Dublin

When we began our landing at Dublin airport, I was amazed by the view outside the windows. The green grass and the blue ocean made a perfect first impression of Ireland. This time we didn't have any problems at the airport, quite the opposite because it didn't take us long to get our luggage and get on our bus into Dublin city centre. We took a local bus (16A) which didn't cost us much at all (I realize that it sounds like I preferred the local bus just because it was the cheapest alternative but I actually like local buses more than airport buses, it feels like you're less of a tourist that way).

Once we figured out where to get off & found the hostel (which wasn't that difficult since the bus stop was right in front of it), we discovered that we were much too early. We had then been awake for almost 30 hours and we were tired!But instead of sleeping in our beds we had to wait until after lunch before we could get our room, which meant that we had to do come up with something to do while waiting for it. We had spent a long time in London looking for a cafe (a cafe that wasn't Starbucks that is) and we didn't expect to find the sort of cafe we were looking for in Dublin either. But we found Cafe Aroma, a nice place with comfy seatings and huge cups of cappuccino. We even got a biscuit with it, which totally made our day ;-)

After our stop at the cafe we decided to do some sightseeing and went to Trinity college. I have a thing for old school buildings... There's something about the atmosphere that actually gets me in the mood for studying. I just wish I could keep that feeling until I actually have to study, and not when I'm on holiday. We continued on towards Dawson street, where the wonderful three stories high bookshop Hodges & Figgis is located. It's the perfect place for anyone who loves books. Do I have to say that my luggage was filled with books on the way home?
Photo: Trinity College

We walked back to the hostel where we had to wait a bit longer since the room wasn't ready yet. When we finally got our room we went straight to bed and took a nap in the middle of the afternoon. We woke up a couple of hours later and got ready to go out.

We started off the evening with fish & chips at a pub called Madigans. After a very drunk irishman tried to convince us to sit down with him at the bar (I only figured that out because of his body language, he had a strong irish accent and was so drunk that you couldn't hear what he said) we moved on. We then found The Quays in Temple Bar & we were hooked. They played live music, the pub was full of people & the staff was funny and very serviceminded. I hate it when you have to wait ages just to order a cider, but that wasn't the case here. When the pub closed the bartenders told us to go to Q Bar, because they had cheap drinks and a dancefloor... And so we did. We were either to tired to appreciate it or the bar simply wasn't the kind we like, because we liked the pub much better!

After Q Bar we went back to the hostel for a few hours of sleep. We felt old, boring but we were so thankful for being able to go to sleep again :-)

Next morning we ate breakfast at the hotel before going out sightseeing. We went to Dublin Castle, Christchurch cathedral, St Patrick's Cathedral, the National museum & St Stephen's Green. St Stephen's Green was definitely my favourite! It's a huge beautiful park where lots of people go to take a walk, eat lunch or just sit down on a bench... It's so peaceful and I really recommend a visit to the park if you're ever in Dublin.

Photo: The first three is of Dublin Castle and then Christchurch Cathedral, St Patricks Cathedral and the last three is of St Stephen's Green.


After that we did some shopping before buying some food to take with us to our room. After a quick dinner we then went back to the Quays and then later on continued to another place where we danced for a short while before they closed too. We had a wonderful evening talking to lots of nice irish people as well as a couple of frenchmen and some americans. This is what I love most about travelling, meeting new interesting people.

We were leaving next day but before going to the airport we decided to go shopping again. I had catched a cold and didn't feel well at all but somehow managed a day of shopping anyway. I hate feeling unwell when you're not at home where you can feel as miserable as you like and just cuddle up under a blanket, sleep in front of the TV and drink tea. But I tried to enjoy this last day & it turned out to be quite a nice day despite my cold.
Later on that afternoon we had to take our things and take the bus to the airport to fly back to Sweden. It's sad to leave a place you've come to like but at the same time, there's no place like home.

