In the Emerald City

Greetings world! Tis blog post is coming to you from my iPad. I decided not to take my computer on this little venture and so this is what I shall be typing from these next few days, some shall see how that goes. The hostel that I am currently stayingin has great internet, which is quite nice. However, I hasn't ways to upload photos for a little while either. But they shall come and you shall be blown away! (whew, finished typing an entire paragraph on this little keyboard! Score)!

This morning my group woke up at 3:30 so that we could begin our journey to Ireland, which I have lovingly dubbed the Emerald City. We had a fun adventure getting to the airport because the tube is not open that early in the morning, so we took many busses and walked around streets that we did not know. We were a little stressed at first but we actually managed to get to the airport with time to spare. We squeezed in some extra sleep whenever we could to try and make up for the lack of it last night. Fortunately I excel at sleeping in cars and planes (unfortunately not so much on chairs in the airport). With all the sleeping the journey actually went by very quickly and we are it to Dublin! Once I the airport we met up with the other people who were on different flights and all went into town on a bus.

First we made our way over to our hostel and checked in. It's the seventh best hostel in all of Ireland, and when we told the nice bus man where we were saying he said we would have a great time. So far that is very true. We made it in by about eleven so we couldn't get into our rooms yet, so we dropped off our stuff and began exploring instead. Our first meal was pizza and chips (French fries), a very popular meal in Ireland (I'm lying). We were starving and were drawn in by their sign, "Probably the best pizza in Dublin." Probably....well I liked it.

We made our way into town and went by Trinity College first because we wanted to go and see the Book of Kells. Well we were misinformed and believed that it was free when it was actually 8 Euro (new money!) so instead we wandered around the college and went to their free science museum. They had lots of cool exhibits, like one where they came up with software to scramble security cameras with a high tech umbrella. Random but cool. They also had cracked the code and made their own cheaper version of coke that tasted quite nice. I took a few sample glasses... I was really impressed by the campus not only because of the architecture but because they had so much art everywhere. There were areas where they were allowed to graffiti and other areas with murals and it was all very neat!

By this point we were all so exhausted and tired of walking some hopped on a bus tour around Dublin. We got seats on the top of the double decker bus, which was quite lovely at first, but then it got very cold and those things don't have roofs so by the end we were cuddling up pretty close. It was a stop and go your where you can get off at any of the sights, but we decided to just get ideas for later as our bus pass lasts all weekend. Tomorrow we shall return with a vengeance. As we all started falling asleep we abandoned that bus to explore the local market. I got the most amazing hot chocolate ever and then we explod everything from book stores to nerd gaming stores....full of Doctor Who stuff. So cool! And nerdy. I am a nerd.

We finally checked in and set up base for a bit and made a new German friend that I call Lizzie because I can't pronounce her actual name. We went out and about again to explore the stores where we got stuff to make dinner and also went to see if we could get tickets to see RIVERDANCE!!!! They were gone for tonight but we shall be going tomorrow morning to get tickets! We were told that chances were high so I am getting very excited. We made our way back and made some pasta in the hostel kitchen. These hostels are adventures by themselves. So many people from all over, it's easy to find some characters. They drank beer and we played cards games and drank our sprite! And it was all wonderful. It's actually a very fun atmosphere and I am glad that I get to experience this part of the UK as well.

Tomorrow we hope to get out to more sights and see if we can even get into the countryside. We were Ll very tired today and still managed to have a lot of fun, I can only imagine what it shall be like when we are well rested! Bring it on!