Here's the next installment of the Great Irish Saga!!!
Friday, March 16, 2007
Like I said in my last post, I was up way early. For some reason, I think it's perfectly acceptable to get my butt out of bed at ungodly hours when I'm on vacation, but not during the regular week. Go figure. Anyway, after being shivering cold the night before, I made sure I put on a lot of layers and added my fleece jacket under my grey trench coat. Since I don't really believe in wearing socks, and only had my little brown shoes, my feet were cold a lot of the time. And wet too, because even though it never actually rains in Ireland, it's misty pretty much all the time. Either way, my feet survived.
The walk to the bus station was very pretty and took a lot less time than finding the hostel had taken the night before. I swear I saw the sun coming up, and took a couple of pictures to commemorate the fact that I was up that early. One of them was of a streetlight that was decorated with a shamrock. Another was of a random building that had an interesting statue on top and some pretty sunrise-colored clouds behind it.
Once I was on the bus, I contemplated napping, but I didn't want to miss a thing and I ended up writing down notes of what I had done and looking out the window at the scenery. Ireland reminded me a bit of Virginia because it had a lot of rolling hills and pastureland. The stone walls helped with that whole image. Did you know that they don't use anything to actually hold the stones together? It's all just how they stack them. Meghan says they just pile rocks very well. At least the Irish are good for something! And I feel totally justified in making fun of them since I happen to be more than slightly Irish.
I also saw a ton of sheep and cattle with their babies. They were so incredibly cute. And Meghan told me that seeing a lamb is good luck, so I figure since I saw a bazillion of them, then I should have pretty good luck for a really long time. I also saw some horses, but they seemed stockier than my fourleggers. Two of them were pintos and when the bus stopped in the middle of the road so the driver could talk on his cell phone, they walked over to their fence and said hi. They kind of reminded me of the Gypsy horses.
Finally, we arrived in Galway. It seemed to take forever, but that might be because I expected the trip to take three hours and it actually took four. When I met Meghan and mentioned it, she said that that was typical. This was another one of those times where I missed Germanic efficiency with public transportation. It was really awesome to see Meghan and she told me all about Galway as we walked to her apartment so I could put my stuff down. We'll be traveling together in Rome over Easter break, so we talked about that a bit too.
Meghan's apartment is more like a townhouse. She lives with five other people -- one girl and four boys. Three of the boys are Irish, but most of them were home for the weekend. That's the thing with students in Ireland. Most of them study at a university within three hours of home (which is most of the island, in all truth) and go home on the weekends. Anyway, the apartment was REALLY nice. It had three floors and Meghan lives on the top floor. I dropped off my stuff in her room and added another layer because Galway was rather damp. It was the theme of the weekend, but really, as much as I'll pretend to complain about it, I really didn't mind the mist because it kind of goes along with being in Ireland. At least it wasn't snow.
Just a quick sidenote: There seem to be a lot of blue doors in Ireland. I don't know if it's a symbolism thing, but I think it might have to do with keeping the bad spirits out. Ireland is also known for it's Georgian doors that have elaborate door frames and brightly colored doors. They had a lot of calendars with pictures of them.
On the way into town, we took a different route than we had going to the apartment. I got to see where she goes to school, and the administration building there has a courtyard that reminds me of Hogwarts. The whole area is really pretty, like wow. Meghan also showed me some of town on our way in to the restaurant for lunch.
I don't remember the name of the restaurant/pub, but if Meghan is reading this, she can add a comment with the name so I can put it in the final edition of my blog before I make it into a lovely book. They have lunch specials there, just like we do in Austria. Since it was a Friday in Lent, Meghan skipped the meat, but I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, which I had been dreaming about for the previous few weeks. We both got the vegetable soup and Meghan got fries too. The sandwich was good, and the soup was glorious. It was really thick, like a stew, and very orange, so I thought they put something in it like pumpkin. The soup also came with all different sorts of breads, and I liked the brown bread the best. It tasted/felt homemade and they even have salted butter in Ireland, which is really cool because they don't have that in Austria. And since I was in Ireland, I drank tea with lunch. It wasn't as good as the Irish Cream Tea at Am Moos, but it was wonderful with milk and sugar in real sized mugs, not the tiny bitty ones we have in my apartment here.
