Now, our fourth day here I love this place so much! I’m so terribly sad we aren’t spending more time here. Today Holly and I decided to take a free walking tour of Dublin. It’s a two hour where we are to learn about the history of Dublin. This was a free tour. Oh, and keep in mind it was a free tour. Did I mention it was free? Emphasis on the free.

We show up to the meeting point to find our tour guide. He is a pure-bred, born and raised, lived his whole life in Ireland, strong Irish accented, Irish man. Who is Chinese. Named Andy.

Looking back, it’s hilarious. In the moment when he commented on it at the beginning of the tour I was thinking to myself “why is he making a point that he is Chinese with an Irish accent?” I guess I forget that I come from LA where a Chinese man with an
Irish accent is actually probably NOT the strangest thing I have ever seen. But, in thinking more about stereotypes of Ireland and Irish people, it actually is really funny and totally makes sense.

Andy was…..interesting. We definitely learned a lot about Irish history. But I also learned that Andy was hungover. Andy had just smoked like 10 cigarettes. Andy hadn’t eaten all day. Andy had been gone for three weeks touring Europe. In touring Europe, Andy and his friends had a booze fest. In Berlin, someone put drugs in Andy’s drink that cause him to,  and I’m quoting my Chinese Irish friend when I say this popular American phrase “trippin’ ballz.”

Really, Andy was a great guy. Clearly a young college kid looking for a few extra bucks. For as much as we learned about Andy’s personal life and how much he struggled to remember his script, we did in fact learn a lot about Dublin.

We learned a lot about the history with the Anglo-Saxons, Viking, and
English invasions. We learned the truth of Saint Patrick.

Saint Patrick was actually Scottish. He had been captured in Scotland by the English and sentenced to hard labor and shipped to Ireland to serve his sentence. Originally he was athiest, but in order to believe in something and have hope during his hard labor he saught religion. He became Catholic. Eventually he escaped and fled back to Scotland. Instead of living a low life of a man who just escaped from capture, he wanted to become part of the clergy and spread the word of Catholocism, so he did. He eventually came back to Ireland and tried to convert the Pegans. Peganism believes in many Gods like the god of the Earth, the Sun, the Wind, etc. So when St. Patrick (who’s real name I can’t remember) came to them trying to convert them they said to him “you believe in one God. Why should we believe you when we have many gods and you only have one?” St. Patrick picked up a three leaf clover to help demonstrate and said “my god is three gods in one. The father, the son, and the holy spirit. He is so great that he is three Gods in one.” Well, that was enough aw and convincing that many of them became Catholic and that’s how the clover became significant and how St. Patrick “drew all of the snakes out of Ireland” for you Catholic folk who know what Im talking about. You see there has never actually been any literal snakes in Ireland. One of the biggest symbols in Peganism is the Serpant. Serpant being a snake, St. Patrick turning Peg’s into Catholics, hop skip and a jump he “drew all the snakes out of Ireland.”

Speaking of the Irish and religion. Let me back track a bit. Now when King Henry the 8th ruled England and they had taken over Ireland he hated Catholocism. He banned anyone from being Catholic. He burned churches, killed preists, would throw people in jail or have them killed just for wearing a cross.

So when that ban came to Ireland, naturally rebellious as they are, this caused the Irish to become stronger in their beleif of Catholcism. Now 70% of Irish people are in fact Catholic. And strong ones at that.

Anyways, we learned all sorts of fun stuff like this. Loads about Dublin castle, the many colored doors of Dublin, the name Dublin. Which was giving by the Vikings and means “black pool” because there is a river that runs through the city that use to come from high in the mountains that as it came down collected all sorts of minerals and rubbish to make the water black. So when the Vikings came it was a black pool of water. Alas, Dublin got it’s name.

Learned about the Irish independence of 1922. The IRA, how Ireland is divided now, the history and war behind it all and the role America played in it.

Fun fact we also learned today, the Irish police don’t carry guns (unless they are carrying/transporting something important. They only carry batons. Because they feel they shouldn’t have the power to kill if the people don’t have the power to. Meaning
Irish people can’t own guns, so why should the police be able to. They level the playing field this way. So unlike America- ha!

I could go on forever about the Irish history we learned today. It’s so fascinating but I won’t bore you with it all. Ireland has been wonderful. The lifestyle, the music, the people. I think every Irish person is universally required to be sweet. I think the
Irish are the nicest people in the world, seriously. It’s truly noticebale.

