New Thing #81 - L/S/I, Day 14 - Home

Friday, May 24, 2013

Heading home today. Just like Italy, I felt a sense of overwhelming sadness that our journey was over, but also happy to be heading home to familiarity and routine. These two weeks actually didn't go by as fast as I thought they would. By the time we arrived in Ireland, it was hard to believe that one week prior we were in London. Actually, by this time, it felt like months since we had been there.

We woke up early to make our flight. We called a cab to take us to the airport, since we were tired of coordinating public transportation. He too was early. I guess not too many other people were up and needing cabs this early in the morning. It didn't take us long to get to the airport, and we wound up being there three hours early. Yes, THREE HOURS EARLY. I'm all for getting to the airport early so as not to miss a flight, but this was nuts. Turns out, we needed just about all of those three hours.

Dublin offers US customs service right in their airport (who knew?), which tends to take longer than a normal check-in process. In other words, we would be going through all of our customs paperwork/process while in Dublin, so when we arrived in Chicago, we could grab our luggage and go. This sounded awesome, especially considering the nightmare that was customs when we got back from Italy.

What wasn't awesome was how long it ended up taking. But, I suppose it was better before the trip than afterwards. We had lots of questions before we even checked our bags, including where we had been, who packed our luggage, how long we had owned our electronics...blah blah blah. You know the usual. We checked our bags and headed up to security to just get into the airport. We hadn't even gotten to customs yet.

Security took longer than expected, so we were running on borrowed time by the time we made it into the terminal. Once in there, we saw signs saying that there were little food options in the US departure wing, so we tried to find something for breakfast before we went through customs. There was a Burger King that I entertained for a few minutes, but no one was really working it, and there were no breakfast options. And I really REALLY didn't want BK. I tried another area with fresher foods like cheeses and meats, but nothing was easy to carry on to a plane. So, I opted for about 3 different kinds of pastries (I was hungry!), and a bottle of water.

Man, I couldn't wait to get home so I could eat healthier!

We stopped in the gift shop for some last minute duty-free shopping (we made sure to get receipts IN the bag this time), and then headed to US customs. At this point, we had to go through mini security again (they stamped our passports, scanned our carry-ons and showed us a picture of our checked baggage from earlier to verify it was ours), and we seemed to be in the slow lane the entire time. They made someone throw out their coffee, and Nikki and I panicked that we'd have to throw out our brand new water bottles.

Luckily, all was good and we were able to collect our belongings and head to our gate with about 20 minutes to spare. Looks like getting there early had turned out to be a blessing in disguise. And they weren't joking when they said there weren't any food options. Good thing I had all those carbs to load up on.

The flight home was smooth, and I was able to sleep on and off for the first half (in between meal and snack breaks). The latter half was spent reading or watching the movie. Now, why couldn't I have slept on the way there? I had three days to get over jet lag on the way home!

We made it to Chicago with no issues, actually arriving earlier than scheduled. Because of that, Nikki's boyfriend wasn't at the airport yet, so we had some time to kill before he arrived. Then, we had the long drive back to get Brenda's car, and then another long trek back out of the city on a gorgeous holiday weekend. I really need to rethink this flying out Chicago stuff. It seems like the better idea until it's time to get home.

At least this time we were driving in the daylight instead of 1 in the morning, but I was still fading quickly and ready to be home. It took about 5+ hours to get home, and I finally rolled into my house around 8pm. I was ready for bed, but I forced myself to stay up just a little while, so I could get back on my regular schedule. And luckily, my tiredness over the next few days was from exhaustion rather than jet lag.

Well, another European adventure is in the books, and I'm already planning my next one. Who knows where I'll end up. I may even try for a different continent next time. I have to give a big shout out to my traveling companions, Nikki and Brenda, for another stellar trip, and I apologize for my body trying to kill me, thereby making me cranky at times. I had an awesome time!

And now for my final thoughts on Ireland.