After lunch, we walked through town a bit and Meghan pointed out different things like churches. We visited a chruch that was somehow tied to Christopher Columbus (? - Meghan can you clarify that?) and saw a memorial from back in the day. There was once a man convicted of murder whose father was the mayor of Galway. Since he was the mayor's son, nobody wanted to be the one that hung him, so his father had to do it, and the Irish, being the slightly morbid people they are, kept the wall where the man was hung.
During our wanderings, Meghan introduced me to the place where the original Claddagh rings were made. The store had been in business since 1750 and had a mini museum in the back. The signs were very pretty and they had a stained-glass claddagh in the window of the door. We also walked to the shore and we saw the Claddagh district, which is an area of Galway. The houses here are very pretty colors and we took lots of pictures of them. We also met a swan that I named Harold, and he walked with us for a few meters. Let me just get this out here now, swans are huge! And since I was kind of intimidated by Harold, I made Meghan get close enough for a picture with him. After taking some pictures of the shore, we walked back toward town.
Sidenote: In my pictures is an image of a license plate. The first number on it is the year the car was bought. The letter(s) in the middle represent the town the car was bought in, and the last set of numbers is how many cars had been sold from there. I wonder what they do when the car is sold as a preowned vehicle. Do they change the license plate or is it stuck with it until it hits the scrap yard?
When we were back in Galway proper, we stopped in the non-original claddagh place. I was kind of leaning toward getting an original ring, so we didn't spend too much time there. On our return to the original claddagh shop, whose name I have to look up, the lady behind the counter sized me for a ring. I took off the claddagh that I've worn for the past few years and she picked out a ring of a similar size. She also examined the ring I had given her and asked me where I got it. I replied the United States, and she said it wasn't made in Ireland because it hadn't gone through their offices that stamp them. When something is made in Ireland, it has to be inspected to make sure it is as it is advertised, and my lovely little ring from QVC didn't have the stamp. The lady said it was probably made in Mexico, and Meghan explained to me when we got out of the shop that the Irish blame everything that's kind of strange to them on Mexico. And I mean really random stuff too, not just manufactured items. Anyway, the ring needed to be resized and they could take care of it that afternoon, we just had to come back in about an hour or so. So we continued our adventures through town.
Meghan took me to this little candy shop that one of her friends visits every day to buy two pieces of chocolate. She's working on tasting every kind they make. Meghan said I should try the Bailey's Creme Fraiche (I know I murdered the spelling of that, but you all know what I mean) because that's her favorite. And let me tell you, it was a little bite of Heaven. It was incredible! Like whoa. It's like I found a new addiction, but they don't sell individual types at their online store because I already looked (I was going to have boxes of that luscious candy sent to me in Vienna).
Afterward we had gotten the ring, we walked back to the apartment to meet the others for dinner. Meghan had a friend from high school visiting her and one of the friend's friends from college. They had been on a tour to the Cliffs of Mohr that day. I got to meet Leah (Meghan's other friend), Ashley (Leah's friend), Kathy (Meghan's neighbor), Lauren (another neighbor), and Phil (Lauren's boyfriend who was visiting over his spring break). They're all really awesome people. For dinner, we went back into town for fish and chips, which was really good. Then, since St. Patrick's Day was the next day, we ran to the store to stock up on the necessary items (hard cider and Bailey's for me, beer for the others). Afterwards, we just relaxed in the apartment for a bit because it had been a long day and I was kind of tired. When it was time for bed, we stole the cushions from the chairs and couches in the livingroom area and took them up to Meghan's room to sleep on. She had enough pillows and extra comforters for us all to have our own, which was really nice. All in all, it was a wonderful first day in Ireland!
Next chapter: St. Patrick's Day, due out later today.
Love,
Amanda
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Luck o' the Irish
Dear People,
I know it's been forever, and I've been slacking a bit about my blogging, which I feel horrible about, but I'm here now, so it's all better, and you can hear about my Irish escapades!! But first, there's just a few random things that I want to throw out there to enhance your reading enjoyment.
A few weeks ago, March first to be exact, the entire face of Kartnerstraße (the main drag in the first district) was changed. Apparently, it's the first day that outdoor cafes can be set up and the Austrians built them with vigor! Everywhere you look now, there are tables and chairs set up in front of their respective businesses. Some have tents over them or borders around them created by potted plants. Even Mickey D's got in on the act and has their outside seating set up. It's pretty impressive, and someday when it's a bit warmer, I'll be sitting at one of those little tables drinking my Melange.
