March 27

A snowy morning greeted us as we waited for our airport shuttle at a bus stop. It is easy to look at the price for a plane ticket at a discount airline (I have a love-hate relationship with Ryanair) and think, this is cheap travel! However, there are a lot of additional travel costs that I (naively) didn't fully take into account. Shuttle to the Edinburgh airport, plane to Dublin (behind a sca-reeeaming baby), public bus to Dublin city center, and then a (free) walk to the hostel. With so many legs to the trip, it really does add up. But, in relation to travel costs in the US, traveling Europe is a steal. We breezed through customs and Dublin was ours for the taking. Dublin was a bit, well, dirty and I haven't heard so many swear words from passerby conversations anywhere in my life. But, it is truly a part of the charm of the city. The city screams, "Yeah, I'm Dublin, this is how I am, I love where I came from, and I am not changing for anyone. Now, who wants a pint?" I thought often about my distant family that emigrated from Ireland. The highlight of the afternoon was a tour of the Guinness factory. The tour takes place at the Storehouse--a huge, modern building designed to look like a pint glass used just for tours. Water, barley, yeast, and hops. All the ingredients in Ireland's most famous brew. It was fascinating to see how ingrained and proud the Irish are of the beer. It truly is a part of the culture. Get this: Guinness, the founder, signed a 9000 year lease on the property in the 1800s, so to this day, rent is still just 45 pounds a month. It is arguably the best real estate deal ever made. The tour included a pint of the good stuff, but I could only stomach a quarter or so. That is one acquired taste I'm not sure I will ever acquire. By this afternoon, I was stuck in a bit of a funk. I think the close-to-home culture, paired with nights of only semi-restful sleep at the hostels had caught up to me. Just one of those days. We had a fabulous dinner, though. A vegetarian Indian restaurant that we stumbled upon. For 5.50, you can load your small plate with as much food as you'd like. It was fabulous and delicious--so refreshing to have tastes of ginger, curry, and chili, which are not found in Italy. I tried a aubergine something, a beet salad, brown rice, a chickpea something, a carrot salad, and a black-eyed pea something. I left pleasantly stuffed. Our Dublin hostel isn't bad, per se, but it is fairly hostel-ly, if you catch my drift. I actually woke up with a bruise on my leg from the unpadded mattress springs. Roughin' it in the best way.