A Visit to the Emerald Isle

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't written in a couple weeks. I decided last week to spare you the boring events that was last week. Last week there was nothing out of the ordinary that happened, pub quizzes and homework. I was chained to my computer finishing yet another essay. It was finished on Tuesday. I was writing a paper for my European History class and had to write about why some countries recovered from the economic crisis of the 1930s easier than others. It wasn't that bad once I got going. On Friday me and some friends went to see the movie There Will Be Blood, which was really good. Daniel Day Lewis really deserves the Academy award for the film. After the film it was off to the student pub right across the street from the dorms to drink the Scots under the table. Saturday I got to sleep in for the first time in a long time...it was glorious. Me and some friends played Monopoly at the Student Union.
This last weekend (March 7th) I went to Dublin to celebrate my friend Jenna's birthday. I had a flight on Ryanair at 11:30, so I left my dorm at 7:45 and walked down to city centre to catch the bus to the airport. I got to Edinburgh airport around 9:30, checked in, grabbed a sandwich and headed to the gate. The plane was only 20 minutes late so it wasn't a big deal. It was raining as me and my fellow passengers walked out onto the tarmac, but it wasn't a big deal. About 45 minutes later the plane landed. It was good to get off the plane! RyanAir is one of the popular heavily discounted regional airlines that are in the UK and Ireland. They are cheap because 1) they cut costs by not providing drinks or peanuts and 2) they pack their planes full of people. RyanAir flights are interesting because you aren't assigned a seat, you just have to get on the plane and find a seat open. It reminded me a little of the bus in middle school, except we couldn't open the windows and everyone talked with either gargled Scottish accents or Brogues. Anyway, we landed and I took the bus into downtown Dublin, where it dropped me off at the front door of Trinity College. We went and ate at a little cafe and caught up. We then took the Luas (Dublin's light rail system) out to her apartment. The trip took about 20 minutes but her apartment is amazing. It's not affiliated with a university and is actually an apartment complex with a landlord and everything. The pad was really nice and new. I met her roommates who were all really nice. Jenna is studying abroad with a company called IES (International Exchange Students... or something like that) in which all of the exchange students go to school at the IES center in Dublin, so technically they are part of the University College of Dublin, but they don't ever actually go to the UCD (or see actual Irish students that go there.)
After a few hours of just chilling, we head into Dublin and go to a few pubs. We were mainly in Temple Bar district which is well known for the actual Temple Bar, and the other hundred pubs in the immediate area. We ended up at this bar that had some live music and it was fun. Around 1 o'clock in the morning, we took a cab back to the apartment, where we all slept.
The next day, we woke up around noonish and though of what to do, two of jenna's roommates had left earlier that morning to go to Glasgow for the weekend (hopefully they went to Edinburgh.) Jenna and I randomly got on the idea of horseback riding and looked into it. There was a place in Bray (not too far away) that had did it, so we called, and asked for the prices. One of Jenna's roommates had friends visiting too and they said that they were interested in going too. So we took the Luas into Dublin, and then caught the DART (the big train system in Dublin) to Bray. Once we got there, we called the stables again to ask how we should get there, and then proceeded to take a cab to the ranch. When we arrived the lady who we spoke to on the phone told us that they don't do horseback riding on the day and that we should have called a few weeks earlier (even though we talked to her twice.) So horseback riding was a no go, but we did get to see the horses and take pictures. Then we took the bus back into the town of Bray and walked along the beach and then walked up the massive hill on the outskirts of the town that was right on the coast. It was a fun walk, we saw 2 rainbows while we were walking. It drizzled a bit but it was fun. Eventually we went back down into the city and took the train back to Dublin.
That night we went on a Music Pub Crawl which was amazing. There were these two guys with several instruments and they played loads of Irish folk songs. The guys led us to a few bars and when it was over, I bought their cd. After the tour, Jenna and her friends and myself went to another pub, we followed a suggestion given by one of the Pub Crawl musicians who told us where there was some good music. We ended up at this pub that had 5 people playing drums, fiddles, guitars, and fifes. It was packed but it was really cool to watch and listen. Eventually, it became a karaoke kind of thing, where people could ask the musicians to borrow their instruments and play a folk song they knew (it was all Irish people who did this, no drunk Americans.)
The following day, Jenna and I explored Dublin some more. Following my dad's suggestion, I bought a tiny leprechaun figurine and we placed it in front of several of Dublin's landmarks. It was awesome. We also went into a toy store and gift shops. We both bought Ireland flags to hang up in our rooms and then we headed back to her apartment. We stopped at Tescos (a grocery store) and bought some food to make for dinner. We had spaghetti and meat sauce and some good wine. After dinner, we made monkey bread for Jenna's roommates and rented Learning Curve starring Catherine Zeta Jones and the little girl from Little Miss Sunshine, it was cute.
I woke up the next day at 7 o'clock and left their apartment by 7:30. I had to catch a plane back to Edinburgh at 9:55, so I took the tram into Dublin and then got on a bus to the airport. I arrived at the airport at 9 o'clock, checked in, breezed through security, and checked which gate to go to. After walking what seemed like millions of miles to the brand new terminal on the other side of the airport, I arrived at the gate only to learn that the flight had been delayed to 11:25! Apparently this is not unusual for Ryan Air flights... I guess you get what you pay for.
Finally we got to board the plane. The flight was fast and easy. I made it back to Edinburgh in the early afternoon. I was exhausted! We had went to bed late and I had to get up early so I was running on practically no gas whatsoever. Once I got back to my room, I took one of the greatest naps ever.
This week is the calm before the storm. I have a paper due next Monday and Thursday, and a presentation on Tuesday, but I'm not worried about it. Then Spring Break! A group of us international kids are going to Holland, Belgium, and Germany during the first week and a half. The other two weeks are still sort of up for grabs. I might be going to Paris and or Spain with my friend Jenna... we're still working on it.

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