Monday, July 30 -
I flooded the bathroom this morning. Our drain tends to get clogged, so it's not abnormal for the water to accumulate in the bottom a little bit. It was pretty early in the morning and I was pretty tired so I didn't really notice I was ankle deep in water until I was done with my shower. Then I opened the shower door and there was water all over the bathroom and it seeped out under the door so it was all over the hallway outside the bathroom too. That really sucked. The maintenance people came and fixed it for us, though.
I made it into work (on time, despite the disaster!) and worked on the web. I posted the usual stories about death, destruction and disaster; a fire on a train in India and people getting stuck on a roller coaster (luckily no one was injured in that one). Then I posted one about James Holmes getting charged for his alleged crimes, and later in the day he was officially charged with murder and a bunch of other things. Funny story of the day was the London police (bobbies) lost the keys to an Olympic Venue. They said there was no security threat, but I still thought it was funny. You would think they'd give those keys to someone pretty responsible.
Our last ever international reporting class and internship class was today. We took a trip to the Independent. You could tell they didn't have any sort of tour set up so I couldn't really tell you anything about the office. The building looked nice, though. Afterwards we had class outside in the park and Martin Love talked to us. He's a freelance writer and novelist from the U.S. He's worked in Holland, the Middle East and Vietnam, and he speaks arabic. We walked past a building with an arabic sign on it and he read it. It was pretty cool.
Day 78
Sunday, July 29 -
Things got a little crazy last night, so we took it easy today. We were going to go take a free walking tour sponsored by our hostel, but then we just got the list of places they were going and mapped it out ourselves.
Things got a little crazy last night, so we took it easy today. We were going to go take a free walking tour sponsored by our hostel, but then we just got the list of places they were going and mapped it out ourselves.
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| Trinity College |
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| Trinity College |
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| Trinity College |
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| A park in the city |
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| P.S. I love you bar! |
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| Dublin city hall |
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| Some cathedral and Dublina in the background |
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| Dublina |
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| Dublina and that other cathedral from the back (or maybe front) |
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| Cool street art |
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| St. Patrick's Park |
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| St. Patrick's Cathedral |
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| St. Patrick's Park |
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| Dublin Castle, which was really disappointing and not like a castle at all |
The weather in Dublin was even worse than London. It was sunny one minute and then all of a sudden it started hailing and pouring rain. Then a few minutes later, the sun was back out. And just a few minutes after that the clouds came back in and it started raining again. And then the sun came out. And then it rained some more. And it continued like that all day.
We went back to Temple Bar for dinner and hung out for awhile before we headed off to the airport. The bus ride went faster than expected, getting through check-in and security went faster than expected, and our flight was delayed. We ended up hanging out in the airport for quite awhile. I'm getting pretty good at sleeping on planes (and buses) because I was fast asleep almost the whole time. I'm pretty much ready to travel the world now.
Day 77
Saturday, July 28 -
We drove across Ireland today to the Cliffs of Moher! It blows my mind that you can just take a day trip all the way across this whole country and back again. The cliffs were beautiful and so was the countryside getting there. It was kind of like going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, I took a billion pictures of the same thing because it was just so pretty.
We drove across Ireland today to the Cliffs of Moher! It blows my mind that you can just take a day trip all the way across this whole country and back again. The cliffs were beautiful and so was the countryside getting there. It was kind of like going to the Eiffel Tower in Paris, I took a billion pictures of the same thing because it was just so pretty.
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| The sea and a castle! Excuse the glare, this was taken through the bus window |
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| More of the sea |
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| Even more sea and green grass |
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| I can't get over how green the grass is |
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| Ireland countryside |
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| A castle |
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| More water and grass |
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| Waiting for the leprechauns to come out |
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| Baby stonehenge |
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| Some old castle |
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| The Cliffs of Moher! |
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| Watch out |
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| More of the cliffs |
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| The castle on one side |
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| Atlantic Ocean |
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| If you squint reeeeally hard, you can see America on the other side of the ocean! |
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| Don't jump |
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| Long way down |
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| Crazy dog that went psycho when the bus driver honked the horn. It ran super fast up and down the fence and when it got to the side it ran in several circles. |
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| Another castle |
Day 76
Friday, July 27 -
It was off to Dublin today! The flight was quick and easy, the Tube ride to the airport lasted longer than the plane ride. Once we landed, we made our way to the hostel to dropped off our luggage and then went to Temple Bar for lunch. They had 106 sandwiches on their menu!
After lunch we were able to check into the hostel and see our rooms. We were a group of eight, but since we booked separately we ended up in three different rooms. I was really unlucky (maybe because I wasn't wearing green?) and got the crappiest room. Everyone else had a bathroom in their room but us.
After we were all settled in we headed off the the Guinness Storehouse! It was cool and I think I could probably brew my own beer now. At the end we went to Gravity Bar at the very top that has a bunch of windows and an awesome view of the whole city.
We went to a pub later to try and watch the Olympic opening ceremony, but I guess they were just not really excited about it. They had it on Sky but BBC has the rights, so we had to ask them to change the channel. Then whoever knew how to work the TV wasn't there so we had to wait for that person to come back. They finally changed the channel but they were playing live music so we couldn't hear the sound. It looked really cool but I feel like I would have understood it more with music. We gave up on that and went back to the hostel to watch the ceremony there.
That was good for several minutes, but there was some crazy drunk lady there. She went off on some racist rant and was constantly yelling at the TV. At first I thought it was funny, but then she was serious and wouldn't shut up and it was super annoying. All the athletes started coming in by country and we were going to stay until Team USA came in. Crazy lady was screaming 'WELCOMEEEEE TO LONDONNNNN' to each country that came in and it was getting really late, so we gave up and went to bed sometime in the C's.
It was off to Dublin today! The flight was quick and easy, the Tube ride to the airport lasted longer than the plane ride. Once we landed, we made our way to the hostel to dropped off our luggage and then went to Temple Bar for lunch. They had 106 sandwiches on their menu!
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| Temple Bar |
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| 106 sandwiches. All different! |
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| My room/jail cell |
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| Creepy shower room |
But it's all about location, location, location and that was great. We were right in the city center, within walking distance of all the main touristy stuff so we didn't have to pay for transportation all weekend.
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| Ha'penny Bridge |
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| River Liffey |
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| Guinness factory |
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| Grain |
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| The cool waterfall they had to demonstrate that you put water in beer |
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| Old equipment |
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| Everyone knows this |
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| Our inner journalist came out on the floor about Guinness advertising |
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| The view from Gravity Bar |
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| They made a shamrock in the foam on the free pint |
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| More of the view from the top |
That was good for several minutes, but there was some crazy drunk lady there. She went off on some racist rant and was constantly yelling at the TV. At first I thought it was funny, but then she was serious and wouldn't shut up and it was super annoying. All the athletes started coming in by country and we were going to stay until Team USA came in. Crazy lady was screaming 'WELCOMEEEEE TO LONDONNNNN' to each country that came in and it was getting really late, so we gave up and went to bed sometime in the C's.
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