13 March: I left Edinburgh for Dublin on the last plane out, to spend my night sleeping in the Dublin airport (yet again). The border control guard, who was probably in his late 60s, seeing that this was my third time through Dublin this semester, asked if I had an Irish boyfriend, when I replied no, he jokingly asked if I was looking for one. I then camped out on a Starbucks couch for the night before being woken up at 4AM by the Starbucks employees and ended up watching a Dr. Phil "Can this marriage be saved?" marathon on one of the airport TVs until the buses started running into the city centre.
14 March: I caught the first bus into Dublin around 6:30, and was lucky enough to see one of the most beautiful sunrises of my entire life on the ride. I walked around a bit looking for a local cafe, but after a half an hour was only
able to find Starbucks and gave in, settling down in a chai and a book. I'm not quite sure when I fell asleep, but I woke up on the Starbucks couch at least a couple of hours later. After my early morning nap, I headed to the National Gallery of Ireland, which was a bit disappointing, too heavy on the 18th century portraits for my taste, but it has some lovely landscapes and one of the most brilliant Caravaggio's I've ever seen. Wandered through some parks, including St. Steven's Green, before visiting the first public library in Scotland and St. Patrick's cathedral. I next got take-away and ate it in a park near Christ's Church. I spent most of the afternoon writing and reading in a cafe while enjoying a white hot chocolate. I caught an early evening moving, Be Kind Rewind - absolutely fantastic, and headed to my hostel quite early and got a good night's sleep.15 March: I slept in before grabbing another white hot chocolate and doing a bit of
reading before heading to pick up Rachael at the airport. I watched the England-Ireland rugby game while waiting for her plane (sadly, Ireland lost). Rachael and I checked into our hostel and changed into warmer clothes (it was raining and quite cold) before heading down to the Temple Bar area for dinner. We ended up at a strange pseudo-Mexican food restaurant called the Alamo and then went to a couple of bars in the area which were packed with Irish who are so much more talkative and less reserved than Scots, so it was a nice change of pace. Finally we headed back to our hostel where we met up with fellow page Mary Swick! who was in Dublin for the weekend with college friends.16 March: Mary, Rachael, 4 of Mary's Lafayette friends, and I spent the day touring Dublin. We headed
down to the river before checking out Trinity College's campus. Mary played tour guide on the campus with her guide book and we all tried to figure out what the much advertised Book of Kells was, with no success. We walked along of some of the busier streets and through parks before ending up at St. Patrick's Cathedral. We had an amazing, long lunch at an Irish pub and then just wandered around Dublin for the rest of the afternoon. We headed back to the hostel in the early evening for naps and resting before going out for the night. We spent much of the evening in a bar called O'Neill's, which had fantastic live music, before ending the evening at a club, which had black lights instead of regular lights in the bathrooms, but was otherwise quite fun. We stopped for fries for Rachael before hailing a cab back to the hostel and crashing into bed around 4AM.
17 March - St. Patrick's Day!: Despite our late night, Rachael and I still got up relatively early in the morning and headed down to O'Connell street to get spots along the parade route. Shortly before the parade began, a group of teenage Irish boys showed up,
who proved to be quite entertaining as they were very interested in hearing about the States from, and saying things for shock value to, us 'USA girls.' The parade itself was absolutely amazing, and Rachael and I were right at the barriers and had the perfect view. After the parade, which last more than two hours, we headed to a pub nearby to meet up with my friends from Edinburgh who had taken a morning flight into Dublin. They finished their pints and we headed out into the city to do some exploring. We walked around, spent some time in the park next to St. Patrick's soaking up the sun, and then finally found a bar with a bit of breathing room and fantastic live music where we spent most of the afternoon and early evening. Finally, hunger got the best of us and we headed to a cafe next door. After dinner we went to another bar in the Temple Bar area, but Katie, Rachael and I were all exhausted by 11pm - and a little overwhelmed by the floods of drunken Irish teenagers in the streets - and grabbed our bags from the hostel before heading to airport to camp out for the night, where Constance and Mirja would meet us a few hours later.
18-19 March: Back in Edinburgh for 48 hours I attended my last classes and toured Rachael around the city I love so dearly, seeing Dolly the sheep in the Scottish Museum, visiting Holyrood Park, touring up and down the Royal Mile, etc.
20-21 March: After my Scottish Government tutorial, my last class at the University of Edinburgh, Rachael and I caught the bus up to Inverness - which offered some
stunning scenery of the Highlands. We made it into Inverness in the early evening and toured around the city a bit for getting dinner and then settling in my the fireplace in our hostel to watch movies - the weather was absolutely terrible outside and Rachael, unaccustomed to the Scottish weather, wasn't up to braving more rain. The next morning we woke up early to catch the bus to our cruise on Loch Ness - which was quite relaxing and enjoyable, as the Loch was absolutely beautiful - although we didn't find Nessie. We grabbed lunch in cute cafe back in Inverness before catching the bus back to Edinburgh. Rachael and I got dinner and packed up in Edinburgh, as she headed back to NY in the morning - and I headed to Paris!22 March: Shortly after Rachael left to catch her flight back to NYC out of Glasgow, I headed to the
Edinburgh airport to catch my flight to Paris. After an uneventful flight to Paris, I made my way into the city to meet up with Caroline at our hotel! After dropping off my backpack we headed off to tackle the Lourve. We had to wait for tickets for quite a bit and then wandered through the museum - quite and overwhelming experience. The collection was obviously impressive, but the arrangement of the works was not aesthetically pleasing - it seemed if they just threw works up where they had space, almost at random. They had my favorite Leonardo and the winged Victory was stunning, but I was a bit too overwhelmed by the museum to really appreciate the collection. After the Lourve we wandered along the river, seeing Pont Neuf and all of the other lovely bridges, grabbed a sandwich, and then headed to see the Eiffel Tower - which was very impressive, but had such a long line that Caroline and I didn't go to the top. We headed back to the hotel in the early evening with plans of heading out later, but ended up just catching up and talking until we both crashed at a relatively early hour.
And now, my flatmates are requesting that we watch an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and I can never resist my favorite TV show so this is all for tonight, more on the trip tomorrow!
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