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Published: March 10th 2010
Thursday, February 18
If you’ve been reading all my entries, you were left with uptight Valerie and Allison finally boarding our RyanAir flight in London.
The flight was great and the landing in Dublin was very smooth. We arrived around 2pm, and ready for the next chapter of our adventure! We collected our suitcase at the baggage claim, refilled it with the contents of our backpacks, bought bus tickets to Trinity College (ask the driver where exactly we should stop and her Irish accent was so strong she had to repeat herself multiple times), and we were on our way to Anna and relaxation!
Neither my or Allison’s cheap European phones had really been working very well outside of France, so we had set up to meet Anna at a pub close to her dorm. Allison and I found it without too too much trouble (it was now about 3:30), had some lunch, and Anna came and met us around 4! It was so great to see her! (For those of you who don’t know I’ve known Anna since we played volleyball together in middle school, and then went to high school together for that one year at
Jesuit…) Anna’s in Dublin for the whole year, so she already knew tons about Dublin and Ireland which was great!
After our late lunch, Anna took us back to her flat and told us that the Notre Dame dance team was in Ireland and was going to perform for all the Notre Dame Ireland Program kids that night, so went all went together (and Allison and I felt a little weird being the only non-Notre Dame kids) but it was sweet to see Irish dancing in Ireland and there was free food there too! I discovered Club Orange here, which is kind of like a mix between Fanta and Orangina, and absolutely delicious.
Anna had a volleyball game afterwards, so Allison and I slept/relaxed in her room, then we all went to a pub when she returned, but came back for an early night (I slept so well.)
Friday, February 19
We had decided to sleep in this day (our first day since vacation started) and we didn’t wake up until 11 which was fabulous. We went to the tourist office to figure out how we could ride horses in Ireland, because one of Allison’s favorite
things in the world is riding horses and riding in Ireland would be like a dream come true. I haven’t ridden for about five years, but I figured I could handle a tourist trail ride.
We had assumed that riding horses in Ireland wasn’t that weird of a touristy thing to do, but judging by our experience at the tourism office, I would guess that it’s not something very many people do. First of all, the woman behind the counter looked at us as if we were crazy, then said we would have to look online (which we had already done, but it was kind of confusing, so we had decided the tourism office would be a good place to go). She turned on her computer and found her glasses in her purse to find something for us online. Luckily, one of her colleagues came over with a paper of a bunch of horse riding places close to Dublin. She gave us the paper and told us to call one of the places to make a reservation. We walked about ten steps away, and then realized that if we wanted to go the next day, we had no way
of calling before they closed. We walked back to the woman and asked if we could borrow her phone, to which she responded that she didn’t usually let people do that, but she supposed she could make an exception. She actually called the places for us, which was really nice, except the first recommended place’s number had been disconnected and the other 5 or so went straight to voicemail. We had just about given up hope on riding when the woman found a phone book and looked up the first riding place and noticed that the number had been written wrong. She dialed again and someone answered! She said, “I’m at the tourism office and have two girls here who want to ride tomorrow…here they are!” and gave the phone to Allison, catching her completely off guard. But everything was in order for the next day!
While we were at the Tourism office we also booked a “Paddywagon” day trip on Sunday to see Glendalough and Kilkenny.
From the tourism office, our next order of business was to find the Dublin Castle, which was supposedly really close. We walked right by it and to a really pretty cathedral
which we thought was the castle. When we asked someone how to get into the Dublin Castle (probably with mild motions toward the church) he motioned to walk back the way we came and look for certain doors. (Oh.) We went back, saw that the castle looked kind of like an office building because it had been mostly remodeled because of a fire in the 1800s-ish, so we decided it wasn’t worth it to go in.
We made our way to the Guinness Factory on the other side of town where we learned more about beer than I even thought was possible. One thing is for sure, people can definitely have a thing for their different beers. Neither Allison or I really liked it, but it was a fun experience/museum type thing and a good thing to do in Ireland. (Also fun fact: the original Guinness guy signed a lease for his brewery for 9,000 years he was so confident in his beer. Wow.)