London

To start with, I'll give you my list of "Things you really don't want to hear", but keep on reading anyway. It's not all bad ;-)

One of the things you really don’t want to hear when you check in at the airport is that your flight is delayed. And certainly not that it is a 6 hour delay. Just to make sure that there weren’t gonna be any problems with our booking, I called the hotel to let them know that we were going to be delayed. After a pleasant flight we arrived to Gatwick in the middle of the night. Of course, things didn’t run smoothly at Gatwick either... There were problems with the luggage and we had to wait 1 hour before we even knew were to get our luggage. We had planned to take the cheapest alternative into London (a bus journey that takes an hour and a half) but decided that half an hour by train sounded much better at that time of night.
One of the things you really don’t want to hear when you’re on the way to your hotel in the middle of the night is that is a ghetto neigborhood where most part of the inhabitants are doing drugs. I admit that when the bus driver let us off at the bus stop he claimed was our stop (but it turned out to be the wrong one) I wasn’t that thrilled to be walking by crowds of suspicious looking people (at least I thought so). I had my luggage in a firm grip and felt a bit (understatement!) stressed out when we didn’t find the hotel. I was so relieved when we finally found it! However, one of the things you really don’t want to hear when you check in at the hotel is that the night portier never got any information about your previous call and wonder why you didn’t call. Anyway, we sorted that out pretty quickly and could soon crawl into bed.

After a nice breakfast we headed out to find our way to the nearest tube station. I was surprised to find out that the street we walked on the night before actually looked quite charming and the people didn’t look that suspicious any more... And I’m almost certain that the sweet old couple that helped us find our way wasn’t drug dealers or robbers. I admit that I may have a vivid imagination and a talent for stressing out, but you’ve probably already realized that by now.
We had a lovely day at the National History Museum (even though I’m not as enthusiastic about dinosaurs as my friend) and Portobello road market (I’m all into shopping on the other hand). You think it would be easy to find Portobello road, but let me tell you – it isn’t! It took us some walks up and down the streets, a stop at Starbucks and finally an embarrassing moment when I asked a very cute guy for help. After he had laughed at me, he pointed me in the right direction which was about 20 metres from where we were. However, it was worth the trouble!
We ate dinner at a Subway on Baker street. Not that healthy and not that imaginative but very tasty :-)

We had all these great plans for the evening but since we hadn't slept more than a few hours the previous night, we were exhausted. We ended up going to Piccadilly circus, walked around a bit and then we went straight back to our hotel to get some well needed sleep.

Next morning, after yet another nice breakfast we headed into the city centre once again. Since we were leaving for the airport that night, we left the luggage at Victoria station and headed out for some sightseeing. We looked at Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, London Eye and the Thames before we met up with some aussie friends for a drink at at a bar inside Victoria station.

We spent the afternoon shopping on Bond street & Oxford street (well, only window shopping at Oxford street). Our feet hurt and we were tired after walking all day, so we sat down for something to drink at Caffé Ritazza. Then we bought some food to have later on, we found lots of yummy things at Marks & Spencer, and something to read while waiting for our bus to the airport. We took the bus in the middle of the night and when we arrived at Stansted airport, we were sure that it would be very few people there. However, the terminal was full of people! People slept on the floor and by the check-in desks... It was a strange sight! We sat down on the floor as well but didn't dare fall asleep. A couple of hours later, we landed safely at Dublin city airport, but I'll save that story for another post.

I've probably forgotten lots of stuff but this post is long enough... I hope you're not to bored by now :-) Despite the problems at the beginning of the journey, I had a lovely time.

Portobello road, guinness & much more

I've done it again. I thought I would have more time to post here as soon as school was over, but that hasn't been the case...

Me and one of my friends from high school decided to go away for a while. Since I love London (and she's never been there) we thought London would be a great place to go. But why stop there? We continued our journey to Dublin.

I haven't got the time now but I'll make sure to write a longer post about my views of the cities & of course some more photos :-)