Two weekends ago on October 11-13 I took a little weekend trip to Dublin with a couple of friends from Queen Mary. Myself, Chelsea (who you've already met), and Allison (a student from Lafayette College) came and stayed with me at my cousin Barry's house. It was great because I got to see Barry, meet his fiancee, Lisa, and we all got our own rooms.
The reason for this trip was that I really wanted to visit one of my best friends from Davidson, Caroline, who is studying abroad at Trinity College.
By coincidence Chelsea also has a good friend that goes to F&M with her who is on the same program with Caroline. We decided this weekend would be perfect as it was her friend's birthday weekend. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned and Chelsea's friend had to fly home due to a family emergency.
We left for Dublin early on Friday morning. The flights we've been booking recently have been leaving really early, so it's been quite a hassle getting to the airport with the tube opening later, but we've found one of the most convenient modes of transportation... The National Express. The National Express is a 24/7 bus service that picks up right across the street from our tube station, Mile End, and goes to a variety of places including Stansted Airport. So, we boarded a 5:17am bus to Stansted airport and off to Dublin we went.
At the airport we met up with Adam, Emma, Zach, and Katrina--All Davidson students studying abroad in London, who coincidentally picked the same weekend to go to Dublin to visit Caroline. We didn't realize that you had to queue in order to get seats on Ryanair. We thought the number on our ticket was the order you boarded, so we decided to join a bachelor party in line that had the most awesome t-shirts. Our flight was extremely late, arriving an hour late to Dublin, but I guess that's typical of Ryanair.
We got a taxi at the airport and were off to Barry and Lisa's house. We ate lunch and then headed to the Guinness Storehouse. There we met up with the other Queen Mary students and had a fun afternoon learning how to make Guinness, sampling, and enjoying the view from the top of the Brewery.
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| Queen Mary students do the Guinness Storehouse |
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| "It's supposed to taste like chocolate and coffee..." |
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| Allison, me, and Chelsea with our pints |
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| The view of Dublin from the top of the brewery |
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| Me, Chelsea, Jessica, and Allison with our pints |
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| Steak and Ale Pie at Guinness Storehouse |
After the storehouse we went back to the house, where we met up with Barry and Lisa for dinner. Lucy (Barry's sister) also came and it was great to catch up as I haven't seen either of them in over 2 years. We went to an Italian restaurant in Dundrum, which is a large shopping center with really funny flat escalator ramps. The dinner was so good I got a pasta dish and then my favorite dessert, tiramisu.
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| Me, Barry, Lisa, and Lucy after dinner |
That's all I'm going to type for now. I'll post Dublin part 2 tomorrow!
xx,
Francesca
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