May the Wind Be Always At Your Back

Upon arrival at the Dublin Airport we now had to find our way by bus into the city centre and find our hostel-Paddy's Palace.  We talked to the tourism office and they pointed us in the right direction and we found ourselves headed into the city.  Unfortunately, we didn't have a map of the bus stops and the bus driver wasn't being very helpful so we had to ask someone where exactly O'Connell street was and how we would know when we arrived there (none of the bus stops were marked either).  We eventually arrived at the hostel and checked in.  This hostel was okay, but our building you had to go outside to get to and you also had to be let in by a person at their front desk (they called it VIP service but really they are just too cheap to fix the door so we can get in!).  We picked our beds and headed out to find a bite to eat before we had to meet Brian and Rita (relatives of Amanda's cousin and also locals of Dublin) at the front gate of Trinity College.  We ate at O'Briens and my sandwich bread was shaped like a shamrock (which was awesome!).  We then left to meet them and we quickly found that they were super friendly and nice.  Rita got us into The Book of Kells (the Gospel in Latin written by Celtic monks around 800 a.d.) for free because she works at Trinity College.  We were amazed by this and also the library at Trinity College.  We spent the rest of the day walking around the city to see the castle, Christ Church Cathedral, Beatty Library (where we saw ancient pages of the bible and other religious documents as well), and even stopped at The Brazen Head Pub (which is where Brian and Rita had their first date!).  It was a really neat day.  We even got to meet Rita's elderly mother who was a character, she told us, "What you can't cure, you must endure".  Finally, Brian and Rita welcomed us into their home and fed us a delicious three course dinner!  It was soo good and I haven't been that full in forever (we didn't realize they would be giving us so much food!).  I wish I could describe what Brian cooked for us, but honestly I didn't know what most of it was!  We had a great time talking to them about our lives, school, and our ancestry from Ireland.  They took us back to the hostel at about 10pm because Amanda and I were exhausted from traveling and staying up pretty much all of the previous night.  It was a great experience though and I am so happy we got to spend time with real Irish folk.  When we got to the hostel we found it just as sketchy as ever.  They let us in and they had no lights on in the hallways so that it was difficult to find our room.  Then we both experienced a sound of scratching while showering (we were like 10 feet from each other) that was creepy as well.  Nevertheless, we got in bed to get ready for our early morning on Friday.