Ireland and My New Home Called The Basement

Well, since I last wrote, not much had happened until this past week when I went to Dublin. To recap the last few weeks, let's just say that the basement has recently become my new home. I am bored 99 percent of my days here because I have no money to spend on anything fun, and I'm tired of walking around looking at the same things over and over. So, I am wasting my time in the basement trying to write two papers but failing and just watching movies and talking with friends. I'm not the only international student who feels this way either, thank goodness. Every person I've talked to said that they are quite sick of being here, and it's too expensive to do anything, and since all our classes have ended, we have hours on our hands with nothing to do. I can only name a few things I've done that have been even remotely fun.

One day I spent with Juliet was really nice and relaxing. It was a gorgeous day out in Brighton, so we took a walk that turned into an entire day of walking around and hanging out. We window shopped (Juliet actually shopped, haha) all day, which is always fun and FREE. We also stopped off at a cafe where I sipped on a delicious smoothie (only 3 pounds, which isn't cheap for me, but cheap for them, so oh well), and Juliet sipped on a cappucino. We shared a delicious spinach pie from across the road, and just sat in the sun talking about everything under the sun and enjoying each other's company. It was also nice because we were all scrubby looking and didn't care for once in our lives. The thing I've noticed most about England, in general, is that everyone dresses up, and it's very hard to get by with just wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, or, GOD FORBID, sweatpants. It's just unacceptable here. However, this day, Juliet and I were "decked out" in our running clothes. Me, in my shorts and long sleeved shirt, and her in her pilates outfit. Pretty much awesome, in my eyes, :). We even got a chance to walk around Kemp Town (the Gay Pride area of Brighton), and we shopped for housing for Juliet as well as taking in the sights. It was really great.

Another time worthy of note was a Friday where a bunch of friends and I went to a Greek Restaurant down the road. The reason this is worthy of note is that you just don't go out very much here to real restaurants because it's SO expensive for us international students (especially Americans), so this was a real treat. I got REAL food, for a change, and had an amazing time hanging out with Juliet, Dean, Ryan, Greg, Lauren, Ramsie, and Jen. I even slipped in a bit of embarassment when I started saying "my beef balls" were coming (because that's what they were, people), but apparently, I am friends with "immature" people (jk), and they found it HILARIOUS. Anyways, the waiter heard me say it, so when my meal came up, he announced, "who had the beef balls?" It pretty much cracked me up. Good times.

The day after this great meal, me, Greg, Ramsie, and Lauren went out for a lil' mini pub crawl. We stopped off at Font, which I've mentioned before, where I spent an hour just trying to ORDER my drink, and then proceeded to have some guy spill coke all over my legs and my jacket. It was REALLY great...not. After Font, we headed to Varsity, where the drinks came faster, and I had a good time, overall. The night ended early, though, because I'm realizing I'm a little bit tired of going out much less getting "krunk" as many of my friends seem to like to do.

Another thing worthy of writing about was the Children's Parade that Davina was in. I got up early and met Celia, Ray, and Davina at their flat to go up to where Davina was walking with the Parade. Essentially, the parade is exactly as it sounds. All the schools in Brighton get together for a huge parade of children dressed up in themed clothing and themed signs. Davina's theme for her school was some sort of non-alcoholic drink thing with French bread and grapes and such (think Florence-esque). Anyways, I left once the parade got started because I was exhausted and needed to work on a paper. I met up with them for dinner later, though.

Now, on to the biggest thing that's happened since Portugal. I just got back from one of the more fun and exciting trips I've taken in awhile to IRELAND!! It was nice because I took a later flight on Thursday so that I didn't have to get up early (plus, it was cheaper), and I got to Dublin around 6:30 in the evening or so. I took an ungodly expensive taxi (17 euro) to my hostel. I checked in and found myself in a 10 bed dorm room ALL BY MYSELF. Creepy...yes. The hostel itself left much to be desired. The handle on my room door came off in my hands everytime I opened the door. The beds had bed-bugs in them, and the showers had the nozzles that you had to keep pushing to keep the water trickling out. The staff weren't very friendly or even helpful, so all in all, not exactly my best hostel moment. After getting settled in and choosing which nasty bed I'd be sleeping in, I decided to head out and see where I could get food. I called Maddie and had her shop for food with me (haha). I ended up getting a too expensive sandwich, crisps, water, and biscuits at a grocery store down the road. And that was my dinner. My first impressions of Dublin weren't all that good, though. It felt very dirty and really, it just felt like any other city in Europe. Not much character or style, you know? However, that changed the next day when I explored some more. After eating my gourmet dinner, I went back to my hostel and spent the rest of the night mapping out the places I wanted to see and where they were on my incredibly large, tourist map I bought at the airport for an unheard of 8.50 euro. I was supposed to meet up with my friends Ramsie and Lauren that night to go out to a pub, but they didn't get to their hostel until midnight, and I had to get up early the next day, so I hit the hay.