After this tour we did shopping, go souviners and went back to the room to relax. We weren’t hungry but we knew we had to eat cause it was getting late. Oh! Another thing that blows my mind here. Ireland is so north of the equator and I’m not use to it! It will be9:30 at night and still light outside! Crazy!

We set out to find something close and not so touristy. We walk into a place called Lanigans. Truly a hidden gem in
Ireland. It was one of the best choice we have made here, thanks to Holly for choosing it!

I’m going to be honest now. If you know me well, you know I don’t like beer all too much. I stick to the same few I like and am not adventurous. We have been in Ireland now for 4 nights. The past three nights in a row, I have had two pints of Guiness. The beer is delicious. It’s amazing to me how much I like it. I love it. I absolutely love it.  I’m told I will hate it when I go home.

Anyways we are sitting in this pub, Lanigans. and it has the most eccentric things hanging everywhere. It was really interesting. A bit darker in this pub, but perfect nonetheless. We sit, order a guiness and a bulmers which is like a cider that Holly loves. We order food and get it, seriously this food was so good! I paid 7 euro and got a club sandwhich but four sections, salad and fries. It was a great deal and the food was delicious. Half way through my food I told Holly I loved this place and wanted to come back.

Our waitress was wearing a golden harp necklace. The harp is a big thing here in Ireland but we have yet to figure out why. We haven’t heard too much about it on our tours so I decided to ask the waitress. Turns out, even though she sounds Irish, she is American. Kelsey from San Francisco, and now Dublin. She’s 21.

Once we learned this, it began a whole new conversation. We talked about her picking up the accent, she had been here twice in the span of a year and then officially got a holiday work visa 10 months ago. She explained that it’s just like picking up words with who you hang out with. You pick up words and how they’re said and before you know it you’re talking the same and you can’t even tell until someone tells you. We asked her how she ended up here and my favorite question: what it takes to get a visa and live here. She launched into what I could tell would be a huge story. So I asked her if she had time to explain it all and she said of course we did and that she was off in 30 minutes if we wanted to hang around (we were just paying). She said she loves talking to Americans because it’s a little bit of home to her.

So she launched into what did in fact turn out to be a huge story. She started by explaining the different visas, the processes, how it’s hard, and what you have to do or accomplish to make a permanent move. She wrote all of it down and was so nice in helping us. She had to go finish up her shift and walked away.

Holly and I didn’t want to leave at all. But now it was 10:15 and we had to be at our tour the next morning at 6:40 in the morning. We loved the place and talking with Kelsey so much we decided to just suck it up and stay, so we ordered two more guiness’ and hung out.

Eventually Kelsey’s shift ended and we all sat at the bar where she finished her story. She explained how she was lucky to come across the job at that pub because she had spent so much time in the pub in her two previous visits the manager remembered her and offered her a job. She has been working their since. Oh, I should probably introduce Keith and Connor at this point. They are the guys working behind the bar. They’re chatting a bit with us, working, and quoting lines from Monsters University. Well, Keith was doing Sully dance moves from the movie. Now you also gotta understand how they look. Keith is probably your average height guy 5’9 ish and standing next to you he doesn’t seem short at all. Standing next to Connor behind the bar though, he looked like he was way short. Connor has got to be over 6’3. The guy is really tall. So that was funny for the evening. Anyways after a while of chatting a man walks in and Holly and I see Keith gesture. Our Deaf alarms are going off as we give each other the  “I think he’s Deaf look” We look at the old man and he is gesturing too. At this point were excited so we pick up our stuff and move over near him and begin with the gesturing, paper writing and finger spelling. The Irish ABC isn’t too different from ours so it was easy to pick up on. Many signs were similar but it was great fun. Turns out Keith’s girlfriend’s parents were Deaf, so he knew minimal signs and it turns out that this older Deaf man is named Bob. Gesturing and trying to understand each other Holly at one point says to me “ahhhh! Now I know what people feel like when trying to talk to Deaf people at home.” In the moment, I thought that was a bizzare comment. “Of course that’s what it’s like Holly, that’s how it was for us once when we were learning, this isn’t new to us” I thought to myself. I did not realize what I just realized now. For those of you who don’t know, Holly’s parents are Deaf. Holly’s first language is sign language. Holly has never had to feel frustrated or bad in trying to learn to sign with Deaf people because she’s been doing it her whole life. Of course that moment was a new experience for her! Of course she would make that comment! It all makes sense now. Back to Bob. Our conversation was short, he was getting food to go, but we did learn that that pub hosted a Deaf gathering every Sunday for all the local Deaf people. As if Holly and I weren’t already bummed we were leaving, Bob asked if we were around. I’m so bummed were gone and I’m sure Holly is too! Bob left, giving us both a lovely hug.

