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Published: August 21st 2008
Greetings from the land of Leprechauns! We arrived in Dublin Ireland yesterday, after another hellish morning/afternoon of early wakeups, metros, trains, and planes. Although, we complain less, because nothing can compare to the Interlaken to Barcelona adventure you have all read about. Anyways, I digress.
So Ian has already been here and done that, but its new to me! The city itself is very interesting, a great big dichotomy of hip, trendy shops and olde Irish pubs that have been around for hundreds of years. It somehow all flows together to make a unique, and completely amazing, big city with a little city feel. The people here are some of (if not THE) nicest people we have met as of yet. For example, I was getting off the bus here in Temple Bar with my backpack, and a man who was getting ON the bus insisted on lifting it off for me. Everyone is also VERY helpful with directions and customer service at stores is impecable. It's a very welcome change, that's for sure.
Last night we went on a Musical Pub Crawl which was neat, despite the fact that we were 2 of maybe 5 people under the age of 45. We basically hopped from pub to pub, visiting some of the oldest and most famous pubs in the area. We were led by 2 musicians who played and sang traditional Irish songs as people drank and had a good time. It was pretty neat, though it got a bit boring by the end. Irish music is very beautiful though, so there isnt much to complain about!
Today we took the Dart, which is an above ground commuter train within the county. We stopped first at Howth, a small fishing village about a 20 minute trip away from the heart of Dublin. This reminded me a lot of Seaport Village in San Diego, but with an older feel. We walked along the pier, in view of towering green cliffs and hills. We even saw sealions! We had a bit of icecream and took the next train to Malahide. Here we walked to Malahide castle, through trails and paths within the forest which I swear pixies live in. The trees were bright green and mossy, and ferns and flowers were plentiful. We arrived at the castle which was the most "sand castle-like" of all the castles I have seen yet, if that makes sense. Like something you would see in Robin Hood. After that, we came back to Dublin and are now going to go see a movie.
Tomorrow we head to Galway, which is a little more north and a lot more west of Dublin. We bought the hostel there at the last moment which means we got stuck with separate rooms. Kind of a bummer, but maybe we can work something out. Its our last city!!!! 😞
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anonymous
non-member comment
I love their accents, don't you?!