The next day was really great. I got up at 8:30am, and headed downstairs for breakfast. WOW! That "breakfast" was ridiculous. It was free, but I've had better free breakfasts at other hostels. This place served two pieces of white bread that you toasted yourself with some jam/butter, and a choice of either coffee or tea, and either watered down orange juice or cranberry juice. Blah. Not much to start a day off. However, after breakfast, the day got better. I was on my way out of the hostel to do some sight seeing before I met up with Kristin and Zach, and lo and behold, I run into Zach and Kristin in the lobby. They informed me that they couldn't check in until noon (ridiculous if you have 24-hour reception, might I add), so we decided to walk around the area around our hostel to get ourselves a bit more acquainted with the place. We came upon the spire, which was built in 2003, and is basically a really silly piece of metal that stands in the middle of O'Connel St., but it's at least a good meeting place. We saw a bit more of the ghetto area of Dublin, and then headed back to the hostel where we sat in the lounge area and looked at the flyers and pamphlets for things to do and see in Dublin and surrounding areas. We found one on this cool Celtic Experience Tour, so I called and booked us a reservation, which ended up being the wisest decision. When Zach and Kristin checked in, they went to take a nap, and I headed out to see some sights before they woke up. I went to Dublin Castle, which was BORING. It's an administrative building now, so I just took a picture and moved on to the National Museum of Ireland. It was really nice walking around Dublin because I got a better feel for the city once I was in the Temple Bar/Dame Street area of the city. It's actually a rather beautiful place with lots of people, lots of cute pubs, and charming architecture. However, it was raining all day, so I was glad to get inside once I got to the National Museum of Ireland. They had some really sweet exhibits about the history of Irish clothing and furniture (had real pieces dating to each period of time), and an awesome exhibit about the complete history of Irish coinage. I also enjoyed the Curator's choice Exhibit highlighting pieces of Irish history and archaeology that Curator's were most attached to. They had some clothing in there, an old chest once owned by Thomas Cromwell, and some cool medieval cutlery. They even had a section on old bagpipes. After finishing that up, I met Ramsie and Lauren MILES AWAY at the Spire. We went to Tesco so they could do some shopping, and then stopped off at Costa for some hot chocolate. Then, Kristin and Zach called, so I went and met up with them at the Spire as well, and we high tailed it to the Guiness Storehouse, so we could get there before 5 when they closed. Along the way, we got stopped by an undercover Irish policewoman who said that Kristin almost got something stolen from her backpack. Some women, who supposedly does this all the time, had her hand on Kristin's backpack zipper and was about to steal her passport, money, etc., but because two policewoman had been following her all day, Kristin was saved from a really really bad thing. It was odd, though, because at first, I thought it was a scam. I was waiting for this "policewoman" to ask for her credit card info or passport number, but it turned out to be the real thing, and we were just grateful that Kristin didn't lose her passport/money.

Anyways, we JUST made it to the Guiness Storehouse 5 minutes to 5. The self-guided tour was a lot like the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam. It had interactive exhibits that explained all about how Guiness was made, and the history of Guiness. It was interesting, but really, I was just looking forward to my free pint of Guiness in the 360 degree room. After a lot of walking, reading of signs, and escalator rides, we got to the top where we got our free pints. We wanted to sit down in the 360 degree room, but apparently, 5 minutes to 5 is a popular time for people to go to the Guiness Storehouse, so we couldn't find a seat and then just headed down a floor and sat in the bar area there. I got REALLY buzzed off of that one pint because I'd barely ate a thing all day, and Guiness is a meal in itself. Oddly enough, though, I usually hate Guiness, but for some reason, the Guiness tasted way better there. I think it's because it was actually cold, and not lukewarm. Once Zach broke his glass, and I finally decided not to steal my pint glass, we headed down to the gift shop for some picture shenanigans and walking around. Then, we headed back out into the rain. We had to get a taxi back to the hostel because Kristin's feet were really messed up, and she was in pain. Funny enough, we, of course get the one taxi driver in the city who doesn't know his way around. I had to direct HIM back to the hostel. He used MY street map. A hilarious 10 euro taxi ride. Sheesh.

