Dublin, Ireland

*in an Irish accent* Hi there! I made it to and from Dublin with Ryanair and had so much fun while I was there!!

Thursday, November 2nd, 2023

The trip started very chaotically, and unexpectedly, not because of Ryanair! There was a storm in Belgium overnight on Wednesday, which meant a lot of delays on Thursday morning. The plan was to take a train from Ghent straight to the airport in Brussels, but my first train got delayed so I took a different train that got rerouted because of something blocking the tracks. I’m assuming a tree fell down in the storm or something like that but we were able to switch tracks and make it to the airport only an hour and a bit behind schedule. Side note: it didn’t occur to me that there could be multiple sets of tracks between places because that’s just not a thing in Ontario, so I was pleasantly surprised that track closure does not mean train cancellation!! Go European train system!! I left myself 2.5 hours at the airport to make sure everything went smoothly and I’m very glad I did because I made it just on time!! One very nice outcome of Brexit is that there are 3 lines at passport control for departures in Brussels. One for EU residents, one for all other citizens, then a separate one just for Great Britain, Canada and the US. The first two lines were packed but my line was just me and I breezed through! Then I headed to my gate eager to see what Ryanair is all about.

An aside on Ryanair because it’s not a thing in Canada, basically, it’s a cheap airline that I’ve only ever heard bad things about, aside from the fact that they’re cheap. They’re an airline where you don’t get to choose seats ahead of time (unless you pay more) so getting on board is a battle. When I arrived at my gate, there were already tons of people lining up and getting pretty shovey! Ryanair cuts all the usual corners to make flights as cheap as possible and that’s pretty nice because I was able to fly round trip to Dublin for about $150. And while I say it’s my first Ryanair experience, I wouldn’t say that I got the full experience... Because I’m an Erasmus student, they give me some upgrades like being assigned a seat and I can bring a personal item AND a carry-on. So with those bonuses, it was a pretty standard flight experience!! The seats were a little uncomfortable but if that’s my biggest complaint, I think that’s a win!!

An hour and a half later, I was landing in Dublin. I put on an Ed Sheeran playlist while looking over the rolling green hills to get in the mood, then I was there!

I took an express bus into the city and it took me a couple of seconds to realize we were on the wrong side of the road!!! Well, not actually on the wrong side but on the left! It was a weird feeling. Even weirder was walking around the city and not knowing which way the cars would be coming from. But thankfully the city of Dublin thought about this and painted these.

Once I got into the city, I walked to my hostel to check in and drop off my bags. My hostel was pretty cool and each room had between 6 and 10 “pods” as beds. They’re kind of like little shoe boxes that you sleep in but it was quite private and really comfy!!

I started my Dublin day by getting out and walking all over town. I started at Trinity College, and it might be one of the most picturesque campuses I’ve seen (other than Dalhousie of course, but I might be biased!).

Then I walked along the water to see some of the touristy sites like the Irish Emigration Museum (it’s called EPIC, and I’m not sure if that’s an acronym or if it’s just really cool…), the Customs House, some assorted monuments and lots of pretty bridges.

Dublin has some really nice churches as well, this the Christ Church Cathedral. I only got to see it from the outside because they charged an entrance fee but I went next door to St Audoen’s Church instead (for free!)

St Audoen’s is the oldest remaining Parish church in Dublin and has bells that were cast in 1423!! That was 600 years ago!! They still ring every Sunday morning for a whole 30 minutes!!

I walked along the busy shopping streets and through the parks, racking up an impressive 28,000 steps! I headed back to my hostel to regroup then headed out to dinner at a typical Irish pub!

I went to dinner by myself, which I’ve gotten more used to (at first I found it awkward), but at this pub, they put me at a table in this random little nook beside the stairs where it was just me behind some sculpture. It was a little odd but it was truly a private dining experience lol.

After my fish & chips, I headed back to my hostel to listen to some live music and meet some other travellers! The bar in my hostel was really nice and quite lively so I hung out for a little bit and chatted with a Belgian girl before climbing into my shoe box for the night:)

Friday, November 3rd, 2023

I started the day with a half-day tour to Glendalough National Park, about an hour and a half outside of Dublin. This was my ride:

For the hour-and-a-half drive, I was expecting to learn lots of history and stories about Dublin and Glendalough but instead, my driver, JJ, who identifies as a leprechaun, told us his entire life story, filled with the most random and unbelievable events, here are a few of my favourites:

• he is dyslexic but this wasn’t recognized in Ireland when he was in school in the 70s, so he was just labelled disruptive and then he played into that role a little bit too much and got expelled.

