Last Week in Dublin

It keeps on hitting me that at this time next week I will be back in the United States. There is a lot that makes me sad about leaving but I am really excited to see people again. I really wish that I could spend my last week here enjoying it but I've been in finals for the past week and still have two to go. For our finals we have to go to this building off campus that looks like an airport coat hanger, then you go to take your test in this giant room that looks like a parking garage with everyone else who is taking a test at the moment, the room is filled with thousands of students. It's very intimidating.

Over the weekend I had a great little study break. On Friday night we had the API farewell dinner in Dublin city center, and during the dinner my friend Katie arrived in Dublin from Barcelona. After we enjoyed our lovely steak dinner from Fire Restaurant in downtown Dublin, a lovely restaurant. After that I took her to a pub so she could get the Irish pub scene, where she got to experience first hand how expensive Dublin is.

On Saturday Katie and I got up early so that we could go straight into the city center so she could see the city before I had my final. I showed her Trinity College, O'Connell Street, and the River Liffey. Then I hoped on a bus back for my final!After my final we went straight back to the city Center and I took Katie for some more site seeing, I showed her Grafton Street, Dublin Castle and Temple Bar. It was interesting showing Katie the touristy side of Dublin, it gave me deja vu of back in January when I felt like more of a tourist and it made me think about how fast this trip has gone.

Katie and I at Dublin Castle

I really wish that Katie could have seen better weather, it was pretty cloudy when she was there. It was raining a lot during the day. Though during the late afternoon the sun was starting to make an appearance so I took Katie to see St Stephen's Green, which is for sure one of my favorite places in Dublin. For dinner I took her to O'Neils this really great restaurant in Dublin that gives huge portions, with lots of potatoes.

Gorgeous St Stephens Green
Classic Irish Meal

Later that night Katie got to hang out with my friends Kadie and Stephanie, there was a lot of confusion with two Kadie's. We went out to TGI Friday's which was really funny, going to an American Restaurant in Dublin, I'm also really glad that everyone hit it off.

Early Sunday morning Ginny arrived into Dublin, she was stopping in Dublin for a night before she went to see her aunt in Cork. I'm really glad that the Barcelona group got to be back together again. We walked around Dublin a little bit showing off the same sights that I had the previous day.

There was one interesting twist in the day, Ginny had left her phone on the Dublin bus when we were coming into the city center.We had been afraid that she wasn't going to see it again, especially after we reported it to the Dublin Bus. Though when we were on O'Connell Street my phone went off it was someone who had found the phone on the bus and took the phone all the way out to this town he lives in which is about a half an hour outside of Dublin. The phone call had really bad reception so we really couldn't understand what he said, all we could here was some to go the Blanchardstown station, which we had assumed would be the bus station, though it turned out that there was no bus station, so the bus driver dropped us off at the fire station. We wandered in there to see if we could get directions. What ended up happening was that we were standing there for about 15 minutes with no one else standing in the room, though a fireman ended up coming in and was really confused about why we were there. So he called up the man that called Ginny up and he emphasized that we were AMERICAN, it made us look REALLY stupid. He was planning on bringing it the police so we ended up going back to his house to pick it up. Luckily we were reunited with the phone and it became a funny story.

Ginny left this morning and I was stuck to go back to finals. My last finals is on Thursday I can't believe that in 6 days I will be home again!