Hi Everyone!
Wow -- what a trip! We have so much to tell you. Of course, once again we got off to a rocky start and had an even rockier ending but we still managed to have an amazing time and fell in love with Ireland! As always, our plane was delayed almost two hours heading towards Ireland. We were forced to pay 40 euros to check in and 20 euros to check our bag. Em was stopped at security because she was carrying peanut butter and we were not going to leave that behind no matter how much it cost! We were very upset and angry for having to pay all the fee’s and let the check in people know! About an hour later one of the ladies came over to us and told us she had a present for us. She gave us priority boarding because we had to pay so many fees. While this was helpful since the plane was full and very big- it still didn’t make up for the money.
The plane ride was about and hour and a half and once we arrived in Dublin we had to take a taxi to our hotel. (It was our first time experiencing driving on the wrong side of the car and street which was very different and hard to get used to!) We were already excited after seeing the green fields from the airport and hearing all the accents from the passengers around us! After checking into our hotel we took a double decker bus about fifteen minutes into the main town. Once there we saw many sights including the Dublin Castle, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Temple Bar, O’Connell Street, Trinity College, the Spire, Christ’s Church, Phoenix Park, the Guinness Storehouse and Grafton Street. Everyone we met was so friendly and we loved being able to read and understand the language, we especially loved the Irish accent! One of our favorite things we notice right away, even going through customs was that everyone calls each other “love!” We were exhausted after traveling and then walking around all day so after seeing the sun set over the Liffey River, which separates the northside from the southside, we decided to head back to our hotel for dinner. (We put the peanut butter to good use and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!)
Our taxi driver had explained to us that Dublin’s rugby team was playing its final game of the season, the championship game the night we arrived in London. The team was undefeated and the town was going crazy hoping for a win. They had played in Dublin the previous week and were away playing in London so all the pubs were packed full of fans watching the game. As soon as we entered our hotel we heard screams from the cooks and people watching from their rooms that Dublin had won! Everyone was really excited and wearing their jersey’s the next day.
We woke up early the next day to take the double decker bus into the town to meet for a tour that Dad had set up for us. We did not have any idea of what to expect from the tour, especially once we saw a tiny red van pull up but could not have asked for anything better! Dad did an amazing job booking the trip which turned out to be our favorite part of our entire trip so far besides seeing Mom, Dad and Jul! Fourteen of us crammed into the van from all parts of the world including Alaska, Germany, the US, Belgium and Mexico. Our driver Paul was from Dublin. We headed straight for the country on a narrow, tiny road that all other tour buses could not fit on. This was why our tour was so special. No other tours were able to explore the country; they simply stayed in the city. The road we traveled on was built by the English army 200 years ago. Today it is hardly used by cars today but was used for the filming of the movie “Brave Heart!” The entire movie was shot in Ireland. Within minutes could see nothing but wide open green fields. We were so lucky to have three sunny days while in Dublin, Paul explained that they only have weather like this every two years! We drove about 25 minutes until we came to our first stop. We pulled over and were able to see the entire city of Dublin which was built by the Vikings and today where 1.5 million people currently live. As we drove along we stopped every so often to take pictures and Paul would explain the history of the sights to us.
We saw the towns of Glencreen, Killakey, Guinness pond (known as that because the water that runs into the pond is brown), Roundwood village (which is the highest village at 232 meeters and was the first town to have public toilets!), Blessington Lakes, the old monastery of Glendalough and even drove through the only town in the entire country that does not have a pub! (Paul explained this was due to aliens!) For lunch we stopped at a local pub called Lyhams of Larach Pub. We ate with two guys from Germany, David and Maxamillion who were really nice. We had Guinness and beef stew and pork and mashed potatoes (Finally some recognizable food!). Afterwards we continued on, stopping at several more sights. One of our highlights of the day was seeing all the sheep wandering the green fields. Everywhere we looked we saw tiny white specs covering the green fields. We even had to stop to let some sheep cross the road- all of the American’s were very impressed by this! Another highlight was on our way back to Dublin. We were able to experience a real Dublin traffic jam; we had to stop the bus as a herd of cows were being lead across the road after escaping from their field!
