DUBLIN, CLIFFS OF MOHER, & GALWAY 6/28-6/30
We had a smooth Ryanair flight to Dublin, our last stop on our post-grad Euro adventure as a pair :(. This is the first time we're in a country that speaks English, and it's made it so easy! It was just past 7pm as we hopped on the bus to head to the city center. We accidentally got off one stop late, which meant we got more time to see stuff (and also more walking with our packs on, we really won’t miss this part)! We walked on the outside of Trinity College before arriving at our hostel.
We are (ed note: were) staying at Barnacle Temple Bar Hostel. It is literally right next to the famous Temple Bar and Temple Bar street with tons of pubs (FYI they don’t call Irish Pubs “Irish Pubs” here, they are just last names like you’d expect lol). The hostel seemed fine at first: mixed gender dorm with six beds and a private bathroom. But it was really not nice. Everything seemed dirty: the floors, the shower, at least not the bed sheets. And with the window shut to block out the noise of people partying outside, it must’ve been 90degrees in the room. We knew we had to get up early to get our bus for our day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway at 6:50am, so after grabbing a quick dinner at a pub down the street (and some beer, of course! Well Orchards Ciders but same difference... oh, and getting carded when we went downstairs to the bar area to see the guy who was singing for 5 min. First time being carded this entire trip!), we headed back for some sleep. Two of our roommates were there, and they had shut the window and were going to bed, so we tried to get ready quietly. Emily showered in the tiny gross shower with no water pressure trying not to touch the wall with her back while Grace immediately started looking for Airbnb’s in the area. This is how rough the hostel was.
It was about 11pm when we were settling in to sleep. 15 min later, the dude got up to use the restroom, and we are pretty sure he had a stomach bug. The light went on, and the toilet flushing was loud. We start laughing so hard at this point because we cannot believe this situation. Now it’s 11:36pm and Emily is distracted by snoring next door and drunken cackling outside on the street. 11:45pm both sweating. Emily then gets off the bunk to take AdvilPM and grab her headphones. 12:00am still up. 12:15 finally asleep. 2:20am two drunk American guys walk in to get ready for bed. It’s hot in the room so they open the window. We notice the sound on the street is almost gone, good to know the scene ends around 2am. One guy passes out leaving sound on his phone to dinging. 2:40am Emily asks for the dinging to be turned off. Friend gets up to turn off others’ sound. 2:50am finally back to sleep. 4:00am alarm goes off. It’s the Americans. They are up to catch a flight. So we are up as well. Luckily they are out quickly (but seriously, why did they try to sleep from 2:20-4am, should’ve just stayed out). 4:10am back to sleep. 6am Grace gets up to shower. 6:15am Emily up to change. 6:43am we leave for our day trip. We were mad! This was supposed to be a 6-7 hour night of sleep but turned into a 3 hour one.
Anyway, more exciting stuff- we used “Get Your Guide” to do a day bus trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway Bay from Dublin. Our Irish bus driver was also our tour guide. He was funny and of course loved to say ass. His name was Owen spelled Eoin (yes, we are just as surprised as you). We quickly passed out on the bus due to our lack of sleep. We stopped after 1.5 hours at the Barack Obama Plaza which was built after President Obama visited the small town where his great great something grandma lived. The town was so happy to be back on the map (after their version of Route 66 was replaced by a more direct road) that they built the plaza (using taxpayers money of course) in his honor to get people off the highway and to the town. It was funny seeing all these photos and quotes of him on the walls as we got breakfast and coffee.
Back on the bus it was pretty miserable. The 4-month old baby was up now and crying non-stop. And the kid behind us was sick and coughing and making gross nose sounds. The other brother kept saying the same thing over and over “there’s a cow... made you look” and “one step at a time." The guys seat in front of us was so squeaky. Hopefully you're getting the full effect of what our days are like.
The drive was very pretty through the countryside (reminded Grace of the great movie Leap Year)! We saw our first castle on the way to the Cliffs. Eoin told us that there are 3,000 castles in Ireland. He taught us about the famine that killed millions due to a disease with potatoes at the latter half of the 1840s. We saw a mass grave from the famine that is only distinguished by a small stone wall in a square. The Irish blame the English for all of the deaths since they were under their rule at the time.
