After Trinity College, we went to find some lunch, since we were all freezing. We stopped at a Spar (grocery store), and got some food at the deli counter. The most exciting part was that they had Tim Hortons at the Spar! I got myself a donut (kind of weird, not like the Canadian ones by any means), and was quite happy to see that the packaging was “Printed in Canada”.
After lunch, we headed to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which was really beautiful on the outside, but since it cost money to go in, we all decided that we’d rather spend our money elsewhere.
On the walk to the cathedral.
The cathedral.
4 of the girls went off to the Guinness Storehouse, and I went off with another girl to do some more exploring (since I don’t drink, I had no interest in the storehouse). We went to another cathedral that was right by our hostel (didn’t go in since it also cost money), and wandered our way past some more nice buildings before going into the City Hall. It was really beautiful.
Cathedral #2.
Inside City Hall.
Statue in City Hall.
Then we headed to the castle. We saw the chapel, and got two of the last spots for the next available tour, and then waited in the lobby area until the tour started. It was pretty interesting; there were a lot of really beautiful rooms in the castle.
The chapel at the castle.
The castle.
Inside the castle.
After that, we basically walked around a lot and shopped (though I didn’t buy anything) before we headed back to the hostel. It was cold as per usual, and we met up with the girls we had lost and went to find supper.
We ended up going to the convenience store I had gone to the night before because they had a deli counter where they made fresh pizza. For some reason the girl behind the counter served everyone except me, and then switched over to serving people at the sandwich counter that had gotten there after I had, so I ended up waiting for a really long time to get my pizza.
That evening, Cristina (one of the American girls), took 5 of us to visit her friends that had been on exchange in America last year. They were having a party, so we decided it would be fun to go and see another part of Ireland. We had to take a bus for 30 minutes to get to this little town and then we met up with them so we could be driven to the house.
Cristina went with her 2 friends in their car, and the rest of us piled into car of one friend’s dad. On the drive there, he told us that the party was actually a surprise half-birthday party for the two guys because they had both turned 21 in the US. They had been told that it was for the one guy’s sister, because her birthday had been the day before.
The party was tons of fun. There were all kinds of people there, lots of family and lots of friends, and we were treated extremely well. We got food, we danced, we even learned a bit of Irish step dance, and we got to hear a little about what Ireland is really like from the people that live there themselves. We even made friends with the grandma, so she took a photo of us (with her iPhone!) before she left. We stayed there quite late, and considered spending the night, but decided that it would be better to take a taxi and get back to the hostel since we weren’t even sure if the buses would be running on Sunday morning with all the snow.
The taxi back was really expensive because they had to come so far in such bad weather and it took so long to get there. Even though there were six of us, it cost us 10 euros each, but we got back safe and sound even with the lack of snow tires.
The next morning we got up early again to get breakfast, and then we packed up our room and made it as beautiful as possible so that there was no way that I could be charged for anything. We even made our beds. We left our bags with one girl in the lobby area and then went to try and find some souvenirs of Ireland at the last possible minute before getting on the bus to go back.
We didn’t end up being very successful, although we did go into a couple souvenir shops. We just ended up going back to the Euro shop and spending all our money on junk food there before heading back to the hostel.
We got on the bus and drove to the ferry terminal, but we ended up having to wait in the parking lot for almost 2 hours before we could get onboard. The ferry was a lot smaller than the last one, mostly just space for cars to park. I was really hoping that I could find some salty, greasy, hot food, but there really wasn’t anything, so I just bought some toffee from the shop onboard, and settled into a seat with some of the other girls where we all just basically napped for the remainder of the ferry.
Luckily, the ferry ride was shorter than the first one, so it wasn’t too long before we were back on the bus. We stopped for a bit of dinner, and I finally got my hot, greasy food. By the time we got home, I was really tired, and after I took my long deserved shower, all I wanted to do was go to sleep (even though it was only 10:30). I had a great sleep; I passed right out and didn’t wake up until 9 the next morning.
On Monday (November 29) I stayed in bed until about 11 before I finally decided to get up. I just lazed around for most of the day until it was finally time for me to get dressed so that I could go to the PhotoSoc meeting. Alex was leading it, and showing us all how we could make filters for our lenses that would turn out-of-focus points of light into cool shapes (he had a good example with a Christmas tree shape).
On Tuesday, I went to my morning class, and had my traditional nap in order to prep myself for the afternoon one. That evening, I sewed a skirt that was supposed to be for a costume. It was basically just the bottom of a t-shirt sewn onto and elastic band, and considering that I had to sew it all by hand, it ended up being a lot easier than I expected. Since I did it all while sitting in the lounge, it gave me a good opportunity to chat with the people coming and going in the kitchen. I also got to see Alex and Mitch’s 2 friends that come to our house in order to meet up to go running.
On Wednesday (December 1), I wasn’t supposed to have class, but since my lecturer had been sick 2 weeks before, our class had to be switched, so I had class from 10-11. After that I came home for a bit before I decided to catch the free bus to the grocery store.
I blitzed through my grocery shopping, and headed out to wait for the bus, since I wasn’t sure exactly what time it was supposed to come. Unfortunately, it turned out that I had just missed it, so I ended up waiting outside in the cold for almost an hour until the next one came.
I got home and put all my groceries away and grabbed a bite for lunch before I locked myself away in my room in order to finally post some more things on my blog. That evening, Stef decided that she no longer wanted to go out, so all the time and effort (not much) that we had put into our costumes was gone to waste. We ended up going to the burger joint right by our house (Wibbly Wobbly), and I got a delicious but ridiculously small serving of onion rings.
Next - a visit to Liverpool.
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