Dublin...not so much

Dublin, the trip I had been most excited about this semester turned out to be somewhat of a dud. I should have known it was not going to go well when Mika and I took the right bus the wrong direction to the airport in Baden Baden for an hour and a half…or when I washed my contact down the sink our first night at the hostel…or when I forgot my Irish electronic converter because I was hung over when I packed for Dublin a few hours before out flight. Because there was some huge rugby final between Ireland and Scotland this weekend and because it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, we couldn’t find a hostel that was available all three nights so we had to book two different hostels. Of course somehow our most expensive two hostels to date were also our two shittiest.

Mika and I were both kind of unimpressed with Dublin. It was nice to speak English for the first time in almost 4 months, but it wasn’t as liberating as I thought it would be. Despite our disappointing stay in Dublin, we decided to take a day trip on Friday to Galway. A three hour train ride away, Galway is located on the complete opposite side of the country of Dublin…and it’s pretty freaking beautiful. We got there too late in the morning to take a bus to see the Cliffs of Moor, so we just wandered around the city and down by the water. It reminded me so much of Rhode Island, I loved it.




I used the most of my time in Dublin to see all of the famous U2 spots, including “Bonavox Hearing Aids,” where Bono got his nickname from. I also got to meet up with Kelly, my friend from high school who is studying abroad in Ireland this summer, who took us out Friday night…which was quite a success considering French and Irish cell phones apparently hate each other and decided to be completely uncooperative. Again, Blackberry saves the day!




We spent all day Saturday seeing some other sights of the city that we hadn’t checked out Thursday or Friday including the Guinness factory, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Trinity College. We had fun, but by about halfway through the day we both kind of decided we had had enough.

I can’t say that I’ll be going back to Dublin any time soon. I think we were both glad we went, but realized how much we missed Strasbourg. It feels like home.

We were both pretty stressed after our trip and we had already planned to make a stop at our favorite German spa on the return trip through Baden Baden. We were pros this time around. We spent a few hours at the pools and saunas before heading back to Strasbourg.

This week has been beautiful in Strasbourg. It’s been sunny and 60-70 degrees every day. HOLLA!

Headed to Nancy, Reims and Verdun this weekend for a Champagne tour...pretty pumped! Marseille and Cannes next weekend for Easter Break. Barcelona the week after. And then one last trip to Paris to see my sister and Molloy.

Wow.