Ireland, day 1

Well, I'm back "home" in London, with over 500 pictures and too many stories to recall from my week in Ireland. I have a ton of work to catch up on this week, so I'll try to post a little every day rather than trying to get all this down at once.

The first day was an adventure in itself. My 3 travel buddies and I got up at 12am to catch a night bus to the coach station, but as luck would have it, we waited at the wrong bus station and missed our connection. Already running late, we were fortunate enough to be able to hail a cab, which took us to Victoria Station and we split the cost between the 4 of us.

From there, we took an hour long coach ride to Luton Airport and arrived by 3am. After breezing through security, we crashed in the terminal for a couple hours before our flight was called. It was very different from any airport experience I've ever had; rather than waiting at the gate, we had to wait in the terminal until a gate was assigned to the flight, and then everyone races through halls to get in line for the gate once it is called. From there, we boarded from the tarmac and hopped over to the Republic of Ireland in less than an hour.

By 8am we were riding a bus into the city of Dublin.  It let us off somewhere in the middle of the city, but we eventually found our hostel using what few maps we could scrounge up.

The hostel was a lovely place. Sandwiched in between several dozen other hostels on the same road, this one had a cozy "mom n' pop" feel to it. Although we couldn't check in until 2pm, they invited us to have breakfast downstairs and settle in. Breakfast that morning (and every day after that) consisted of soft boiled eggs, canned fruit, and toast with Nutella. Believe me, when you're hungry and tired, that is the best food in the world!

Determined to stay awake for the rest of the day, a couple of us decided to go find a free walking tour of Dublin we had heard about. As it turned out, it was a great way to get to know the city. It was fairly informal, and the tour guides were incredibly engaging and personable, providing us with a brief history of the city before taking us through many of the lesser known landmarks of Dublin.

Dublin Castle, although it has a long history, blends into the city quite well. It looks nothing like a castle for the most part, mainly because it has been rebuilt so many times. The castle seems to be viewed rather skeptically by the locals, because of its history -- As pointed out by the tour guide, the statue of Lady Justice is not even traditionally blindfolded. Apparently it was also a big deal that she is facing inwards towards the castle courtyard, rather than outwards towards the Irish citizens.

Above is St. Christ's Cathedral.  We didn't go in it, as like many of Dublin's cathedrals, there was an admission cost, but the outside architecture was nonetheless quite striking.

This was one of the back streets of Dublin -- quite pretty, I thought. Somewhere along here is the studio where U2 got its start (little piece of trivia for you).

The Ha'penny (pronounced HAY-penny) Bridge, the oldest iron bridge in the world. Used to cost half a penny to cross, hence the name (ha'penny shortened from "half penny").

Looking down the main drag through Dublin. The large spike in the back on the right is some sort of millenium "sculpture," and stands as the tallest sculpture in the world. It was pointed out that it wasn't actually completed until 2003, ironically.

Dublin was apparently very excited about the millenium back then, and tried to put a light-up countdown clock in the river that runs through the city, but they didn't realize until they installed it that the water was so disgusting you couldn't even read the clock once it was submerged. I thought it was pretty funny.

The tour lasted 2 hours and took us all over the city. By the time we were done, we figured it was time to head back and check in to the hostel. We had booked a cheap 20 bed female dorm, but as it turned out they had some problems with the room and made up for it by giving us a 4 person private room (converted from a 2 person, but hey, it was a good deal either way)! Not exactly a luxury suite, but perfectly adequate for £10 a night.

The basement kitchen was set up for family style meals where we could store our own food in the fridge and do our own cooking. This made it greatly efficient for keeping meal costs down.

So that was pretty much the extent of my first day in Ireland (and a much longer post than I planned on writing!). I'll try to get Day 2 up tomorrow.