(Sort of) Mastering the Dublin Bus System: My Second Day in Dublin Thus Far

Today started at the ungodly hour of 7:30, which, combined with mild jet lag and the interesting previous night, was not particularly fun. After getting ready and completely ignoring our site director's incorrect instructions to get to stop #37, we managed to hop onto bus #11 and prayed that we'd know when to get off. Funny thing about the Irish bus system: they don't announce their stops. So even though we knew that we were going to Sanford St, we had to really pay attention to when to get off. Luckily, we got it right on the first try and didn't overshot our target. 

Our site director, Dr. Kelli Malone, was waiting for us at Champlain College - Dublin. She's a interesting lady, a doctor in archaelogy with a focus on the Irish Bronze Age, a Fulbright Scholar, western horse back riding teacher (the only fully qualified one in the entirety of Ireland), just to name a few things. She led us down to a freezing basement room, and gave us a lecture on Irish history and showed us how to use the bus system using the not exactly user-friendly Dublin Bus website. It made it better, though. 

After her spiel, we walked around Dublin for a wee bit, Grafton St. Saint Stephen's Green and the like, and then got lunch at the classier Irish version of BD Mongolian Grill. (I got really excited when I found out that it was like a BD Mongos...my group didn't understand.)

After lunch, we walked around for a little while longer, saw Trinity College and Kildare St with the Dáil Éireann (the Irish govt building) and such. We also went to the Heritage Centre to get "Heritage Cards" to visit all the famous old Irish sites for free (yay Glendalough!). There I bought a bunch of fun postcards. One informed that Guinness is good for me (I'm going with it) and another had a picture of Barack Obama drinking a Guinness, with the phrase "IS FÉIDIR LINN" ("YES WE CAN") written under it. 

New Campaign Poster?

After that, we were pretty much on our own. So three others and myself wandered around Grafton St. for a little while. We found a building that had all of the luxury stores (Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc.) in it, and the three of them looked at the ridiculously expensive purses, ties, and scarves. I just kind of roamed around and day-dreamed. 

After a little while, we caught the 11 back to Ballymun Rd. The stop was right outside an outdoor stop called Outdoor Protection or something, so I fondled some gear before I got on the bus. Finding our stop was pretty easy since it was just across the street from where we got on this morning. However, as I was going down the stairs on the double-decker bus, I managed to fall down the entire flight of stairs and land on my ass, much to the bus driver's concern, who asked for my name and phone number (which my friend had to read, because I still don't have a clue what my Irish number is). In typical Sarah-fashion, super smooth. 

So that's pretty much a summary of my day, thus far. I think tonight, we're going to go to Comet again to play in their weekly Monday night beer pong tournament. Clearly, good things to come.