OK so I will try and put as much in this as possible... I am a little fuzzy on the specific details because it was two weeks ago and my mind is full of stress and homework, but I will do my best to keep everything straight! Don't be upset if I am skint on some of the details!
Two weeks ago, Shandi, Linden and I went to see Harry Potter! It was great but we had a little problem before we went. Our movie was at 8:45 and around 7:00 Claire decided she wanted to go. So we tried to look up and see if there were any tickets available near us... thats when we discovered we had booked our tickets in Leicester (which is a town far far away) instead of Leicester Square. So we scrambled and luckily found some open tickets at Fulham Broadway. The show didn't start until 10:30 and lasted really late so then we had to take the night bus home. It was worth it to see Harry though :). Unfortunately, we had a really hectic day the next day!!!
Shandi, Linden and I (which I will now shorten to S and L so I won't have to type their names a million times) had to get up early and go to work all day. Then at 5:3o, S, L and I met at Victoria tube station to take the train the Gatwick Airport. We had our ticket, we were on the platform, ready to go. Our flight was at 9:15, we were going to get to the airport at 7:15 which is the appropriate time to arrive for a flight. Then the looming voice overhead reported that there had been a fatality at another station and all of the Gatwick trains were being rerouted to London Bridge station... mass chaos. Everyone and their dog who were trying to catch a Gatwick flight fled to the online line that goes to London Bridge. It was insane. We went to London Bridge, jumped on a train that stopped at Gatwick and thought we were good to go. The train we chose stayed at the station for about an hour... and then it took about an hour to get to Gatwick. We finally got there around 8:50, ran to security to be turned away and told we
needed a Visa check, waited in line for a Visa check, sprinted over to security and finally made it through. We stood in front of the monitor patiently waiting for our gate to appear so we could make our dramatic run to the plane.... and then our plane was delayed for about 2 hours not to mention the hour we sat on the runway because the weather conditions were to bad to fly in. We thought the only thing left that could go wrong was for our plane to crash....Fortunately, our plane did not crash and we landed in Dublin around 1:30 am. We hoped on a bus that took us about 4o minutes to a spot in the middle of Dublin outside of Trinity church. We wondered around Dublin at 2:30 in the morning searching for our hostel and after walking in the wrong direction we turned around and found it. We went in to get our key to our room (which we paid extra for so we could have a private room where the tour began) and the guy at reception could not find us in the computer... We were exhausted, in Dublin, thinking we had no place to stay. He found us finally and we went to our room and got about 4 hours of sleep before we had to get up and get ready for the tour departure.
I got up and showered (the shower was very interesting contraption that took me about 15 minutes to figure out), S, L and I then went down to the lobby to sign into our SHAMROCKER Sourthern Ireland 3 day tour. We signed in, boarded the bus, and began the tour!
Our tour guide, Kev, started immediately giving us tid bits about Ireland history as we made our way through the countryside. Our first stop was something Castle. Then we went to the Mitchelston caves which was creepy and really cool. Then we headed to Blarney Castle and kissed the Blarney stone, where I was granted the gift of gab... however, I am convinced I already had that :). We spent the night in Killarney at a little hostel. S,L and I were in a room with 6 other people and we became friends with three other girls in our room; Kathy, Meredith, and Sarah. We went to dinner with them and then everyone from the tour met at a pub. I had my very first Guinness and hung out with the girls. We stayed there for a while and then Kev got us free cover into the Grand Hotel, a pub/club a couple blocks away. It was a lot of fun and filled with good looking Irish men, my favorite :). We danced all night and finally swaggered home around 2:30 am. Seeing the opportunity to shower in an empty co-ed shower, S,L and I hopped in and then went to bed for about 4 hours before we had to get up again and get on the bus.
Saturday was a beautiful day to travel through the Irish countryside, besides the fact that it was rainy and cold. We drove along the ocean and through the hills and saw amazing views that could not possibly be captured by cameras. We stopped along the way for some photo
opps. At one point, we stopped on a beach that legend has takes a little part of your soul when you touch it, and eventually sometime in your life you will have to revisit the spot to collect the little bit of you you left behind in beautiful Ireland. So even though it was cold and rainy, we ventured down to the icy waters to dip a toe in the mystery water (me sporting my ill-fitting, graciously lent rain jacket from Claire). Also, on Saturday we went to the Cliffs of Moher, which are the cliffs from the new Harry Potter movie (if you are a fan its the cave in which Voldemort's Horcrux is hidden that Dumbledore and Harry go to retrieve) and they are also the Cliffs of Insanity from Princess Bride. They were beautiful and scary. We rode a fairy across the river to get to County Clare :) (the most superstitious county in Ireland) and then spotted some more scenic things on our way to Doolin where we were spending the night.
We stayed in Doolin, the home of traditional Irish music with only 1,000 residents, and went to one of the 4 pubs in town. It was a very cute, traditional Irish bar... exactly how I would picture it with loads of locals who had great Irish accents which I struggled to understand. We had the amazing beef and veggie stew and more Guinness, then headed back to the hostel for an early night. We got up early and headed back towards Dublin with some fun stops along the way including a fairy ring, Clonmacnoise, and one of the oldest whiskey distilleries, yum :). We arrived back in Dublin, S, L and I got on a bus to the airport where we waited to fly home! We got home too late to take the tube and had to take the night bus home, got home about 1:30 in the morning then went to sleep in order to wake up early and go to work!!!!
It was an amazing weekend and so much fun and I can't wait to go back to Ireland!!!
To be continued....
Coming soon: My weekend with Morgan and Carlye!!
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