Never trust an Irishman

Many Irish men I've met wink at the end of their sentences, like they told a funny joke and I didn't catch it. It's pretty entertaining.

So yesterday I got lost in Dublin.... again. Twice. I was looking for the Kilmainham Gaol (spelled wrong, but I'll correct it later)- it's an old jail, pictured below. Very cool, but it took me an hour and a half (instead of 10 minutes) to get me to the tram stop... because I thought it was by the hospital at the end of the rail... whoops. So I finally get off at the right stop and I get lost for about an hour looking for it- someone gave me bad directions. Eventually I sit down with some brie, a baguette, water and toffee. Best lunch ever. Shortly thereafter I found the prison, had a great tour guide, and I learned a lot about the local history. I wandered back into town, but got off at a different stop because something looked interesting. Decided to ask where the Dublin castle was, and somehow ended up back in front of the hostel. Left there to find the castle... found Trinity college instead. THEN found the castle and drank Fanta in the gardens (which I believe is a weird color, but others disagree). After all that, I wasted my money at a wax museum. It did have a few nice things but it was kind of trumped by the crowd of screaming local teenage girls.

Went back to the hostel, and met an Australian guy, Mike, we went and got some food shortly after at a bar around the corner, and we talked about our different cultures. Food was amazing, company was good. We went to a couple of bars to get the lay of the land, where we met Sara who told me all about where to go in the UK.

From listening to everyone, I discovered my next stop should be Belfast, instead of Galway. I'm looking for more of a small town vibe, I'm kind of done with the hustle and bustle of the big city. A little too fast paced for how tired I already am. And I may be getting sick, my nose has been running since last night, and I couldn't get to sleep until around 4 because I had such a terrible headache.

My impressions of Dublin are as follows:
-Actually relatively nice locals, usually willing to help with directions (in their difficult to understand accents of course)
-Very clean with few homeless roaming the streets
-A plethora of bars (all expensive) with more live music than you could ever listen to. (Picture below was one we listened to, I ended up buying their CD)
-Kind of touristy, lots of great shopping, but it kind of takes away from being here.
-The sun practically never sets. At 10:30, 11:00 at night you still have some light, and it's early to greet you in the morning too.
-To this day, only in Dublin have I seen a truck flat full of kegs.
-Really interesting, but incredibly sad history I never knew about.
-Guinness is still gross.

Also, I've been somehow picking up the accent, and the whole time I was writing this had to fight the urge to say "yeah?" in the middle of a sentence, adding extra "r's" or saying "very good, very good". Ryan claims I said "mum" instead of "mom" last night, and I've definitely caught myself saying "bullocks" and "wanker" and speaking with an Irish accent in my head. It's kind of funny how quickly it gets picked up, because I definitely couldn't even attempt an accept before coming.

The smallest bathroom ever.

So I'm sitting on the toilet, and I have to prop my arm up on the sink.
Using the shower when I try to shave my legs I bump the water off.

This was actually from my first night at the hostel, I had to change rooms to what was available.

Here's also pictures of the interesting toilet on the train today, hard to see, but there's buttons to open and close the door, and it's sooooo spacious. Also, instead of "occupied", it says "engaged."

Brown Sauce

I haven't been brave enough to try it.

Greetings from Dublin

I got basically no sleep on the plane... which made for an interesting day.

I meandered through the city on the public bus until I found myself in the city center and hopped off. At that point I picked the first hostel I could find, which happened to be right in front of me upon exiting the bus. I'm staying at the "Ashfield House" to anyone that's interested. Anyway, checked in, and decided I should probably eat, and went wandering... well for the first 3 hours I knew precisely where I was and how to get back. But then the roads started doing weird things, and well... I got lost. I was certain I was getting blisters, so I decided to hop back on the bus with my all day pass, and tried to scope my view from the second level. Well I ended up in Dublin's suburbs at the end of the track with a confused bus driver, who then directed me to another bus to take me back into town. By now I've been walking around 5 or more hours on no sleep and no food, and I keep nodding off on the bus, which likely isn't a good combination when you're already lost. Anyway, just so happened as soon as I snapped back awake I saw my hostel, which looked nothing like what I remembered.