After we got back, we decided to spend an hour and a half getting cleaned up before we headed out for dinner. Around 9pm, we decided to head out to the Brazen Head pub (the oldest pub in Ireland) where we got a pint each, and then started out to find some actual food. We ended up in Temple Bar area at this high-priced Irish bistro. I got the cheapest thing on the menu (6.50 euro), which was a bowl of soup and bread. Nice, right? haha. However, it really was a good day/night. The next day was our Celtic Experience tour, so we just went back to the hostel and got some sleep. The next morning, we met up with our tour van at 9:30 and were on our way. Our first stop was a burial mound dating to before the Egyptian pyramids were built called Fourknocks. It was pretty much amazing. We got to go inside and see the actual tombs where the high petty king was buried along with his people and warriors. It was creepy in the best possible way. It just made me realize even more that I am truly passionate about being an archaeologist. I mean, THAT'S the type of stuff that I want to find, and I wish I could have experienced more moments like that on my study abroad experience, but at least I've had a couple. After that stop, we went to a place called Mellifont Abbey, which was basically a HUGE monastery that was in ruins now, and you could only see a couple intact pieces along with the foundation of the monastery itself. We got a guided tour from the lady who worked there, and it was a really fascinating tour. I learned that the monks at this monastery had a 24 hour, 7 days a week, rule of silence, and that this rule wasn't lifted until the 1960s. Because these monks had gone so long with this rule, they had to be retaught how to have a simple conversation. Absolutely fascinating. Of course, Kristin just said that she'd sneak off and talk to herself is she were a monk, haha. After that stop, we went to another monastery called Monasterboice that was in the middle of a huge cemetary. This is where the original Celtic Crosses are that depict the Old and New Testament. Oddly enough, on the Cross that shows the Old Testament, Jesus is carved with short hair and no beard. This is the only place in the world where you can see that.

When we finished there, we stopped at the Village of Slane for lunch. The lunch was expensive, but HUGE, so it was worth it. Our next stops were the Hill of Slane where St. Patrick became famous for lighting the fire to announce to the king that he was coming to rid them of their pagan gods. Atop this hill were two monasteries (one built for St. Patrick after his death, and the other a Franciscan Monastery). It was cool because you could wander freely in the ruins of the monasteries taking pictures and climbing very steep but cool winding stairs. The last stop of the day was at the Hill of Tara where there were famous burial mounds dating to the 12th century. There was even a large rounded tall stone that was known as Ferguson's Willy, that supposedly, if you were the true king or queen of Ireland, and you wrapped your arms around this stone, it should shake and tremble the earth. In other words, Kristin and I found out that we weren't the true queens of Ireland, but we got some good pictures out of it.

The drive back to Dublin was just over an hour, and when we got back, we stopped off at some souvenir stores to get stuff for friends and family. We then took a nap/read back at the hostel, and then headed out for dinner. We really wanted to get Indian food, but against what the "helpful" staff said at our hostel, there were actually NO Indian restaurants within reach of us, so we ended up walking all the way to Temple Bar, and against our best reasoning, we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe. But at least we ate, right? That night was just spent relaxing and hanging out at the hostel. I had to leave the next day, so I spent most of my time finding out what bus to take to the airport, etc., so that I didn't have to spend another 17 euro for a taxi.

The next morning, Kristin and I ate breakfast together before I took off for the airport. We said our goodbyes and then I headed out. I caught the first bus that came along, but as soon as I got on the bus, I felt violently sick to my stomache, so I had to basically MAKE myself not throw up the entire ride to the airport. I thought it was just motion sickness, so when I got to the airport, I thought I'd be fine. I went upstairs to the check in counters feel sick still, but then it hit me all over again, and I almost threw up all over the place, so I went back downstairs and searched for about 5 minutes for a toilet and finally found one, and then ended up getting sick in the Dublin Airport. What a great moment in my life, haha. Afterwards, though, I felt completely fine, so I have no idea what happened there. The flight was pretty uneventful, and when I got back to Brighton and unpacked, I was happy to be home, but then it hit me that I have to write a 4,000 word essay that's due this Thursday as well as the realization that I'm back on the pound...ugh...so expensive.

Anyways, enough procrastinating on this paper. Till next time, safe travels, everyone! :)