Dublin Adventures, 4

Days four and five-and-a-quarter: Dublin City and flying

We awoke and had to ask each other: did you hear the drunk men singing at wee hours of the morning? The answer was yes. With that lovely introduction to our last day in Ireland, we went down for breakfast where I felt adventurous and ordered the full Irish breakfast. It came with: eggs, bacon, toast, mushrooms, tomatoes, sausage, potatoes, and black and white pudding. I tried everything. I did not like the puddings. Important fact #10: These puddings? Are not like American pudding. Black pudding? Is made from congealed blood and oats, and tasted like metal. White pudding is made from fat and other stuff and tastes like stuffing. I will never again have those puddings.

After that adventure, we went back to the room to figure out what to do for that day. Important fact #11: RTE plays all the good American morning cartoons, like Recess and Kim Possible. I could not be torn away from the TV for an hour, not even to see Ireland. I was too busy re-living my adolescence. Once I was pried from the TV, we decided to take the LUAS back to the City Centre and just walk with no distinct plan.

We ended up seeing a lot of what we already saw. We stopped at a Starbucks for some good American coffee in Grafton Street. We watched the buskers, and gave them euros, especially the cute boy playing piano well. We wandered through the streets around Grafton Street, and eventually ended up in the Temple Bar area. This area is quite ingenuous. It is literally bar after bar after bar in one area. I imagine that after 9pm, that area is hopping with activity, but as it was lunch time, we had our pick of the bars and sat down for some good traditional pub fare: fish and chips with Smithwicks for dad, Guinness stew and Bulmers cider for me.

Later that afternoon, we headed back to Trinity College so I could smile at the Old Library, and just walk around in general. We stumbled upon a cricket game, which I found confusing and difficult to understand, but it made for a good lazy afternoon activity before heading back for an early night in due to our early flights to London.

The next morning, we woke up at another god-forsaken early time to get to the Dublin airport for our flight to London. This flight was full of Irish dancers. I sat around and chatted with the others from my dance school all morning, reliving our worlds experience. I stood in line to board the plane right in front of the world champion from my competition. It turns out you get those huge globe trophies back home in a giant duffel bag. The flight was short and quiet, and I got good reading time in shortly before I fell asleep and was tossed into the bustle and confusion of London Heathrow. To me, Heathrow seemed a like a cross between a hamster run and a sick joke of a maze.

The flight from London to Toronto was hard, mostly because I was focused on staying awake so I could get back on VA time. The food wasn't as good. I finished the one pleasure reading book I got (Elegance of the Hedgehog--I highly recommend it). I analyzed all of the scores from my competition and figured out I got 106th. I discovered the awesomeness that is Angry Birds on my dads Galaxy tablet. The older gentleman next to me was friendly, and we talked about Irish dance, his family in Canada, and (of course) hockey. But it wasn't until we had about 2.5 hours left in the flight that I discovered the TV tucked into my arm rest. As I was seated in an exit row, there was not one in front of my face. It took the older gentlemen sitting next to me to pull his out to realize that we had one too, and weren't jipped. So I watched Black Swan until we had to put everything away.

We went through customs when we got into Canada, which took almost as much time as in Dublin, but purely because of the volume of people. I did chat with a dancer around my age who ironically was on all our flights. I don't know who he was, or what school he goes to, and I really wish now that I had the nerves to ask him--he was cute! We were supposed to have a four hour lay over in Toronto. Luckily, my dad and I decided that it would behoove us to see if we can catch a seat on an earlier flight back to Dulles, which was successful.

In total, my dad's and my Easter Sunday lasted around 29 hours with none of the Easter fare until we got home in time to eat leftovers and watch Titanic.

So ends my Dublin adventures, and here's to many more!

Goals: Get new steps down, but for real