• So then he started to work in construction, particularly granite and other rock work.

• This job led to him working on the city hall building in Dublin. He says that while they were excavating the site, they came across Viking remains and artifacts but the politicians didn’t want to delay the project so told them to just pour mass concrete over all of it and don’t tell anyone. So he started a rally/protest to get them to do it the proper way. This got him fired.

• So then he went into mechanics and he figured out that he really likes driving buses. So you’d think that’s how he got into tour bus driving but no. He became a roadie for the Rolling Stones, transporting them between venues and then expanded to being a private driver for sports teams and other celebrities.

• Then he got tired of the road and went to work as a prison guard for 20 years.

• But the prison system “decides you’re worthless when you turn 60”, so forced him to retire.

• So he went back to his previous passion of driving and now drives tourists around all day.

• The craziest story he told: one where he forced his daughter’s headmaster to resign because he wasn’t being helpful with his daughter’s dyslexia. How did he do it? He threatened to expose the headmaster for sleeping with his daughter’s teacher, who is married. This story came up because he thought that someone should’ve done that for him when he was in school, but he grew up in foster care so he didn’t have a “mommy and daddy to fight for him”.

• The one story that he did tell about Glendalough National Park (I know, I kind of forgot that that was supposed to be the focus of the tour too) was a story about his family (before foster care). His mother and father had 3 kids and when they were all young, his father left his mother, stole all her money and moved the Birmingham where he started a new family shortly after. JJ said that the only family photo of all 5 of them together was taken at Glendalough. And that was the only mention of the park for the whole drive.

With little background information or anything to expect, once we got there it was stunning! I met two other solo travellers, Verle from Germany, and Veronica from Spain so we did the hike to the upper lake together, stopping frequently to take photos of the beautiful scenery.

On the way back to Dublin JJ said, “Well I think I’ve talked enough folks so you can talk amongst yourselves”.

I took the opportunity to Google Glendalough and learned a bit about its history. St. Kevin established a small city and abbey here in the 6th century and surrounding small towns were established that are still there today. There is a large cemetery, a huge tower, some old bridges and a couple of ruins that were all really cool to look at. The nature park has over 100km of trails with waterfalls and lakes and parts of Braveheart and PS I love you were filmed here!

So I spent my morning in the Irish wilderness and figured it was only right to spend my afternoon in an Irish pub. So I went to yet another beer experience, but this time at Guinness! Truth be told, this was actually my first Guinness ever and I can’t think of a better place to have one. To make it even better, they printed my face on my beer!! What a cool piece of technology!!

The beer experience was awesome and the building itself was incredible! There was a bar on the top floor with views of all of Dublin, original brewing components, and an exhibit about Guinness’s past marketing campaigns. I learned that they have an ad campaign that was nominated as the ad of the millennium!!

I learned how to properly taste a Guinness and I had no idea that it’s actually very specific! You are supposed to taste different components on different parts of your tongue and we did this tasting in “the white room” as to heighten our sense of taste. My review: it was actually really good!! I never thought of myself as a beer girl but I think James’ plan to convert me is working!

At this point, being my third or fourth (?) beer experience, I think I can confidently declare I know how beer is brewed and I might not be able to say that I’m not a beer girl anymore! Woah, is this the first step in becoming Katherine!?

In the evening I had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant (in Dublin, I know a little random), but it was so tasty! On the way back I stopped at an Irish pub and met lots of characters!! I was chatting with some girls from Iowa who are on exchange in Bath, a rowdy group of English guys on a stag trip, three American travel agents and two hospital cleaners from Brazil. What a bunch! The live music was really good and fun and the singer even learned my name and interrupted the chorus of the song to say goodbye to me as I was leaving!

Saturday, November 4th, 2023

Going to a bar the night before plus a 5:40 AM flight means not very much sleep but with Ryanair, you do what you have to!! I woke up at 3:00AM and got a taxi straight to the airport. I wasn’t feeling up to risking public transportation by myself at 3AM so a taxi seemed like a reasonable expense! Everything went smoothly and I had some extra time at the airport to write this post!! As I’m posting it, I made it back to my apartment and I’m getting started on all the work I should’ve been doing the past couple of days!! 🍀🍀