Sunday, October 26th Heading to Dublin

We ate breakfast at the hotel again. We had preordered porridge the day before hahah it was necessary for our English experience! It was really good and I actually really miss oatmeal so I’ll be eating some of that when I get home. Hannah’s flight for Dublin left at 4 that morning so Sunday in London was just Maddie, Kristen, and I. We walked around in Kensington Gardens for a long time again and went to Kensington Palace. I loved that park it was just absolutely huge and families were out walking, leaves were everywhere, people were jogging, I don’t know it was just relaxing strolling along and I loved it! Oh and it rained that last day. It was just sprinkling when we started walking in the park but an hour or so later it started pouring so we decided to head back and get our stuff from the hotel.

Afterwards Kristen and I felt the need to eat yet again hahah so we went to a pastry shop where I bought an éclair and she got a doughnut. In order to get to the airport we took the tube and then an above ground train. And our tube experience was a little different that time. Apparently a rugby team had just won a match the night before and they were all traveling back to their home town very drunk the next day. They were walking through the station singing Hey Jude…it was actually really neat although it sounded like we were going to be trampled walking through the small tunnels. Anyway, we actually had a little encounter with these boys. I swear stuff like that is inevitable for us to run into. Anyway they were on our same tube and then got off at the same stop. The girls and I got stuck in the middle of them and had to ride up the long escalators with them. Lets just say I saw one too many butt cracks. A couple of them were wearing thongs and I made some kind of comment like “oh geez now im going to be scarred for life,” and some of the guys just gave me a weird look like they thought I was serious. And a couple of them had crazy hats on too. Like one guy had a black witch hat with an orange wig hanging out the bottom. When we got off the tube we were engulfed and the three of us were separated and the guys were asking us what part of the U.S. we were from. One of them was helping Kristen pull her luggage and kept saying “hey it looks like we’re holding hands.” The guys I was by were trying to tell me they weren’t on a team together they were actually just acquaintances and hated each other and then flipped each other off. It was quite the experience. Anyway after the craziness we got on our next train for the airport and headed to Dublin!

We got into Dublin around 5:30 and caught a bus to our hostel. Hannah was there waiting for us as planned and we were all starving so we went to a cute Dubliney restaurant haha. I think it was actually an Italian restaurant but we were hungry hahah. I got soup because I haven’t had it in forever and then Kristen and I split dessert! I think it was a berry cobbler with coffee ice cream on top. Hahah we live for our desserts yumm!

Our hostel was pretty clean, but definitely a change from the hotel. Especially since it was a tiny room with bunk beds….but that’s part of being young and traveling around Europe right?! Haha. Oh and I didn’t even mention…it was freezing! When I wrote this blog I was sitting on my bed with a comforter over me and my nose was freezing cold. But it’s Ireland and therefore amazing whether it’s cold or not. That first night it didn’t really click that I was in Ireland, one of the places I’ve always wanted to go my whole life. And it’s still kind of surreal but it’ll click at some point. Oh and right when we got off our bus that night Kristen and I got a picture with a Giant Leprechaun which put us in a very Irish mood right away!