Dirty Old Town

Hey guys!

Right now, I'm at our hostel in Dublin. It turns out we have internet after all. It's really slow and not all the sites work, but I can email home, which is nice. And I can post! We got in yesterday afternoon (we being me, Adam, Tabitha, Mary Beth, and her cousin Jess). The flight was really nice. We flew over beautiful mountains and hills. After landing at Gatwick, we took a bus to Dublin. We wandered around looking for our hostel, and finally found it. We got our room situated and went out for a walk. All the pubs were either overpriced or stopped serving food by the time we were out, so we went to Burger King. After that, we came back to the hostel and went to bed.

Today we checked out the city. I already like it better than London. Everything is more open, giving the city a less claustrophobic feel than London. The buildings are older looking too. There are more bars than I've ever seen in my life. It's nuts! We walked past a restaurant that U2 had eaten at. That was cool. I wish we'd stopped there. Oh well. Since arriving in Ireland, all but two of the songs I've listened to have been by U2. I'm trying to cover all their albums before we to go Scotland. Not EVERY song on every album, but a few songs from each album. So far I've hit Achtung Baby, The Joshua Tree, No Line on the Horizon, October, Rattle and Hum, War, and Zooropa.

There are a lot of book stores too. I got a 1960s copy of Ian Fleming's "Thunderball" for €2. It was my first 007 book, so that's cool. I've been eyeing a bodhrán too, but I have no clue how I'd get it back to America in one piece. The only thing I could think of is if I had it with me in my backpack on the flight from London to Newark. I might risk it though. Bodhráns are awesome.

We explored the southern part of Dublin today. We went to the National Gallery of Dublin, which wasn't NEARLY as cool as the London National Gallery, but it did have a portrait of Bono, which was pretty sweet. Then we checked out Dublin Castle which reminded me a lot of Hampton Court Palace, only again - not as cool. Then we went to St. Stephen's Green, a decent-sized park. THAT was cool. Parts of it reminded me of Amherst State Park. There were some ponds and a big courtyard with flowers and fountains. We relaxed there for a while. Some of us slept, some of us read. I started "Thunderball". It's pretty good. It's weird to be reading about James Bond for a change. I'll have to rewatch the movie when I come home.

For dinner, we went to a bar called Brannigan's, or something like that. It was really cool. Tab and I split a lamb and potato stew. It was really, really good. It was fun to be sitting in an Irish bar eating Irish food. The five of us split an order of chips as well. It was really filling, but I'm getting hungry again.

After dinner, we came back to the hostel. Then I went back out for a walk with my iPod. I didn't go very far- obviously I don't know Dublin half as well as I know London. I just stuck to the street our hostel was on and went down two streets off of it. One street was called Railway Street, and I had to go down it. But I didn't see any tracks or stations. Just a group sketchy teenagers doing their thing.

Tomorrow morning, the five of us are taking a bus to Kilkenny. If you've ever watched South Park, you should be smiling right about now. We're going to see Kilkenny Castle, which was built in the 12th century, I think. Either way, it's mad old and should be cool. We're planning to spend the night there and return to Dublin the next day. We're also hoping to see the Cliffs of Moher on the 24th, so keep your fingers crossed on that one.

It's really weird to be making all these plans by ourselves. First off, it's just weird to be done with the FYHP and actually have time to kill and stuff to do that isn't assigned. But more than that, it's strange because it's very "adult", and none of us have done anything like it before. But we're getting the hang of it, I think.

That's about it for now. Overall, I'm having a really fun time in Ireland. It's sort of stressful to have to plan everything, but we're planning fun things, so it's all good. Dublin is an awesome city, and if Glasgow is half as cool, I'll be happy. And soon I'll be home with my family and friends, and I can't wait.

I'm going to go back to the room now. I love you guys!