Dublin, Dublin, Dublin...

Oh, if I could only describe all the things that either went wrong or was just annoying... but don't get me wrong, it was an AWESOME trip, but here's a list of everything... strange... that happened. And the bright sides of them too!

1- our flight was delayed an hour an a half and two of my friends were delayed five hours due to "fog"
-well, at least the plane tickets were only 1 pound. (plus fees and stuff it actually turned out to be 18 ($36) but hey, what can you do?)
2- when buying a ticket for the shuttle to the airport, the clerk refused to accept the signature on my credit card receipt even though I had valid identification because the signature on the receipt didn't look like the one on my Utah drivers license. (?!)
-well, good thing I had the signature my passport. The clerk said it wasn't much better, but he'd let slide go THIS time (?!)
3- four out of six of us had colds
-I wasn't one of them
4- the RyanAir check in lady made my friend check in her bag and shell out 24 pounds ($52) even though it would CLEARLY fit into the overhead compartments because when she put it in one of those bins that say "if you're bag doesn't fit in here, you have to check it in" one of the wheels stuck out two inches. And if you're a certain someone who I KNOW will be thinking, "well maybe that WOULD in fact be a problem if that wheel prevented the overhead bin from closing completely" don't, because there were plenty of other bags much bigger than hers that were allowed on board and fit just fine.
-well, at least the bag got to Dublin ok
5- on the to the airport back to England, another friend lost her passport in the taxi
-good news is we got security to notify anyone who might have picked it up and the people who were in the taxi after us brought it back to the airport for her. She had to book a later flight, but she got home safe.
6- our flight back circuled around the Bristol airport for 2 hours due to "fog" (well, I'm pretty sure they were telling the truth this time) until we were finally diverted to Cardiff airport, but RyanAir offered no kind of compensation for anyone who was majorly inconvenienced, which happened to be a lot of people who missed connection flights. (now we know why the tickets were one pound)
-well, for us, it's actually faster to get back to Swansea via Cardiff than it is Bristol, so we didn't mind the change

But end of story, I'm back home safe and the time actually in Dublin was amazing! We stayed at a student run youth hostel, which I didn't think of taking a picture of now that I think about it, and one of the girls who worked there turned out to be from my hometown of San Jose, CA! So we chatted for a while. We rode around on one of those double decker bus tours like we did in London and went to Trinity college, the Guiness (a super famous beer) Factory, an old prison, and walked around some great parks and churches! But enough talk, here's some awesome pictures!

Here's Trinity College. It was a small campus, but the buildings were amazing! This is a picture in the Trinity College plaza, so imagine this kind of building surrounding you all 360 degrees...Here's St. Stephen's Green, a HUGE park in the middle of the cityI can't quite remember which one this was, but I think this it's Christ Church CathedralAnd a picture of temple bar, a really cool outdoor shoping center, but with a ton of locally own shops, icecream stores, and cafes.
We took a cool tour around the old Kilmainham prison, which was cool, but kind of depressing. Here's a shot of the more victorian era wing whose design, intersting fact, actually is used all the time in modern shopping malls. It has a special name, but I forgot what it was. The goal, though, is to be able to see anything and everything in the room no matter where you're standing. Makes scense for a prison.Here's a look at the Guiness factory. Everything was really touristy so you couldn't actually see them making beer. All you saw were a bunch of big huge LCD screens with movies about how Guiness made their beer so great... through all 8 floors. But you did get a free beer at the very top at the Gravity Bar where you had an amazing 360 degree view of all of Dublin. But here's a picture from the very center of the factory just to show you how big it was.
Here's some pictures at the Gravity bar. And no, I passed on my free beer because Guiness is really dark and frankly, I'm not a big fan of it. I got in about three forced sips and called it good.But just to show you a bit of the city itself, Dublin was home to some amazing architecture, street performers, and really friendly people
Here's another picture of the main streetAnd just to show I'm never too far from the luxuries of home
And as of today, classes have begun! More on that next time... and maybe a picture of my dorm.