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Published: February 19th 2007
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Sunset over the Liffy
This was taken when we arrived, it was a gorgeous sunset! Wow, I have soo much to tell and hundreds of pictures from this weekend! It was a whirlwind overview of Dublin and London and I had a blast! I will get right into what we did, since this will be a long entry...
Dublin
We arrived in Dublin at dusk on Thursday, so we just went to our hostel and then went to dinner in the Temple Bar district. Our hostel was really cool and a great location right on the River Liffy across from the Four Courts Building. The view from our room was amazing! So we went to dinner, at a traditional Irish place, I only had fries and salad (cheaper and vegetarian), but they were good. Then I had my first Guinness. After that, we went to this really big, traditional bar and listened to Irish music all night! It was soo amazing to be there with all the Irish people (and lots of tourists), but many people knew the choruses of the old songs and the band was really good. The banjo player was actually world famous and his portrait was on the wall of the bar. I took lots of little videos of it,
Welcome Sign
This was our cool hostel! but I am not sure if I can post those here.
The next morning we got up and went to Trinity College and walked around, it was graduation day, so we weren't let into many of the buildings, and then we left and decided to do a tour bus around the city which we could catch every 10 minutes at all the major sites of the city. So we went around on that for a bit and heard some history, then I wanted to get off and take a tour of Dublin Castle. That tour was really great, I loved our guide, she was such a cute, typical Irish woman. I really didn't know much about the castle beforehand, but it was the site of the first Viking fort, and the walls built when Ireland was first conquered by the British, and now is used like our White House, as the center of the administration. And another interesting fact was that Ireland has had the longest stretch of female presidents in the world. I thought that was cool. After that, I went to St. Patrick's Cathedral and sat in the courtyard next to it and watched some adorable dogs
Stairs in the hostel
there were cartoons on all the walls with interesting facts, really fun! playing...I have a video of that. I then wandered around, I actually ended up in a Gaelic part of town on my way to meet the others at the Guinness Storehouse. It was interesting, I actually saw a kid practicing hurling and heard people speaking Gaelic. Then the Guinness Factory was cool, it was huge! It was all just propaganda for Guinness, brainwashing everyone to think it is the best possible beer on earth...I liked the part about how they made the barrels that stored the beer the best actually, and the advertising was cool too. At the end, we got our free pints of Guinness (with clovers in the foam!) and hung out for a bit at the Gravity Bar which had a great view of the city. After that, we wandered down O'Connell Street and had dinner at the hostel and went out that night.
The next morning, we actually didn't time our airport trip correctly so were were late and ran through the airport, freaking out that we might miss our plane to London, then only to find out that it was delayed. We ended up leaving an hour later than scheduled. It was a pretty
Hostel Room
This was our room, with a great view of the Four Courts building out the window! comical situation looking back on it, now I can say I have run through an airport like in Home Alone or so many other movies...hehe. Then on to London...
London
We arrived in London around 4 or 5 so we grabbed sandwiches at a cafe and went to the hostel. The hostel was cool, it was right on the edge of Hyde Park. Next we decided to go to do the London Eye (huge ferris wheel). So that was really cool, long line and hard to take good pictures at night, but it was cool to see the city from so far up. It was a really great view of Big Ben (Houses of Parliament) and Westminster Abbey and the River Thames. The Eye was pretty amazing, and soo much bigger than you think! It was fascinating to watch how it worked, as well as take in the views. It was really interesting that we got into the little pods while it was still moving! It was not too scary, but unexpected, they just tell you to go quickly and you jump in while it is going around. After that, we walked over the Thames to take more
Four Courts Building
This was taken right in front of our hostel! pictures of the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. Then we were cold and wanted to get up the next morning early so we went home.
The next morning, we got up, walked across Hyde Park to Buckingham Palace. In Hyde Park we tried to see the Peter Pan statue, but we passed by it got a little lost so we just decided to skip it. Buckingham Palace was actually not so impressive, the building is quite plain, the gate I think is more impressive and elaborate. And, the Royal Guards were behind the gate, so we could not take pictures with them or harass them, and also they were in their winter gray suits, so not the typical bright red! So that was a bit of a let down. Then we headed over to the Tower of London and took a tour there. We took the tour with a Beafeater, he was really funny and told us lots of stories of the Tower of London. Then, we wandered around on our own and saw the Crown Jewels and an armory museum. When we were looking at the crowns, it was interesting because they were in this display case
Irish Band
This is the Irish band we listened to all night. in the middle, and there were two moving sidewalks on either side, and we just stood on them and watched the crowns as you were moved along. I thought it was pretty comical. I loved the Tower of London, it was my favorite museum or building complex yet. It was so important historically and had so many uses and different parts that were built at different times for different purposes. I would have loved to spend the whole day there, but we had to get going and see the Tower Bridge and London Bridge and head back to the airport soon. The Tower Bridge was quite impressive, we didn't get too close, but took lots of pictures. Then we went to the London Bridge which was definitely the most disappointing part of the trip! The London Bridge is very ugly and modern concrete, it was not what any of us had expected. I had actually watched a documentary about it a long time ago, but I had forgotten/not believed that the London Bridge was actually in Arizona. I just looked it up on Wikipedia and there have been tons of London Bridges, the most famous was the one with shops
Famous Banjo Player
This was the banjo player's portrait on the wall. and people's heads on spikes and that was destroyed when a new one was built in 1831. The New London Bridge was sinking, so they sold it to an American entrepreneur who moved it (most of it) and reassembled it in Lake Havasu City in Arizona. That was the last thing we did in London, after that we just grabbed lunch and went to the airport.
I am still shocked by the fact that I am in Europe and can go on these trips! Paris in a few days! I must go to class...until next time.
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