Belfast, Dublin, and Edinburgh Part Two

This is a continuation of the previous blog post, sorry for it being out of order!

Day two started with a very early alarm clock. People at the hostel left at different times and some had left before us, so I was already semi-awake when it came time to roll out of bed. I noticed that because people get back at such different times and people leave at such different times, there's only like a four hour window when everyone's asleep. We were planning on catching a nine am bus to Dublin, so we got out of bed at seven so we could dress, eat, and get to the bus station. 

We grabbed our stuff, changed in the bathroom, and went downstairs for the breakfast that was included. It was actually a really good breakfast. They had sweet baked beans, warm sourdough toast drenched in butter and jam, scrambled eggs, and coffee. We then had to wait for someone to come to reception so that we could check out and exchange the noisy lock for the lock deposit. We searched the whole hostel for someone and eventually someone came down to help us. We kept checking our watches and determined that we probably wouldn't make the nine am bus, so we would just catch whichever one came after that. 

We found the bus station pretty easily. It was only a twenty minute walk from our hostel. We went inside and talked to the lady at the information booth. We got there at like 8:50 and we were asking her stuff like when the next bus was, where could we catch it, and how much it would cost. It was a very difficult conversation because as friendly as she was, we had to keep asking her to repeat what she was saying and she kept disregarding our questions about buses and talking about trains. "You can catch the train here that will take you to the other train station in Belfast and then you can take the 10:00 train from there to Dublin." She kept saying. "Can we take a bus?" we asked her. "Oh, yes, but for buses you need to go over there." She pointed at the other end of the station. We thanked her and then walked aimlessly until we figured out where she was pointing.

"Hi, when's the next bus to Dublin?" I asked the guy behind the glass. "Two minutes." He replied. "Can we make it?" I asked him. "Of course!" he said and we quickly paid for our round trip tickets to Dublin and back. Thus we learned that traveling is a lot about luck. 

We did indeed make it on the nine am bus. It was nice to watch the Irish countryside go by and look at all the little towns. I wanted to take the opportunity to see as much of Ireland as I could, even if it was from the window of a double decker coach bus. I figured you can't just judge an island only by two cities. I figured that would be like judging California solely on LA and San Francisco. While you could see a lot of great things in California just by seeing those two cities (both of which I love) you'd still miss out on San Diego, San Jose, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, and more. There's still a lot I'd like to see in Ireland, but at least I got to see some countryside and two great cities! 

 Irish countryside

I like this picture because this is kind of how I pictured Ireland. With bright green, rolling hills. There was a lot more to the countryside than that, but it was definitely mostly green!

Two hours later we arrived at Dublin Airport. Because of all the confusion with the train/bus information we received, we went down to ask the driver if the bus went to the city center. Unfortunately there was a miscommunication and we ended up getting off the bus which would actually end up going to the city center. We didn't know this at the time, and figured it out later, but we figured our luck was back in balance for the day. We ended up having to take a city bus to the city center from the airport which took another two hours. It was a bummer to double the amount of travel time it took to get to a city with the time it took us to get from the airport to the city, but once we got there it was all worth it. 

I worried on the bus that Dublin in a day would be too ambitious. It was, but I was worried that we wouldn't get to see anything, we wouldn't have enough time to do anything, and that coming all that way just to see Dublin for less than twenty four hours was a waste. 

Luckily, that worrying was for nothing. Dublin was worth it right when we got off the crowded city bus. It was a very pretty city. I know I keep saying that about all the cities I see, but they're all so pretty. Dublin was a lot more city than Belfast. It had a lot more commercial areas and newer sections. But it was great in its own way. 

Hungry for a snack, we stopped by and got "chips" aka fries with vinegar and salt from a small shop. We then walked to the hostel. It was a huge hostel. We stayed in a room with fourteen other people. While not all rooms were as big as ours, there were over sixty rooms. Our last hostel had only eight or so rooms. It was a little dirtier and more impersonal than the last hostel, but being in a bigger hostel had some benefits such as computers and electronic lockers. 

Eating chips outside the hostel in Dublin

We thought about biking to our first tourist destination, The Guinness Storehouse. When in Dublin... Dublin has these great city bikes that you can pick up from a set location and then drop them off at another. It was very cheap, too, but it was a very complicated system to register a bike card and at this point it was raining and we were worried about biking on the left side of the road and making turns the wrong way. Speaking of how people drive on the left side of the road, it makes jaywalking (which we do very frequently) much more difficult when you can't remember which way to look first because you can't remember which side of the road they drive on. We had a couple near misses, but all in all our jaywalking in left side of the road countries has been successful. We ended up walking to the Guinness Storehouse, which was a lot easier to get to than we thought. Cumulatively it only rained for about five minutes the whole trip, which made the visit that much more enjoyable because we were in sunshine almost the whole time. 