There's also a bit of a carnival atmosphere on Stephensplatz, which is infront of Stephensdom. Artists, living statues, and millions of tourists gather there every afternoon. It's just so cool to see because up until this month, although the streets weren't empty, they weren't as populated. I know by the end of the semester I'm going to want to mow over the tourists with a Straßenbahn, but right now I think they're kind of entertaining with all their cameras. Especially the Asian tourists because they live up to all stereotypes including traveling in large herds and taking a bazillion pictures of EVERYTHING.
In not so happy news, I heard back from Boeing. Unfortunately, they don't need me to intern with them this summer, so I'll be at home. I was kind of upset by this because it would have been cool to live in Seattle this summer. But as it is, I can find a waitressing job somewhere and put together the amazing book/scrapbook that I'm building this semester. It's going to be a major project because I have super big plans, but pretty much it's going to incorporate this entire blog reformatted and the best of my pictures from my time abroad. I'm really excited to start it, and I think it is going to come out really good. :-)
Continuing on in the same not so positive vein, I was told by my internship boss that my German translation is "weak" and that he couldn't use my article as it was. He said that he would translate the articles for me. Now this was pretty devastating because I honestly thought my German was improving. I'd been receiving better marks on my graded papers and I've even been more comfortable speaking the language. But business German is in a league by itself because so much of it is made up of English cognates. And the online dictionaries don't have the words I need in the forms I need them. Of course, I also think that maybe he wasn't interested in teaching me the business German, which I would be fine with, except that the point of this whole internship is to work on my German fluency. I was down for about twenty minutes or so, and then I pretty much just got mad. I thought, "How dare he renege on his end of the internship bargain." So I went to a bookstore in the first district and bought a German-English business dictionary and one of those fold out vocabulary helpers. Then I got home, wrote the next article, and sent it to him in English with an email that said that I'd like to try translating it, and asking if he would take the time to read it over. My first article should have been published by this point, and although the ideas are mine at this point, the words are not and I don't feel like it's my work. I feel like I've been cheated out of something that was mine. And I'm going to fix it for the next article and every single one after that, because I don't like that feeling, and I refuse to allow it to exist.
And for bad thing three of three, I heard that Unkie passed away. It wasn't a really big shock because he had been so sick for so long, but at the same time, I wasn't told right away, which did hurt. There was no way that I could be home for the services, which is why I wasn't told, but it felt like I was being excluded. I know he's happier now because he's in Heaven, but I hurt for Aunt Dorothy, who had been married to him for over fifty years. It has to be hard for her to face everyday knowing that she isn't going to see her husband again. *tear*
Luckily for me, I believe that bad things come in groups of three, so by this point, I was in for a lot of good in my life. Which just so coincided with my lovely trip to Ireland.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I went to three of my classes today and skipped the fourth because I had to pack. I was obsessed with packing within the weight limit (even though absolutely nobody checked my backpack) and probably underpacked a bit. Luckily for me, I decided to pack my fleece jacket. I have this thing that if it's warm in Vienna, then it automatically has to be just as warm wherever I'm going, and life doesn't usually work out that way. At least it didn't in Berlin or Galway. I also managed to write two essays for my German class and finish an article on the NASDAQ for the newspaper. It was a very productive day.
Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure. I needed to take Straßenbahn 46 to the U6 and then the U3. When I got off at my stop from the U3, I walked out the wrong exit, but in doing so, found a magic shop in Vienna, which reminded me of Matt. On the front of the store there was a huge hat with a rabbit being pulled out it. It was really kind of cute and of course I took a picture of it. All my pictures from Ireland are up on my picasa site, by the way, and captioned.
Then from the U3 I needed to take the Schnellbahn (S-Bahn) to the airport. You buy a special ticket from a machine for it. I was told it was only 1,50 Euro, so I brought exact change, and it turned out that it was 1,70. I had already asked a lady for help using the machine, and I didn't think I should try to bum another twenty cents from her, so I had to use my card. Not cool. Then it was a matter of finding the right platform and train. I got to use some German at this point (I used some with the ticket thing too) and eventually I found out where I needed to be. The train wouldn't be coming until about 6:30, and it was about a half hour ride to the airport. I had until about 7:30 to check in, but I was still a bit nervous about making it on time.
Check in at the airport was really cool. As I walked in, I had visions of coming home and having people waiting for me at the gate, and I felt just a little bit homesick. It's ok though, because it's only a few more weeks until Mom and Dad visit, and then Erika and Paul will be here a few weeks after that. Waiting in line was the best part because there were all these Irishmen who were talking to one another and their accents were just adorable. I think I fell in love with Ireland before I even made it out of the Vienna Airport, just because of their accents.
