Well, the Pegsters and I finally made it to Europe! Following a pretty easy plane ride full of wine, pasta, and sleeping medications the Peganator and I arrived in Dublin pretty exhausted. After running into a door at customs and setting off an alarm, we boarded a bus for the beautiful city of Dublin.
After getting lost for a while, Peggy and I found a friendly old man who could give us directions to the hostel.....which turned out to be just about a block away. Once we arrived, Peggy and I put our backpacks in our locker and headed out to explore the city- which by the way is not at all what we were expecting.
Dublin happens to be an incredibly beautiful city full of old stone buildings with beautiful architecture wedged between ultra modern buildings. The city is full of statues, bridges, fountains, and the greenest grass we have ever seen. The air in the city is so fresh and full of wonderful smells from the sea, markets, cafes, and perfume stores.
To make it even better, the streets are full of loud, cheerful Irish people who are more than willing to help with directions and give advice on where to go. On most street corners there are also musicians. One musician in particular was so entertaining that Peggy and I sat on a bench and watched him for an hour. This one man sang, played guitar, and drummed with his feet belting out everything from Edward sharp and the magnetic zero covers to the Kooks!
After getting an earful of some awesome street music, Peggy and I decided that we wanted to sample some authentic Irish cuisine. We headed to a cafe that we had spotted earlier in the day and ordered beef stew and Guinness. It was great and exactly what we needed considering Dublin is only about 55 degrees and we were getting pretty chilly. Seeing as the majority of places we are going will be warm, Pegsta only packed tank tops and 1 sweatshirt so she wore about 7 layers and was still cold...
After lunch, we returned to the hostel where we checked in and took a nap. What was supposed to be only a 15 minute nap ended up turning into an hour and a half nap, but it was much needed.
Following our Nap Peggy and I explored the town some more, taking in all of the beautiful churches, Dublin Castle, street performers, etc. We had dinner around 8pm and it consisted of lamb meat and bread. It was delicious and we raved about it the rest of the night.
We then walked around some more through the temple bar district and returned to our hostel around 9:30 pm. Unfortunately when Peggy and I got back to our room our key card didn't work.... So I went down to the front desk and got a key. But once we got into our shared 16 bed room we found other backpackers' gear in our beds. I returned to the front desk again and was told I booked our stay for the wrong night and didn't have a room for night. So after paying an additional 38 euros on top of our initial 18 euros we got new beds in a different room..... Bastards! So essentially we paid 3 times the amount we had originally planned for the room!
The next morning we woke up and went to talk to the manager who basically told us to bug off so we decided to just let it go and move on.... But in a small act of retaliation, we refused to pay for towels to shower and used all the bed sheets. HAH!
After having a light breakfast and talking with some other hoselers, we once again set out to explore the city. We spent the majority of today walking around, watching more street performers and eating fish and chips in a box for 4 euros called a 'cod box'.
Anyways, now we are relaxing in the hostel lounge, which is an old converted wine cellar in the basement, before we make our way to the airport for our 7pm flight to London! Hopefully we won't run into anymore costly problems!
Ciao,
Michael and Peggy
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