We finally arrived to the Cliffs at 11am. The cliffs are awesome. As one elderly American tourist said as they passed by, “it's like the Grand Canyon of Ireland.” We walked along the right side of the cliffs as far as we could. At some parts, you are right along the edge. The proximity to the cliff caused many family conflicts that we overheard...luckily we weren't with our families because we took some pretty risky photos! :p Also to note, there is this rock at the bottom of the cliffs that has so many birds on it. They are so loud and sound like thousands of school children playing at recess.
After the Cliffs, we boarded the bus for lunch in a small town. All the buses stop here for lunch. We ate fish and chips. We became friends with two girls from Colorado (Lauren and Kyra, sisters). Lauren had just graduated school like us and was also traveling for 6 weeks. We shared living situations and travel dramas over lunch, happy to know that we weren’t the only ones running to get transportation! Before getting to Galway, we made a quick pitstop at what Eoin called the “mini cliffs,” which are the karst hills of the Burren. They were nice, but seemed random. Way off in the distance you could still see the Cliffs of Moher.
The last stop on the trip was Galway. We only had time for a quick cider at the King's Head Pub before heading back to the bus for a long journey back across the country. We wish we had more time here to explore. At the stop in Galway, we did a search of hotels in the same Temple Bare area. We luckily found one that wasn’t that expensive and had clean reviews (clean being the key word). When we got back, we went right to the Mercantile Hotel. We scoped out the room, approved, and then headed to dinner at Oliver St. Johns Gogarty (thanks @Eliza for the rec!). We had the two course dinner menu. So much food but free water and bread! Yay to being back in the land of free water.
After dinner we went to the hostel to pack up our things and move. We showered in the very clean bathroom and then headed back to the Temple Bar street to find some live music. The music was fun with mostly one musician playing covers of songs. We didn’t stay out too long; we had had a long day.
The next morning we had breakfast at Keoghs Cafe. It was perfect- eggs with toast and coffee, reminding us of breakfast at home. We then made our way to a public bus stop to get to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison. Boarding the bus, we only had a €20 bill and change. The driver said it was coins only. €2.40... we had that! Each... we did not have that. The bus driver was so nice and still let us on. We just had to give him all the change we had and he gave us children’s tickets. Actually everyone is so nice here. We love the Irish.
We made it just in time for our 10:30am tour. For the Gaol you have to get tickets by tour time ahead of time. At the Gaol we learned a lot about the Irish Rebellion (Easter Rising - rebellion of 1916. The rebels were seen as traitors to Britain but became martyrs after their private executions) and the prison itself. It opened in 1796 and closed in 1924, so it was in operation for over 120 years. It was one of the worst jails in Europe in terms of the condition of the jail due to its overcrowding. The famine we learned about the day before led to many being put in jail here (during the famine, many people were stealing food). All types of people (men, women, children) and crimes would be put into the same cell. These cells were meant for one person but would house eight. At one point, the prison that was meant to hold 100 people had 900 people! The prison expansion in the 1850s finally improved conditions and everyone had their own cells. The cells were meant as separation facilities (separation (isolation), silence, supervision), yet it wasn’t until the expansion that people had their own cells. Our guide told us lots about the people held inside these cells and the hundreds of executions that took place (by hanging and firing squad). The Gaol is infamous due to the fact that it was a political jail- famous government officials were in jail here before Ireland gained its independence. The last time the Goal was used was during the Irish civil war- all of the prisoners were women. Some less depressing facts about the Gaol: U2 shot a music video there called Celebration before they became super famous. Also various movies were filmed there. This tour was great! It lasted an hour and you saw the entire thing. If you are going to Dublin, add this to your list.
Since we didn’t have any change, we made the 50 minute walk back to the center of Dublin. Along the way back, we saw the Guinness Factory, Pearse Lyons Distillery, Dublinia, and Christ Church Cathedral (built in 1036) all from the outside of course.
We finally got to the Dublin Castle (1204). We paid to go inside and used our student cards. We paid €6 together, but it should have been €6 each. Like we said, everyone is so nice! Discounts! Maybe it’s because the food and drinks are more expensive here. Dublin Castle was the center of the old city and is still used today to inaugurate the Presidents. Many crowns of England have spent time in the Castle. After a quick tour of some of the rooms and gardens, we headed to lunch at Boojum. It’s a pretty good chipotle-styled burrito place. We ate way too much!
