the hyranchula goes to ireland is a series of posts i'm writing
during my j term study abroad in dublin, ireland. these posts will look a
little different because they will have proper capitalization and pictures
because professors like proper capitalization and pictures. please follow
me on instagram to see what i'm drinking and eating up to every day.
The airport:
I met Alex at the Addison Red Line stop near my
apartment to hail the cab that would take us to the airport. We hugged and
screamed like children. It’s like we had too much energy and there was too much
excitement; we couldn’t hold it in.
The ride was full of “I can’t wait,” and “I can’t
believe we’re doing this,” and more screams. We were prepared. We packed
adapters and underwear and we’d had our nails done. Our moms were on the same
page about nearly everything we talked about: don’t die, drink water, “Use my
credit card if you need to.”
There was a short wait at the Aer Lingus counter check
in, a short wait for dinner, and a short wait in the terminal. All of these
short waits stacked up to be less time than the flight that brought us to
Dublin.
On the plane I sat next to a guy in his early 20s
who has dual citizenship in the US and Ireland. He was born in Wisconsin, but
moved to Ireland when he was three years old. He currently lives in Belfast. I
had no idea where that was, and he told me Belfast is in the north.
“Oh, so Northern Ireland?” In the class leading up
to the trip, we were informed that Northern Ireland and Ireland are two
different countries. Separated by different currencies and a lot of issues.
“Oh, yeah. Northern Ireland. I always forget that
people are very specific about that. I never knew the difference as a kid;
everyone was always correcting me.”
This was interesting to me. I assumed he was going
to be radical and have a bunch of crazy things to say, but, really, he just
ended up being pretty cool. We talked like friends and watched an episode of
GIRLS together. Eventually we fell asleep next to each other, but, in that
weird it’s-only-okay-on-a-long-flight-kind-of-way, we found ourselves waking up
a bit intertwined.
I never asked him his name, which I regret. I’m
thinking of attempting a bit of hardcore Facebook stalking, which I think would
be creepy if we’d met any other way. We’ll see.
Queueing in the airport.
Dublin Day 1:
We landed an hour earlier than anticipated. After a
short stop in customs, we grabbed our bags and jumped on a bus that brought us
right to our hotel. We checked in, threw our bags in the room, and went out in
search of breakfast. Since we landed the morning after New Year’s Eve, nearly
everything was closed. I was a bit surprised. Restaurants in Chicago would take
full advantage of hung over tourists looking to have an IV bag set up full of
Bloody Mary or Mimosa. Ireland gave no shits.
We found a tiny café with wifi.
Waitress: “Coffee or tea?”
Me: “Tea, please.”
Alex: “Coffee, please.”
Waitress: “What kind?”
Alex: “Coffee, please.”
Waitress: “No. What kind?”
Alex: “Coffee?”
Waitress: “No, what kind? Cappuccino,
espresso, Americano?”
Alex: “… … Americano?”
American drip coffee does not exist in Ireland.
Noted.
We both ordered eggs Florentine. I’m not one to
write much about food. I love eating, but I don’t care to read or write about
it. I want to eat it. But this, this food. It’s like I want to write about it,
but I have no words. It’s like I’d never really eaten spinach before. Or eggs.
The hollandaise sauce was not as good as my sister’s, but everything else was
so good that I’m willing to overlook it.
After breakfast, we took a walk through St.Steven’s Green Park, and ended up walking around Grafton St., which is where
there’s a lot of shopping. Nothing too extraordinary happened until I’m 80/20
sure that we saw Neville Longbottom come out of the pub we were trying to eat
dinner at. Granted, it wasn’t the actual Neville, rather the actor who played
him in the Harry Potter movies, but it was a very exciting moment.
St. Steven's Green Park
We had dinner at Quays Irish Restaurant (pronounced
like “keys”). We immediately ordered Guinness, which didn’t settle in time for
us to be seated, so we abandoned our drinks and scoured the menu for something
to eat. I had fish and chips and Alex had a vegetable soup that quickly became
our most favorite thing, ever.
We ended our first day in Dublin very tired, but
proud that we’d overcome the desire to sleep.
Dublin Day 2:
We booked tickets with Irish Day Tours to go to
Cliffs of Moher the night before. The bus left very early, which meant we had
to wake up very early, which was zero percent fun. A little stop at McDonald’s where we
ordered cheese toasties made the morning a bit more bearable. A cheese toastie
is basically two pieces of a thick tortilla/thin naan – esque bread with orange
cheeses grilled like a panini. It was good.
With a bit of confusion about where we were supposed to meet, we finally ended up on the
tour bus with our guide, Matthew (which he pronounced, sounding more French than Irish, like Matt-ieu), who turned all
of the bus lights off and turned on quiet music so we could sleep. Mattieu liked to
say the same thing, over and over, in different ways. It took him five minutes
to relay one minute of information. Every time he mentioned the cliffs, he
would say “And we’ll get you to the Cliffs around 11, cause I know you guys
like that.”
There were a few other stops on the trip; one to
visit Barack Obama Plaza, home to a Tim Hortons and a few other random food
places. We went to Limerick, Doolin, The Burren National Park, Corcomroe Abbey
and Kinvara. We spent 20-45 minutes at each stop except Cliffs of Moher, where
we were given an hour and a half to play.
The cliffs are about five miles long on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean and reach up to 702 feet tall. I'm sure it wasn't that high when Alex and I popped our heads over the edge of one of the Cliffs, (lying down (Mom, don't freak out!)) but it felt pretty high.
Alex and I took about 1,000 pictures of every
little spot on the tour. We fought for premium picture-taking angles and spaces with other travelers (there were 200 people traveling with Irish Day Tours that day), and even got sprayed by waves a few times for getting too close to the edge.
The rest of our class arrived while we were gone on
the tour, and we hoped to meet them for dinner. We missed them, but ate like
queens at Against the Grain. At the end of our meal, we started talking to two
local women who answered our million and one questions about everything. It was
my favorite part of the day… that, and the berry cobbler that started our
#gimmesumcoblr initiative… in which we seek and eat all the cobblers
everywhere.
Dublin Day 3:
This will forever be known as the first day I tried
beans on toast.
Beans on toast has never appealed to me. I’ve never
been a baked beans person; the runny consistency grosses me out. But, beans on
toast is a thing here. People love it. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When
in Dublin, eat beans on toast. I love it.
Just as Alex and I were getting ready to walk leave
our room, we heard a key in the door. Sam arrived! The three of us met with the
rest of the class. We took a walking tour of The Liberties neighborhood of
Dublin, which is where we will be focusing many of our projects for the class.
After class, we went to lunch at Green 19. We
ordered salads. Mine was gross. It was butternut squash with a nut mix on field
greens with a little bit of cheese. On paper, it looked amazing. In reality, it
was kind of oily and wet. The butternut squash was hot and cooked in some kind
of oil, so it made the greens soggy and slippery. We ordered a cobbler for dessert,
though, and it was real good.
