June 2

Dublin day 1

Our week long break began with a 4:30 am wake up call and two buses to the make it to the airport. The first bus was the casual, double decker, red city bus but the second "bus" was very sketchy. It was more of a shuttle than a bus, basically a van that fit 12 people. We got on, no problem, because we had bought tickets the night before, but one family was not as fortunate. There were 3 people that wanted to ride, but only 2 available seats. Only one of these people were actually flying out, and the other two, her parents, were going to the airport and wanted a round trip ticket back. Super weird. This lady also had 2 HUGE suitcases, that did not fit in the designated area, nor in the van, because it wasn't that big of a van. It was a ridiculous morning. Once we took off, our driver went over every speed bump, pretty big ones, at, at least 45 mph. He did not slow down at all and everyone was getting very annoyed, and very nauseous by being thrown into the air every 10 seconds. 

On the flight we were all sat next to each other, which was nice, and even though it was only an hour, Aleesia and JT passed out. I got the window seat, thankfully. I am still amazed every time I fly, that I am thousands of miles above humanity and I've got my head in the clouds, literally. I love it. 

We bused it to our hostel, checked in, and left our bags so we could go explore. There isn't a whole lot to do in Dublin, so we decided to just walk and see where we end up. We ended up at Trinity College, a place where I had wanted to see the library, because the photos online are amazing, but they wanted us to pay 9 Euros to get in! Ha, no. Instead, we walked around the campus and ended up at a park, that had a huge open area and a grass track to run on. Aleesia and JT took naps while I watched the runners go by, many, many times. We also got burned. London has a high of about 65 F and it's cloudy and rainy just about everyday, so we were not expecting 85 F weather and the sun to be in our faces. Once my friends woke up we played a little bit of Rummy before going in search of food. 

We ended up at this really great burger place, and our waitress was so cute. She asked if we wanted anything to drink and we looked at each other and we're kind of like, "nah, no, that's okay." She looks at us all looking at each other and offers water because it's hot and still sensing our hesitation she then mentions that it's free. We met up with our friend Nicole after lunch and then went back to the hostel to figure out a game plan. On the way we stopped for quite awhile to watch this really great band called "Key West" perform on the street corner. They were really good and it was a great night for some live music. There was also this old drunk man that kept interrupting them and stealing their alcohol...he was the Irish stereotype. 

We sat in the hostel for a few hours just talking and whatnot, then we decided we could go to sleep because it was too early so we walked around some more. We stopped at a subway for dinner and another friend, Nahee, saw us through the door and ran in screaming, cause she does that. Nahee was in Valencia with us, and she still is for the summer. She traveled to Dublin with her mom, but it was supposed to be her and JT at first, but plans change. We took our dinner back to the hostel and in that time period Nicole convinced us to go out with her and her roommates. They were doing a pub crawl with their hostel (a different one than ours) and we met them at one of the pubs. Nicole's friends were all frat guys from Marquette University in Wisconsin...they were nice, but at the same time, everyone knew that they were frat guys.