As you may have noticed, Joni did all the blogging for London. She was feeling a little guilty about not blogging more, but don’t tell her I told you.
We had to get up fairly early to catch our plane to Dublin. We managed to get up, get packed, and sneak out without (hopefully) disturbing anyone. We grabbed some bread from the kitchen of the hostel, then headed out into the cold. We had planned on taking a subway to the train station, then on to the airport, but we discovered the night before with our Internetting that the subway didn’t run that early on a Sunday! Fortunately, we managed to find a bus route that took us there.
We got to the bus stop just as an earlier version of the bus we wanted went by. That was OK though because they come every 15 minutes, so we didn’t wait long. Funny side note, you need to flag down buses in London. It’s not a big deal, but you need to know to do that.
We got to the train station and were planning on turning in our subway cars for the deposit back, but the ticket office was closed! The whole dang subway station was closed! We didn’t know when it might open, so we decided to take our train to the airport and see about it there.
The train ride was uneventful. We snacked on some cheese and meat we had… and the stolen bread. We’re so naughty! (The bread was free from the hostel… we didn’t steal anything.) Before long we were at the airport. We decided to see about checking in and discovered a ton of people! Once the bag was checked, we opted to skip the subway card deposit thing entirely in order to make sure we had time to get through security.
Well, turns out they have security down. Despite tons of people, we were through in record time. Joni thinks it has a lot to do with not being required to remove shoes. Oh, weird thing. You know how you need to show your boarding pass to someone to get into the security line? Well, at Gatwick airport, they have automated things. You scan your boarding pass barcode, then it takes a picture of you. It’s weird, and just a hair unsettling. It does get you into line quickly though.
Since security took almost no time, we had a long wait in the airport. It was weird though because all the departing flights didn’t list gates. They just listed “Gate will open at 8:40” or whatever time. That apparently means that they announce the gate at that time. We were dubious because that didn’t give us much time to get to the gate, since the announcement time was 1 hour before departure, and they close the gate 30 minutes before departure! AND it could take 20 minutes to walk to the furthest gate. It was crazy.
Luckily enough the gate was nearby, so there was no issue. We did once again learn that people can’t read. Once you check in, there are seats for waiting next to the doors. Some of them were next to a priority boarding sign, meaning that if you paid for priority boarding, you sit there. Yeah, people just went there first until it filled up. A RyanAir guy came over and said that anyone without a priority boarding pass would need to go to the end of the regular line. Silly non-readers.
We also learned a lesson about RyanAir. See, some of their flights to/from Dublin actually let you pick and reserve your seat for 12 Euro (per seat). Priority boarding is only 6 Euro, but just gets you on the plane first. We learned that if seats can be reserved, the good ones will be, thereby making priority boarding almost worthless. It’s only flights to/from Dublin though (since that’s where they’re based), so it doesn’t effect most people. Priority boarding is then only important for large groups.
Anyway, we got to Dublin in about an hour, went through passport control, and got our bags. We finished the little food we had and then grabbed smoothies at a little shop. After some wandering and wondering, we got a bus to the main part of the city and headed down there. On the way we went though perhaps the longest tunnel I’ve ever seen. We arrived in the city center and got checked into the hostel. The room was still being cleaned, so we Internetted a bit in the waiting room.
The hostel is actually really nice. They have a big kitchen, a huge dining room, a TV room, and really decent free WiFi. The only complaints are that the showers are weird and stupid and the breakfast is a little weak. Still, it’s cheap, so not too much complaining here!
We got our stuff in the room, then decided to go find something yummy to eat. The guy at the reception desk recommended The Brazen Head, so we went there. We had Guinness.
We also had Guinness stew. We tried ordering Traditional Irish Stew, but there was a miscommunication. Still, it was good… and went well with our Guinness.
Did I mention we had Guinness? Oh… moving on then.
After our bellies were full of Guinness (I’m done now), we decided to see if we could find the place our bus would be picking us up for our tour in the morning. On the way, we got to see some old Irish churches.
And when I say “old” I mean REALLY old. We didn’t learn this until the tour (which happens “tomorrow”), but that church has a big birthday coming up in 2016. Wanna guess its age? Go ahead, guess.
1000 years old. Yeah, that church was built in 1016. That’s pretty old!
We got tired of walking pretty fast, but we managed to find the general location, so we headed back to the hostel. Along the way we passed this crazy sinking boat seating area next to a bus stop.
Random to see, random to include, I know. We made it back, then continued the Internetting and blogging. We went to bed early in preparation for the big tour of Ireland… that you’ll have to read about in the next post.
No Comments