Welcome to Dublin

In the Dublin airport I found an internet point and looked up a few local hostels, had a glance at a map of downtown, and found out how the bus system worked.

From that, I chose a bus, bought some day passes (under the assumption that, since I was here for five days, a five day pass would come in handy) and headed downtown. When we arrived at this particular bus' last stop, on O'Connell Street, I asked about Brown's Hostel. Actually I just asked which way Lower Gardiner Street was. I had a rough idea of downtown in my head and knew if I was pointed in the right direction. As it turned out, I was probably wrong (oops), but it didn't matter because my very kind bus driver simply asked where I was headed and then drove me there before returning to the garage for the night.

I thanked him and headed up the steps to Brown's Hostel. By far the cheapest of all the places I had stayed, Brown's was 11.50 a night, breakfast included, with an hour of internet access thrown into the bargain.

The downside? Breakfast was a little lame, the computers sucked, and the shower area was heavily damaged, with tiles fallen out and exposed wood drenched in water. On the upside, the guy at the desk, John, was awesome, and despite my constant badgering with questions about directions around town, the internet, the rooms, and so on, he was very patient and helpful. A great guy.

The biggest problem though, was one I noticed even more the next morning. No-one in Brown's, as far as I could tell, spoke to one another aside from me and John! There were ten or fifteen people in the breakfast hall area that morning and none of them said a word to one-another. It was downright dreary. And with the cheerful decor and cool layout, Browns could have been a pretty fun place.

So that morning I went hunting for another place. I had been in contact with 80 and she was going to come and meet me on Friday, so I was trying to find a place that I liked that she wouldn't mind either, and by mid-day I'd found Four Courts hostel. It was a nice place, near downtown, right up against the Temple Bar district, and pretty decently priced, for much nicer digs than Browns offered.

So it was that I checked into Four Courts on Thursday and dropped off my kit, then began exploring Dublin.

I found, just two blocks away, Chill-Out Cafe, the cheapest Internet point I had found in all my travels. At 10 Euros per 10 hour block, it was a steal, and I immediately purchased a block and began trying to catch up. I managed to knock out nearly a week in the next couple days, and before I'd left Ireland I had completed most of Greece.

Since most of my wanderings that first day were repeated with 80 two days later, I'll only mention them briefly. I wandered around the downtown area, found the bus station, and then struck out across town. On the way I saw the Talbot and Henry Street shopping districts and found the old GPO, site of the Irish declaration of independence back in 1916 and center of an urban firefight and shelling throughout downtown during the suppression of that uprising by British forces.

From there I headed south and explored St. Stephen's Green and Grafton Street, then wandered through the center of Trinity College campus and across through Temple Bar, stopped on Essex Quay to spend some time in Chill-Out Cafe researching the local area and updating again.

Thursday night I went to bed early and slept well, and began to finally recover from my long travels. My rhythms and immune system were returning to normal, and I finally began to feel mostly human again.