Dublin, Dublin

Another title explanation: my roomie, Laura, swears that she knows a song that goes "Dublin, Dublin, let me in, you don't care about the shape I'm in..." or something along those lines. If this rings a bell to you, please let me know, we've been googling it for months. It maybe London, London, actually, but either way. 

And a few things I forgot about Madrid:

First, I saw these two awesome restaurants - so I felt very well represented - my two homes!

These restaurants are the only reason that Spanish people would even know the names of these states.

Second, Justin Bieber continued to stalk me.

I understand, Justin, you just want there to be one less lonely girl - but it would be illegal

First he was in Paris when I was, then in Berlin, then in Madrid. Honestly. I was afraid he would also be in Dublin, but fortunately he had made his way through there a week or so before. I think I've finally escaped. Now if I could just escape Rihanna...

But back to Dublin. We arrived in the evening on Thursday and took a bus into town, and (eventually) found our hostel. It was right off Camden Street, which has tons of restaurants and pubs and whatnot. I don't remember anything about where we went to eat - as far as I can remember we didn't actually end up doing anything that night. One of the staff at the hostel advised us to go out, because we wouldn't be able to sleep with the sound of the pub-goers anyway, and she was right. Oh vell. The next morning we went on a free tour of Dublin and saw lots of cool stuff. 

Lady Liberty - differences = sword raised, she's not blind, scales are slightly off balance

The top was added later by the English (I think) to make the castle look more medieval. Ha.

Lego Dublin!

Most haunted place in Dublin - a madam (brothel owner) was burned here after being accused of being a witch by her baby-daddy (the chief of police)

Dublinia!

There's always a pigeon on this guy's head

Beautiful and giant park

Extremely delicious (mine's on the right, it's called a coffee slice)

Bahahahaha

 After going on the tour we got lunch in a diner and stopped by the hostel again. Then we went out to find some dessert and do some shopping, which ended up being kind of a bust, because everywhere we looked was too expensive or closed. But the snacking went well. We ate our desserts (above) in a park at Trinity College, which closed while we were inside because of the massive ball they were having that night. Sadly, we were not able to sneak in. U2 has played it before, if that gives you any idea how huge this thing is.

That night we went and ate at a restaurant outside of a movie theater and partially celebrated Laura's birthday, which was actually the next day. Then we pub-hopped a little. The first place we went was a pub with traditional Irish music being played by two guys, and it was amazing! It was really a lot of fun, and the whole bar was into it. The next place we went was another place with live music, but this time more like rock, and the place was packed! We kept scooching closer and getting jostled around a lot, but it was a lot of fun. I can't remember if we went to one more after that, but I ended up splintering off from the group and going back to the hostel, à cause de being sick. Then I played some connect-four with the guy working the night shift at the hostel. It was pretty hilarious.

Saturday morning they fed us pancakes at the hostel! It was sooo nice to have pancakes again. Crêpes, although delicious, are just not the same. From there we checked out and hopped on a train to Howth, on the coast of Ireland. It was incredibly beautiful and perfect weather for a hike. Words, nor pictures, can describe how great it was. But don't you worry, I have pictures. And words, I suppose.

Howth

Variations in focus

Different hikes to take

Climbing around

I'm over here!

This is my normal smile

Seagulls nesting

Beautiful

Yeller

After our hike we had to head back to the train station and then leave Ireland. On our walk back we ran into a man wrapping up some freshly-picked wildflowers and he chatted with us. He asked where we were all from, and knew something about each city. When I said I was from Nebraska he said, "Oh, Omaha. Never heard of it." He was a silly man. He told us where we could find the flowers he had picked (they were really pretty), but sadly, we did not have the time. We did stop to get some ice cream, however, which was delicious. We then went back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and hopped on a bus to the airport for more RyanAir time. This time our fight was with French high schoolers instead of Spanish. Even more annoying.

We got to Nice kind of late and, mostly because of an evil (I may be exaggerating) parking lot worker we missed the last 1 euro bus. When we did get close to the vielle ville (old city, around 11pm), where our hostel was, we were all happy to see that restaurants were still open. We went to our hostel (terrible, terrible place) to drop off the luggage, and then had some pizza at a nearby place. Followed, of course, by Fennochio gelato. Then we found a really cool bar with more live music to further celebrate Laura's 20th birthday. A random French guy started chatting her up, too. The next day was more gelato and our train back to Cannes - finally home!