Two other girls from IES, Jenn and Ally, were also going to Ireland for the weekend, so I had people to hang out with while I waited to board the plane. It was really nice because we talked about what we were going to be doing during the weekend. Those girls were staying with friends in Dublin for the holiday, and were coming back the night before I was. There were also several boys that had dyed their hair green!! I think they must have bleached it first because it was a true kelly green and they had dark eyebrows. But it made for something to look at! Boarding wasn't a big deal; they checked us in and then we rode buses over to the plane and got on. The announcements were amusing because they came across in Irish/Gaelic, English, and German.
Because Aer Lingus is a discount airline, you don't get free anything. No drinks, no crackers, nothing. I found it amusing -- really gives life to the economic saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The flight lasted about two hours, and I think I just zoned out for the most part. I forgot to bring a book or some sort of amusement, so I got a bit bored. There's also a time change between the continent and the islands and they're an hour behind us.
I don't think I appreciated German efficiency until I tried to get through Customs in Dublin. Now, the Irish are a very wonderful people, but it's just silly to have two lines for non-EU citizens and eight for them, especially when there's about the same amount of people in both lines and about four or five flights arrived at roughly the same time. I think I spent an hour just trying to get into the country. But I did get a stamp in my passport, which was exciting.
Getting the ticket for the bus to the center of Dublin was my next big adventure. I had only taken out big bills from the bank, and the machine only accepted change and smaller bills. So I had to find an ATM, wait in line, take out twenty Euro, go to the airport bar, get change for the twenty, buy the ticket, and stand on line for the bus. The whole exercise took about half an hour. Realize by this time that it was about midnight and I still hadn't actually gotten to Dublin proper.
On the bus to the city were about four or five wonderfully drunk Irishmen who cursed with that lovely (luvly) Irish accent of theirs. There was also a couple who made the mistake of mentioning that it was one of their birthdays. So the lovely drunken Irishmen sang their lovely drunken hearts out to the tune of "Happy Birthday" about ten or twelve times during the forty-five minute trip. What made it even funnier was that they didn't know the guy's name, which turned out to be Philip, and called him Davy, Daniel, and Seamus before they got it right. They were the best kind of entertainment to start off a trip to Ireland.
I also sat next to a girl from Canada who was in Dublin for the weekend. She was studying in France for the semester and we had a nice conversation in between the bouts of "Happy Birthday."
Sidenote: It's generally a good idea to have a map with you when traveling to a foreign city. I kind of neglected this detail, and since I didn't get into Dublin until about 1:30, there was really nobody on the street to ask. Instead, I found a nice looking hotel, and asked the cute boy at the front desk where Gardiner Street was. I also made sure I smiled pretty. Now, I just want to mention here that I had my hair done up nicely and I was wearing my grey trench coat and my blue scarf, so I looked very pretty and very Continental. He pointed me in the right direction and even gave me the map. It was so nice of him. :-) It still took about forty-five minutes to find the hostel, not because it was far away, but because the numbering system in Ireland can be a bit absent. It was getting late enough that if I hadn't found something soon, I was going to look for another room. Luckily though, I asked directions at another hostel and they told me where to go.
Once I got to the hostel, check in was a breeze. The guy at the front desk even asked me if I was French or German. Now, I'm not sure where this came from, but I'm taking it as a good sign because it means I'm fitting it just a little bit. Because of the time change, I was actually awake until about three or so (continental time) even though Irish time told me it was only about two. I was restless all night and worried that I would oversleep and miss my bus, which would have been a pain to say the least. So I was up by six and getting ready to be at the bus station by seven. I honestly don't know how I did it, but I'm glad I did it while I'm still young because if I tried that in about forty or fifty years, I think I might die.
Part 2: Friday, March 16th, 2007 will be in the next posting.
Love,
Amanda
I know it's been forever, and I've been slacking a bit about my blogging, which I feel horrible about, but I'm here now, so it's all better, and you can hear about my Irish escapades!! But first, there's just a few random things that I want to throw out there to enhance your reading enjoyment.
