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Geo: 53.3441, -6.26749
We both got loooooots of sleep, much needed sleep, last night. When we got back to the hostel after updating the blog (at an internet cafe), there were 7 Brits partying it up in the room. lol. Which, oddly enough, turned out to be a good thing. It was only 4pm when we got back, and still too early to be going to bed. We were both struggling to stay awake at that point. I was too tired to read or concentrate on anything, but I was falling asleep which wasn't good. So the Brits, one very buzzed/drunk one in particular, kept offering Chris onion rings. lol. Chris kept saying "no thanks" and then he'd try offering the variety of alcohol they had scattered about the room. Eventually Chris said okay and started taking shots, which the Brit found crazy. Chris wasn't using a chaser like they were. I decided that socializing was a much better way to stay awake, so I got off my bunk and joined them. I was so freakin tired that a cup of wine about did me in. After that we had a ton of fun just talking and laughing with the Brits. First
of all, they all have accents, but some of them are really thick. Which makes it really hard. Chris used to give me so much crap about having a hard time understanding accents, and now he FINALLY understands. For example, one of the girls offered us a bar (like a cereal bar with chocolate). She asked if we had "saviel" bars back home. Chris and I were both like, "...Saviel?... What's saviel?..." And then the other Brit starts saying "Cheerios." Which confused us even more because Cheerio is a British phrase. lol. Finally we realized she meant CEREAL. Another thing they were fascinated with was our American money. They don't have single bills like our one dollar- they just have coins for their single pound. So they were thrilled when I pulled out a dollar bill. Like I mean... insanely interested. The really funny Brit (the one who initially kept offering onion rings... he actually kept doing that all night) wanted my dollar really bad. He was making me laugh so much. I said he could just have it, but he wanted to win it off me instead by flipping a coin. Of course I lost it but it's just
Mind the Gap
At first we weren't sure what it meant, but it did seem funny. We realized that when you step from the platform to the train, there's a 9in gap you can fall through. lol.a dollar. Then the other Brit guy bet him for his new dollar bill, and he won it from the first guy, who was very disappointed. He was so excited to have his first dollar bill, and then he lost it. All this sounds so bizarre, I know, but they were freakin hilarious. I was laughing so hard I was crying. We also met an Aussie named Reno who's been travelling the world. He's been to San Francisco and Oakland, and he was telling us a bunch of crazy stories. Like when he first got to SF a girl took a pen and crossed out a huge section of his map and told him not to go there. It was the Tenderloin. He was like, "Oh, why'd you do that? Too touristy there?" She was like "No! It's dangerous." So he was like, "Cool- that's where I'm headed." He was so surprised by how scary the area was. So then of course he visits Oakland. And Chris and I were just like, "Whaaaaaaaaaaat? Why?! People get shot there every week!" He said he knew- that's why he went. lol, stupid. He was drunk at some store and wanted to walk
around to get a pizza somewhere. The store owner refused to let him leave since it was night time and dangerous. The store owner ended up just ordering one for delivery so he wouldn't go out. Reno said Oakland was the scariest city he'd been in in the U.S.- more so then Harlem in New York.
Anyway, we both passed out to sleep at about 7pm and woke up around 6am. We woke up a few times from people goin in and out, but we were so exhausted it didn't matter. We finally got out of bed and went downstairs for breakfast at 7am. We asked the front desk if they had any room on the free tour to Glendalough (it's included in our stay at the hostel since we're staying for 3 nights)- they didn't for today, but we're on the list to go tomorrow! Score! That place is so freakin amazing. I'm excited. =)
So, today we took the DART (which is very much like our BART) to the Howth Peninsula. We ended up walking and hiking for about 4 hours, which is why our feet hurt so much now. First we walked over to Howth Castle (our first
castle for the trip!). It's owned by a cooking school, but you can still walk on the grounds. It's not very big, but still neat to see. Then we walked over to the harbor and looked at the seals, boats and lighthouse. We also poked around the ruins of an abbey that was surrounded by a small cemetery. It's always interesting to look at gravesites- the oldest one we found was from the late 1800s. The actual abbey itself appeared to be locked at first, but it wasn't. So we sorta just snuck in and looked around. There was a tomb in there from a few hundred years ago.
After that we took off on our Cliff Walk. It's the hike I did last time I came to Howth a couple years ago- the one where I got lost and found the half naked German. lol. We did a shorter loop of the hike this time. We DIDN'T see any Germans but there were a lot of other Irish people hiking. We also DIDN'T get lost, but the trail markers were often hard to spot. Sometimes they were low to the ground and others they were way above our head. The
hike was so pretty though. All morning it was overcast, but the the sun came out for a little bit as we were walking the cliffs. It hasn't come out the rest of the day but it hasn't been raining either!
After our hike we were starving, so we got lunch at a restaurant called The Brass Monkey on the harbour. Chris had a spicy sweet potato soup and I had seafood chowder. In Ireland you get brown bread with your soup. I remember Chris asking me to describe it before we left on our trip, and I couldn't. It's closest to wheat bread, but it's thick and not as sweet. It's very filling with soup. We also shared some butternut squash tortelloni. And we had tea (the Irish/British way with cream and sugar). MMmmmmm. And then afterwards I made him try the Irish ice cream. So freakin good. I wish we had that stuff back home.
We just finished getting cleaned up and showered back at the hostel. And lying down for almost an hour. We're already really tired again, but we're going out to a pub tonight to listen to music and get a couple drinks. =)
That's it for now!
I took lots more pictures today (this uploading pics at the internet cafe, at least this particular one, has worked out pretty well! And they're even 8M, Tony!).
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Diana Boggs
non-member comment
This is funny because here only people are wheelchairs are handicapped!