1. Favorite thing to see: tie between Cliffs of Moher and Giant's Causeway. I love architecture, but I have to say that nature's architecture is way more awe-inspiring.
2. Favorite beer: I can't say for sure, since I tried so many, and lots of them weren't local. I still love a good glass of Harp though. The fresh Guinness was pretty good too.
3. Favorite meal: Hands down, the salad and stew at The Front Door in Galway. That Guinness gravy still haunts my dreams.
4. I want to live in Galway, so they'll call me a Galwegian. (Glaswegian sounds cooler, but I don't want to live in Glasgow.)
5. Irish accents are sexy. Period.
6. Irish people are very friendly. Love it.
7. Note to self: don't take the bus from Shannon to Galway.
8. I want to go back to Ireland and see the smaller cities/towns and meet more people.
9. We need more live musicians like they have over there.
10. If you have the opportunity to go to Ireland, do it. Don't question it. Don't hem and haw. Just go. You won't regret it.
11. Just don't go in the winter/spring. Rain+wind+cold=sucky
12. If you see the bartender at Farrington's, tell him he should dump that crazy girlfriend of his. American girls are way cooler.
13. Being constantly on the move from city to city was tiring, but also so worth it. While I definitely want to go back to each of these locations and see more, we got to see so much in such a short amount of time. I'd probably cut out Glasgow if I were to do it again, but then again, we never would have met Juliet that way.
14. There is Gaelic in both Scotland and Ireland, but the dialect is different, so you have so specify if you're talking about Scottish Gaelic or Irish Gaelic.

New Thing #81 - L/S/I, Day 13 - Dublin

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Slept in. Well, as much sleeping in as we could when it's light at 4 in the morning. We had a pretty leisurely day planned, so we didn't need to be up as early as every other day this entire trip. Well, as leisurely as one could get while trying to cram all of Dublin into one day.

It was our last full day in Ireland, and we planned on making the most of it. I think we were all starting to run on empty, but maybe that was just me. My body was giving up on me, so maybe it was good that we would be going home tomorrow. But, in spirit, I wanted to stay much longer! At least my head/sinuses were MUCH better by now. Either the allergy medicine had finally kicked in, or I wasn't as allergic to Ireland as I was to Scotland.

We had a lot planned for today, and we managed to hit the highlights of what we wanted: Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity College, shopping on Grafton Street and the Guinness Storehouse. We had hoped to see Dublin Castle as well, but there was some major event thing going on, so it was all closed off and blocked from view. :(

G is for Generator Hostel. Or Goober.

Gaub. Nikki Gaub. 

We got to explore more of our hostel this morning. This is the front desk.

Table made from stacks of book and wooden boards.

Breakfast at this adorable cafe. I wish we had found it the day before. I had a delicious breakfast sandwich that I wanted more of!

Apparently I sell shoes to men with really large feet... 

An old church we stumbled upon while trying to find Christ Church. Our map sucked, so the Map Maven was not at her best today.

Christ Church Cathedral. We found it!

Don't go down there. Don't do it. It is dangerous to do so.

Crazy bush/tree that looked like a pile of snakes.

Coming up to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Park area next to St. Patrick's Cathedral.

 

Beautiful St. P. It was too big for me to get all of it in one photo. (That's what she said.)

Yes, I took a picture of the trash can. Or litter bin? 

It cost money to go in. We were having none of that.

Streets of Dublin. We spent a solid hour or so in one gift shop buying random crap. 

Um, okay? Hangover 3 car?

More Boots!

I loved the door knockers on some of the buildings/houses.

The entrance to Trinity College.

The Irish opposite of "Regulatooors.....Mount Up!"

Buildings on the campus of Trinity College.

I can't imagine trying to go to college here when it's crazy busy with tourists all the time.

We wanted to see this. We wanted to see this really badly. But, not badly enough to wait in the line of roughly 100 people for lord only knows how long. We were on a mission to see as much as possible today, and standing in line didn't fit into our plan.

Hey, this looks familiar. We saw the same thing at the Vatican two years ago!

I love all the architectural details.

All I saw was the first line. And I couldn't stop laughing.

I think this was a library. Or maybe a government building.

Maybe I can get a job here.

These signs were hilarious. They also let you know that there was a 500 Euro fine for littering or tossing gum on the ground. Imagine if we had such steep fines here. And imagine if they were enforced on a regular basis.

A little burger joint for lunch. It had started to rain pretty steadily at this point, so we found something as quickly as we could.

Ha...they call their fries "chubby chips'.

Yep. This happened.

My lonely burger. I wasn't that hungry and couldn't handle more fries. Not the greatest burger in the world, but also not the worst.

Random church we walked by on our way to the Guinness Storehouse. I thought it was perty.

We have arrived at the beer mecca of Ireland!

The Guinness Storehouse was pretty cool. It was a multi-level building showcasing the history behind Guinness, the quality ingredients that go into brewing it, marketing campaigns over the years, a gift shop, restaurants and a bar, just to name a few. We took our time winding through each floor learning a little as we went. We started to speed things up after awhile, because there was free beer at the end!

Some old tools.

It's all about the ingredients.