Overall it was an amazing day and the sights we saw were breathtaking! We arrived back in Dublin around 5:30 pm and walked around the town for a little bit before heading back to our hotel to have dinner and pack for an early flight the next morning. The next morning is where things get a little rocky again! It was hard for us to remember that Ireland was an hour behind France and did not bother to change the time our phone since we were only visiting for such a short time. We had to leave our hotel at 5:15 am but accidentally left at 4:15 am! We did not realize that instead of waking up at 4:30, we had waken up at 3:30 and had arrived at the airport an hour earlier until we started panicking when we saw that our flight was not boarding at the correct time, no one else was around and it was not delayed! After finally figuring it out we finally realized that we had woken up, left the hotel and gotten to the airport all an hour ahead of schedule but were happy for the extra hour to study for midterms! (We still cannot figure out how the taxi driver was waiting for us though since we asked for him to pick us up at 5:15!)
We were so sad to leave Ireland; we really fell in love with it. Everyone we met was so nice, we enjoyed seeing both the city and the country and loved being able to speak, understand the read everything! (We were even able to watch Friends and American Idol in our hotel room!) The weather was very nice and it was a trip we will never forget. It was also so weird being in a city where everyone looked just like us- with pale skin and reddish/blond hair; we found that to be very strange!
We are already back in the swing of things in Antibes, with two midterms down and one more to go this week, we still have lot’s of studying ahead of us. We miss you all like crazy and can’t wait to see you soon, only a few more weeks! We will update again soon on our next adventure! Love you all!
Love,
Em and Jen
** 1: Em in front of the spire. 2: Trinity College. 3: Jen in front of Christ Church. 4&5: Us in front of the Dublin Castle. 6: Jen in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 7: The Guinness Storehouse. 8: Fitzgerald's Pub - just for you Aunt Chris! 9: Sunset over the Liffey River. 10: Along the road where Braveheart was filmed. 11: One of our stops on the tour, a hidden pond. 12: Two sheep that we had to stop to let cross the road! 13&14: Guinness Pond. 15: Jen in front of a waterfall during one of the stops of the tour. 16: A green field filled with sheep! 17: Em making a wish on a famous Celtic cross at the old monastery of Glendalough. 18&19: More sheep! 20: One of many bright green open fields! 21: A herd of cows that caused a traffic jam while crossing the road on our way back to Dublin.
Wow -- what a trip! We have so much to tell you. Of course, once again we got off to a rocky start and had an even rockier ending but we still managed to have an amazing time and fell in love with Ireland! As always, our plane was delayed almost two hours heading towards Ireland. We were forced to pay 40 euros to check in and 20 euros to check our bag. Em was stopped at security because she was carrying peanut butter and we were not going to leave that behind no matter how much it cost! We were very upset and angry for having to pay all the fee’s and let the check in people know! About an hour later one of the ladies came over to us and told us she had a present for us. She gave us priority boarding because we had to pay so many fees. While this was helpful since the plane was full and very big- it still didn’t make up for the money.
The plane ride was about and hour and a half and once we arrived in Dublin we had to take a taxi to our hotel. (It was our first time experiencing driving on the wrong side of the car and street which was very different and hard to get used to!) We were already excited after seeing the green fields from the airport and hearing all the accents from the passengers around us! After checking into our hotel we took a double decker bus about fifteen minutes into the main town. Once there we saw many sights including the Dublin Castle, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Temple Bar, O’Connell Street, Trinity College, the Spire, Christ’s Church, Phoenix Park, the Guinness Storehouse and Grafton Street. Everyone we met was so friendly and we loved being able to read and understand the language, we especially loved the Irish accent! One of our favorite things we notice right away, even going through customs was that everyone calls each other “love!” We were exhausted after traveling and then walking around all day so after seeing the sun set over the Liffey River, which separates the northside from the southside, we decided to head back to our hotel for dinner. (We put the peanut butter to good use and made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!)
Our taxi driver had explained to us that Dublin’s rugby team was playing its final game of the season, the championship game the night we arrived in London. The team was undefeated and the town was going crazy hoping for a win. They had played in Dublin the previous week and were away playing in London so all the pubs were packed full of fans watching the game. As soon as we entered our hotel we heard screams from the cooks and people watching from their rooms that Dublin had won! Everyone was really excited and wearing their jersey’s the next day.
