Fáilte!

Thursday was my first day in Dublin. Wednesday night I had gone to the apartment that Carolyn and her dad and Stephen were staying in in Paris. Mike (Carolyn’s dad) made courgettes and grilled pork chops in a shallot and red wine reduction. Mmmm. And we watched South Park while we ate it. A bit incongruous, but hey, whatever. So after going home and packing it was about midnight when I finally crashed. Three and a half hours of non-sleep later, I got back up and took a shower. I made myself a bowl of spaghetti, finished packing, and talked to Mary about apartment stuff. At 5:30 I headed out and took the Metro to Porte Maillot where I took the shuttle to Paris Beauvais Airport. I got there about 8 AM and actually ran into a few girls from work who were also going to Dublin. So I stuck with them through check-in and customs. When I got through security, I saw my Couchsurfer from the few nights before! Turns out she had missed her flight Wednesday morning but didn’t want to bother me because she knew I had my own flight to catch, so she stayed with someone else. She was on her way to Stockholm.

We eventually got on our plane, and when we arrived in Dublin I parted ways with the girls from work. I followed the careful directions of my Couchsurfing host, Vik, and went outside the airport and found the bus.



I got on bus 16A and took it for about forty minutes until I got to the city center, and then took bus 10 to UCD Belfield, which is where Vik lives and goes to school. He met me after I got off the bus and helped me bring my stuff up to his room. He is the most welcoming person I think I have ever met in my life. He even cleared out a shelf for me in his room! After I dropped off my stuff we went to meet some friends of his for lunch. It rained and hailed and was sunny all in about fifteen minutes. We met his friends and went into an Irish restaurant. I had potato and leek soup and bread and butter. It was delicious! I can’t wait to sample more Irish fare.

After lunch we tried to go to Dublin Castle, but it was randomly closed for the day.





I did have a Marilyn Beyer moment when I had to explain to a little old Italian lady that the castle was closed. Luckily I speak a little more Italian than my mother and managed to explain to the woman that the castle was closed and that it would reopen the next day at 10 AM. So we wandered around the area trying to find something to do, and randomly found the Irish Revenue Museum. It was pretty odd, a little exhibition dedicated to revenue workers.

They had an exhibit of various ways people try to smuggle drugs into the country


This is a special toilet that was made to help check people's poo for drugs.


We played "Spot the Tax"


There was a funky park outside


After that we went to the Chester Beatty Library and looked at the exhibition on world religions. Then Vik and I caught the bus back to campus. He went to play soccer and I took a shower and figured out how to use my power adapter and did not figure out how to connect to the internet. So then I wrote this, and eventually I will get a chance to post it, with some pictures!

*Fáilte means “welcome” in Irish Gaelic.