The bus ride to Dublin was not bad at all. It took four hours, but we stopped half way through to get food and to use the toilets. Upon our arrival in Dublin, we had to find the city bus to take to University College, Dublin, and ended up waiting at the wrong stop for 15 minutes. Nevertheless, we got on the correct bus and actually ended up arriving at UCD right as Michelle's friend Charlotte came outside to meet us. Thankfully we didn't have to book (or pay for) a hostel, as Charlotte let us crash on her couches. The first night, we hung out with Charlotte, her two German friends, and the two Irish guys living below her. I told one of the guys that I could sing a German song, and as I started singing it, he joined in. I laughed and he said all children learn that song. It must be similar to our Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.
Saturday we went into city centre around half noon and took the advice of Charlotte's Irish neighbor to try Captain America's for lunch. He said it was really good American food. I really only wanted a bagel and tea, but didn't want to be picky and agreed to eat there. Unfortunately, his idea of good food is quite different from ours. The prices were terrible and the food was worse. I could barely find the noodles in my vegetarian lasagna. Searching through the cheese was like an archaeological dig. After that disapointment, we wandered around the city and decided to go in to the National Museum. We toured the Archaeology Museum and then went to the Art Galleries. Both were really nice. The art museum was a lot more extensive than the one we have here in Cork. Next we saw Trinity College. (Photos courtesy of Michelle Hicks!)
Here I am at Trinity:
The Book of Kells is housed there, but we didn't go see it because it costs 8 euro and it's on display so you can only see two pages.
Unfortunately, the college looked more like a castle than Dublin Castle which was our next stop.
Only the middle section actually resembled a castle. The couple in the bottom right hand corner of this photo were not shy at all.... They looked about fourteen.
We found a really cute little park across from the "castle." It had these cool thin walkways in circles and spirals around the grass
. So, of course, we followed them and were quite amused for a while.
That's Mary, Charlotte and me.
After sight seeing, we were all exhausted and decided to head back to the dorms for a nap. We bought some baguettes and apples to eat for a light dinner. Once we woke up, we got dressed and ready to go out. We headed over to another apartment were there were other Americans, friends of Charlotte. After meeting everyone, we took the bus into city centre and went to a few different pubs. At one club, we danced for a while, but the music they played to "dance" to was quite bizarre. Who dances to System of a Down? Sunday we repacked our bags and said goodbye. We walked into a cafe which had amazing food. Lesson learned: when in a new city, do not take the advice of a new aquaintance. Rather, walk into a random restaurant and enjoy! And enjoy we did. I had amazing crepes with syrup, sliced bananas and whipped cream. After the meal, we went to the bus station to wait for our ride home. Shelly would have died....There were pigeons inside the station.
The Irish Cinema portion of our class began on Monday and finished today on Wednesday. I thoroughly enjoyed all three of the films, "I Went Down," "About Adam," and "Adam and Paul." The last one reminded me of Requiem for a Dream meets Waiting for Godot. During the discussion after the film, I said it was very similar to Beckett's Waiting for Godot in the sense that one character represented the mind and one the body. I said a little more about it, and the professor asked me if I had been reading his work about the film... I said No, and told him I studied the play in my Existentialism course. I wonder if he really thought I read his articles or if it was supposed to be a complement.
Tomorrow we are discussing Beckett's Murphy, Friday we are working on Synge's The Aran Islands and Friday night we are going to see Riverdance in Killarney. Michelle, Mary and I are staying over night in Killarney and seeing the Ring of Kerry. I think we are going to rent bikes and go to the park. Monday night we are going to see Waiting for Godot and Tuesday we are off to Inis Meain! The Early Start Semester is flying by. I can't believe it's almost time for the fall semester to begin.
Oh and I almost forgot to mention I'm sick. It's really aggravating. I really need to be healthy for my stay on Inish Meain. It's going to be rather cold there. I've been taking Sudafed, vitamin C and sucking on Halls lozenges.
More slight differences:
flavour, favourite
half nine = nine thirty
Can I steal the sauce? (A man at another table said this to us at lunch. Sauce is ketchup.)
Cheers. (When I said sure and handed him the bottle, he said cheers. They say it a lot. I suppose it's like thanks.)
Wellies = rain boots
1 comment:
your hair looks so long! It's weird to see you all bundled up when it's like 90 degrees here. I'm glad to see that you're doing a lot of traveling.
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