A few weeks ago, March first to be exact, the entire face of Kartnerstraße (the main drag in the first district) was changed. Apparently, it's the first day that outdoor cafes can be set up and the Austrians built them with vigor! Everywhere you look now, there are tables and chairs set up in front of their respective businesses. Some have tents over them or borders around them created by potted plants. Even Mickey D's got in on the act and has their outside seating set up. It's pretty impressive, and someday when it's a bit warmer, I'll be sitting at one of those little tables drinking my Melange.
There's also a bit of a carnival atmosphere on Stephensplatz, which is infront of Stephensdom. Artists, living statues, and millions of tourists gather there every afternoon. It's just so cool to see because up until this month, although the streets weren't empty, they weren't as populated. I know by the end of the semester I'm going to want to mow over the tourists with a Straßenbahn, but right now I think they're kind of entertaining with all their cameras. Especially the Asian tourists because they live up to all stereotypes including traveling in large herds and taking a bazillion pictures of EVERYTHING.
In not so happy news, I heard back from Boeing. Unfortunately, they don't need me to intern with them this summer, so I'll be at home. I was kind of upset by this because it would have been cool to live in Seattle this summer. But as it is, I can find a waitressing job somewhere and put together the amazing book/scrapbook that I'm building this semester. It's going to be a major project because I have super big plans, but pretty much it's going to incorporate this entire blog reformatted and the best of my pictures from my time abroad. I'm really excited to start it, and I think it is going to come out really good. :-)
Continuing on in the same not so positive vein, I was told by my internship boss that my German translation is "weak" and that he couldn't use my article as it was. He said that he would translate the articles for me. Now this was pretty devastating because I honestly thought my German was improving. I'd been receiving better marks on my graded papers and I've even been more comfortable speaking the language. But business German is in a league by itself because so much of it is made up of English cognates. And the online dictionaries don't have the words I need in the forms I need them. Of course, I also think that maybe he wasn't interested in teaching me the business German, which I would be fine with, except that the point of this whole internship is to work on my German fluency. I was down for about twenty minutes or so, and then I pretty much just got mad. I thought, "How dare he renege on his end of the internship bargain." So I went to a bookstore in the first district and bought a German-English business dictionary and one of those fold out vocabulary helpers. Then I got home, wrote the next article, and sent it to him in English with an email that said that I'd like to try translating it, and asking if he would take the time to read it over. My first article should have been published by this point, and although the ideas are mine at this point, the words are not and I don't feel like it's my work. I feel like I've been cheated out of something that was mine. And I'm going to fix it for the next article and every single one after that, because I don't like that feeling, and I refuse to allow it to exist.
And for bad thing three of three, I heard that Unkie passed away. It wasn't a really big shock because he had been so sick for so long, but at the same time, I wasn't told right away, which did hurt. There was no way that I could be home for the services, which is why I wasn't told, but it felt like I was being excluded. I know he's happier now because he's in Heaven, but I hurt for Aunt Dorothy, who had been married to him for over fifty years. It has to be hard for her to face everyday knowing that she isn't going to see her husband again. *tear*
Luckily for me, I believe that bad things come in groups of three, so by this point, I was in for a lot of good in my life. Which just so coincided with my lovely trip to Ireland.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
I went to three of my classes today and skipped the fourth because I had to pack. I was obsessed with packing within the weight limit (even though absolutely nobody checked my backpack) and probably underpacked a bit. Luckily for me, I decided to pack my fleece jacket. I have this thing that if it's warm in Vienna, then it automatically has to be just as warm wherever I'm going, and life doesn't usually work out that way. At least it didn't in Berlin or Galway. I also managed to write two essays for my German class and finish an article on the NASDAQ for the newspaper. It was a very productive day.
Getting to the airport was a bit of an adventure. I needed to take Straßenbahn 46 to the U6 and then the U3. When I got off at my stop from the U3, I walked out the wrong exit, but in doing so, found a magic shop in Vienna, which reminded me of Matt. On the front of the store there was a huge hat with a rabbit being pulled out it. It was really kind of cute and of course I took a picture of it. All my pictures from Ireland are up on my picasa site, by the way, and captioned.
Then from the U3 I needed to take the Schnellbahn (S-Bahn) to the airport. You buy a special ticket from a machine for it. I was told it was only 1,50 Euro, so I brought exact change, and it turned out that it was 1,70. I had already asked a lady for help using the machine, and I didn't think I should try to bum another twenty cents from her, so I had to use my card. Not cool. Then it was a matter of finding the right platform and train. I got to use some German at this point (I used some with the ticket thing too) and eventually I found out where I needed to be. The train wouldn't be coming until about 6:30, and it was about a half hour ride to the airport. I had until about 7:30 to check in, but I was still a bit nervous about making it on time.
