Fall Break!

Well hello everyone!

Wow, it really has been an incredibly busy, eventful, and amazingly fun traveling experience lately! Everything that I had put on the itinerary (below) we did! This all started out SUPER early on the morning of Friday, Oct 17. I woke up at about 2:45am after lying down at about midnight. Everyone got ready for the next big 10 days ahead of us and we took 2 buses and a train to get to Heathrow airport (I have now been to 3 of the 4 London airports, and 2 of them multiple times!) Our flight to Dublin left at 7am, and thank God it did. I think all of us were a little antsy/nervous/way too excited for the trip to come that we were going crazy before the plane took off. Thankfully, once we were in the air everyone calmed down and we started off the trip VERY well!

We flew over England, and water, and finally got to Ireland, the greenest place I have ever seen. We landed in Dublin and went straight into the city centre, which is right where our hostel was! We stayed in a 16-person hostel for our time in Dublin, and most of our other occupants were guys - a few from France including one named Fabio. Really. After we checked in/put our luggage down, we went for breakfast at a place called Murphy's around 9:30am and found out that it really can be too early to order an Irish coffee. Who knew? Since we had the whole day ahead of us we made the most of it by seeing all of the sights we could.

We started by making our way to Christ Church's Cathedral - shown above and below.


The girls were so funny on this trip - they all know I keep a blog and have all seen it now, so they were constantly saying "Janae! Do you want a picture for your blog? Can I be on your blog?" And on and on...when really they all are already on here! This is Erica, me and Mary Kate at Christ Church's Cathedral.

And here's Mary Kate and Veronica trying to figure out what way we should go. I love free maps that hostels/hotels give out. They just make life so much easier and always have the things that tourists want to see really BIG on the map. What convenience. We took a tour of Dublin Castle, but there was a little time before the next tour started so we went to the park outside of St. Patricks Cathedral. The Cathedral was getting a facelift, but it was still SO cool. And here I am eating the waterfountain. I told you, 2:45am.

You want me to be your queen? Ok, Ireland.
Inside Dublin Castle in the Throne Room, obviously.

I feel like every city we visit in Europe is connected by bridges! Here is one of the coolest-looking ones in Dublin (in my opinion.) We saw this as we were walking to the National Gallery of Modern Art, and then to Kilmainham Goal (Jail.) I got locked in all alone.This place just beats you up. Now I am in a jail cell.No, this really was an amazing sight. This is the jail in which many Irish heroes were imprisoned. It was not and still is not heated so it was very cold inside, but has been the sight for many movies and TV shows, especially for execution scenes. There are writings and paintings all over the walls of the jail cells from their former inhabitants. It was such a cool yet woeful thing to see.

After this tour, we walked to a place called the Black Lion for our dinner. The waitress was literally the coolest person I think we met in Dublin. She talked to us all night and got us everything we wanted, including things we didn't even ask for. And to Banni (who is Sikh and cannot eat meat or drink alcohol because it is against her religion) she said so poetically in her Irish accent: "So, ya don't drenk and ya don't eat meat. And yous came on holiday te Ireland?" She is not the only vegetarian in our group nor the only one who doesn't drink, but it was just so funny how the woman said it that we laughed about it for days afterwards.

Then, we trekked back to our hostel to get all settled in for the night. We went out for about an hour and then decided it was best to get a good night's sleep.

Well, this is only the first day and we already had done and seen SO much. We were all so ready to keep up our pace and I will share all of the other days with you throughout these next few days! So, keep checking back to see everything.

I hope everyone had a great week while I was gone. And, just as another fun fact - if you are in the SD/MN area I am only 5 hours ahead of you for this week and this week only. Daylight Savings Time began this last weekend (we had to change our clocks in Paris!) and for you guys it is not until next weekend. So, we are bridging the gap for a week!