DAY 8

Off to Dublin

We set our alarm for 6:29 am after that we grabbed our stuff and our host family drove us to our coach where we met our classmates. We were not too sad about leaving.Honestly, our host "family" was not that nice. It consisted of one old woman who didn’t care about us and only did what was necessary to get the money.

It all started badly anyway cause we were kept waiting on the coach on the day of our arrival because she seemed to have forgotten about us coming.

We had no wifi, slept on rock hard beds and she barely turned on the heater but at least the food was solid. The house itself was pretty old, had one bathroom and one faucet with drinkable water. That’s why we really anticipated our stay in the hostel in Dublin.

At 8 am our coach departed from Galway and at 10:10 am we arrived in Dublin.

We checked in at Generator hostel which is conveniently located and the teachers allowed us to explore the city for a little while.

Sadly we saw a lot of homeless people in the streets which shocked us and somehow changed how we felt about Dublin. Furthermore one could also feel that Ireland was getting ready for a lockdown. The streets were not crowded at all and all sights were closed.

We had lunch at “Gourmet Burger Kitchen” and enjoyed a burger called Taxi driver which was pretty tasty. I think they perfectly cooked the meat, the burger was not too greasy and the sauce really brought it all together. If you ever have an opportunity to eat there we could only recommend you do so. Here’s the link to their website https://www.gbk.ie/

At 13:50 we all met and our guide Laurence started the tour of the city.

At Dublin Castle he told us about a war against the Vikings who didn’t want to accept a king as well as the story of the harp and its significance to the Irish population. The instrument, however, also caused some copyrigtht problems between Dublin and the beer brand Guiness. Dublin wanted to stop Guiness from using the harp as their logo but the brand revealed that they had bought the rights to the harp in the 18^th century. Because of that Dublin had to use a mirrored version of the harp for their flag.

We then walked to Devlin Garden which is primarily used as a helicopter landing pad but originally gained fame for its black water. The white stripes form the Gaelic symbol for “Welcome”.

Our next stops were Christ Church Cathedral, which was originally built for a wedding, the Temple Bar district with its famous pubs and then we walked down to the river to check out two unique bridges. One of them is called Ha’penny Bridge and was built by William Walsh. The bridge got its name because originally you had to give him half a penny to cross the bridge. The another one is wider than it is actually long and leads across the river Liffey towards Trinity College. We would have visited there too and seen the famous Book of Kells but it was closed, of course. Along the way we also saw a monument called The Spire which is a huge 123 meter high needle. It was originally built as a replacement for Nelson’s Pillar and should have been a building to commemorate the millennium – but did not get finished in time.

At the end of the tour Laurence showed us the statue of a historical figure called Molly Malone. She is the protagonist of a famous Irish folk song originally written by James Yorkston. Molly worked as a fishmonger during the day and as a prostitute during the night. Molly, however, got famous worldwide after the release of the song Molly Malone by the Dubliners. A nearby busker even sang it for us. Here are the lyrics. https://genius.com/The-dubliners-molly-malone-lyrics

After that we continued to explore the city on our own. We went to Starbucks and many other shops and I even visited a barber shop and got a haircut. At 18:30 the whole class gathered at Ha´Penny Bridge and we all walked back to the hostel. The building was very unique and there was a big aluminum G for Generator near the entrance. We got our key cards took our luggage and went up to our room. It was nothing special but for a hostel it was very nice. The apartment consisted of 2 double beds 2 chairs and a bathroom with a toilet and a shower. We all relaxed and took turns showering. Around an hour later we returned to the hostel lobby which had various seating areas, two billiard tables, a soccer table and a bar. We played pool with some friends while other classmates played cards. At 10 pm we returned to our room and went to bed.