We took a nice walk home in the sun along the river in Dublin, snuck into Anna’s room (waited until people with keys to let us into the first two locked doors, then got
her roommate to let us into their actual flat—we’re so sneaky).
When Anna got back I went grocery shopping with her while Allison took a short nap. Anna’s plan was to make stuffed shells, but the store didn’t have any shells, so in the ended we pretty much made cheese lasagna, which was delicious.
That night it was one of Anna’s friend’s birthday’s and the friend’s sister in the US had someone booked a private room in a club (Club M) in Dublin. We went and danced and had fun, and found out that a “private room” just means your own large-ish table that’s reserved to put your coats and sit, which was nice. It was really fun hanging out with Anna and her friends!
Saturday, February 20
Today was the day for riding, so we took about a 10 minute train ride to the stables, where we found it was pretty much just like a private barn with an area out front. Be were there about 25 minutes early because of the train times, so we just stood and watched a lesson for younger kids for about 15 minutes until a nice man came up
to us, asked us if we were going on the train ride, asked our experience (when he found out mine, he just said, OK…we’ll put you on Caesar…) and then were outfitted with helmets. We soon discovered that we were the only people on this “trail ride” that didn’t regularly ride at that barn. This freaked me out a little, but it was no problem for Allison because she rides all the time and was pretty much dying over the fact that we were actually riding horses in Ireland.
The Irish guy helped me up onto my horse (by just holding out his hand for me to step in) and I situated myself in the English saddle for the second time ever. I had only ridden English once before, for a period of about 10 minutes. I looked behind me to Allison, asking her how to hold the reigns and before long everyone was on their horse ready to go. There were a few people who worked at the stable on the ride, and as we were taking off the on nice man who had helped us called out to his friend, “I’ll ride here behind the Americans so
I can annoy the hell out of them like they do the rest of the world!” Which caused Allison and I a mix of exasperation and laughter.
They had asked me if I was comfortable walking and trotting, to which I had replied I was in a Western Saddle, but I was still a little surprised when our ride started out with one lap around the arena, then immediately trotting down a rode with cars, through a traffic circle, and into Phoenix Park (the huge park in Dublin). I did OK, but I was a little sore from all the posting! The view was beautiful from the park and there were well over a hundred deer running around which we could get really close to since we were on horseback! One girl just walked around with me while everyone else in the group went off to canter and such (something I was not ready to do).
Overall the ride was a ton of fun and a beautiful way to see Ireland! We got back and Anna gave us a little walking tour of Dublin and Trinity College and took us to The Book of Kells which was really
cool! (The book where the Monks of Ireland in the 5th century wrote down the Bible with lots of really pretty letters and art and stuff.)
The next day, Sunday, we went on our Paddywagon Tour of rural Ireland, which was absolutely beautiful. Despite the driver arriving 20 minutes late at 8:30 and a crowd of people mobbing me and Allison so we were the last ones on the bus and couldn’t sit together for the first leg, the tour was really great. It was cold, but at Glendalough we took a little hike up to lake with a beautiful scenic backdrop, then drove on a road where lots of American movies are filmed in Ireland, and then stopped at an Irish Castle in the afternoon, making an absolutely fabulous day.
When we got back we were exhausted, packed super efficiently for our flight to Paris the next day (and we did it! 14.2 kilo checked bag!) went out for some fish and chips with Anna, then set our alarms for 3:30am so we could make our flight in order to get home in time for our 3:30pm class Monday. (A rough end day to a fabulous February
break.)
Ireland was the one place that Allison and I went where we decided we would both really like to go back someday because we didn’t quite get our fill of the beautiful Irish countryside.
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emily
non-member comment
:)
yayayayayayayyyyyyyy so wonderfulllllll love that picture with the lake in the back