I went back in, got my room key, took a shower and passed out for an hour and a half. By this time, I'm kinda overwhelmed and tired and don't want to get up again, but I force myself to get up and go out. I had a Guinness at a bar with live music playing all of my favorite shanties, then had some traditional Irish stew. I had pretty low morale today and kind of regretted every decision I had ever made about this trip! But I think it was mostly sleep deprivation and starvation.

This all sounds terribly boring all written out like this. But I guess it was relatively uneventful. I did almost break my hand on the bus, though. It started when I hadn't expected and I just slammed it into the railing. It's swollen and bruised already.

So yeah, relatively uneventful. Gonna go plan out tomorrow, though. I'm thinking a city tour and seeing Kilmainham Gaol.

Just a note on the people... while I've been loving the awesome accents, no one's been particularly friendly. If you held a gun to many of the local's heads they still wouldn't look at you. I'm pretty sure if you offered them a Guinness they'd take it and run without making eye contact either. Some of them have been very nice, but many of them are standoffish. I'm especially surprised at how little interested the other travelers are in meetings everyone else. In the common room all the do is sit on their computers and phones, no one really talks to each other (which by the way is not what I'm doing.)

I've enjoyed it here, but I think I'm ready to move on to a smaller city in Ireland, it's exhausting trying to keep up here.


I'm also simultaneously trying to seem equally interested in a football game on TV. I'm not sure how convincing I'm being. 

This is 'murica.

I've been trying to do all things American before I leave.
I don't really have a logical reason for this, but I figured I'd give a list of what exactly that's entailed.
-MacDonalds (gross but necessary)
-"ya'll"
-Sweet tea and ICE!
-Baseball game (thanks to Ryan)
-Got in my car and drove to a location I easily could've walked to.
-Cleaned my gun (okay I only thought about it.)
-Ate barbeque
-Gave a friendly smile and greeting to a stranger
-Sat in a USO and chatted with vets about their tours. -Deep fried onion rings...
-Ate a box of Girl Scout cookies (no regrets)


...why is 90% of my list food related?

Any last words?

Every time I leave for a trip like this I feel like I'm on my death bed. People offer gifts, money, and of course plates of food, people start being really nice, and you start seeing and talking to people you haven't seen in years. And it always seems like goodbyes are treated like it's the very last one you'll ever give (because of course you're never coming back).
I've received an overwhelming amount of support and generosity from my family and friends, including their concerns and good wishes. I greatly appreciate it. I had no idea I had such an enormous pool of friends and relatives interested, and invested in my life and travels.

So there's no sense in writing my obituary yet, I'm coming home, I swear.

Anyway, I love and miss ya'll already.

"Are you excited?"

It's expectantly been a pretty common question, and I think it's about time I address it.
It's a question I've answered with gnashed teeth, a polite smile, and semi-avoidant eyes, and here's why.
There's way too much that can happen between now and the time I leave. Just try and convince me all of Europe can't just sink into the ocean within the time frame of my 14 hour flight. Lacey and I concocted every unfortunate demise the continent could face in that amount of time. And I realized I'd be completely prepared for it to occur, with no sense of surprise or disappointment. If on my flight to Dublin the pilot comes over the speaker and says, "well folks, looks like we're out of gas, and have no where to land, because Ireland has been bombarded with asteroids, and now all that's left is a raging inferno." I'd probably look around and wonder why everyone was so surprised.
That or nuclear war. Or alien attack.

Yeah, I'm excited, but it's hard to imagine myself there, and I'm still too convinced that just about anything can go wrong between now and then.

My mailing address:

Alright, just in case anyone (assuming I'm not just talking to myself) develops an itch to send me a nice letter to say hello, some pictures, a blank check...
While I'm in school June 29th-August 9th my address is as follows:

Arianna Thayer

c/o The International Summer School

Rössl in der Au

Höttinger Au 34

A-6020 Innsbruck

Austria, Europe

I also accept Visa and MasterCard.

I'm neither promising this endeavor to be inspiring, well-written or particularly noteworthy. The main focus is to have a place to hog-tie all of my pictures, thoughts, favorites, and maybe even videos into one (likely very sarcastic and strange) blog for both the benefit of myself and family and friends while I'm globe-trotting across Europe this summer.

I'm not going to make a list of promises that I'll update this every day, but I'll do my best to keep everyone as up-to-date as I can possibly stand.

More soon to follow!


...hopefully.