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Friday, August 05, 2005

Day Seventy-Two

Day Seventy-Two - 05.08.05 - [Dublin -> London]

  • In the morning, I decided that I wanted to check out the Jameson Distillery so we went there at around 10 in the morning and found that they did not give any discounts, however they gave us a phamlet that explained every scene in the tour so we read the phamlet before taking the tour and told them we do not need to take the tour because we got all the information we wanted and left the distillery.
  • We decided to walk along O'Connell Street to find souveniers and see if there were good things for gifts... Like usual, I never really find good gifts, everything looks too cheesy to give out.
  • We went to our hostel, picked up our backpacks and decided to relax, but just as we were relaxed, I noticed that the time said 18:30, we thought it was 17:30 and planned to start getting to the airport at 18:00 and found out that it was indeed 18:30 so we hurried to find the bus stop, it took a while to wait for the bus and the bus was PACKED so it made it hard for us to move around and people were only allowed to exit the bus from the front door!
  • After a long bus ride we got to the airport just 1 hour before our flight departed, we signed in and were disappointed to find out that there was no charge for excess baggage when there was from Brussels to Dublin!
  • We got on the airplane and arrived in London approximately 45 minutes later, got off and found out that the airport we got to was way out of London so we had to take a train to the nearest tube station, then take a tube ride to the bus stop we needed to get to Himel's place.
  • The train was expensive, but we used the train ticket to get on the tube and when we got off, we found out the ticket was not valid for the tube, however the tube workers let us get out for free and when we were looking for the bus we needed to catch, a nice friendly man tried to help us.
  • FrecklesFly told him that we wanted bus 63 or 168 so he said the bus was that way and we kept on walking, walking, walking and walking until I realized something was not correct and finally forced the man to look at the bus map and told him we wanted that bus to get to that stop and he realized that he thought we wanted a house numbered 63 or 168 and apologized and took us back to the bus stop, paid for our fare and we finally got to Himel's at one in the morning!
Amount Spent: TBA

Day Seventy-One - 04.08.05 - [Dublin -> Drogheda -> Howth -> Dublin]

  • We decided to take a day trip out of Dublin to two nearby towns, one north of Dublin, the other east of Dublin.
  • The train ride to Drogheda was very expensive so we bought round trip tickets to Howth, but pretended we took the wrong train and got to Drogheda. :)
  • Drogheda was an old town that used to be fortressed with a wall around it and two or three towers that overlooked the land around the town. All of what remained of the wall was the gatehouse and one tower, we took a tour in the tower and saw several hills where Cromwell laid seige against the town in 1610 and invaded the town on July 1st.
  • We walked around town and looked in several shops before heading on the train to Howth.
  • Lucky the train man checked our tickets and bought our story when we gestured that we went to the wrong place and wanted to get to Howth instead (they did not check tickets on the way to Drogheda).
  • Upon our arrival in Howth, it started to rain and was very windy (the wind was expected because Howth is a coast town located right on a penisula edged with cliffs). We decided to get something to eat and the cheapest place we could find was an Indian resturant, but when we got inside it was obviously too fancy for us, but we still ate there by sharing one dish.
  • After lunch, we walked along the coast for a while and it started to rain again and the winds were stronger so we decided that it was not worth walking any further and headed back to the train station, stopping for a few looks along the harbour.
  • Got back on train and arrived in Dublin in time to go food shopping for stuff to have for dinner and stopped at internet cafe to check messages.
  • Headed back to hostel, moved to our new room and had dinner, drank our 7.5% Guinness... It tasted strong, 4.2% defintely tastes better, but would say 5% Guinness in Canada tastes just correct!
Amount Spent: TBA

Day Seventy - 03.08.05 - [Dublin]

  • Today, we decided to walk the walking route that Let's Go suggested, our first stop which was the beginning of the walk was at O'Mallory's pub where famous people, including JFK had drinks there.
  • Since it was almost 11 in the morning, there were not many people there and we had enough money to buy one glass of Guinness, yes - our first taste of Irish Guinness was there. Tasted okay, kind of watery but good and while the barman was filling the glass, he warned us not to drink it, he filled it three-forth and let it sit for a while before continuing to fill it to get the correct amount of head.
  • We headed to the Trinity College, where the book said the grass was supposed to be very green because people are banned from walking on the grass, we did not think the grass was green, but people are actually banned from walking on grass almost everywhere on campus!
  • We headed towards a park (need to come back with the name of the park) where there was a statue of Oscar Wilde, the statue was interesting because it was painted, but looked like stone to me.
  • We walked to another large park that used to be owned by the Guinness family and it was huge and had beautiful flowers and ponds with ducks swimming in it, it seemed like everyone in Dublin was there for their lunch break!
  • Then we took a detour on our walking tour and walked through a small street that was lined up with market stands selling clothes and jewellery...
  • We finally found the vegeterian resturant we wanted to try, it was very similar to the one we went to in Krakow, after eating, we started walking towards the Guinness Storehouse.
  • There was no discount for the tour, but they gave us the student price (whatever!), the tour was okay and I would recommend the Heineken Experince tour instead of the Guinness Storehouse tour - but if you realy want a "free" pint of Guinness, take the tour but do not say you have been warned.
  • After the tour, we went by the old Jameson Distillery hoping it would still be open, but it was closed so we headed back to our hostel.
  • We finally cooked the vegeterian burger mix we bought in Budapest, however we could not understand the cooking instructions so we tried adding water, which did not seem to work, so we added lemon juice, salt, and pretty much everything we could find in the hostel kitchen to try and make it taste good. At the end we think we needed eggs to keep the mix together, but ate the food cooked and crumbled.
Amount Spent: TBA

Day Sixty-Nine - 02.08.05 - [Brussels ->; Dublin]

  • Got up and packed up, ate our breakfast and went to the train station to catch a train to Charleroi to get to the airport to fly out to Dublin.
  • The first train we got on said it was going to Charleroi, but it stopped at the next train station, we did not know that the train was not going anywhere so we missed the most recent train that went to Charleroi!
  • However, missing that train - we managed to find another train that would go to Charleroi and get there before the train we missed would get there! Strange eh?!
  • We were introduced to a city that was covered with an ugly black, yellow, and white sky, with barely some blue showing from all the factories around the train station!
  • Got on the bus to get to the airport, signed in and found out that I had to pay extra baggage because my backpack was heavy, so I guess I gotta add some fee to the absinthe that I am carrying for some people! :)
  • Arrived in Dublin, found the bus that would take us to O' Connell Street near our hostel. We started looking for Talbot Street to find our hostel, but the streets in Dublin are short and change frequent after every two or three blocks so we had a hard time finding our hostel.
  • We decided to check the map on the internet and address again and found out we had the wrong information, we were looking for Talbot Place, not Street and immediately we found our hostel and signed in.
  • After that, we headed to the food store and got food for dinner, had dinner and walked around for a short while before calling it a night.
Amount Spent: TBA
--
oneninefive

3 comments:

xFf said...

Dublin looks intresting,

Which guiness you like the best? in USA/Canada?

Wow, I just realized that you guys will be back soon, time do fly FAST!!

Brandon said...

I hope you sent a postcard to buzzair :)... if u dont know what im talking about, look at his blog :)

later dude,
bg0ur3

oneninefive said...

Heh, interesting post on post cards...

The only ones I send out are usually free ones, ones that I did not have to pay for.

--
oneninefive