Yesterday I did a quick and dirty blog post about our first day and the travelling. Today is a real post with pictures! And you get 2 for the price of one because we did a lot today as well and I'm going to get on a schedule of posting regularly. I've gotten a lot of material for my book that I will someday write.
The plane rides were mostly uneventful and boring. As most plane rides are. The one interesting thing that happened was that the man in front of me going through security at O'Hare had a case of white castle with him. In case he got the munchies on the plane? Maybe he was leaving the country and there aren't any white castle and he can't live without them. Regardless it was the strangest thing I've seen someone bring with them in an airport.
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| Me doing a super easy crossword. It's a whole book of them and they constantly reuse the same clues. Next time I'm getting the medium level. |
We got off the plane in Dublin and managed to get on a bus and get within two blocks of our hostel. We then immediately went the wrong direction down the street and ended up making a loop back to where we started and what should have taken 2-3 minutes took 20 but we made it, we checked in, dropped our bags off in the back room and headed out for coffee and a walk to a park we walked by when we were lost.
The park ended up being the Freedom Monument for the Irish Freedom of 1922. Super cool park. We ate a muffin and had coffee and then wandered around the area for a little while. Because we didn't know what time necessarily or what condition we would be in when we got into Dublin we didn't really have a whole lot planned but the Irish Writer's Museum is right next to the Freedom park so we ended up doing a lot more than we planned on the first day.
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| Steph drinking coffee and eating a muffin in Freedom Park. |
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| Me standing at the front of the park, behind me is a giant cross that is a pool of water with motifs of swords, spears and shields. |
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| You can sort of see the pool of water and the statue with the angels and the Irish Free States flag behind me. |
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| Steph looking spiffy in her scarf. And showing some Irish pride in green with her ginger hair. (Though really she's actually not at all Irish. Not even a drop). |
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| This is really cool. As much as I have a problem with religious politics and religious hypocrites I do have to say that churches, Christian artwork, and symbols are very amazing things. |
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| Dublin writers museum. You can't take pictures inside so there are only pictures of the building but it was a fun and easy thing to do on our fist day and was relatively cheap. And I now have a whole list of authors to look into when I get home (my reading supply on my Kindle is already huge so I probably shouldn't add anything.) |
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| These were on the doors of the "reading room" |
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| We walked along Henry Street (a long sort of State street-esque pedestrians only street). There was a very cool toy store and this giant 7 foot stuffed animal tiger was in the window. If only I could figure out a way to get it home I would totally get it. (Not that I have anywhere to put it or do I know how much the giant thing cost). |
I'm going to give you advice for travelling occasionally for things I learned about this trip. Here's a recap and the next new tip.
Tip #1: Make sure to buy passes AND reservations for the rail system well in advance. They almost always will need to be mailed even though it says they can be e-tickets or picked up at the stations. Most can't, you have to buy them and have them mailed.
Tip #2: If you're battery for your computer says 110-240V 50-60Hz you can plug it in without needing the converter and just use the adapter. (Very helpful because you aren't supposed to use the converters for long periods of time).
AND the newest tip.
Tip #3: Make sure to spend a day without plans. We had no intentions of doing anything the first day besides wandering around and it worked out like a charm. We had a great time and we found some cool things to do. (I might be writing a travel book. I'm not sure but I'm having fun talking about all this stuff.)
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