After lunch we headed to the Custom House (1791) which was free to enter. All of it still ties to the famine and the rebellion. There is not much to see here since the building is still in use by various government groups. We crossed the river to get to Trinity College. We spent €11 each to see the College Library and the Books of Kells, our most expensive stop of the day. The Book of Kells is really 4 books and is the most treasured artifact. The books are very decorated gospel books written in 800 AD. Upstairs we saw the grand wooden library with thousands of old books and the oldest surviving harp in Ireland. This was such a cool library! We wondered if anyone was allowed to use the books.
After our time at Trinity, we walked down Grafton street listening to various street performers before entering St. Stephen’s Green (unsurprisingly also a sight of the Rebellion). We spent our time in the park reflecting on our past 5.5 weeks together since it was our last full day together. We walked back weaving through the busy streets. People were finishing work and starting to drink. People drink A LOT here. Instead of getting a beer, we shockingly first stopped at Murphy's ice cream to get some cones. They had a flavor called brown bread and the ice cream scooper was shocked we had never heard of "brown bread" before. After ice cream, we went to a bookstore. Grace got The Last Lecture at a €5 bookstore for her flight home (per Emily’s recommendation from CMU). There had been a bunch of Pride rainbow decorations around the city and we found out that the parade was the day we were leaving. We've missed the major fun events in every city! We are bummed.
After packing a bit, we took a picture at Ha’Penny Bridge and headed to the (Irish) pubs for music and beer. We hung out in the Temple Bar for a bit (very expensive beer). We then met up with Lauren and Kyra who were on a pub crawl through their walking tour. We joined them and met some other Californians- Caroline, Lulu, and Sara! It was a great last night :)
And just like that, 5.5 weeks is over! It's hard to comprehend; the beginning of the trip feels so long ago. We headed to the airport to hop on some flights. We both flew to Iceland. Emily met up with her parents there and is exploring the country over the next week, so stay tuned for that next post. Grace continued to Los Angeles (9 hour flight with NO entertainment system or included meals #thanksWOWair). Bye bye graceandemilytravel :'( We'll post a fun summary later, so make sure to check back for that!
To Be Continued,
Emily & Grace
We are (ed note: were) staying at Barnacle Temple Bar Hostel. It is literally right next to the famous Temple Bar and Temple Bar street with tons of pubs (FYI they don’t call Irish Pubs “Irish Pubs” here, they are just last names like you’d expect lol). The hostel seemed fine at first: mixed gender dorm with six beds and a private bathroom. But it was really not nice. Everything seemed dirty: the floors, the shower, at least not the bed sheets. And with the window shut to block out the noise of people partying outside, it must’ve been 90degrees in the room. We knew we had to get up early to get our bus for our day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway at 6:50am, so after grabbing a quick dinner at a pub down the street (and some beer, of course! Well Orchards Ciders but same difference... oh, and getting carded when we went downstairs to the bar area to see the guy who was singing for 5 min. First time being carded this entire trip!), we headed back for some sleep. Two of our roommates were there, and they had shut the window and were going to bed, so we tried to get ready quietly. Emily showered in the tiny gross shower with no water pressure trying not to touch the wall with her back while Grace immediately started looking for Airbnb’s in the area. This is how rough the hostel was.
It was about 11pm when we were settling in to sleep. 15 min later, the dude got up to use the restroom, and we are pretty sure he had a stomach bug. The light went on, and the toilet flushing was loud. We start laughing so hard at this point because we cannot believe this situation. Now it’s 11:36pm and Emily is distracted by snoring next door and drunken cackling outside on the street. 11:45pm both sweating. Emily then gets off the bunk to take AdvilPM and grab her headphones. 12:00am still up. 12:15 finally asleep. 2:20am two drunk American guys walk in to get ready for bed. It’s hot in the room so they open the window. We notice the sound on the street is almost gone, good to know the scene ends around 2am. One guy passes out leaving sound on his phone to dinging. 2:40am Emily asks for the dinging to be turned off. Friend gets up to turn off others’ sound. 2:50am finally back to sleep. 4:00am alarm goes off. It’s the Americans. They are up to catch a flight. So we are up as well. Luckily they are out quickly (but seriously, why did they try to sleep from 2:20-4am, should’ve just stayed out). 4:10am back to sleep. 6am Grace gets up to shower. 6:15am Emily up to change. 6:43am we leave for our day trip. We were mad! This was supposed to be a 6-7 hour night of sleep but turned into a 3 hour one.
