The Dublin Experience

Day 1 in Dublin began at about 7:00 a.m. Ireland time. I had just gotten off my first international flight (7.5 hours) and had flown over 4 time zones and got little to no sleep so I was looking pretty cute at this point. As we were descending onto the runway, I could look out the window and just see all the land and all the...green. I remember saying to Hannah, the other girl on the trip, "Wow, it IS really green here." As soon as we stepped off the plane, I could immediately feel the main difference between Ireland and South Carolina...it was about a 40 degree difference. Getting through the airport was not a problem at all (but trying to get through it to get home was an entirely different story as you may have read in my previous post). The only stop we had to make was through Immigration Services to have our passports stamped. The second the officer looked at my name on my passport he said, "Well I don't have to ask you why you're here...with a surname like Moore I know you've got some family here." Of course I felt special. We took the AirCoach from the airport all the way to Trinity College in what is known as the City Centre of Dublin. Riding in a rather large bus on the opposite side of the road where the lanes are about as narrow as they come was a whole different adventure in itself. Once we stepped out in front of Trinity and walked through the massive front gate, I could just feel the history of the place. Extremely old yet beautiful buildings and statues everywhere.

That sentimental feeling left for a short while once we saw just how accomodating the place was...our rooms were about a 15 minute walk from the front of campus and we also learned at that point that we had no Internet access besides entry into the campus computer lab across the street from our dorm. My heart sank and the small nerd inside of me that is totally dependent on Internet died a little. After being driven to our rooms on the shuttle, we walked in and I realized why I hated dorm life at Winthrop in the first place. Even though we had our own kitchen, my single bedroom left a little to be desired but for 2 weeks, it would be home so I settled in. After cleaning up, we all decided the first thing on the agenda would be to find some food. We walked with our guide down Grafton Street, which is the main shopping street in the center of Dublin. It is mainly a designer area, complete with Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, and the infamous Brown Thomas. After seeing the price tag on some of their "sale" items, I knew not much shopping would occur on my vacation. The exchange rate between the dollar and the euro was historically high while we were there (it fluctuated between $1.50 and $1.70 throughout our stay). I knew that when I exchanged $130 at the airport and got 80 euros back that I was going to be in some serious trouble... Our first taste of Ireland cuisine was at a place called Bewley's right in the center of Grafton Street. People in Ireland must certainly enjoy leisurely meals because this also gave us our first taste of the slowness of the wait for service and food. Since my stomach had not yet adjusted to the atmosphere, I settled for a toasted ham and cheese sandwich with crisps (chips) and a glass of water (yeah there's no sweet tea there...) That was the most expensive ham and cheese sandwich I've ever had and I'm still not even sure if it was worth it. The crisps they serve the most throughout Ireland are cheese and onion, which were actually pretty decent. After lunch, we took the rest of the day to walk around and explore our temporary home. Not being used to a lot of serious walking, especially in a big city type of atmosphere, my legs and feet were screaming after about an hour or two. But I am proud to announce that after only a few days of this constant hoofing it routine, I no longer grew tired from all the walking and running for my life from the cars driving on the wrong side of the road.

Our afternoon walking adventure took us all throughout the City Centre of Dublin. We went through St. Stephen's Park, down to the River Liffey and the Ha'Penny Bridge and we even stumbled across an old Catholic Church that was open. All of the churches (either Protestant or Catholic) were some of the most beautiful I have ever come across. I was even lucky enough to see the chapel where my favorite author Bram Stoker was married. After a full day of sightseeing, we decided to have dinner and try our first pint of Guinness. We chose The Stag's Head as our pub of choice that night. I have to sadly admit that the taste of Guinness was just not for me. I'm not quite a fan of beer to begin with (although I did end up taking a bit of a liking to Heineken while there) but the bitterness and overall dark taste to Guinness left a little less to be desired for my tastes. I did thankfully discover Bulmer's Irish Cider (apparently very popular with the ladies of Ireland) and it became my drink of choice on our nights out to the pub (which was just about every night). All of the pubs in Ireland close at 11:30 p.m. but living the college lifestyle keeps us up a little past midnight so we were thankfully able to locate some late license joints that stayed open til between 1 and 3 a.m. and tended to include traditional Irish musicians playing their wares (one of my favorite aspects of Dublin nightlife).