Holly and I stayed at this pub until 12:30-12:45. Long after they had closed. Holly, Kelsey and I sat at the bar talking and drinking. Kelsey has us try an IPA (Irish not Indian) called Galway Hooker. It wasn’t too hoppy, a red ale that we don’t have a lot of in America. Not my favorite, but the names funny it was bareable. We sat and talked about language, about Holly’s life, where Kelsey provided free advice. Eventually Keith and Connor were done and grabbed drinks themselves and there we all sat at the bar. There were two other women sitting at a table in there too, minding their own. Kelsey asked where we were staying and what we were doing the next day. We are going to the Blarney Stone tomorrow and tomorrow night we were thinking about doing a pub crawl. Now we are definitely going to go back to Lanigans. Serendipity was at our sides last night as we were only planning to grab a bite to eat and sleep early.

It has been another memorable evening in Ireland and tomorrow should be just as well!

Ireland has been amazing. We got here four days ago and I am so in love with it here. Wifi in our hostel is horrendous so that’s why I haven’t been able to post so now Im gonna play catch up. We didn’t do too much the first two days. The first day was more our travel day so we didn’t arrive until the afternoon. We just checked into our hostel, grabbed some dinner and explored Dublin on foot.

Our first night in this hostel was hilarious. We are staying at a place called Paddy’s Palace. We pay 10 euros a night for an 8 bedroo mixed dorm that smells like human pee- all the time. Grand hostel. As Holly said, it gives us a reason not to be in our room. As if Dublin isn’t enough! Anyways our first night here we find ourselves in a room occupied with Mark the Aussie, Carmen the Chinese girl, and Frances the German girl. The room was also shared by two girls who spoke a dialect of Spanish. Couldn’t tell you their names or where they are from because they were in and out of the room in 2 minutes and all they said was Hi and
bye and spoke spanish for the other minute before going out for the evening. There was also a Chinese boy staying here too, Alfred, who was a friend of Carmen but he disappeared for the evening. So Holly, Carmen, Frances, Mark and I had a whole party by ourselves. Frances was trying to go to bed because she was going home to Germany in the morning at like 6. Mark was catching a flight to London early as well. But neither of them could really sleep and we all just kept talking and laughing so much, how could they?

Frances was talking about how she struggled in Ireland because she couldn’t express herself the way she wanted through English like she could in German, makes sense. Whatever she says about not being able to express herself, she is by far the funniest person I think I’ve met this entire trip. She was cracking me up. Frances, Carmen, Mark and I are all 22. Alfred and Holly being 23.

We seriously all sat and laid in our beds, shooting the shit. Talking about here, home, our lives, languages, loads of stuff. Frances taught Holly how to say her last name correctly because it’s German. The conversation went like this.

Holly: My last name is German but I’m sure we say it wrong.
Frances: What is your last name?
Holly: Kerker.
Frances: *giving Holly a puzzled look* ..what?
Holly: Kerker. It means dungeons
Frances: Oh!!! Kerker!! (obviously said the German way)

We all laughed and began to talk about funny words we have heard. Frances was laughing and making fun of how we say apple stroodle (she makes it sound wayyyyy better than we do) and I told Mark how I was laughing at Jade for using tanty where then mark kept mocking toats and other funny things. We kept talking about funny words. Fun fact, the Irish word for fun is craic. This is pronounced crack. So for all of you who thought quickly and are now laughing, yes. It is perfectly accetable to go up to a police officer and say “I’ve had so much craic tonight!” and that officer would be perfectly delighted for you. Phrases like “I’m having craic.” or “A load of craic that was!” are completely normal here in Ireland. They also advise you if you live in the states or Europe not to use that word at home, haha! Back to my funny words story, Holly says she is trying to think of a funny sounding English word. Well, I instantly think of one of the funniest English words I know and say it. Well, that opened a whole can of worms, let me tell you. My funny word of choice was spelunking. Now, if you don’t know what that is, I guess you could say it’s synonymous to caving. If you want an exact defintion, I don’t have one but dictionary.com will. So I say spelunking and Holly says what?! Holly doesn’t know what it is so I start cracking up. Frances is cracking up and instantly pulls out this nifty little device that is a text translator. It even gives the different words for American English and British English, it’s pretty sweet! She busts out this thing, begins translating words, and laughing at their German versions. She said she’s been in Ireland for weeks and all the sudden tonight she is translating and looking up more words than ever talking to us! We were all laughing so much. I was so sad that they were all leaving.

