Dublin Shenanigans

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After my wonderful experiences in Wales I was a little bit over it all. I'd spent two nights all alone in the hostel in Caernarfon and was ready to move on. Don't get me wrong, I loved Wales and if you look at my Facebook photos you'll see just how beautiful it is. But I was lonely and ready for some excitement.

So I jumped the bus to Holyhead, the ferry to Dun Laoghaire and the DART (train) to Dublin. I'd booked myself into the only available hostel simply so I wasn't stuck in northern Wales with nothing to do for the next two days (nothing works on a Sunday, just like Beaudesert). It was more than a little sketchy but I met some cool kids from Cambridge who had just been to the Radiohead concert. They invited me to hang out with them and so the Dublin shenanigans officially began.

The next morning I started to get a little worried when five consecutive cashpoints wouldn't give me any money. I think one even ate 80 Euro of mine because the dispenser was broken. So I was stuck in the middle of Dublin on a Sunday morning with no shops open, no money and a phone that didn't have international roam. I was entirely cut off.

Now, the old me would have panicked and quite probably flipped out. Thankfully, those days are no more. I simply perservered and finally found a machine that wanted to give me money. I took a tour of Dublin and checked out the Writers' Museum, which was awesome.

I was exhausted so I headed off to my new hostel for a nap. And that's where the trouble officially began.

I was woken from my nap by two very loud Canadian girls who then invited me out for "a pint". Five hours and five pints later, we stepped out of Temple Bar and stumbled back to the hostel, much poorer but firm friends.

The next day I checked out the Guinness Storehouse, where I had the best Guinness of my life and saw the best view of Dublin possible. The bar at the top of the Storehouse (where the Guinness is free!) has a 360 degree view of Dublin and the surrounding hills. It's absolutely beautiful!

The next few days were the same - sightseeing throughout the day and going out with Danielle and Shannon at night. Until the day that they left very early in the morning to catch their plane to Portugal. We thought that was it for us, but our friendship wasn't to end there.

Later that same day I was walking across the bridge that crosses the Liffey (the river that divides northern Dublin and southern Dublin) talking to Ben on my mobile. Suddenly I heard my name being screamed out and turned to see Dan and Shan yelling at me out the window of a bus. They'd missed their plane to Portugal and would meet me at the hostel, they said.

It was later again that day when I was walking along the street and physically ran into them coming out of a restaurant that we knew our friendship was meant to be. We went out that night one final time, dragging along a Canadian (yes, Ireland is full of bloody Canadians!) guy named Kyle that we'd just met.

When the girls finally caught their plane to Portugal, we thought that we'd seen the last of each other, though Kyle and I had decided to travel together for a while.

Apparently the universe had different ideas ...

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Comments

[Rebecca]

Brewhouse of joy
How awesome is the Guiness Brewhouse?!?! When I went we were only allowed 1 free pint of Guiness... Mind you when I got back to Australia I noticed a pint glass with the Guiness logo on it had magically appeared in my bag wrapped up in a jumper. And the view was awesome even if it's not a completely clear day :)