Anyway, more exciting stuff- we used “Get Your Guide” to do a day bus trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway Bay from Dublin. Our Irish bus driver was also our tour guide. He was funny and of course loved to say ass. His name was Owen spelled Eoin (yes, we are just as surprised as you). We quickly passed out on the bus due to our lack of sleep. We stopped after 1.5 hours at the Barack Obama Plaza which was built after President Obama visited the small town where his great great something grandma lived. The town was so happy to be back on the map (after their version of Route 66 was replaced by a more direct road) that they built the plaza (using taxpayers money of course) in his honor to get people off the highway and to the town. It was funny seeing all these photos and quotes of him on the walls as we got breakfast and coffee.
Back on the bus it was pretty miserable. The 4-month old baby was up now and crying non-stop. And the kid behind us was sick and coughing and making gross nose sounds. The other brother kept saying the same thing over and over “there’s a cow... made you look” and “one step at a time." The guys seat in front of us was so squeaky. Hopefully you're getting the full effect of what our days are like.
The drive was very pretty through the countryside (reminded Grace of the great movie Leap Year)! We saw our first castle on the way to the Cliffs. Eoin told us that there are 3,000 castles in Ireland. He taught us about the famine that killed millions due to a disease with potatoes at the latter half of the 1840s. We saw a mass grave from the famine that is only distinguished by a small stone wall in a square. The Irish blame the English for all of the deaths since they were under their rule at the time.
We finally arrived to the Cliffs at 11am. The cliffs are awesome. As one elderly American tourist said as they passed by, “it's like the Grand Canyon of Ireland.” We walked along the right side of the cliffs as far as we could. At some parts, you are right along the edge. The proximity to the cliff caused many family conflicts that we overheard...luckily we weren't with our families because we took some pretty risky photos! :p Also to note, there is this rock at the bottom of the cliffs that has so many birds on it. They are so loud and sound like thousands of school children playing at recess.
After the Cliffs, we boarded the bus for lunch in a small town. All the buses stop here for lunch. We ate fish and chips. We became friends with two girls from Colorado (Lauren and Kyra, sisters). Lauren had just graduated school like us and was also traveling for 6 weeks. We shared living situations and travel dramas over lunch, happy to know that we weren’t the only ones running to get transportation! Before getting to Galway, we made a quick pitstop at what Eoin called the “mini cliffs,” which are the karst hills of the Burren. They were nice, but seemed random. Way off in the distance you could still see the Cliffs of Moher.
The last stop on the trip was Galway. We only had time for a quick cider at the King's Head Pub before heading back to the bus for a long journey back across the country. We wish we had more time here to explore. At the stop in Galway, we did a search of hotels in the same Temple Bare area. We luckily found one that wasn’t that expensive and had clean reviews (clean being the key word). When we got back, we went right to the Mercantile Hotel. We scoped out the room, approved, and then headed to dinner at Oliver St. Johns Gogarty (thanks @Eliza for the rec!). We had the two course dinner menu. So much food but free water and bread! Yay to being back in the land of free water.
After dinner we went to the hostel to pack up our things and move. We showered in the very clean bathroom and then headed back to the Temple Bar street to find some live music. The music was fun with mostly one musician playing covers of songs. We didn’t stay out too long; we had had a long day.
The next morning we had breakfast at Keoghs Cafe. It was perfect- eggs with toast and coffee, reminding us of breakfast at home. We then made our way to a public bus stop to get to Kilmainham Gaol, a prison. Boarding the bus, we only had a €20 bill and change. The driver said it was coins only. €2.40... we had that! Each... we did not have that. The bus driver was so nice and still let us on. We just had to give him all the change we had and he gave us children’s tickets. Actually everyone is so nice here. We love the Irish.