Mark begins to talk about Australia and home. He is a bouncer at a club but if you were to look at him you wouldn’t think so. In talking about what he does, he also mentioned he snowboard and worked at a ski lift for a bit. We began talking about weather, each where we live and Mark makes the comment that it doesn’t snow in Australia. Obviously it does in some parts but he meant for a majority of it, it doesn’t and it’s rare.

Mark: It doesn’t snow in Australia.
Frances: What?
Mark: We don’t get snow in Australia.
Frances: What?
Holly: Snow, like you know when it’s winter and cold and the white stuff falls-
Frances: I know what snow is.

Holly said it in the kindest way possible, thinking she didn’t know what snow was and Frances’ response wasn’t rude, it was sarcasticly nice and the moment was hilarious for everyone. Holly felt so embarassed but everyone was cracking up and Frances even thanked Holly for trying to explain when she thought she didn’t understand the English word. It was classic.

So many of these moments happened. Frances looking out the window just randomly says something along the lines of “did you notice the Irish girls get dressed and look like sluts?” and it was the lit fuse to an explosion of laughter which then sparked a whole new conversation.

That was how our night went. Carmen brought a surge protector that she so nicely shared with everyone because eight people had to share two plugs. Carmen and Frances were laughing that the English word was outlet for the.. Well.. Outlet.

Eventually we turn off the light thinking that will help everyone sleep. Ha! Now how this room is set up is it’s got 4 walls (go figure) one door (no way) and 4 sets of bunk beds. Two on each side of the door, one in front of the other agaisnt two walls of the room. I slept on the bottom bunk (Alfred above me) across slept mark, Carmen above him. Adjacent to mark slept Frances, across from Frances was Holly’s bed (making her adjacent to me) and above them both were the spanish girls. On Frances and Marks side there are two huge windows. I mean huge. No screens, just green cloth as the curtain. This cloth isn’t long enough for the window. So, we turn off the lights and I look over to notice there is a lovely amount of light projected into the room from the outside streetlight on to my wall, just perfect enough for shadow puppets.

So what do I do? Play with shadows. I’m telling Holly to look cause I’m laughing and it’s funny and next thing I know Marks hands are up because he is across from me and his bed is right under the window. We must have played with shadows and shadow puppets for like 15-20 minutes. Busting up laughing. It was ridiculous, Holly was watching and commenting and we were just going to town having so much fun with it.

It seriously was a great first night in Dublin. I was so sad to see them go! We had Carmen and Alfred for one more night. Then last night at like 10pm, two Canadian girls checked in and were checked out in the morning. Since then
We have had this 8 bed room to ourselves.

Our second day we did a bit of shopping and some more exploring all day. Looking at the beautiful buildings, Trinity College, and worked on booking our transportation to Scotland in a Starbucks because our hostel wifi isn’t so great. We found a quaint little bookstore where I bought the book that German man recommended to me at the beginning of the trip. I can’t wait to read it!

That night we went out to dinner where I ate Bangers and Mash. I know it’s mashed potatoes, sausage, and some kind of sauce. I don’t really know what is in it, but it was delicious. I don’t even like sausage that much and it was soooooooooo good. Even though it looks awkward.

After we ate we went down to the bar where we listened to the live bands play all night. The only song I wanted to hear played in a pub here was Galway Girl and it happened, twice! The  performers rotated in our time of being there and both sang that song! In this bar I decided to order a Guiness. They say Ireland made Guiness (cause it’s from here) is different than any other in the world, so hey, when in Rome right? I had two pints and got a high five from an Irish man named Finn. He was sitting at the bar when I went up to order my second one. I order and then he turns over and says “excuse me what did you order?” and I told him. He said “wow, not many girls order that” and me being me loving when people challenge me replie with (unoriginally in my opinion, but whatever) with “Im not like many girls” and he got a big smile on his face, laughed and gave me a high five of acceptance. I felt like I had just passed a test I didn’t know I was taking. He said his name was Finn and he was from Dublin. He asked where I was from and I answered “the states” but I think the look on my face said “that was funny/stupid question” because the next thing he said was “that was a dumb question, I can hear your accent” and all Im thinking was “yeah, buddy, my voice screams American” and I told him my name was Desiree. He said he had never heard my name before. I laughed and that was that. I took my beer back to Holly where we sat and listened to music. Oh! There was also this guy from Holland who talked to us for a bit. Well, more me cause Holly struggled with understanding his accent. He told stories of his girlfriend and traveling, and how he got put in jail in France and hates the French. It was a great night out relaxing!