Toussaint: the saga begins

Hello all,

Since my Toussaint break was 10 looong days, there is far too much stuff to talk about in one mere post. Hopefully I can write it all down in three without leaving out too much or boring you to tears. Shall we begin?

Friday October 26th: I had to sleep over at my friend Camila's place as the B tram does not run early enough to get me to the train station for our 5 am train. Exhausted, we get on the the earliest A tram and  get to the station just in time. Literally, the doors closed as we ran on to the train. A sigh of relief was uttered as we headed to Geneva to catch our flight to Dublin. We almost missed the boarding of that too. I knew this was gonna be an interesting week.

Upon arriving in Dublin, we made our way to the hostel, checked in, and decided to get some lunch and explore the city. Wanting to profit from the limited time we had in Ireland, Camila and I decide to grab something quick for lunch. Saving the more traditional food for dinner. Then we saw it, three innocent and inviting letters: K F C. Neither Camila nor I had eaten fried chicken in ages, so we decide that it would be a good idea. We look at the menu, the best deal being a "family meal" with enough chicken and fries to feed 4 people. Oh we were such ambitious fools. After much gorging, we were still unable to eat it all. Sitting at the KFC, filled with chicken and self-loathing, we planned out the rest of the day.

We decided to walk around Dublin and catch all the sights along the way.  This includes Trinity college (beautiful!!), Dublin castle (right in the city center), grafton street, a market, and temple bar (a cool night-life-y place with a bunch of pubs and cobblestone streets). Still being full from lunch (so much freaking chicken), we go to a pub and order a Guiness and Stella to split. A rather satisfying day.

That's totally how I lounge on rocks too.

Saturday 27th: We get up bright and early, so we can see the remainder of Dublin attractions before having to head to the airport. We walk to Merrion Square, which is a large park. There, I saw the single greatest statue in the history of the world. Oscar Wilde sitting on a rock. Now, it is common knowledge that Oscar Wilde was gay, but man is his pose on that rock suggestive. They even give him this weird, creepy smile. It's priceless.

What's with the face???

We went to another park called Saint Stephen's Green. In my opinion, it was a lot prettier. We made our way back to the castle to see the inside of the courtyard, passing the oldest bar in Dublin and several very pretty churches. Then, the National Leprechaun Museum. Oh, I'm sorry, the world's ONLY leprechaun museum. I can sense your jealousy through the computer screen. It was actually really cool and interesting. I drew a picture which they hung up afterwards! Again, we almost missed our flight to Edinburgh (not really our fault, the bus was late). Once there, we made our way to our hostel (a converted church!!!) and went to  bed.

A masterpiece done in 2 minutes

Pretty cool hostel, eh?

Sunday 28th: Camila and I made our way to the Royal mile (a historic and pretty main road in the old part of Edinburgh) to meet up with our friend Jessie and go on a free walking tour. Our tour guide was awesome! I learned so much about the town and saw so many cool things I never would have seen in that 3 hour period: Greyfriars cemetery and Bobby (look it up), back streets, "Hogwarts", etc....Afterward, pretty cold and hungry, the three of us make our way to a pub. It was there, ladies and gentleman that I tried haggis! May I say, it was delicious. Tasted like the meat in Shepherds pie. We then went to an art museum, walked along Rose street (which has a lot of restaurants and pubs). We ended the night at a coffee shop after walking through a PriMark (UK version of Forever 21). Went back to the hostel, which had the most uncomfortable beds I have ever slept in by the way, I could feel the spring coils. Tomorrow, we would get up early again.

 


Interesting facts:

-Some signs in Ireland are written in Gaelic
-People in Dublin are super nice
-Leprechauns ARE real
-In Edinburgh there's a wall made of the ash from the bodies or burnt witches
-People LOVE Greyfriars Bobby. 
-I saw the cafe thats rumoured to be the place J.K Rowling wrote the first 2 Harry Potter novels.