I liked all of the info graphics they used in the building.

That's a lot o' barley.

Waterfall in the building.

It's a pretty impressive "museum" of sorts. Lots of cool props and infographics.

Who knew there was an EXACT amount of time required to poor a perfect Guinness? Not me.

True story.

There was also quite a few random things throughout.

The architecture was cool.

A fish riding a bicycle? I'm not sure that's really what I would think of when drinking Guinness...

They had a Hall of Fame wall of famous people drinking Guinness. I love Paul Rudd!

Trying to recreate the photo above. The angle was a bit off...

An homage to different decades?

Instructions on how to pour the perfect Guinness. Steps 1 & 2...

...3 & 4...

...5 & 6.

Remember 119.5 seconds!

We didn't get any food here, although we did try some chocolate made with Guinness and it was delicious. I also grabbed a few recipes of different things using Guinness. I'll have to try those out sometime.

After we finished our tour, we headed up to the Gravity Bar where our entrance ticket entitled us to one free beer.

There was fabulous view of Dublin from up here!

Letting the surge settle.

Fresh Guinness!

It was crazy busy up here, and we were lucky to find a seat. It's a good thing we finally did because my feet were so swollen and on fire. I'm not sure why they decided to start misbehaving now, but I guess after two weeks of constant walking, they gave up. I was pretty cranky at how they felt, but beer and a seat helped out some.

We also spent quite a bit of time in the gift shop before we left and Nikki was pretty pumped about her purchases.

After we finished with the Guinness tour, we hopped a cab back to our hostel to relax for the rest of the afternoon. We had a few hours to kill before our final adventure of the trip, and I think we were all ready for a little R&R. Plus, we needed to start the packing process since we'd be up early to make our flight. My feet were thanking me for finally taking a break.

Seriously. Greatest thing ever.

Outside our hostel.

You could pay to rent these bikes. When you were done, you just returned to one of the stations. Pretty cool.

Our final event of our trip would be dinner and traditional music at The Irish House Pub. I failed to mention that a few months before our trip, Brenda entered a contest through viator.com to try to win some Irish vacay packages. Well, due to her fabulous haiku (which she doesn't remember), she ended up winning two tickets to five different things all over Ireland. We were able to use three of them: the Belfast/Giant's Causeway tour, the Guinness Storehouse tour and this Irish House Party. We only had to split the cost of the third ticket for all of them, so it was a pretty awesome deal. (The other two items weren't anywhere near where we were going to be.)

Where the music would be happening.

The dining area was upstairs.

We started the evening off with a meal, and we had a few starters, entrees and desserts to choose from.  I started off with the Dublin Coddle: sausages, bacon and tomatoes in a potato, onion and herb broth. Not bad.

Dinner was Beef and Guinness stew with potatoes, carrots and celery. Also not bad, but also not as good as the one I had in Galway.

Dessert was pretty tasty! Chocolate cake with Bailey's Cheesecake Filling. Yum!

After dinner, we made our way back downstairs, and these four greeted us. They're part of a larger ensemble that breaks off into different smaller formations like this to perform. They were really good! I even bought a CD afterwards for my brother-in-law.

Just getting warmed up here.

Rocky Road to Dublin.

Sorry the dancer is so dark, she was in front of the lights and I don't have a flash for the video.

This guy was incredible on that bagpipe. He spent a solid five minutes or so showing us how it worked and it looked more complicated than trying to invent time travel. Kudos to this guy for being so damn good at it.

What's that she's dancing with, you ask?

Yep, it's a broom. I guess there is a traditional Irish dance involving a broom...

This one is pretty festive!

This chick was incredibly talented. She sang, played the fiddle AND the harp, danced like a champion and her hair was amazing. Dammit.

See, she plays the harp beautifully.

Makes me feel like dancing!

This guy was a great accordion player, but he looked as if he would rather be at home doing his taxes than on that stage.

All of these guys were incredible musicians. Not only was this guy playing the bagpipe, but he also played the flute and at least one other instrument. Incredible.

And finally, an homage to possibly one of the greatest bands out of Ireland, U2.

The trip had taken its toll on us, so by the time the festivities were over, we were ready to head home for the night. We were really sad to be saying goodbye to Ireland in the morning. It treated us well (despite the weather).

Dublin at night.

More of our hostel. We weren't really ever here long enough to partake in any of the rooms/activities they had here.

Pretty cool chandelier made from Jameson bottles. The Jameson distillery was a block away from our hostel, but we never made it there. So, this is about as close as we got.