The walk to the Guinness Storehouse was probably one of my favorite parts. For the first part of the walk, we walked along the river and we could see the buildings on both sides and it was very pretty. 

Main road, spire for something in the middle

Along the river

We thought this was the Parliament building for half the day. It's not.

Pretty church on the way to the Storehouse

Almost all the signs in Ireland are in English and in Gaelic

Another pretty church

Outside the Guinness building

The Guinness Storehouse was a very packed, very touristy attraction. While it was on the outskirts of the city, it clearly attracted a lot of tourists. It was a big, expensive looking building located on the spot of the original brewery. Guinness drinking is almost seemed like a religion in Dublin, with Arthur Guinness, the founder and the first one to roast the hops or something like that, as kind of like their god. We took a tour of the storehouse, where it walked you through all the steps of making beer. People have tried to explain how you make beer to me before and I didn't get it. But you literally walked through all the steps of making beer and it explained what the different machines do and now I sort of get how you make beer. If nothing else, it was very interesting to be in a culture that celebrates alcohol consumption so much. 

View from the top of the Guinness Storehouse. The buildings in the foreground are the brewery, I think. After the tour, we went and got lunch at the Storehouse. I got a bunch of pasta salad, which came with Guinness bread. We then went to the top, which is what they call the Gravity Bar. It had views of Dublin. I got a few pictures, but there were a lot of people up there, so we didn't stay long and instead decided to walk back to the hostel. 

On our way back to the hostel, we stopped by St. Patrick's Cathedral. We didn't go inside, but we took pictures and walked around the park. According to an engraved stone in the park, the church is located on the spot where it is believed that St. Patrick performed his first baptism in the 5th century.

We also stopped quickly by the Dublin Castle. 

It's interesting how the parking lot is built right up to the edge of the other part of the castle. Across the street from the castle was an apartment complex. The old blends right into the new. 

 Exhausted, we continued back to the hostel. Julianne wanted to rest, but I wanted to see a little more of the city still, so while she went back to the hostel, I walked up past the hostel to the Writer's Museum. It was closed, which I expected for a Sunday evening, but it was nice just to walk around some more and see more of the city. The fact that it was Sunday meant that most things closed early, if they were open at all. Also in Dublin, the sights catered more towards tourists than in Belfast, which meant that you had to pay to go in to see everything. I really did like Dublin, but I think I would definitely need more time and more money if I was to visit again. Belfast seemed to have a lot more young people, it seemed to be smaller which made it easier to walk around, and there were less tourists so most sights were free and less crowded. 

Anyone see the big reverse Irish flag in this picture? 

After that, I walked back to the hostel where I was able to shower finally. I forgot shower shoes, so I bought plastic grocery store bags and tied them around my feet because the shower was so gross that I didn't want to put my feet in it. Because Ireland has a plastic bag tax to reduce the use of plastic bags (which I think is a really great idea), I had to buy the bags for eleven cents each. 

We rested at the hostel for a bit. The lack of sleep and high amount of walking we had done was starting to catch up with us. We did want to see more of Dublin, though, so we asked the guy at the reception of the hostel where we could go on a Sunday night. He recommended a place with live music. 

We started walking that direction, but since we just wanted to listen to any live music and we weren't too particular, we stopped at the first pub we saw that had live music. While the pub was not packed, it was a lot more crowded than I would have expected it to be for a Sunday night. We sat down and were listening to the guitarist when two very drunk Irishmen struck up a conversation with us. They ended up buying us drinks and asking us a lot of questions about politics and linguistics. We learned how to say "cheers!" in Gaelic, which is "Sláinte!" They were very funny. We didn't stay out too late because we were headed back to Belfast the next morning. 

A very Irish pub!

We went back to the hostel and went to bed. Or tried, at least. There was one guy who was snoring and one person who was trying to drown out the snoring by playing music on their iPod so loudly that everyone could hear it. Eventually though the snoring stopped and the music was turned off. We decided to wake up at seven again to catch the nine am bus back to Belfast. Breakfast was provided again, but it wasn't nearly as good as the breakfast in Belfast. 

Sustained on toast, we walked to the bus station, which was only five minutes away from our hostel. Luckily this time we realized that we could take the bus from the city center. I tried to stay awake on the bus to Belfast to appreciate the countryside, but I was so tired. So, using my coat as a blanket, I slept the whole way back. 

We walked back to the hostel we had stayed at and talked to a very cute boy from Dublin who was working at the reception. He let us leave our backpacks there. 

Julianne and I had the goal to do two, possibly three, things in Belfast before we flew back to Edinburgh. We wanted to go to Belfast Castle, we wanted to see the parliament, and time permitting we wanted to see the Titanic quarter. While we were reading about Belfast, one website said something along the lines of Belfast likes to advertise the one ship they built that sunk, choosing to ignore the hundreds of ships they built that did not. And it was very true. There were Titanic tours, Titanic merchandise, Titanic signs everywhere. 

