Ireland, the land of my heritage. Liverpool, the land of The Beatles.

My Spring Break adventures ended with a short trip to Dublin, Ireland followed by a single night in Liverpool. I had been pretty worn out from all of my previous travelling but was quite excited to visit the land of my ancestors and the land where the members of one of my favorite bands, The Beatles, called home. Having another journey to the Stansted airport before the sun had even come up was proving o not be nearly as horrible as the one you may have read about in my blog about Italy. It appeared that Sarah and I had become seasoned veterans at night buses and rushing from point a to point b in order to catch the next bus or train without having to pay £50 for a taxi. I was pleasantly surprised with our success. My happiness, however, came to a halting stop about five minutes before we left our last bus prior to boarding our train. I had thought to myself, quite wrongly I might add, that there would be no way that on a late Sunday night I would have to deal with the kinds of things that are much more common on Friday or Saturday nights. As a guy stumbled from the top of the bus to the exit area awaiting his stop, he began spitting up small piles of vomit onto the ground. At first I remained semi calm which shocked me as puke has always been my biggest fear, but then the smell started to fill the bus. It was honestly the worst smell I have ever experienced and I am sorry that I had to give you such a vivid image but it is ingrained in my head therefore making it a notable part of my journey. 

With my stomach now turned, we arrived at Standsted and boarded our plane. The flight was less than an hour, luckily. As a side note, all of those flights that I've been taking is through a company called Ryanair. This company is extremely cheap, but you get what you pay for. Disorganized wouldn't even be a word to describe their way of doing things. Aside from having to push through large crowds the worst part of each flight was the landing. Now I'm not usually bothered by any aspect of flying, in fact I quite enjoy it but crash landing would be the appropriate terminology here. Whatever flight school the Ryanair pilots had to attend, they need a better landing instructor-all of them. 

Tired from another all nighter, we've made it to Ireland-the land of both of our heritage. I had recently been mistaken for having an Irish accent before and after meeting some people while in Ireland that mistaken identity seemed to hold true. People consistently thought that Sarah and I were Irish which excited the both of us quite a bit. We decided to be true tourists and get two day tickets for the city bus tour. This actually turned out to be quite a useful purchase as the tour was hop-on, hop-off as you please. From this tour we saw sights like the Oscar Wilde statues in the park, Trinity College, the Irish President's house, numerous reindeer, Dan Rooney's (the American ambassador to Ireland and co-owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers) house, the Jameson Distillery, the Guinness factory and much more. 

Still being sleep deprived both Sarah and I were in less than favorable moods. Frustrated, we went back to the hostel for an early night. This hostel was something else, let me tell you. We knew that in having a six person, shared, cheap room that it wouldn't be what we were used to but it was so far off from what I am able to handle. We had two roommates that didn't speak English, which was fine. The part that wasn't fine was the extremely loud neighbors who stayed up literally the entire night. Worse than that and the three flights of stairs that we had to climb every time we came back was the bathrooms. I was a Girl Scout for many years and I am also an avid camper so I am used to certain conditions that come along with those types of trips however I did not expect this hostel to have worse accommodations than any campground bathroom I have ever been in. The bathroom (a communal one) not only was dark and dirty but the showers only ran cold water and in order to make the water even run you had to hold in a button. Needless to say, I thought it better to be dirty for two days than use whatever these were that they were trying to pass off as acceptable. The tail end of this night didn't seem like it could get worse until I realized that I had lost my bag of gifts that I had gotten from Guinness. Highly upset with everything I decided that not sleeping was definitely not the solution so I went to bed in hopes that tomorrow would be a better day. 

First thing on the agenda the next morning was to visit a family name shop that was filled with the crests and descriptions of many historically Irish surnames. I had known that my family once inhabited Ireland but I was actually somewhat shocked to find it throughout the store. It was a neat experience to be able to learn more about my ancestry and heritage, even if it was through a family name shop. Also on that day I was lucky enough to find the place where I had left my bag full of gifts. That was a relief. After this we had stopped at a place called Christ Church where the tv series The Tudors was once filmed. We knew that it was filmed there and being that we both loved that show we were excited to tour the grounds but unfortunately we were not allowed. This was because the same company was in the middle of shooting another tv series, The Stuarts. I had never seen anything like this so believe me when I tell you that I was freaking out as I watched all of the people walking around the area in historical clothing, practicing their lines. Later that night we went to a pub called The Brazen Head which has been noted by the Guinness Book of World Records for being the oldest standing pub in Ireland dating back to the thirteenth century. This pub had low ceilings, brick walls, small archways, cozy fireplaces, and much to my surprise-wifi. That was actually disappointing. From here we made our way to another pub where we saw live music. That was probably one of the greatest experiences I've had while I've been abroad. The music filled the room, people danced and sang along, and it was evident that at that moment none of us had a care in the world and even though we did not know each other we were somehow all friends. As the clock neared midnight we decided to head back to the hostel since we had to be awake at 4am the next day to catch our flight. You can sleep when you're dead, right?

Leaving Ireland was a sad moment for both of us. I was not nearly as upset as when I left Italy but being in Ireland was a nice experience as it made me feel closer to my ancestors and understand better what life was like before the fateful voyage to America (the ship that often made the trip was called the Jeanie Johnston by the way). Once in Liverpool we were quite terrified of what this hostel would have in store for us after having such an awful one just the night before. Luckily for us it wasn't too bad and the staff was very accommodating. They offered coffee, tea, chocolate, free breakfast, but most importantly-a shower. The bathrooms were still communal but much nicer than the sad excuse for a bathroom that we already had to deal with. The first thing we did was hop in to finally clean ourselves off but about two minutes into my shower the lights turned completely off. I was terrified and definitely thought that it was about to be a real live scene from the horror film appropriately titled "Hostel" but at that point the warm water was well worth the risk. Immediately upon getting cleaned up we ventured into the city as we only had one day to see everything that we had wanted to see. Liverpool was a dark and dingy town full of factories and trash, probably how we should have pictured it. Nearing Albert Dock proved to be promising. With the boats lining the coast and the carousels lining the streets it was actually quite picturesque. As we neared The Beatles museum I became very anxious. Why I had not realized that I was in Liverpool, the hometown of one of my favorite bands and arguably the greatest band in history, I don't know. We got into the museum and I was immediately reminded of my love for them and their talent. Their lyrics were scattered along the walls with images of them and sounds of screaming fans coupled with their beautiful melodies. It's a shame that I was not alive when they were in their heyday. After the museum Sarah and I decided it best to go back to the hostel to try to our first decent night's sleep in weeks and that is exactly what we did. Having both slept over ten hours we were ready for the five hour bus ride back home. 

So there you have it readers. Hopefully I have given you a taste of what life has been like for me during my Spring break. For now I must buckle down on schoolwork (Shockingly, I do have schoolwork. I know you were all wondering about that!) and in just 28 days from today I will be returning home.