We made it just in time for our 10:30am tour. For the Gaol you have to get tickets by tour time ahead of time. At the Gaol we learned a lot about the Irish Rebellion (Easter Rising - rebellion of 1916. The rebels were seen as traitors to Britain but became martyrs after their private executions) and the prison itself. It opened in 1796 and closed in 1924, so it was in operation for over 120 years. It was one of the worst jails in Europe in terms of the condition of the jail due to its overcrowding. The famine we learned about the day before led to many being put in jail here (during the famine, many people were stealing food). All types of people (men, women, children) and crimes would be put into the same cell. These cells were meant for one person but would house eight. At one point, the prison that was meant to hold 100 people had 900 people! The prison expansion in the 1850s finally improved conditions and everyone had their own cells. The cells were meant as separation facilities (separation (isolation), silence, supervision), yet it wasn’t until the expansion that people had their own cells. Our guide told us lots about the people held inside these cells and the hundreds of executions that took place (by hanging and firing squad). The Gaol is infamous due to the fact that it was a political jail- famous government officials were in jail here before Ireland gained its independence. The last time the Goal was used was during the Irish civil war- all of the prisoners were women. Some less depressing facts about the Gaol: U2 shot a music video there called Celebration before they became super famous. Also various movies were filmed there. This tour was great! It lasted an hour and you saw the entire thing. If you are going to Dublin, add this to your list.
Since we didn’t have any change, we made the 50 minute walk back to the center of Dublin. Along the way back, we saw the Guinness Factory, Pearse Lyons Distillery, Dublinia, and Christ Church Cathedral (built in 1036) all from the outside of course.
We finally got to the Dublin Castle (1204). We paid to go inside and used our student cards. We paid €6 together, but it should have been €6 each. Like we said, everyone is so nice! Discounts! Maybe it’s because the food and drinks are more expensive here. Dublin Castle was the center of the old city and is still used today to inaugurate the Presidents. Many crowns of England have spent time in the Castle. After a quick tour of some of the rooms and gardens, we headed to lunch at Boojum. It’s a pretty good chipotle-styled burrito place. We ate way too much!
After lunch we headed to the Custom House (1791) which was free to enter. All of it still ties to the famine and the rebellion. There is not much to see here since the building is still in use by various government groups. We crossed the river to get to Trinity College. We spent €11 each to see the College Library and the Books of Kells, our most expensive stop of the day. The Book of Kells is really 4 books and is the most treasured artifact. The books are very decorated gospel books written in 800 AD. Upstairs we saw the grand wooden library with thousands of old books and the oldest surviving harp in Ireland. This was such a cool library! We wondered if anyone was allowed to use the books.
After our time at Trinity, we walked down Grafton street listening to various street performers before entering St. Stephen’s Green (unsurprisingly also a sight of the Rebellion). We spent our time in the park reflecting on our past 5.5 weeks together since it was our last full day together. We walked back weaving through the busy streets. People were finishing work and starting to drink. People drink A LOT here. Instead of getting a beer, we shockingly first stopped at Murphy's ice cream to get some cones. They had a flavor called brown bread and the ice cream scooper was shocked we had never heard of "brown bread" before. After ice cream, we went to a bookstore. Grace got The Last Lecture at a €5 bookstore for her flight home (per Emily’s recommendation from CMU). There had been a bunch of Pride rainbow decorations around the city and we found out that the parade was the day we were leaving. We've missed the major fun events in every city! We are bummed.
After packing a bit, we took a picture at Ha’Penny Bridge and headed to the (Irish) pubs for music and beer. We hung out in the Temple Bar for a bit (very expensive beer). We then met up with Lauren and Kyra who were on a pub crawl through their walking tour. We joined them and met some other Californians- Caroline, Lulu, and Sara! It was a great last night :)
And just like that, 5.5 weeks is over! It's hard to comprehend; the beginning of the trip feels so long ago. We headed to the airport to hop on some flights. We both flew to Iceland. Emily met up with her parents there and is exploring the country over the next week, so stay tuned for that next post. Grace continued to Los Angeles (9 hour flight with NO entertainment system or included meals #thanksWOWair). Bye bye graceandemilytravel :'( We'll post a fun summary later, so make sure to check back for that!
To Be Continued,
Emily & Grace
Comments
Post a Comment