I probably say this every post, but waaa 4 weeks left!!
I registered for classes back home and next semester will hopefully be relaxing after I nearly killed myself a year ago. I’m taking physics 114, linguistics 220, BCS 200 something, and CSC161. This means I’m only having TWO science classes and 16 credits!! Sooo excited. But of course, I need to find a job/internship for the summer and study GREs. Almost back to reality…
Wednesday was another completely relaxing day with a fun social at night. During the day, we went to Eastbourne just because our bus passes could get us there. We rode the bus ride from Sussex to Eastbourne pier was about 2 hours long. This city had such a different vibe! It was basically a Brighton…but with old people hehe. Everyone was walking slowly and enjoying their daily strong, which was a nice change of pace from the busy, student life of Brighton. We had roast at a pub, went around the mall, walked around the pier, had Chinese buns, and…bought an “all American apple pie”.
Why did we buy a pie? So random, right? We had a pie social at night with mountaineering. There were about 50 people who showed up and each cooked 1-2 pies. When British people think of pies, they think savory, like steak & Guinness, chicken & veggies, potato & fish, etc etc. It’s easy to say that everything was delicious and I probably consumed 10000 calories that night, totally worth it J There was also a really yummy banotoffee and I need to make that when I’m back in the states. It was nice to chill with British people for once after seeing all Americans in Norwich house haha.
Next week is time to settle down and finally start writing essays.
Ireland
Because tickets were only 5 pounds and the hostel was 10 euros, Susana and I decided to randomly go to Dublin for the weekend.
I can summarize our trip with two words: Guinness and potatoes
We got our beauty sleep Friday night and left at around 11am to Gatwick for our 1pm flight on Saturday. Upon our arrival, the bad luck with public transportation hit again. The bus to our hostel only took the exact amount of change and Susana had a 20. I got on the bus and waited for her only to find the bus leave without her haha. Luckily, I brought my phone and it was working (unlike Spain). The bus was so crowded and I had no idea where I was going because they didn’t tell you what the next stop was. All I knew was that it took approximately an hour to get to the city center. After numerous stops and a bit of panicking, the bus started going down some big streets with a few tall buildings. At one of the stops, 50% of the people on the bus got off, so I followed. I told Susana to get off at a stop that everyone got off at and we found each other after a while. That’s actually the only bad luck that hit us for once and luckily, we got it over with the first hour in Dublin.
Dublin is actually pretty expensive in terms of food. Pub food was around 10-15 euros and a typical dinner can be anywhere between 15-30! There really were no random cheap places to eat, even the McDonalds was expensive. I saw a Hard Rock Café there that had a burger for 30 euros. Honestly, why would you eat a burger for 40 dollars? That’s insane.
Anyway, we were starving by that time, so after checking into the hostel we went to a delicious pub around the corner. The thing I like about Dublin pubs is that they separate their restaurants from the bars and it doesn’t have the “frat house” smell when you enter. We ate chicken, mashed potato, stuffing, and veggies and to be honest, it was one of the best meals I’ve had in the UK. The food actually had flavor and was salty enough to not add anything. It was a sign that the rest of our trip will be very fun.
After dinner, we tried finding Arlington Hotel but failed because of my bad Google map skills. We walked around the main shopping street by our hostel, it had so many pretty Christmas lights and everything was in Irish, haha cultural shock. This was also the start of our hunt for good chocolate, I had a Butler’s latte truffle and some weird Polish chocolates. The latte truffle was AMAZING and I normally never eat white chocolate! After that, we headed to Temple Bar, a few other major streets, and called it a night. It was cold and rainy and both of us were about to pass out.
Our hostel was so different from the one in Madrid. This one has a very chill environment, everyone was lazing in the lounge when we got back, just chatting to each other or surfing the internet. Our flat mates were also very cool and we had some random conversations with them that ultimately persuaded us to go to Scotland the next week. There were two Brazilians, one Australian, one Croatian, and two others who were not there at the time. I find it amazing how people can travel by themselves for as long as 10 weeks (Australian girl)! I could never survive by myself in a foreign country, plus I’d get lonely. I don’t know how they all do it.
The next morning, we rose bright and early to eat some free breakfast and then started our long and eventful day. I actually really wanted an Traditional Irish Breakfast (which is the same thing as an English Breakfast or a Scottish Breakfast), but it was too expensive and not worth it for some sausage, bacon, egg, black and white pudding, etc.
The first place we went to was Dublinia. It was a museum for Vikings and Medieval Dublin. We had so much fun there because it’s interactive. We did some random craft stuff, learned a lot of history, wore Viking/chainmail/peasant/random outfits, and climbed a tower to get a panoramic view of Dublin, which actually is not that impressive during midday. It just looked like an old rundown town haha.
After this, we headed to the long awaited Guinness Warehouse. It is a seven story museum/storehouse for everything from the history to the process of making Guinness. There were lots of interesting facts and I learned so much random knowledge haha, we then also got to pour our own perfect pint and drink it. It was pretty fun!
For dinner, we went to eat traditional Irish stew. It’s usually lamb, but I had mine with beef instead and it was amazing. Even their onion rings here are so much different than the ones I’m used to. Nonetheless, everything was delicious.
There is a free showing of live Irish music and river dancing at the Arlington hotel every day, so we walked around the city some more. It is so much livelier at night, even on a Sunday! The show lasted from 9 to 10 or 10:30pm, I really loved the Irish singers and their music, the tune was so happy and made you want to get up and dance. The river dancing was really intense as well. I just loved that this whole thing was free (except I ordered a 5 euro Irish coffee so we didn’t feel too bad about it lol).
After the show, we wandered around the streets until midnight and of course, I tasted some more chocolate. This was the end of our Dublin trip, short but very eventful and fun. We left our hostel at 4:30am on Monday and sleepily got back to campus around 9. Slan Eire (I think that means “bye Ireland”) :D
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