Dia duit Ireland! (Hello Ireland!)
Today we landed in Dublin!
Well this morning we started off the day in Liverpool, which is crazy to think about. It truly feels like we’ve been out of England for a week and in Dublin for a month already.
The experience at the airport this morning was honestly comical. There were no issues getting to the terminal, our bus stop was right outside our Airbnb, and it went directly there in 40 mins. Because it was an ‘international’ flight, Dad insisted we get there 3 hours early. So I got a coffee and hung out at a Starbucks from 8am until 10am, as check in wasn’t even open before that. We saw most people turn up for the flight around 10am, which was hilarious considering the flight was at 11:20am. I did think that everyone would be treating it as a domestic flight, and it soon became apparent I was correct. Eventually we headed through and then had to wait for our gate info to become available (it was 10:45am at this point). I could tell Dad was 2 seconds away from ranting to me about how disorganised everyone was, arriving so late. I remember giggling internally. I told him we’d be there way too early. But hey, it was an international flight. I couldn’t argue with that.
Our plane was tiny, with one aisle and 2 sets of 2 seats either side, and only 2 cabin crew. We ended up spending triple the time in the airport before the flight took off than actually in the sky. Not 20 minutes after the seatbelt sign was switched off and we reached altitude, it was back on for landing. The flight was an hour! It felt completely bizarre to not have to take a sleeping pill on a flight, considering the last plane I’d been on was 15 hours long. It was a novel change, which I most definitely enjoyed.
Disembarking, getting our bags and finding our hire care was a very smooth process (surprisingly), and within the hour we were in our Volkswagen, ready to head into the city. Now, we were under the assumption that our Airbnb in Dublin had free street parking, however we soon found this to not be the case. We’ve had to find parking in a multi-storey deck for the next 3 days, which as you can imagine, was not cheap. So that part of the afternoon was a lovely, calm and pleasurable time, as I’m sure you can imagine my Dad in this situation. Even though it doesn’t seem our Airbnb is in the nicest of areas of Dublin, the apartment itself is clean and tasteful, so we can’t complain. As we settled into our apartment we checked out some of the most recommended things to do in the city, combined with our niche interests that Dublin has on offer. We booked quite a few things, which should provide lots of content for you to read over the next 2 days!
Dublin as a city is not what I expected it to be at all. We walked around for a bit and went to a supermarket down the road for some groceries, before heading out to explore the nearby neighbourhood of Temple Bar, which is a bit comparable to Northbridge, except with pubs and bars instead of clubs. It was then that we realised where we were staying wasn’t that much nicer/worse than any other area of Dublin. I’m not sure why, but I think we were both under the impression that it was a pretty city? I’m not quite sure why that is, and don’t get me wrong, I do really like Dublin so far. But just in case you’re coming to Dublin to get aesthetic pictures, maybe think again. At least right in the city centre, we haven’t explore much further yet. The atmosphere in Temple Bar, however, was amazing, and though very touristy, it was exactly what I expected from Dublin. So that was reassuring! I’ve included the photos in today’s gallery that look the nicest, but they are most definitely cherry-picked.
Tomorrow we’re going to the Guiness Storehouse (because you simply must) and the Irish Emigration Museum, which comes highly recommended by google maps, so I will of course let you know how that goes!
Faoi láthair (currently) MIA,
Lauren x