We woke up early the next day to take the double decker bus into the town to meet for a tour that Dad had set up for us. We did not have any idea of what to expect from the tour, especially once we saw a tiny red van pull up but could not have asked for anything better! Dad did an amazing job booking the trip which turned out to be our favorite part of our entire trip so far besides seeing Mom, Dad and Jul! Fourteen of us crammed into the van from all parts of the world including Alaska, Germany, the US, Belgium and Mexico. Our driver Paul was from Dublin. We headed straight for the country on a narrow, tiny road that all other tour buses could not fit on. This was why our tour was so special. No other tours were able to explore the country; they simply stayed in the city. The road we traveled on was built by the English army 200 years ago. Today it is hardly used by cars today but was used for the filming of the movie “Brave Heart!” The entire movie was shot in Ireland. Within minutes could see nothing but wide open green fields. We were so lucky to have three sunny days while in Dublin, Paul explained that they only have weather like this every two years! We drove about 25 minutes until we came to our first stop. We pulled over and were able to see the entire city of Dublin which was built by the Vikings and today where 1.5 million people currently live. As we drove along we stopped every so often to take pictures and Paul would explain the history of the sights to us.
We saw the towns of Glencreen, Killakey, Guinness pond (known as that because the water that runs into the pond is brown), Roundwood village (which is the highest village at 232 meeters and was the first town to have public toilets!), Blessington Lakes, the old monastery of Glendalough and even drove through the only town in the entire country that does not have a pub! (Paul explained this was due to aliens!) For lunch we stopped at a local pub called Lyhams of Larach Pub. We ate with two guys from Germany, David and Maxamillion who were really nice. We had Guinness and beef stew and pork and mashed potatoes (Finally some recognizable food!). Afterwards we continued on, stopping at several more sights. One of our highlights of the day was seeing all the sheep wandering the green fields. Everywhere we looked we saw tiny white specs covering the green fields. We even had to stop to let some sheep cross the road- all of the American’s were very impressed by this! Another highlight was on our way back to Dublin. We were able to experience a real Dublin traffic jam; we had to stop the bus as a herd of cows were being lead across the road after escaping from their field!
Overall it was an amazing day and the sights we saw were breathtaking! We arrived back in Dublin around 5:30 pm and walked around the town for a little bit before heading back to our hotel to have dinner and pack for an early flight the next morning. The next morning is where things get a little rocky again! It was hard for us to remember that Ireland was an hour behind France and did not bother to change the time our phone since we were only visiting for such a short time. We had to leave our hotel at 5:15 am but accidentally left at 4:15 am! We did not realize that instead of waking up at 4:30, we had waken up at 3:30 and had arrived at the airport an hour earlier until we started panicking when we saw that our flight was not boarding at the correct time, no one else was around and it was not delayed! After finally figuring it out we finally realized that we had woken up, left the hotel and gotten to the airport all an hour ahead of schedule but were happy for the extra hour to study for midterms! (We still cannot figure out how the taxi driver was waiting for us though since we asked for him to pick us up at 5:15!)
We were so sad to leave Ireland; we really fell in love with it. Everyone we met was so nice, we enjoyed seeing both the city and the country and loved being able to speak, understand the read everything! (We were even able to watch Friends and American Idol in our hotel room!) The weather was very nice and it was a trip we will never forget. It was also so weird being in a city where everyone looked just like us- with pale skin and reddish/blond hair; we found that to be very strange!
We are already back in the swing of things in Antibes, with two midterms down and one more to go this week, we still have lot’s of studying ahead of us. We miss you all like crazy and can’t wait to see you soon, only a few more weeks! We will update again soon on our next adventure! Love you all!
Love,
Em and Jen
** 1: Em in front of the spire. 2: Trinity College. 3: Jen in front of Christ Church. 4&5: Us in front of the Dublin Castle. 6: Jen in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral. 7: The Guinness Storehouse. 8: Fitzgerald's Pub - just for you Aunt Chris! 9: Sunset over the Liffey River. 10: Along the road where Braveheart was filmed. 11: One of our stops on the tour, a hidden pond. 12: Two sheep that we had to stop to let cross the road! 13&14: Guinness Pond. 15: Jen in front of a waterfall during one of the stops of the tour. 16: A green field filled with sheep! 17: Em making a wish on a famous Celtic cross at the old monastery of Glendalough. 18&19: More sheep! 20: One of many bright green open fields! 21: A herd of cows that caused a traffic jam while crossing the road on our way back to Dublin.
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