Duba Duba Dublin

It's a boy! My cousin Kristi gave birth to Carson yesterday evening. I'm very excited to get to see him! Way to go Kristi and Matt!

So I took the ferry from Holyhead to Dublin. I accidentally bought a club class ticket for an extra £10. It actually turned out to be a good thing. There were free sandwiches, drinks, and a ferry comfortable seat. I ended up eating about £20 worth and enjoyed it immensely.

I arrived in Dublin and took a short bus trip to the city center where I went searching for my hostel. The first night I stayed at the nicest hostel I've ever stayed at. It was so clean and nice. I have a theory that it is that nice due to the no alcohol or smoking policy in the hostel. It is located right next to the famous Temple Bar. After dropping off my bags I set out to look around. The city really isn't all that big. Trinity College is beautiful. I walked around for a bit and tried to work up a gameplan for that evening. I was traveling basically alone at this point which was very weird, somewhat challenging, but at the same time exciting. I decided to go on a literary pub crawl and on it met two girls from UT and two girls from Florida. I swear there weren't any guys under the age of 60. The pub crawl was fun, but they gave very little time in the pubs to drink a beer. It is so weird to go into a pub and Guinness is the cheapest beer on tap. Of course the Guinness is excellent here.

After the pub crawl I went with the Florida people to Temple Bar. It was packed with people of all ages and sizes. It was exactly what you might think of when you think of an Irish pub. Great fun.

I went into my hostel room that night pretty late and I could see bodies in the other beds, but I had only met two girls that were in the room the day before. I went to sleep, but got up early to checkout and move to the next hostel. As I was leaving the others started to wake up and they were all females with not much as far as pajamas go. It was a scene from Eurotrip. One of the ones I met the day before said, "Aww, Brent, are you having to checkout today?" I said I was sorry to and headed out. I was a good boy, but I was cracking up for the next 20 minutes or so.

The other hostel is not near as nice as Barnacles, but it worked. As soon as I moved my stuff in I headed out to see the parks, the Old Post Office where the Rebellion took place, the James Joyce statue, and then to St. Stephen's Green.
This spire marks the center of Dublin and cost 5 million euros. They aren't happy with it.
Here is the Old Post Office. Watch Michael Collins to learn more...This was at a pretty cool arcade they had. I didn't play it, but I guess somehow you wrestle this bull?



I have to tell you the Europeans are much better with their parks. They are beautiful here.

I met up with the Florida people later that day and we went to see St. Patrick's Cathedral. Before St. Patrick's we saw a crazy street performer that really made himself look like Gollum. It was pretty freaky.
It was very medieval and had little kids with mullets playing soccer on the lawn outside of it. A sign at the front of the church said, "St. Patrick's Cathedral is sponsored by Bailey's." Only in Ireland is a church sponsored by a liquor company. I think Tito's Vodka in Austin should look into this...

We then had a nice dinner which was way overpriced, I'm still not used to that and called it a night. I slept in a little this morning, due to a tough night sleep due to an Italian snorer in the bunk next to me. It was loud!


I just got back from Dublin Castle and saw some really cool sand sculptures in the middle of the square. Pretty amazing stuff.

I was supposed to meet up with Chris and Peri last night, but their flight was delayed 8 hours! So we are meeting up tonight to see the Guinness factory and do a pub crawl. Should be fun!

I have two weeks left in Europe. It is crunch time!