July 3

"But my vagina doesn't need to be tan."
- Julie Buzgon

Today was pretty much insane. We got to sleep in which was amazing. I forget what 10am in bed feels like, since I wake up at 6:30 everyday. 10am is much more pleasant, just so you know. Got up and got ready and met the girls down in the square around noon. Jenny was hard at work booking out tours for next weekend, for which we are very thankful. But then we all went down to our 4th of July party. It wasn't really a big deal, but free hot dogs, burgers, and sodas were very nice considering it's incredibly expensive to live in Dublin.

(The first time I had actually seen Jenny's freaky bathroom. Her shower is just a faucet.. see? No actual tub or shower stall...)

(The 4th of July EUSA Party.)

(Foooood.)

Julie, Megan, Jenny, and myself left around 1:30pm and headed down to the DART station. (Yet ANOTHER mode of public transportation in Ireland.) Today's plan was to make a day trip to Howth (pronounced Hoat, like boat.) Howth is a little fishing town on the coast of Ireland. It costs 4.20 round trip on the train and is only 20 minutes away. Sounds like a great day trip right? Hahah, it was beautiful but quite hectic.

We found our way to the DART station and the train was gonna be there in three minutes! So we somehow, miraculously, found the way to buy tickets, find our way through the station, to platform 7, which was of course the furthest one away, and be there on time for the train.

(Breathing. The train was coming as we took this.)

(Hello DART.)

(Showing the retro, green chairs.)

(J and J.)

(R and M.)

We arrived in Howth and the first thing we saw was a restaurant called "The Bloody Stream." We just laughed. Walked along the shops for a second and some random man comes up to us and goes "the sea you should go to the sea. The sea is out. It'll be a good picture." He looked a little crazy, but we found out he was actually saying "seals" not "sea" and he actually led us to a place where there were TONS of fat, ugly seals. One of them, who Julie named Chester, honest to goodness, WAVED at us for fish. He has learned to wave to get food. It was impressive.

(We made it!)

(Quay is pronounced "key" in Ireland. Weird huh?)

(First sight of the town.)

(He was legit waving.)

(Harbor. Or harbour as spelled in Ireland.)

(Please don't rain.)

(So pretty.)

(Boats, boats, boats.)

(First group photo of the day.)

(Another angle.)

Then we saw the lighthouse at the end of the "pier" (cement walkway) and we wanted to go there. We stopped at a little tourist station to get a map first. We went in and saw some tour stuff, but there was a hiking/walking map of Howth we could buy for 1 euro. We didn't see anyone nearby. We went into the art gallery connected to the tourist office and asked where to buy one. The artist in there was like "that guy is on lunch break. I can just give you mine for free, if you promise to give it back." He was kind. He told us the best hiking tour to do in flip flops and we set off to see the lighthouse and then begin the walking tour.

(Walking to the lighthouse.)

(The lighthouse.)

(Lovely.)

(Group photos in front of the lighthouse.)

(Loved having the tripod with me.)

(Dawww.)

(Standing this time.)

(So pretty.)

:)

(He seemed cool.)

(Back past the harbour again.)

After the lighthouse detour, we decided we would take the walking tour backwards, because there was a castle near the end of the trail that we wanted to see. So we flipped the map upside-down and off we went. Sounds promising right? On the way to the castle, Megan led us down a path that found a secret window. (Aka an old monastery wall, it seemed like.)

(Quick stop to make a post.)

(Walking towards the castle, before Megan pulls us to the side.)

(Megan found a secret window!)

(We had a little trouble climbing....)

(Well, isn't that just adorable?!)

(One more for safety.)

(Weee!)

(Through the other side of the secret window.)

Well, afterwards, we easily got to the castle. It was very pretty. I had brought my tripod today so that meant lots of good group shots. It was nice not needing to flag anyone down for group pictures today, haha. Anyways, we took pictures in front of the castle. We walked around the side of the castle and somehow made our way into the courtyard/center of the castle. Once we were already inside, we found the huge signs saying "private" and "no trespassing." So we took some pictures, used their trash can, then walked on. We saw another area across the street with pretty gardens, so we went over there. Turned out to be a golf course. There was a chain in front of it, but we saw a path to the side.

(Found the castle!)

(Girlssss.)

(Charlie's Angels live in this castle.)

(Totem poles are cool.)

(The inside of the castle.)

(I mean lets just use their trash can...)

(Archways.)

(Castle.)

(Golf course picture.)

(This picture is for you, KEN COYPE. Sorry if I butchered your name though.)

