We arrived in Dublin around 11:30am local time. Customs were a breeze. I was on the hunt for water. I was feeling fairly nauseous from the lack of sleep and too much coffee drank on the flight. Would you believe that there is only one drinking fountain in all of Dublin's International Airport!?!? My perseverance paid off and I found it.
We took an express bus from the airport into the city. There were about 9 stops during its 30 minute route. My very first memory of seeing Dublin was Aldi's. They have Aldi's in Ireland, but not in Colorado - how is that possible? We also saw a fun bridge that was designed to look like a harp - harps are the national emblem of Ireland. We got off on at the correct stop (in the pouring rain) and then proceeded to get quite lost. Well maybe we were not lost, we just could not locate the hostel for the life of us. We did not understand how the streets were labeled and we just kept wandering. The streets were not straight and some times they would change names at intersections.
We finally found our hostel (Barnacles Temple Bar House) and checked in. Our bunks were not ready so we walked to the nearby Joy Cafe. It was a quaint place. They had sandwiches and tea. Alissa had 7up and Ian had a HUGE chicken club sandwich. It was delicious and hit the spot for both of us.
 |
| If you would have told me 10 years ago that I would be backpacking through the UK for 3+ weeks with just one backpack - I would not have believed you. But we did it and not only survived, but thrived. AND I packed running clothes. |
When we got back to the hostel, we were allowed to head up to our room. We dropped the uneaten half of Ian's sandwich off in the fridge and located the restrooms. We settled our bags in our lockers. We got bunk beds - Ian took the lower one and I claimed the top bunk. I grabbed my eye mask and feel asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I think at this point we had gotten about 4 hours of sleep in the past 50 hours. We slept from 3pm to 5am the next morning. I did wake up somewhere around 10pm and eat half of the delicious chicken club sandwich. We both slept fairly soundly but we were treated to a free concert through the open window in our room. We shared the room with about 10 other people. The bathroom was attached to the room - which was nice. Our hostel was located in a central and fun area of Dublin. I would definitely stay there again.
So our first day in Dublin was not that exciting - I don't think we even took any pictures. But we made it! And adventure was just waiting for us!
 |
| This was taken in Ireland - later in our trip. |
No comments:
Post a Comment