Dublin

I figured I should update on my Irish travels, seeing as how today i'm doing NOTHING but laundry, and plopping myself on the couch to watch the election coverage. We only get 3 english tv channels, but luckily they are all news networks, along with the other 80 arabic channels.

Anyway, after CLASS Thursday I began my journey to the "other" homeland of Ireland. Let me begin my telling you, I plan on writing a letter to RyanAir...for those of you who've never heard of it, RyanAir is a budget airline that has super cheap flights throughout Europe. When I first got here I was all "oh this is great, a flight for 20 euros!"...but wait...First of all, they usually never fly to the main airports in cities, so while it may be a budget airline, you then have to pay to take a bus/train from the airport into the city, and the same thing for your departure, which kills almost 2 days with just travel time.

Secondly, they charge you for every little thing, airport check in, extreme costs for checking bags, "speedy chick in", etc...it's totally a rip off. I tried to check in online before my flight even though I already paid for it, just to save time at the airport and it wouldn't let me...that brings me to the website, it is quite possibly the TACKIEST thing I have ever seen...all these bright colors that don't complement each other and UGLY fonts, after having taken a Graphics class it kind of makes me twitch every time i look at it.

The best part is when you FINALLY get to board the plane, you have to walk outside onto the tar-mac, and up the stairs to the plane, so of course, on this lovely thursday evening it was blistering cold, windy and rainy, and there I am standing on the stairs to this stupid, ugly plane waiting to board...THEN you get inside and there are no assigned seats, so it's basically a free-for-all. The inside of these planes are BRIGHT YELLOW, the overhead cabins included, so basically if you look up, between the cabins and florescent lights you feel like you're staring directly into the sun.

Having to take all of these public relations classes has made me more aware of DUMB, STUPID companies that don't care at all about their image...the staff on these planes are just plain mean, but it's probably because they're forced to wear the ugliest uniforms ever, they are these blue suits, but not normal blue, the fabric is the shade of blue that NO ONE ELSE will buy because it's so god awful ugly, and therefore super cheap...that's my reasoning, no one can honestly tell me that they like those stupid uniforms.

Sorry, that rant was totally unintended, but i felt like i needed to preface my journey into Dublin. Because I was staying with Bri I luckily didn't need to bring much in the way of shampoo, soap, etc., meaning going through security was much easier because the only liquid i had was my travel lens solution...BUT WAIT...god forbid my lens solution was 118 ml instead of 100 ml, so the lady at security made this whole big deal out of it, acting like i was trying to bring an explosive onto the plane, i believe her exact words were "i CANNOT allow this to be brought onto the aircraft, this is 118 ml, NOT 100 ml" to which i responded "ok, thats fine", then she preceded to yell to the man watching the security screen "THIS BOTTLE MUST BE DESTROYED AFTER IT GOES THROUGH SECURITY, IT IS TOO LARGE, THE LADY HAS BEEN WARNED"...seriously?!? for 18 ml? there probably wasn't even 18 ml in the bottle, itwas just enough to get me through the one night we were staying in dublin...GIVE ME A BREAK.

My plane was supposed to board at 8:20 for a 9:00 flight, which would get me into Dublin around 10:15, with plenty of time to get one of the city buses into the city where I would then have to take a cab to meet Bri and Jackie at their friend's dorm we were spending the night in...BUT WAIT...I walk over to the departure board around 7:45 and the gate was still not listed, so i went and bought overpriced lens solution, in a bottle SMALLER than 100 ml, and it was still not listed. I then noticed that every other flight to Dublin was delayed, so I found a seat by a board and just waited, and waited, and waited...until about 8:30 when they finally put "delayed" on the board...SERIOUSLY RYANAIR? did you really not know until 8:30, 10 minutes past boarding time, that it would be delayed? So I waited some more...until they finally posted the gate. I then had to wait in another line at the gate, for about 20 minutes until they started taking our tickets.

...this is what really got me...everyone made their way from inside the gate to outside in the rain and up the stairs, luckily i was towards the front of the line so i didnt have to stand outside for too long. I quickly made my way to a window seat, plopped myself down and plugged in my headphones. Then, through my noise cancellation headphones I hear the flight attendant screaming "PLEASE MAKE YOUR WAY TO THE MIDDLE OF THE PLANE AS TO CLEAR UP CONGESTION GETTING ONTO THE PLANE, MOVE QUICKLY SO WE CAN LEAVE THIS AIRPORT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE"...wait a second, wasn't it your fault that we're late? obviously WE were all here, and YOU were not...so this bothered me. THEN, everyone is on the plane, and, oh, wait, WE SIT THERE for about HALF AN HOUR waiting for the plane to refuel.

So basically, they rushed us onto the plane, YELLING numerous times, then we sat there. Therefore, by the time we landed it was 11:00, then we had to wait to get off the plane and go through customs, so by the time I was ready to leave the public city buses had stopped running, just what I was trying to avoid! So I then had to take a 30 euro cab ride...STUPID RYAN AIR!

Anyway, that's my rant...IRELAND!

Friday morning we thought it'd be a good idea to get breakfast and eat it in St. Steven's Green, so we got our bagels, found a bench and started to eat. but, OH WAIT, the park is filled with pidgeons who soon began to swarm us thinking we would give them crumbs, no dice stupid pidgeons! We got lucky with amazing weather so we then decided to walk around the park, where of course I began taking pictures and video.

Here's where it gets good: I was bending down on my knee to get a picture, when all of the sudden I felt something on my head...my first thought was "no, it couldn't be"...but it was! I ran over to Bri and Jackie..."Bri, I think a bird shat on my head" to which she said something along the lines of "EW, GROSS, YEAH!"...perfect, first thing in the morning, with a long day ahead, including a 3 hour train ride to Galway, and I had bird shit in my hair. So we're in the middle of St. Steven's Green when we began operation: GET IT OUT...Bri had to take my water bottle and started squirting water all over my bun, wiping the crap out with an old envelope she found in her bag...we were looking like complete idiots when this lady walking by with a stroller said "do you want some baby wipes" in her irish accent, so we were like YES YES YES, so as i'm taking the baby wipes out of the bag she goes "IS THAT BIRD SHIT?"...embarassing, but the baby wipes did the trick, and i had no choice but to walk around all day afraid to touch my head.

Suprisingly I didn't think about it much, and when I did I quickly tried to think about something else. After St. Steven's Green we walked around the city, by Grafton St., the Temple Bar area and Trinity College, grabbed lunch, did some more walking around and then headed to the Guinness factory for my first guinness!

the tour was really cool, you got to walk around and watch videos on how they do certain things, feel the barley they use, look at former advertisements, etc...and then the included beer! The bar is on the top floor of the building, with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the whole city. The beer I didn't like so much, but the bar area was really cool. After the tour we booked it to the train station for the train to Galway! Due to my accidental RyanAir rant this is now ridiculously long, so Galway will get its own entry...coming soon!

For now--my pictures are on snapfish!