Day 2 continued

When I left you last, I realized that I hadn't booked accomodations for Saturday and Sunday night, yep two of the busiest days for hostels. I was dismayed to find my trip to Cork wouldn't quite work out as everything was booked. I started panicking and imagining myself sleeping on a park bench in the cold rain. I called about 10 different places listed in the Lonely Planet book before I found a room for €80 at a 3 star hotel. It's steep but I figured my parents would rather spend that than me sleep outside.

Lonely Planet wasn't lying when they said Ireland is an expensive place to travel and be. Meals tend to be around €10 and that's the cheap version. At least the museums and most of the attractions are free. That's what I love about Europe.

After being soaked pretty much all day, I walked around a bit more yesterday afternoon. I had lunch on Grafton St where all the shops are and was amused to see so many Asian people working in the restaurants. It's actually quite diverse here in Dublin, more so than you might think. After my late afternoon meal, I headed back to the hostel so I could finally get out of my wet clothes. On the way up, I met my new dorm mate, Yinka, from Holland. She's actually from Africa but she married a Dutch guy and ended up moving there. She is very talkative which was a nice change for me since I'd barely had any conversations since arriving in Dublin.

A hot shower was definitely needed and then I started to doze off when Yinka asked if I wanted to take dinner with her. I was happy to show her around a bit and we ended up hoofing around before making it to the Temple Bar district. Temple Bar is supposedly the 'hip' area of Dublin right now with a ton of pubs, restaurants and shops open late for tourists. We had dinner at a small cafe where our waitress was Chinese-Irish, with a heavy Irish accent, so cute! I could hear her speaking to what I assume was her family in Mandarin, trippy!

After stuffing ourselves, we shopped a minute. I bought postcards since I can't really shop (due to my wonderfully full backpack) and we went back across the river after that to get ready for bed. My body is still adjusting to the time difference so I was ready to pass out. Talking with Yinka was great though, she told me about the small 'village' she lives in Holland, how people talk, and haven't quite accepted her marriage to a white man. I asked if there's diversity and she said in Amsterdam there's a lot of Asians and Eastern Europeans but still not a lot of blacks. I couldn't help but notice she sounded a little sad as she hinted that her husband's family still hasn't entirely accepted her even though they have been married for 6 years.

Talking to her also made me think about how easy it is for Europeans to just jump over to other countries for short holidays. How awesome is that? It makes me want to travel the US a bit more, they aren't separate countries but they might as well be.

It ended up being just the two of us in the dorm last night which I was more than happy with. I had some trouble sleeping, like I said, body issues. Hopefully the kinks will work themselves out soon, I've only been on holiday (god, i'm already talking like them) for 3 days!

I'm a day behind, I still feel like it's Thursday but it's the weekend! Hope you guys have a great one, be safe!

Anyway, got a bit more to do today before heading back. I've been to the National Library and National History Museum and still need to see the National Gallery and the Guiness Storehouse (if there's time, if not, then tomorrow). I'll lay out the details tomorrow, stay tuned.

Kisses,
SaL