We began to go down the path, which led to another path, and long story short... any time Megan says, "hey guys look a cool path in the woods!"... we should probably just stick to the map. Literally maybe an hour later.. we have gone through all these different paths in the woods, and over cement bridges and over broken wooden fences, and through more secret windows and we were like... how to we get out of this? Megan found a path she said would take us out... and it did... we popped out in the MIDDLE of a golf course, with three golfers right in front of us, in the middle of a game. They looked absolutely shocked that we had just popped out of the woods. We looked equally as shocked, because we were in the middle of a course that was heavily gated. If you know anything about golfers... they do NOT like their game interrupted, and there is pretty strict golf etiquette you are supposed to follow. Luckily these were nice golfers. They just stopped, looked stunned and literally go "how on earth did you get here?" We were like... "we followed a path in the woods!? Help us." They were like umm to get back its about a 40 minute walk that way." Soooo we looked at the shortcut they pointed out... which would have required jumping a big fence into someone's private garden. We instead went BACK into the woods where we came from and somehow found our way back to the main road.

(Secret passages.)

(Cool trees.)

(I really love this picture. Not sure why exactly, but I really love it. The mix of the flash in front, and the dark background. Just love it.)

(Jenny led us back into the woods... and fell.)

We decided not to follow Megan anymore.


We looked at the marked signs on the trail from then on. We went to St Mary's Church Howth and took some pictures outside, but weren't allowed inside. At this point, it was time for dinner, like 6pm. So we found our way back, and of course, tried the Bloody Stream. The place is actually named after a stream running under the restaurant that was bloody from a battle in the year 1177, not for what we originally thought...

(The church.)

(Pretty.)

(Timer pictures.)

(Closer.)

(Adorable.)

After dinner we wanted to find the actual beach. It was a lot harder than it seems. You think, water... shore... beach? Right? Well we were in the harbour and it took us like 30 minutes to find the actual sand. Once we were there it was pretty wonderful. As beaches tend to be. We walked along the beach for about an hour and took all kinds of crazy photos.

(By the way... don't do that ^ )

(We found some stairs on the way to the beach. Stairs are meant to be climbed right?)

(This is our band album cover art.)

(I'm a trombone player, guys.)

(A bus driver saw us take this.)

(We found the beach!!)

(Beautiful.)

(Jules. Julie...can I call you Jules?)

(I wanna go back.)

(Group pictures on the beach.)

(Kinda gay?)

(Bahhha, skipping. Why do I look like a tard, tho?)

(Failed jumping picture #1.)

(Failed jumping picture #2.)

(Failed jumping picture #3.)

(Failed jumping picture #4.)

(Failed jumping picture #5.)

(Failed jumping picture #6.)

(The best we could do!)

(So nice here.)

(Ummm...?)

(Classy.)

(Megan!)

(Awww.)

(E U S A.)

(mmmm?)

(Julie.)

(Jenny.)

(Megan.)

(I'm a loser.)

At this point, it's like 9 oclock and we need to head back to the DART station. We eventually asked different people who got us to the station, leading us there with their peeing dogs, and we got on the train back to Connolly Station.

On our way back... there were a BUNCH of drunk fisher people in our train car. There were like five drunk teen boys, one little girl, and two grown men who should have been more mature than this... but no. At this one stop... they kept pushing the button to open the doors... then as soon as the doors would shut... they would jump in front of them and make them automatically open again... they did this over and over so the train just sat there for like ten minutes. We were about to get up and yell at them when they finally stopped. Whew... and the DART's moving again...

One stop later.. announcement comes over the PA from the conductor

"Umm sorry about the inconvenience, but turns out there's a fire up ahead... a rather large fire in fact... we're gonna be stuck here for at least thirty minutes, but probably more. Your guess is as good as mine."

Sooo... we got off the Train and walked up to the conductors car. We knocked on the window and he pointed us to the nearest bus stop. There was like ONE bus stop around there. We had no idea which buses came there or where they went. But we went and had a look. ONE bus comes by there. So naturally, we waited and got on it. Turns out it headed the direction we needed. The bus driver said he went to Santry (which is the county we live in) but didn't say WHERE in Santry. It was our best option. We jumped on the bus and he randomly yelled out "Santry" when apparently it was our stop. We all had faces of panic when we got off. It was now 10:30pm and this stop was near NOTHING at all. It was in the middle of nowhere. The bus driver saw our panicked faces, and asked where we wanted to get to. We answered "Omni Shopping Centre" (which is right near our house, and easier to describe than our student housing complex) and he quickly pointed and drove away... sooo off we went. We found another bus stop which would take us home. We waited like 15 minutes for it. As we stepped on to this bus, we asked the driver just to make sure "you go to the Omni right?" And he's like.. ummm no... you need to go the other way... its about three or four stops that way."

Geeees. Anyways, it ended up being closer than we thought. Julie and Megan hopped onto another bus and met some others at a pub, but Jenny and I were pretty beat and we walked back home from that random stop.

It was a good day, but crazy hectic. Just like every other day when Jenny and I get together and jinx the transportation. Whew.