Seeing the Sights: The Birthday Trip, Dublin 1

April 2nd, 2015: I awoke to snow coating the ground in Tartu. Packing my final items, I left the coziness of my dorm and headed out into the world. Arriving at the bus station, I had to stick my backpack in the hold; don't know why, but this ride I wasn't allowed to have it on the bus. My plans of doing homework and snacking on my juustustritsel were left behind amid the fat, falling flakes as I fell asleep.
    Thus we arrived in Riga around 11am, were I would have plenty of time to waste. I had to add "print boarding pass" to my list of things to do, as I apparently missed that one when printing all of my confirmations out. And there's all sorts of fees for checking in at the airport here. But with so much time I found myself a chair and set to my marketing homework, YouTube, reading, and other amusements.
    Around 6:15, my laptop had been recharged to a decent level, my book was finished, and my homework turned it. I got my boarding pass printed and headed to the public transport buses to get to the airport.

Annoyingly blurry

  

There are a few nice things about being an US passport holder while traveling in the EU, one of which is that the "Other" passport/visa check line is usually MUCH shorter. There had to have been 4 or 5 flights in and I went from one of the herd to the third person in a line of less than 10. 

     Next came a bus to the city centre, and a stroll to the hostel. I'm still figuring out my camera settings, so sometimes pictures turn out, sometimes they don't. All the photos I wanted to post from my walk to the hostel are blurry to some degree.

    My flight landed at nearly midnight, the bus left around midnight:30. I didn't get to check in to the hostel until after 1am. At this point, I was just tired so I attempted to creep into the room. Creaky floors and squeaky metal bed frames made this next to impossible, but I was finally in bed, no one seemed to have woken up in the process, and I slipped into unconsciousness.

April 3rd, 2015: If there's free breakfast to be had, I don't care what time it is, I'll be there. Luckily, when I travel I like getting a decently early start on things. After a breakfast, I joined a free walking tour around the city. Turns out, the tour was three (3!) hours long. Our tour guide was fantastic, funny, and extremely knowledgable, so the time didn't really matter. He started by asking where we were from. To the guy from Boston he said, "Welcome home!" 

I have a bunch of photos from the tour, but here are just a couple. 

Dublin Castle

So when Barak Obama visited in 2011, the bar inside Dublin Castle is where he paid for the "most expensive pint of Guinness." When Queen Elizabeth II visited later that week, she edged closer and closer toward the Throne Room and they had to make up a story so she wouldn't go in.

Epic looking building in Trinity College

We saw "heaven" (the campus church, one of the few to offer Catholic & Protestant services) and "hell" (the exams hall across the way). 

We learned about some of the perks of being a Trinity Scholar:

-Free housing on campus or reimbursed off

-Free meals with professors in the dining hall

-Permission to graze your sheep on school grounds

-Permission to take your sword into exams

-Permission to ask for a pint during exams, which a proctor will bring you

-If you own a crossbow, you may be allowed to climb the bell tower and shoot Catholics (the chances of this happening were slim, and our guide wasn't entirely sure if this was true)

We also visited Dubh Linn Gardens, saw the Spike, 

My view during lunch

At the end of our tour, the guides take their groups to a pub where there is a discounted lunch served. As it's Good Friday, lots of pubs are closed (since they can't serve alcohol; the only day of the year places like Temple Bar are closed), and this one was as well. Of course I picked the one day of the year in Ireland you can't buy alcohol. So we ended up at a different restaurant he suggested. I made a few friends, two Canadians studying in Barcelona who traveled to the same cities I'm heading to (just in reverse), and joined them. They gave me some activity suggestions for my time in Dublin as well as in Edinburgh.
     From there, I hit a few of the highlights of Dublin my tour hadn't and walked where the mood took me.

"Have a Badass Easter." Well, pub Badass, don't mind if I do.

The sun came out over St. Patrick's.

Found another hippocampus!

Swans, making friends.

Molly Malone. I don't know why I thought this was
somewhere else in the city...

National. Leprechaun. Museum. I don't know
how to feel about this.

I only went into two (three?) bookstores today. I'm on the hunt for something specific, but I didn't buy anything. Backpacking does curb that habit a bit. So far, I'm loving Dublin. I think exploring puts me in a good mood, which makes it easier to love wherever I am at the moment. A bit worn down, I returned to my hostel to the song "Xanadu" which is one of my favourtes, though I'm not sure why, which just perked me back up again. I did some laptop charging and went in search of some of the world's best hot chocolate. Unfortunately, they had closed for the evening. Better luck next time.
    I've been surprised by the amount of Spanish surrounding me here. The tour was offered in Spanish as well, my roommates are Spanish, lots of people on the bus were Spanish. I don't know why it surprises me, but it does. I've gotten used to accented English, but hearing American accents still surprises me, as well.
   I have a semblance of a plan for the next few days. Let's do this thing.

Checkin' Dublin off the list

Oldest theatre in Europe 

Overheard conversation of the day:
A man walks by with his 8-10 year old son and says, "How can I owe you if I've paid for everything all day?" His son replies, "Touche." There is a pause.
"I still owe you, don't I?"
"Yeah."

Owned by Bono

Owned by Bono

Owned in part by Bono

"Probably"?

First off, Dwarf Jar? Secondly, why do you have a Dalek
hanging in your café? (Top left)

I found this sign interesting because of the font they're using.
It's one with which I am very familiar, because it's the Jane Austen
font. Interesting choice for a tattoo parlour.