took a bunch of pictures. Well I did...Danny the smart boy he is left his camera at home by accident! And Mike was taking some pictures but as anyone can tell I take pictures of EVERYTHING lol. After we left the university we headed to Gratham (sp?) street which Helen told us to go to. I guess it’s like the “high street” of Dublin and that is where a lot of the shops are. As we were walking down it I saw a Guess store and I made the boys come with me to go look at all the pretty purses.
We also saw another “Abrakebabra” store. At first I was like what?? But then I realised...Abrakedabra, AbraKEBABra! What a cool name for a kebab shop hehe. I was pretty amazed by this and of course took a picture. I suggested that we eat at this shop at one point on our trip but Helen later told us that their Kebabs actually aren’t that good so we scratched that idea.
We came to the end of Gratham street and came up to St. Stephens park which was another place that Helen suggested we visit so we decided to take a stroll through the park. As we were crossing the street we saw “Bob the Builder” which is a character from the kids show. We thought that was pretty weird that Bob was walking down the street but then we later saw signs for the “Bob the Builder” play so were assuming that’s what it was for.
St. Stephens park is really pretty and I really liked walking through there. There is a little lake inside with lots of ducks and bridges you can walk over and everything. I just really like parks and one of my favourite things to do is to just lie on the grass and chill out.
When we were walking back from the park to go back to the hostel we walked by a little convenience store that had a sign for Tim Hortons! I was like NO WAY! If you don’t know what Tim Hortons is, let me explain. Tim Hortons is a Canadian coffee chain that has the best coffee and fresh donuts. Im Hortons is also one of my favourite things and I haven’t had any for 5 months since being over in the UK. So obviously I got very very excited and went inside. So inside they had the Tim Hortons stand and logo and everything. They had some of the donuts that Tim Hortons serves but it just wasn’t the same.
On the way back to the hostel we stopped off at a little corner shop and bought some post cards to send to people. We also stopped off at the Marks and Spencer so we could buy something to cook for dinner. We decided since our hostel had a pretty good kitchen we would cook dinner instead of going out as it’s cheaper. Except that Marks and Spencer isn’t really that cheap so we decided to just go back to the hostel and ask the staff there if there was another grocery store near by.
When we got back to the hostel we hung out in our room for a bit and wrote on our postcards etc. I think we checked our e-mails etc as well. Internet at this hostel was 1 euro for 15 minutes or 2 euro for 40 minutes. Then we decided to get up and go shopping. The guy at the front desk told us that there was a Super Value I think it was not too far from us. It was actually only about 5minutes away from us which was pretty sweet. So we went there and we bought some chicken, peppers, bean sprouts, corn, sweet and sour sauce, and some rice. We decided to make a stir dry for dinner. We also bought some drinks for dinner (non-alcoholic as there is no drinking in the hostel!) and I bought some candy. OMG we saw the grossest thing as well in the store. We were looking at the magazines and what not and we saw an “Over 50” porn magazine!!! Oh dear god.
We got back to the hostel and went straight to the kitchen to start cooking dinner. The kitchen is really big and nice but it doesn’t really have the best facilities. There were no knives so Danny had to cut the chicken with a little steak knife. There also wasn’t a good pan so we ended up having to make the stir fry in a regular frying pan and stuff kept falling out over the top! Making dinner was fun though and after we split the cost it only came to 6 euro each which is a lot cheaper then if we were to go out for dinner somewhere. The stove also sucked! It took us forever to actually figure out what burners where which and to get them hot.
As we were finishing up dinner a girl walked into the kitchen who looked and sounded really familiar. She looked like Nell, the girl Melissa and I met last year in Santorini and hung out with for two days and toured the island on ATV’s and did the volcano tour with. I asked her if her name was Nell and it was! How crazy is that! Running into a girl from Europe last year in Dublin! So we got to chatting and I told her that I had been over in London since January and that Melissa has been in Australia since January as well.
After chatting to her for a bit we went back up to our room and met our other room mates. There was a guy who was staying there who lives just outside of Dublin but works in Dublin and sometimes stays in the hostel when he doesn’t feel like driving home. He had booked for the 2 nights like we did but decided to go home anyways. And then there was a couple from Italy who were travelling around. They all seemed pretty nice.
We decided to go check out a couple of the many many bars in the Temple Bar area.
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