Blogs - Ann Halpin's Blog

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Cortny and Brandon - Rome - Spring 2007

Spring Break, Part II

 

The flight to Dublin was pretty good, and we saw the sunset from the sky, which is really nice. But we completely forgot about the relaxing flight when we came in for our landing in Dublin. It was extremely windy and raining, and for about the last 15 minutes of our flight it was like we were on a roller coaster, but 10 times as bumpy, the plane was all over the place!  At one point it tilted to the left like in Top Gun when Tom Cruise is dodging missiles...just kidding, we didn't tilt that much, but we still did.  Continuing on, when we landed we repeated that same left tilt, but this time we were on the RUNWAY! (We came to find out later, via a pilot, that during windy landings, it is standard protocol to land at angle to avoid sliding horizontally off the runway).  

 

We got to the City, the rain and wind didn't stop, at one point Cortny's umbrella turned inside out, just like in the movies!  We had to walk to our Hostel in the weather and it didn't bother me too much, because I was too excited to be in my homeland that I wasn't thinking about it! Cortny however, minded just a little bit!  We stayed at a place called Barnacles that a friend at school recommended, and it was right above Temple Bar, and right next to all of the nightlife, more or less.

 

After we dropped our stuff off, Cort and I went to this place called Eddie Rockets, which is a 60's style diner (not many of those down here in Italy, none actually...). The burgers were huge, and soooooooooo gooooooood.  The next morning we woke up bright and early and headed for the best place in all of Ireland, the Guinness Storehouse!  We toured it, and then each received a complimentary pint of Guinness! (Actually I got two because Cortny didn't like it!) It is so cool, because you drink it straight from the source (which is 100 times better at the source) in what is called the Gravity Bar, Dublin’s highest bar.  From here you can see all of Dublin, and at entrance you are given a pamphlet with a picture description of various locations in Dublin!  The elevator ride to the Gravity bar was hilarious, because we didn't know we were going there yet and the elevator is made of glass and open so you can see the outside, so Cortny freaked out and said, Oh my gosh, where are we going...She thought we were going to shoot out of the roof like in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!

 

After we ate lunch and such, we went looking for Trinity College Old Library and the Book of Kells and I followed signs right near the college that said, Library and Archives, come to find out it was the actual public Library, by this time it had started raining and Cortny had long returned to the Hostel for shelter (the smart thing to do). I however continued on with my sightseeing and it finally stopped raining by the time I made it back the college campus, only like 10 - 15 minutes.  I then headed over to the spire, a tall pointy needle in Dublin, then to the department store, where they had extremely cheap clothes. I then went back, got Cortny and we went back out, got coffee, went to the book store, department store and such and then returned to the hostel. Here a couple of the French guys in our room invited us to go watch Futbol (Soccer) in the bar. Lucky us, Rome was playing the French team Lyon and won 2-0, so I was very excited about that. For the record, beer is still expensive in Ireland, even though it is brewed only 2 km or so away, what is up with that!

 

On Wednesday we decided to go out to a small town in Ireland on the coast, (just a short and cheap train ride away) called Dalkey, to kind of get a feel for rural Ireland. It was so neat to see a typical small Irish town, and the ruins (from a distance) on Dalkey Island. In the summer we heard you can get fishermen to take you out to the Island, but of course we hit it in the early Spring, so we couldn't get out there. We then headed back and did some small sightseeing-- I finally made it to the Trinity College Library, and Book of Kells.  After this we walked to Dublin Castle, and decided it looked fine from the outside and we didn't want to tour it (It is basically city hall with a stone tower and not a typical castle that you would think of).  That night we went to two bars, The Mezz, which had a like band that played classic rock, and then Temple Bar, which had live Irish Folk Music. It was pretty awesome, but not on the wallet.

 

Thursday was our last day, and Cortny slept in while I went and checked out St. Patrick's Cathedral, and some of my heritage.  In the process of checking in for our flight, a lady in front of us noticed some people taking pictures of somebody, and I thought she was talking about a couple weird guys, but then I turn around and the entire Irish Rugby Team is directly behind us checking in for their flight! That just made our trip!

posted on Thursday, March 15, 2007 7:44 AM