5/29-5/31 Dublin

I apologize for the delay, did not have access to a computer and it took awhile to get caught up.

5/29

Today we had only one morning session. It was originally supposed to be a full day of classes but everyone had to get to the airport early to catch flights to Dublin, Paris, and Amsterdam. So our program coordinator was nice and canceled class for the afternoon. I forget what we did in class on the 29th, the last several days have been a blur of activity. It might have been on corporate social responsibility and ethics but it could of had something to due with finance. After classes I went to the computer lab to work on updated my blog and made the mistake of not looking to see when the next bus went to the City Centre. I had scheduled a cap to pick a group of us up from the City Centre at 2. I got on a bus around 1:20 and was told that it would take 35min to get to the City Center. Well the bus driver was right and I got there at 1:55 and had to start looking for the place that the taxi was supposed to pick us up from. I found it and got there at precisely 2, right on time. I had an interesting experience going through security at the Bristol airport. Its not like this is a thriving airport, it only has one terminal. Anyways, I walked through the metal detector and it beeped. The guy told me to take off my shoes I did so and turned around to walk back through the machine. He told me to stop before i got to it. Confused I turned around and discovered he wanted me to get a pat down. It ended up being a 5 min rub down. I didn't really want to get to 2nd base with the airport security guard, and plus he didn't even buy me dinner first. I WAS VIOLATED. It turns out it was the button on my jeans that had set off the security devises. Didn't know it was a crime to have a button on my pants. Oh well it makes for a good story.
The flight lasted about 45min. However we sat on the plan at the gate for an additional 15min before they let us off. Ireland's custom were pretty easy to get through, they barely looked at our passports. From there we grabbed a coach and headed to Dublin and checked into our hostel. There were 10 of us staying in the room again, this time all 10 were guys so they room quickly took on the pleasant smell of a muggy sweat. After some dinner, we decided to experience Ireland's culture and headed to the Temple Bar area. Dublin is very expensive so I did not buy many drink but the rest of the group dropped a small fortune on alcohol. We didn't stay to late and went to head back to the hostel. About 1 min after we got out of the pub, 2 drunks decided to pick a fight with the 2 bouncers of the bar. It was very entertaining to watch the drunks get the crap kicked out of them in about 6 seconds. Great way to end the night. Well this is where the night ended for some of us, the others stayed out a bit later and woke us up when they got home.

5/30

Our hostel provided a very nice complementary breakfast for us. We had the option of cereal, porridge, bacon, eggs, sausage, baked beans, fruit, and toast. We had gotten up early to make sure we could go on the Wicklow tour. When we got to the tour bus they did not have room for a group of 13, so we made reservations for the following morning. At this point everyone was awake and outside so, it was best to go see some of the sites. Without a map, we made our way through Dublin and arrived the the Guinness Brewery and took the tour. It was a very interesting self guided tour that ended in the gravity bar, which is on the 7th floor of the building. The bar is a circular room that provides a great 360* view of Dublin. It was a great view of the city and its surrounding countryside. We also got a free pint of Guinness at the bar, i thought I would be funny and tried to order a Heineken. The bartender laughed and gave me a Guinness. I'm not really a fan of it, but i figured it was part of the experience and did not want to be like the girls and give it to someone else. Due to some of the alcoholics in the group, we ended up spend 3 hours at the brewery, which in my opinion was 2 hours to long.
After we got everyone out, we had a quick lunch and then headed across the river to visit the Old Jameson Distillery and take the tour. This tour was also interesting and informative. At the end of the tour a few were selected to do a whisky tasting and everyone else was given a glass of whiskey. I like the whiskey, it was pretty good. After the tour, most of the group headed back to the hostel to take a nap, but several of us wanted to see the other sites and headed out to explore. We had finally got our hands on a map to help us with this. We walked through the Medieval & Viking area of the city. Didn't really know much about the buildings we were seeing but they looked cool and I took several pictures. From there, we headed to St. Patrick's Cathedral and Dublin castle. We didn't go inside either but took pics of the buildings themselves. We were getting hungry so we headed back to the hostel. It turned out that the rest of the group was getting dinner as well and planned to go on a guided bar crawl that night. The guides were kinda of shady, it felt like we paid 10 Euros for a wrist band that had no use. I was bored for the most of the bar crawl because I didn't want to pay between 5 and 6.5 euros for a drink. For those of you who don't know what that means in dollars, 1 euro is about = to 1.3 dollars last I heard. After the bar crawl ended, i kinda felt like the chaperon and made sure everyone made it back to the hostel. Once again the drunks in the groups were loud and kept most of the others up for a little longer than we wanted to be awake for.

5/31

Today was my favorite day in Ireland. We went on the all day Wicklow tour. It lasted from about 9am to 6:30 pm when we arrived back in Dublin. The tour took us through the hills of Wicklow. It was absolutely gorgeous. The pictures I took of the area do not do it justice at all, it is something that you have to experience yourself. This area appears in parts of several movies. To name a few: Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, and P.S. I Love You are the ones that i remember our guide mentioning. The Guinness family also has their house in these hills, I would kill to wake up to that few every morning. We drove through the area that Paul McCartney spend a day and came away with the song Yesterday. We made a couple stops, several of them being quick photo opportunities and others were at the reconciliation centre in Glencree, and the Valley of 2 Lakes. The reconciliation center is known recently as the place where the peace between the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland was worked out, and where peace talks between several countries in the Middle East took place. The Valley of 2 Lakes contained the ancient ruins of early monk establishments. These building were constructed with stone and did not use any mortar or sand between the stones. When we were about to leave this area, another coach was trying to get out of the parking lot. It could not due to the poorly parked cars. Our tour guide had mentioned earlier that the Irish people don't park their cars, they just abandon them were they feel like it. In order for that coach to get out, several guys from the tour car had to manually move some of the cars in the way. They did not but them back after the bus had gotten through, it would have been entertaining to see the reaction of the owner of the car when they came back to it. We had one more stop in a town for lunch. Our guide told us a good place to eat but after we ate we discovered that we could have eaten across the road for half the price. Oh well the food was good.
On the ride back, Nick decided to take a short video of me being a bobble head. I had fallen asleep and my head was acting like a bobble head. He was entertained by it and took the video. I'm sure he will pass it on to me at some point. We got back to Dublin around 6:30 and decided to find some more food. That night a small group of us went to try and find a hotel that had some Irish Step dancers performing. We were told it would be at 10, but when we got to the place we discovered that they had performed at 9:15. We were a bit disappointed, and decided to go check out Temple Bar. It was a neat pub but we weren't sure what it was supposed to be famous for. We enjoyed the local music for a bit and then headed home. We played some cards, and decided to go to bed. Just as we were getting ready to do that guess who came home? The loud drunks, so once again some of us were kept up a little later than we wanted to be.

Medieval Building (don't remember its name)
Old Monk Building

This Bridge Appears in P.S. I Love You (if anyone cares)

The Guinness Lake & Wicklow Hills

Wicklow Country Side

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Got In Trouble

Outside The Guinness Brewery