Free Man Traveler: Ireland Reloaded

We woke up early the next morning and caught a taxi to the airport. On the way we chatted a bit to the driver, telling him about our trip, comparing Ireland to the US and Scotland. He’d done some traveling himself, and told us that he still thought Ireland was one of the best places to be… He told us we should have stayed longer, and when he dropped us off he told us to come back soon. What we didn’t know was how foretelling his simple parting words would be.

We had no problem locating the checkout counter, but after waiting in line for a half hour, we were told we weren’t on the boarding list. Wait, huh? What do you mean? The exchange went something like this:
“Your name is not on my boarding list”
“Ok, so how do I get on the list?”
“You get a ticket”
“I have a ticket”
“Well it’s not for this plane”
“Well, shit”
After a brief check of my conformation email, we discovered that there had not been a mistake on the list, but instead the mistake was ours—we were at the airport a day early. We stormed out of the departure terminal, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction in our anger. After we calmed down, we assessed our situation—it really could be worse. Yeah we were tired, hungry, and were all prepared to get home, but this was Dublin! We caught a bus into town, and after a quick stop at tourist information we hit the streets, tourist map in hand.

Dublin is a crazy city. I don’t really need to say more, that’s all there is to it. It’s such a contrast to the Ireland that we saw; it felt like we were in a different world. It was like the Ireland that Ireland thinks the world wants to see. (Yes, that sentence makes sense, just read it again.) Everything was either painstakingly preserved, or newly renovated (or at least in the process of renovation). I’m not saying that is a bad thing, but it just felt a bit superficial—especially after seeing how cool the down-to-earth, small town Ireland was. There are so many signs pointing to attractions, we felt like we were in a giant tourist attraction. The prices reflected that feeling too—everything was even more expensive than the Edinburgh prices I had (painfully) grown accustomed to. We did make the most of it though. Fighting sleep and hunger, we walked all around the downtown area, lined up to take pictures with the rest of the tourists, and toured the Guinness factory. The Guinness factory was actually one of the high points of the trip (to Dublin, that is)—we were pleasantly surprised to find that besides the shameless promotion of Guinness, there was a pretty cool exhibit about beer making…a perfect way to waste an afternoon. We stayed until they kicked us out.

After that, we wondered around a bit more, trying to decide if we should book into a hostel or camp out at the airport. Our desire to sleep won out, and we took the hostel. However, once we got to our room guilt took over—here we were, Friday night in Dublin. Yeah we were tired, but what the hell…you only live once. We hit the streets once again, this time in search of a good Irish session. We searched and searched, but couldn’t find a decent one. Finally, the last pub we went to had a great band playing and we hung out for the rest of the night…good times, and another highlight of the trip.

We finally curled up in our hostel for a short night of sleep after a very long day…happy to be going home to comfy beds tomorrow.