Looking Like an American and Other First Day Adventures

Sidenote: Supposed to be posted last night, but my internet was on the fritz.

And what an eventful day it's been. In the time that I have been awake (a whopping 36 hours), there has been much shenanigans. Early in the morning, I got through customs and met the people on my trip (I think there are 10 of us--9 girls and 1 guy). We got settled in our apartment (a really nice complex on the northside of Dublin called Shanowen Square), and spent most of our afternoon looking for the elusive Tesco (a grocery store in the equally elusive Omni Shopping Centre). 

Our adventures did not conclude being lost around Ballymun, however. Later, that night we decided to hit up a bar to watch the Ireland v. Croatia football match; we figured we'd go to a local pub and turn in early for the night. We sat in the pub with a bunch of other hardcore football fans decked out in Ireland apparel, while we all wore our normal street clothing. That combined with the fact that most of the girls in my group were not at all interested in Irish football made us stick out quite a lot. However, Comet, is kind of a low-key affair with quite a few old-timers, so the group decided to hit up the more bustling Temple Bar-area in Dublin City Centre (Aren't you proud of me, Dip? I found it on the first night.) for a more lively time. We got on the first bus we found (the 41a outside the Comet, if I remember correctly) and rode it down to Dublin City Centre. 

Having no idea where we were going, we wandered into a pub called the Auld Dubliners, which had a large man singing traditional Irish folk songs and Johnny Cash. The pub got pretty packed within a half an hour of our arrival, and everyone was dancing to the Wild Rover and basically anything else that gregarious man played. Our group got split up, and eventually my friend Evan and I lost all the other girls. Despite our best efforts, we couldn't find any of them, so we left and looked for a bus to take us back to the northside of town. However, we weren't entirely sure which bus that was. Or even which direction the buses were going in. After much and great fretting, we eventually took the 11 bus towards Wadelai Park, and got off when a pair of kind old ladies told us to. Unsure of where Shanowen Sqaure was from the bus stop, we wandered into the only restaurant open, a take-away place called Marcedi's Take-Away or something. We asked the lady for directions and she kindly gave them to us, when most of the rest of our group came in. We all eventually made it back, and now I am sitting in my bed, exhausted beyond belief from this insane first day. (And this is just the Sparknotes version, imagine if I had actually included details.)

PS It says light until roughly 10:30PM. This place is magical.