Check in at the airport was really cool. As I walked in, I had visions of coming home and having people waiting for me at the gate, and I felt just a little bit homesick. It's ok though, because it's only a few more weeks until Mom and Dad visit, and then Erika and Paul will be here a few weeks after that. Waiting in line was the best part because there were all these Irishmen who were talking to one another and their accents were just adorable. I think I fell in love with Ireland before I even made it out of the Vienna Airport, just because of their accents.
Two other girls from IES, Jenn and Ally, were also going to Ireland for the weekend, so I had people to hang out with while I waited to board the plane. It was really nice because we talked about what we were going to be doing during the weekend. Those girls were staying with friends in Dublin for the holiday, and were coming back the night before I was. There were also several boys that had dyed their hair green!! I think they must have bleached it first because it was a true kelly green and they had dark eyebrows. But it made for something to look at! Boarding wasn't a big deal; they checked us in and then we rode buses over to the plane and got on. The announcements were amusing because they came across in Irish/Gaelic, English, and German.
Because Aer Lingus is a discount airline, you don't get free anything. No drinks, no crackers, nothing. I found it amusing -- really gives life to the economic saying "There's no such thing as a free lunch." The flight lasted about two hours, and I think I just zoned out for the most part. I forgot to bring a book or some sort of amusement, so I got a bit bored. There's also a time change between the continent and the islands and they're an hour behind us.
I don't think I appreciated German efficiency until I tried to get through Customs in Dublin. Now, the Irish are a very wonderful people, but it's just silly to have two lines for non-EU citizens and eight for them, especially when there's about the same amount of people in both lines and about four or five flights arrived at roughly the same time. I think I spent an hour just trying to get into the country. But I did get a stamp in my passport, which was exciting.
Getting the ticket for the bus to the center of Dublin was my next big adventure. I had only taken out big bills from the bank, and the machine only accepted change and smaller bills. So I had to find an ATM, wait in line, take out twenty Euro, go to the airport bar, get change for the twenty, buy the ticket, and stand on line for the bus. The whole exercise took about half an hour. Realize by this time that it was about midnight and I still hadn't actually gotten to Dublin proper.
On the bus to the city were about four or five wonderfully drunk Irishmen who cursed with that lovely (luvly) Irish accent of theirs. There was also a couple who made the mistake of mentioning that it was one of their birthdays. So the lovely drunken Irishmen sang their lovely drunken hearts out to the tune of "Happy Birthday" about ten or twelve times during the forty-five minute trip. What made it even funnier was that they didn't know the guy's name, which turned out to be Philip, and called him Davy, Daniel, and Seamus before they got it right. They were the best kind of entertainment to start off a trip to Ireland.
I also sat next to a girl from Canada who was in Dublin for the weekend. She was studying in France for the semester and we had a nice conversation in between the bouts of "Happy Birthday."
Sidenote: It's generally a good idea to have a map with you when traveling to a foreign city. I kind of neglected this detail, and since I didn't get into Dublin until about 1:30, there was really nobody on the street to ask. Instead, I found a nice looking hotel, and asked the cute boy at the front desk where Gardiner Street was. I also made sure I smiled pretty. Now, I just want to mention here that I had my hair done up nicely and I was wearing my grey trench coat and my blue scarf, so I looked very pretty and very Continental. He pointed me in the right direction and even gave me the map. It was so nice of him. :-) It still took about forty-five minutes to find the hostel, not because it was far away, but because the numbering system in Ireland can be a bit absent. It was getting late enough that if I hadn't found something soon, I was going to look for another room. Luckily though, I asked directions at another hostel and they told me where to go.
Once I got to the hostel, check in was a breeze. The guy at the front desk even asked me if I was French or German. Now, I'm not sure where this came from, but I'm taking it as a good sign because it means I'm fitting it just a little bit. Because of the time change, I was actually awake until about three or so (continental time) even though Irish time told me it was only about two. I was restless all night and worried that I would oversleep and miss my bus, which would have been a pain to say the least. So I was up by six and getting ready to be at the bus station by seven. I honestly don't know how I did it, but I'm glad I did it while I'm still young because if I tried that in about forty or fifty years, I think I might die.
Part 2: Friday, March 16th, 2007 will be in the next posting.
Love,
Amanda
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