Shenanigans!

Before we begin, we'll share a few photos from the end of our time in London:

Clowning around in the British Museum:

WHA?????

Jazz Hands!

Gotta have the red telephone booth:

Turns out, we do have stuff to report from Dublin after all. Today was fun! We left London pretty early. We literally had to take 4 trains to get to the airport this morning and made it in time to buy a couple of souvenirs before catching our plane. Apparently we made friends with the lady that we were checking in with because she made no comment when Katie’s bag was 3ish kilos overweight (about 7.5 pounds). She looked at our passports and said, “Oh, I could tell you were from the South!” We like her. We would have had to pay roughly 10 pounds per kilo that the bag was overweight if she hadn’t overlooked it.

When we got to the plane, it turns out yet another reason Ryanair is cheap but weird is that they don’t have assigned seats. Luckily, we were warned by the lovely Dot Dannenberg Williams that we should stay out of the way of the snotty old ladies and let them have the window seats because they’d fight you for them and they fight dirty! About an hour and a half later, we arrived in Dublin to un-rainy skies which was a nice change from London. Unfortunately, by the time we made it through customs and got our bags it was raining again. Bah. We had to get help from a chaplain to figure out where the heck we were supposed to catch the bus to the hostel. He helped alright. We got on the wrong bus! The bus driver was very nice, and took us to the next stop free of charge and told us the correct bus to take. Well after that, we didn’t have correct change because we had just changed our money over and only had bills. So, when we finally found the right bus, the driver wouldn’t let us on because we only had a 5-Euro bill. Inserting quote of the day here: Upon asking what we were to do with no change, the bus driver said, “Walk back to the airport to get some.” Rachael and Katie reply in open-mouthed stunned unison,

“WALK???” So we were stuck in the middle of a yucky construction zone

a whole bus stop away from the airport with no way of getting back to the airport safely. We got really lucky when a bus driver came by to swap shifts with another driver. He took out his change drawer and made change for us so that we could take our bus. So, after waiting another half hour or so, our correct bus finally came around again and we were able to get on. Well, getting on the bus was half of it. Once we got on, we really had no idea where to get off. We were asking a girl on the bus which stop we should get off at and all we really learned from her was that we had really bad directions. So, we got off at a spot that looked good and asked for directions. We don’t know what it is about Ireland, but either they’re really bad at giving directions or we’re really bad at following them, but we got lost, got found, and got lost about 3 times before finally consulting iPhone and GPS. Thank you, technology! When we finally got to the hostel, we found it to be really amazing. It’s way nicer than the hotel we stayed in last night in London!

We took a little time to put our things down and make a couple of phone calls and get our act together before heading out to spend what little time we have here. Well, once again, we don’t know what it is about this place, but these folks either can’t give directions or we can’t follow them! We got lost again! Oh well, that problem was solved by hopping into a cab and asking him to take us to the Temple pub. When he asked which one, we found out that Temple Bar is

actually an area, not one bar. So onward to Temple Bar! We decided we just had to eat at an Irish sounding place. What we did not expect upon arriving in Dublin today was the Ireland vs. England rugby match. Ireland won so everyone and their mother was out! We wandered around for awhile searching for somewhere that wasn’t packed up like a can of sardines and eventually found a place called Oliver St. James Gogarty. Pretty Irish-sounding! We both had a really good meal there. After dinner, we wandered around a bit more and found a pub down the street where we just had to get some good ol’ Irish beer. We drank O’Hara’s Irish Red and met a really nice couple from Dublin who had kids our age and had come into town for the evening to celebrate Ireland’s big win. We really enjoyed talking to them and told them about our blog. After leaving the pub, we went window shopping around Temple Bar and eventually caught a cab ride back to our hostel. As we write this blog, there is a nice group of (we guess) high-school-aged Germans jamming with a guitar in the hostel lobby. Of course, we had to come on by and join in on the jam session! They were speaking rapid German but every once in a while, we recognized some song titles as everyone threw out song suggestions. Some of our favorites from this evening were Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours,” “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,“ “Hot Stuff” and Bon Jovi’s “It’s my Life” (a crowd favorite).

We’re checking in early tonight because the best method of transportation (so we can avoid running into the shenanigans we ran into earlier) to get to the airport in time for our 7:50am flight is to catch a shuttle from our hostel at 4:45am (yikes!) So goodnight to you all! See you next time!

XOXO K&R