Dublin--Day 6 & 7

This weekend was a blast!!! I walked down to the train station in Galway on Friday after my class (withOUT getting lost, btw) and took off, by myself, for dublin. It takes about two and a half hours to get there from Galway, and it was a beautiful trip. The train went through the heart of Ireland, which is mostly countryside so it was nice to be away from the city for a little while.

I arrived in Dublin and the hussle and bussle starts as soon as you step off the train. I went and got on the bus that would take me to Trinity College, where I was staying, and proceeded to freak out. I was in a foreign city, ALONE!, not knowing my way around, and it was SCARY! I was sitting on the bus thinking, OH MY GOD, WHAT AM I DOING?!!?? I got off the bus just a short walk from the college and made my way to my room. I sat in there for a while trying to decide how to get to where I was supposed to be that night, and then headed out. Once I started walking around I felt a little better, I actually found my way to Vicar street (comedy club, etc.) without getting lost! I was quite impressed. On the way I stopped and ate at subway, and I asked for spianch on my sandwich and the guy was like "what do I look like? popeye!!" Then I walked past Christ Church Cathedral, and a couple other pretty churches.

I was quite early for the show, but the doors opened soon after I arrived and I went and sat down in the bar. The show was AMAZING!!! Tommy Tiernan is seriously the funniest man alive! I laughed the entire way through the show. He was a bit more crude/vulgar in his live act that what I had seen on youtube, but everything was funny. I am really glad that I went and saw him...it will have definitly been one of the highlights of the whole trip. So after the show I walked back to Trinity (and at 11pm there were still a MILLION people out and about, so I felt pretty safe) and went to bed. It had been a long day.

So the next morning I go and eat breakfast and then head out to the city to try and find an inet cafe. My phone, somehow, got turned off and to turn it back on you have to enter a code, and well, I hadn't written the code down, and the only place it was located was in my email. So I FINALLY found a place, and got my phone working...then headed back to Trinity to meet Alix so we could start our day.

We headed out into the city and went into Christ Church and Dublinia (an exhibit on medieval dublin, quite LAME actually...ended right in a gift shop, very touristy). We also saw a little bit of dublin castle, then made the like TEN MILLION MILE walk to Kilmainham (kill-main-um) Gaol (jail)...but it was WELL worth it. The place was amazing. I have read so much about the Easter Rising and the men and women who started the fight for Irish independance that it was REALLY meaningful to me. We stood out in the stone breaking yard where the Easter Risers were executed and it was...I'm not even sure. I just stood there thinking that I was standing on the same ground that those men where killed on...and it was just insane. There is now an irish flag in that place and a memorial with the names of the men who died there. It was a feeling I'll never forget.

So after we left the jail we headed out to the train station...we wandered around for about, oh almost an hour before I finally went into a pub and asked them to call us a cab. They said they couldn't but the barman came outside with us, where there were two other old men, and helped us hail a cab. They were all so cute...so helpful, making sure we got in okay and we were well on our way, that we were "golden" as a lot of people out here have been saying. We finally made it to the station and got some food, Supermacs, and then took a taxi home once we arrived back in Galway.

It was a great weekend. I'm glad to be back in Galway though. I'm not really a big fan of Dublin, it is really not a place that when you go you think "I'm in Ireland," at least I don't. It's pretty dirty, and it really is just another big city like, New York or L.A. It is nice to go to for a couple days, but I wouldn't want to spend any more than that there.

Enjoy the pictures. Oh and I'm still working on getting those videos hosted.

On the way to Dublin...

Trinity College, where I stayed

Christ Church Cathedral

Inside Christ Church

Some Graffiti on a wall in Dublin

Vicar Street Theatre

The Funny man himself, Tommy Tiernan.

One of the funniest parts of the show

Dublin Castle

Kilmainham Gaol
Where the prisoners of the 1916 Rising were executed.

So there was one more picture that I wanted to post to go along with the last picture on here...but the internet here is SO GAY! that it is going to have to wait till another time.