Dublin
Hello!
We are both so so stuffed today, we had the most enormous effort yesterday starting at 12:30am Saturday and ending at 3:50am on Sunday! We decided to go to Dublin for the day and it was so worth it (until we got to the airport at Dublin, but that is another story!)
Stansted airport was, to put it bluntly, an absolute shitfight! I guess with the terrorist threats that is to be expected. We were forced to check our hand luggage in (the worlds smallest backpack!) and were only allowed on the plane with our passports and wallets. Nothing else. I felt sorry for people travelling with small children to places like Krakow etc. A lot of flights were cancelled willy nilly and a lot of people had set up camp (literally, there were people with tents) near the check in desks.
Anyway, we finally arrived into Dublin in the middle of the nicest summer day (NB: SARCASM..it was so so so cold!) and started our day with a hot cooked breakfast. Michael ordered a full breakfast, consisting of sausages, eggs, beans, bacon, black pudding, white pudding, mushrooms and toast. I looked at it and had beans only as we figured there was enough food to feed an army on michaels plate to feed me as well. I think Michael enjoyed his black and white puddings. I didn't even try!
We then walked up to the Garden of Remembrance (Established in 1966 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. It is dedicated to those who died during the struggle for Irish independence.) and had a wander around but left fairly rapidly as a leaf blower started up and made the place as peaceful as a jackhammer! It was very pretty though, quite interesting.
We then wandered around and walked through the city, and got a little lost but then found our way and went to the guiness factory. It was so good and definately worth a visit. I fully recommend it! It was really interesting and we got a free pint of guiness which, classed as lunch! We spent quite a long time there and were very glad we had booked online and went earlier in the day as when we left the queue was out the door and around the corner.
Temple Bar markets were our next stop and were extremely disappointed with them. The food market was pretty good but I don't really think that the fashion and book markets deserve to be called a market. They were essentially a few stalls thrown together, with nothing very much on them. Although there was a few pairs of earrings that caught my eye, but I resisted temptation!
We had a very late lunch at the Stags Head in the Temple Bar area, which was huge. So much food! We shared a meal of chicken wrapped in Bacon and watched a game of Hurling. It is the strangest game ever but was really interesting. We've both decided to attempt to go and watch a real live game at some point. There was then a game of Gaelic Football on, so we watched that for a little bit (the blue team won, if anyone cares!). We then walked along the river bank adn over a lot of bridges including the Ha'penny bridge, then back into the town centre and had a look in some stores. Then got the bus to the airport. We were glad we left the city earlier rather than later because there was a lot of traffic and it was fairly slow going due to the football game of the red team vs the blue team.
I'm going to take a break now and publish this and then finish off telling you about the airport later on.
We are both so so stuffed today, we had the most enormous effort yesterday starting at 12:30am Saturday and ending at 3:50am on Sunday! We decided to go to Dublin for the day and it was so worth it (until we got to the airport at Dublin, but that is another story!)
Stansted airport was, to put it bluntly, an absolute shitfight! I guess with the terrorist threats that is to be expected. We were forced to check our hand luggage in (the worlds smallest backpack!) and were only allowed on the plane with our passports and wallets. Nothing else. I felt sorry for people travelling with small children to places like Krakow etc. A lot of flights were cancelled willy nilly and a lot of people had set up camp (literally, there were people with tents) near the check in desks.
Anyway, we finally arrived into Dublin in the middle of the nicest summer day (NB: SARCASM..it was so so so cold!) and started our day with a hot cooked breakfast. Michael ordered a full breakfast, consisting of sausages, eggs, beans, bacon, black pudding, white pudding, mushrooms and toast. I looked at it and had beans only as we figured there was enough food to feed an army on michaels plate to feed me as well. I think Michael enjoyed his black and white puddings. I didn't even try!
We then walked up to the Garden of Remembrance (Established in 1966 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising. It is dedicated to those who died during the struggle for Irish independence.) and had a wander around but left fairly rapidly as a leaf blower started up and made the place as peaceful as a jackhammer! It was very pretty though, quite interesting.
We then wandered around and walked through the city, and got a little lost but then found our way and went to the guiness factory. It was so good and definately worth a visit. I fully recommend it! It was really interesting and we got a free pint of guiness which, classed as lunch! We spent quite a long time there and were very glad we had booked online and went earlier in the day as when we left the queue was out the door and around the corner.
Temple Bar markets were our next stop and were extremely disappointed with them. The food market was pretty good but I don't really think that the fashion and book markets deserve to be called a market. They were essentially a few stalls thrown together, with nothing very much on them. Although there was a few pairs of earrings that caught my eye, but I resisted temptation!
We had a very late lunch at the Stags Head in the Temple Bar area, which was huge. So much food! We shared a meal of chicken wrapped in Bacon and watched a game of Hurling. It is the strangest game ever but was really interesting. We've both decided to attempt to go and watch a real live game at some point. There was then a game of Gaelic Football on, so we watched that for a little bit (the blue team won, if anyone cares!). We then walked along the river bank adn over a lot of bridges including the Ha'penny bridge, then back into the town centre and had a look in some stores. Then got the bus to the airport. We were glad we left the city earlier rather than later because there was a lot of traffic and it was fairly slow going due to the football game of the red team vs the blue team.
I'm going to take a break now and publish this and then finish off telling you about the airport later on.
posted by anon at 4:45 PM
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