Going to dublin was entirely an impromptu thing – one of those spur-of-a-moment decisions you make, which sometimes turn out better than any of your best-laid plans.
Well, since the others had classes, and I didn’t (yea..like AGAIN), I decided to go somewhere which huifen didn’t mind missing. so ireland it was. good thing that vik was there, so I cld bunk in with him, and better still, ryanair had return tic gg for 21 euros. sweet.
21 Feb, Thursday
0430 – alarm rang. Was reluctant to get out of bed coz I slept at 330.
0445 – snooze reminded me that I’ll be screwed if I didn’t wake up
0530 – still trying to dash in and out of the room without waking up my housemates. bleah
0545 – ran out of house to catch my train at 0551. talk about living life dangerously
0553 – train arrived (late!) still, it was when my adventures begin
1130 – arrive in Dublin international airport
1200 – boarded city bus to city centre to meet vik
1240 – got off one stop early coz instructions was to alight once I see a sharp pointy thing called the spire. Well, I did see a sharp-pointy thing, but it was the roof a cathedral. Hurhur.. but arh wells
1245 – reunited with vik! Along the streets of o’connell! (:
1246 – walked like damn briskly to catch the next bus to trim castle
1300 – bus departed!
bagpiper opposite dublin international airport
dublin spire
o'connell street
trim castle was the place where mel gibson shot braveheart (and I thot those were the scottish mountains. blah) the place’s really nice, but a pity the castle is only open on weekends coz it’s winter (surprise! surprise!)
still, we had fun running around the place, taking pictures, trying to break into the castle and having picnic atop some strange looking bridge which serves no purpose other than being the perfect setting for more of our camera whoring sessions.
i esp love this one.
despite being plain silly, i love this bunch of pictures. they make us look so carefree and happy. one of those rare silly photos i take. i like (:
Caught the bus back to city centre hoping to still do a bit of sight seeing before the sky turns dark. Walked down o’connell street and found really cheap buys at some outdoor shops. Pity I didn’t get anything in the end coz I didn’t want to spend money. Would have come in handy for the ski trip and possibly future trek trips. Went to peneys (huge clothes store with cheap clothes) only to realize they carry stuff sold in primemark! Den it was tesco in jervis to get ingredients needed for dinner.
the "closest" i ever got to bono - @ toilet in jervis
Den it was cooking by master chef vik. pasta bolognese was good and after dinner, we headed to one of his fren’s place for a house party. Was introduced to beer pong (American style) and its always hilarious to see how the guys will resort to dirty tricks on the girls (like blocking the ball with their bodies/limbs) just to win. Ha!
chef @ work
Headed back and was introduced to the girls who stayed in the adjoining dorm (vik’s dorm was the male dorm which had 6(?) guys sharing the apartment) met livia, the nice and chatty german girl and we talked for a good 1 (?) hour – enough time for vik to do his socializing with his frens, walk to the bus stop to pick up his couch-surfing fren, Klaus, and walk back. Chatting continued in the girl’s kitchen, until one of us finally admitted to being tired and headed back to our rooms. Time check: 2am.
0800 – agreed waking up time. And we actually abided to it! Whees!
0930 – tour around vik’s school - UCD (University College Dublin) which was really nice and every bit I imagined a college to be. The convenience store bit did look kinda ntu-ish, but they even have a damn happening pub in the school (nopes. Its nicer than ice-cold b. really)
Fact #1: Oh! If there’s one thing one must know about dublin – it will be that the place is FRIGGIN’ WINDY. Its those kind where you can be literally blown away coz its just so strong and it blows non-stop.
next stop was trinity college dublin. the university was really pretty, but continuing on from the previous comment of the wind in dublin, we witness the magnitude of it when a strong gust of wind blew the entire rubbish bin away and the spade which the cleaner was using almost flew straight at us. very scary.
the stately trinity college
Left trinity at around 12 noon. We den head towards st. patrick’s cathedral. en route, we walked past grafton street, another shopping street besides o’connell.
st patrick's from the outside
Decided to give Christchurch a miss coz by den we were all hungry (and I didn’t feel like paying hefty admission fees to go into another church). Old jameson distillery was around the corner (ok, not exactly, but close enough) so we went there. Got our tour tickets and had a quick lunch at subway (:
old jameson’s was lots of fun, with the tour beginning with a video on its history. After that, we were brought around the place and introduced to all the different stages involved in the making of the irish whiskey. Some interesting facts includes the different between the american whiskey (i.e. jack daniels), scotch and the irish whiskey (i.e. the American kind tends to be sweeter coz they use corn/maize, while the irish ones use barley. Also, the irish ones are distilled 3 times, while the scotch, only 2 times, and the latter tends to have a more smoky texture)
For the rest of us, we each got a drink (: I chose the one with coke, although I think klaus’ one with cranberry juice tasted much nicer!
As Klaus promised to cook us a nice Austrian dinner tat night, we found ourselves back at tesco.
Fact #3: the jams in dublin can get really crappy at times, especially when many of the roads (even the main ones) are single or at most double lane(s). most of the time we find ourselves stuck in a jam and that really sucked. reminded me of singapore. bleah.
as i promised to make cheesecake for vik but didn’t know the recipe by heart, i had to check the ingredients i need back at vik's place and walk to tesco to get them. took me a good 1hr to get there and back (by the time i reached back, they sky was almost dark) but it was nice just walking along the streets, alone.
austrian dinner turns out to be schnitzel, which we all argued was german. but well, a check with trusty Wikipedia says its austrian, so now we know…he also made some dessert which name I couldn’t catch, but they were all yummy so we were happy (:
decided to go to a cinema to catch jumper coz livia was a great fan of hayden christensen. For me, i just needed my dose of cinematic experience after being deprived of it for so long. think this has to be the longest time i have not watched a movie, which is really sad, especially with the oscar season in full swing now. blahs.
Fact #4: cant quite get over the assortment of people and the music which they played in there. There were young punks who looked 16 and old men in suits in the place. And the music ranged from hip-hop to pop den to heavy metal the next. Very surreal. Ha!
0700 – woke up for last min packing and of course, cake tasting. Could have been better, but I guess im happy with it for a 1st attempt. Thanks to all for feedback too. hopefully the next one (if im ever gg to do it again) will be better! Ha!
0800 – left for bus to take me to the airport
0845 – on the streets of o’connell waiting for connecting bus
0855 – bus arrives
0930 – awoken to find myself already at the airport and everyone was already alighting . drats
1030 – found out tat flight’s been delayed by 25mins. Well, that’s flying for you, ryanair style
1125 – flight departs Dublin and after 1 flight, 1 airport shuttle to mainz, 2 train rides to Wiesbaden and den hattenheim, 1 hr of wait in Wiesbaden, I finally reached home at 5.32pm.
@ dublin airport
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