My Trip to Ireland (or How I Spent the Most Money Ever Spent on a Taxi)

This weekend was my trip to Ireland, a short trip since the cheap flights left for Ireland Friday night and left for Brussels early Sunday morning. The flight was scheduled for 9:35pm on Friday, we left the house around 6, should've been plenty of time, right? Well, we got on the metro for Gare du Midi/Zuidstation, but when we got there, we had no idea where to go. We were supposed to catch a bus to the airport Charloi, not the main airport. However, there weren't any signs telling us where to go, and even though we asked for directions several times, they didn't help at all. We did find out that the bus leaves every hour and fifteen minutes though, so when it was after 7 and the next bus wasn't coming until 8:15 and it would take about an hour to get to the airport, we decided to take a taxi...oy. The taxi driver was very nice, but a 40 minute taxi drive costs a LOT of money, this was probably the most expensive taxi in the history of taxis...except maybe in movies. Thank goodness there were two of us to foot the bill, and he did round down, which was nice but really didn't help.

So we were at the airport, apparently they didn't stamp my visa when I flew into Europe the first time so the security man was very skeptical, fortunately, he let me through anyways. The flight was delayed around an hour, but they didn't really tell us that, we just sat around waiting until they let us board an hour later than we were supposed to. We befriended an Italian woman during the wait though, she spoke French and English as well as Italian...these Europeans and their language skills astound me (the taxi driver had taught himself English). Our plane ride was the noisiest plane ride I've ever been on. There was a big rugby match between Ireland and France in Dublin on Saturday, everybody was singing and shouting, it was crazy. Ryan Air seats are very close together too, not much leg room. Once we arrived in Ireland we had to show our passports again, luckily we don't have EU passports so we were able to go in the shorter line where we met an Australian man who told us about the 45 degree C weather in Australia and I told him about the -20 degree F weather in Minnesota. Allison has a converter on her phone, so we found out that 45 degrees C is about 114 degrees F and -20 degrees F is about -28 degrees C...tell me how that conversion makes any sense. Anyways, the Australian was shocked by that kind of cold. We found the bus we were supposed to take to our hostel without any problems, it was clearly labelled.

Once we got off the bus, we tried to find our hostel. Well...that was an adventure. The hostel was very poorly marked, online it was the Morehampton House Hostel, in person it was something completely different. After walking around for about half an hour and calling the hostel a few times (while feeling very safe, Dublin is a lively city) we found the right address. The woman who ran the hostel was outside to confirm this is what we were looking for. Our booking was hand written on a sheet of paper, it was like a house converted into a hostel. It was clean and pretty cheap though, and we got moved from a 4 person bedroom to a 2 person bedroom for no extra cost which was nice.

Next morning we had to wake up early for our 7am tour to Limerick, Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Moher. We got a taxi to the meeting place, a decently priced taxi, well anything would be compared to Friday. Taxis are EVERYWHERE at ALL hours in Dublin. There were 8 of us on the tour, at least 4 of the other people spoke Spanish, one woman at least spoke ONLY Spanish and talked like we could understand her. We got a huge coach bus. It was a sunny day and the drive was beautiful. We were only in Limerick for about 5 minutes, long enough to take a picture by King John's Castle. Then on to Galway Bay, which was gorgeous. There were fuzzy cows and sheep all over during the drive. The Atlantic Ocean smelled so good too. After lots of picture taking and wandering, it was time for lunch. We had lunch in Doolin, I had seafood chowder, mmmm. Then it was on to the Cliffs of Moher. They were gorgeous, of course, especially since it was sunny. I bought a claddaugh ring right before we left and sampled some mead (yum) a few wines and soda bread. Then began the long ride back to Dublin.

We got dinner once we were back in Dublin at a pub/restaurant, of course the pub part was packed what with the rugby game just over (the streets were flooded with people, Ireland won). The waitress looked at me like I was crazy when I asked how much water cost, water isn't free in Brussels, it wasn't free in Italy either, but it is in Ireland. The lamb stew I had was delicious. After that we walked around for a while, took a few pictures and ended up in the Temple Bar area (don't worry, we had a map). There was a band playing in the street, real Irish music, it was pretty cool. Then we ended up at The Temple Bar and each had a half-pint of Guinness, no money for more than that, although I would've liked to have some whiskey, oh well. We walked back to the hostel, it was very safe, people were everywhere, maybe because of the rugby match, maybe because that's just how Dublin is, it was great though. Our flight was scheduled for 6:50am and we had to catch the bus to the airport at either 4:30 or 5:30, we chose 4:30 which meant waking up at 3:45, sometimes I go to bed at 3:45. Oh well, we found the bus stop pretty easily. Check-in was easy, self service kiosk. Allison had breakfast at the airport, I was unwilling to spend anymore money. The plane was on time, aerlingus this time, not ryan air, so we had more space, we both slept through the flight. Once back in Brussels, we had to show our passports once more and the security man stamped mine this time after a few questions, so that shouldn't be an issue in the future. We hopped on a bus...which we had to pay for despite our public transportation passes...sigh...oh well. We got off near a metro stop and rode back home, then took long naps.

All in all it was a nice weekend, but very expensive...at least that taxi was. However, I have a cold, and my ears are pretty messed up from all the pressure changes. My camera charger still hasn't arrived, I borrowed my hostsister's camera and stole a few pictures from Allison again. If it doesn't arrive this week I'm just buying a new one.

All pictures are on facebook and photobucket, as usual, take a look!

-Lauren :)