We decided to do the castle first because we figured we'd have the most energy first, and we would probably need the most energy for that. We had to take a bus because it was outside the city.

On our way to the bus stop we got much needed food and cappuccinos at a local restaurant. The people working there continued the pattern we had seen so far of being very friendly and talkative. I got a very delicious chicken panini. Julianne got pancakes and poured what she assumed was syrup all over her pancakes. It turned out to be vinegar. She tried to eat the pancakes anyway. 

We found the bus near City Hall pretty easily after our lunch, luckily mentioned to the driver that we were going to the castle, and sat down. As we still haven't figured out how to tell which stop to get off on when traveling by bus, we kept peeking out the window trying to read the bus stop signs or look for the castle. 

Fifteen minutes later as the bus was about ready to leave a stop, the driver stuck his head out and called to us. "Belfast castle?" he asked. "Yes!" we shouted and jumped up and rushed off the bus. We followed the signs to the castle. We had to walk through a very pretty residential area and then through these very pretty gardens to get to the castle. 

Cute suburban Belfast

Cave Hill, where the castle is located. It's nicknamed Napoleon's Nose. It's also where a lot of people took refuge while Belfast was being attacked during World War II.

View of the ocean from the gardens

The second we saw the castle we decided to forgo the rest of the stuff on our itinerary and spend our time exploring this area instead. The castle was so pretty. There was a cat themed garden, which Julianne loved. The flowers were very pretty. The castle over looked the city of Belfast and the ocean. Behind it was the very green Cave Hill. The castle itself was also very cool. It had turrets and was made of rectangular stones and had orange trim. There was almost no one there, so we took our time exploring the castle. No one told us where we were/weren't allowed to go, so we just explored whatever rooms we wanted. It was fun because it felt like we were exploring the castle and not just touring it. There was a very small spiral staircase, rooms set up for real dinners, and rooms with information about the history of the castle, which was cool to read about. We eventually took an elevator down to the cellar, where they had a restaurant. We decided to have afternoon tea there. They gave us so much food and tea. We tried to finish all the food, but we couldn't. It was very delicious. We kept repeating the whole time we were there "We're having tea in a castle in Northern Ireland!" hoping that if we said it enough times it would sink in. 

There were egg salad, tuna, and ham finger sandwiches, scones with thick cream and jam, various chocolate, berry, and cream desserts, and tea with sugar and cream. 

We then walked back to the bus stop, took the bus back to the city, walked to the hostel, picked up our backpacks, and called a taxi to take us to the airport. We couldn't understand a word the poor guy who was driving our taxi was saying to us. He kept having to repeat himself, and when we'd continue to stare wide eyed and uncomprehending at him, he'd just give up. Eventually he dropped us off at the airport, and tried again. The only thing we understood the whole time, and we really were trying, was, "You can't understand a word I'm saying, can you." "No, sorry," we replied. 

We made it through security, and shopped for a bit because our flight was delayed. We boarded the flight, flew home in less time than it took us to get there, got on the express bus, and made it back to Waverly by a little after 10:00. I was immediately reminded of how lovely Edinburgh is. The castle was all lit up and the buildings were still grey and detailed and beautiful. Edinburgh just feels like an ancient city.

As fun and cool as the trip was, we were happy to sit and shower and eat the shortbread cookies Frances made after we made the short walk back to our apartment. 

There's so much more that I want to see in Ireland and Northern Ireland, so I definitely want to go back. There were all the sights we didn't get to in Belfast and Dublin. Also, I'd like to see the Giant's Causeway, Cork, and more of the Irish countryside, as it is a very cool and very pretty country. There are a lot of other places I'd like to visit as well in other parts of Europe. I'm hoping to get a lot of depth and breadth when I travel to wherever I go next!

I've spent the last two days catching up on sleep and relaxing. Today is my turn to cook again so I'm making chicken fajitas and banana bread. Before I go grocery shopping, I'll leave you with a short story from yesterday and a quick internship update. 

The perks of living in an old apartment: my door gets stuck sometimes when I shut it, so I have to use my whole body weight to lean back on the handle to yank it open. Well yesterday when I tried to open my door, I pulled really hard, the handle came loose, and I went flying across my bedroom, pulling the handle off the door, effectively trapping me inside. I had to knock on the inside of my door until Frances finally came to my rescue, opening the door for me. I found it very funny, even at the time, but I'm still worried I'm going to forget, shut my door, and get stuck in my room again. I emailed the landlord and hopefully he'll come over soon to fix that and show us how to turn on the radiators, because it is getting very cold here. 

Also, internship update. We have our internship orientation with our very distant internship liaison and we should start work either Monday or Tuesday. We still don't know who we're working for, but hopefully we'll find out soon!

Hope your weeks are all going well!