Dublin: Part One

So I'm finally back in London, ready to update you all on my trip to Dublin! On Wednesday night my roommate and I left our apartment by 11:00 pm and spent the night in Stansted airport, outside London. Our flight was leaving at 6:30 Thursday morning, and since the tube shuts down around midnight, we had to get out to Stansted and stay there for the night.

We didn't sleep the whole night, so that was pretty miserable. At one point I actually laid down on the floor of the airport, but the tiles were freezing cold, so there was no sleep to be had. We boarded our plane at around six, and we finally got into Dublin around 8:00 a.m. Shuffling through the airport, we desperately wanted to sleep, but first we had to find our way to our hostel. The hostel was a ways outside Dublin; the map read it was in a place called Dun Laogohaire. We went to the train station to ask for directions.
"We're trying to get to Dun Lay-go-hair?" I asked the ticket seller.
He raised his eyebrows. "Dunleeree?"
I blinked. "What?"
He sighed, and it was if I could read his mind: Silly Americans. "Dun Leary. It's called Dun Leary."
Oh. I still have no idea how a place spelled Dun Laogohaire could be pronounced Dun Leary. Also keep in mind at this point that I had not slept in 24 hours.
Our hostel was called the Marina Hostel, and it was out on the coast. Dun Laogohaire was beautiful, but it was frigid. The wind hit us like a physical shock to the system as we stepped out of the train and began the half mile trek to our hostel.
"This is freeezing!" my roommate squealed, and since she was from Texas I felt pretty bad for her. I can handle cold weather, but c'mon, in September? I could only imagine what this place was like in January.

The hostel was sort of grungy, and there was a bunch of older Europeans milling about. College kids were at the hostel too, but I was surprised at the amount of gray haired Europeans that were willing to stay in a hostel. We took a quick nap and then began to explore the picturesque, freezing cold seaside town of Dun Lagohaire. It was cute town; apparently James Joyce used to stay in this town and write about it and its inhabitants.

We were walking with no real destination in particular when we stumbled upon the ruins of a small castle from the sixteenth century. It was surreal- first there were houses in a sleepy suburb, and then bam! a ragged stone castle ruin. Of course we walked all around it, taking pictures like mad, our crushing sleepiness temporarily forgotten. A small plaque next to the castle read: Monkstown castle; Monkstown= Town of Monks. Ahhh, so that's what's monkstown means. Always wanted to know that. All in all, the castle was the coolest part of that long, long day.

After dinner, we went to bed at nine o'clock, surrounded by other sleeping strangers. I was too tired to care; I don't think I've ever slept so soundly in my life. 36 hours of sleep deprivation will do that to you.

In my next post, I'll tell you more about what we did in Dublin. Stay tuned..