It took Ryan and myself a bit to find the hostel but we finally came acrossed it.
We unpacked and both extremely starving headed for the town to grab a quick bite to eat. I had seen a Mexican restaurant (first one since Australia) and so I had to eat there. But when we got there we checked the menu and the cheapest thing was $25 (why I called it a trap) we looked around at many of the different restaurants and shops and nothing seemed to get much cheaper so we took to our backpacker ways and went to a local market and got a bag of noodles and sauce and made pasta. Which cost $5 for both of us to get completely stuffed.
We headed to sleep early after talking to one of the kids also at the hostel and said that we had to go skiing/snowboarding (I wanted to go anyway). The next morning I was up at 7 ready to go snowbaording, of course i didn't pack any of my own stuff so we rented board, boots, and snow pants and had to buy a day ticket. Total price came to about $175 which was much more then I was hoping for but it may be a once in a life time experience
We left the shop at about 830 and had to take a bus and 2 trains to get to the drop point on the mountain. Which took about an hour. The views alone were almost worth it. The train is going up such steep terrain nothing that I've seen in the states and there was still so much snow up there. Funny to think about though is that the top of the ski resort is at the same elevation of that at the base of copper/ keystone/breck in Colorado, 8100ft. Oh the ski resort was called Jungfrau.
The weather was gorgeous at 55F and the snow soft in it's prime spring conditions. There were very few trees as we were above the tree line or they were just all buried in the snow, I'm not sure. But we rode from about 10 till 4 taking many pictures getting lost, taking my first t bar lift(not meant for snowboards), and just having a ball of a time.
The last run of the day consisted of us taking the longest run, that took 1 hour as it weaved down to the last traces of snow with a beautiful view making it that much more memorable. When we got back we didn't even go looking for a restaurant just went straight to the market but decided to whip up our own Swiss/ German cuisine kraut and noodles with sausage (instead of bacon) that graces my plate every holiday with both sides of my family. It was a nice taste of home.
They had free pool/ping pong/ foosball at the hostel so Ryan and I played 4 pong games and 4 foosball games. We came out an even 4 and 4 him winning more pong and I winning more foosball. We are going to meet again so I can beat him once and for all. After the intense grudge match we went to the bar in the basement and hung danced a little and made our way to bed fairly early as we were both very tired and had a big day of travels the next day.
We woke up on Friday and got a train to Geneve and then grabbed a flight to Dublin. Our flight was a bit delayed but one of Ryan's friends Clara (brazil) gave us directions to meet up with her. She let us stay at her house till Wednesday which was very nice, thank you Clara. We dropped our stuff at there house and made our way back into the famous Dublin.
A few things I noticed about Dublin while there.
*There are more redheads in Australia then in ireland(not sure if it's cause of all the tourists or what)
*i got corrected many times it's st.paddys not st.pattys
*we celebrate st. Paddys day far more then they do in Ireland. A local told me this
*the same local also said that they really only started celebrating it in this way(the way we do) was 10 years ago.
*all the Irish talk like they do in the Disney show "luck of the Irish", a heavy Irish accent that is very frequently hard to understand what they are saying. May as well not even be English haha
*it is always windy and the clouds move faster then I've ever seen in my life
*locals don't wear green.
That night we went out with a bunch of brazillians and had a good time getting to know them.
Saturday we walked around went to the main square, famous temple bar and temple bar area, went and saw trinity college (might pick up another degree) and many churches and palaces that are all from the viking era.
We had to have the famous Irish beer Guinness and also took a tour, it was more of a party then a tour but still very knowledgeable, oh and they had a buncha live Irish bands to keep your spirit Alive. They had a rooftop bar that looked over Dublin but the day was gloomy so views weren't the best.
On Paddys day we went down to the Main Street O'connell and watched the parade with amazing floats and the street packed with people wearing green (must be tourists). We then made our way to cloke park (a huge stadium) where we were told to go to see traditional Gaelic games such as Irish footbal(mis between soccer and American football) and hurling( that was very odd but kind of like a contact baseball/yeah I don't even know) anyway it was cool and everyone was cheering. Only locals were here so that was nice to get away.
We made our way back to temple bar area and watched all the street performers and went into some of the famous bars of that area. Seeing many new things and an insane amount of people.
On our final day in Ireland we took it easy planned out next few days and took a 30 minute train ride to see the country side to howth. This small town was very gorgeous and the grass was so thick and luscious under my feet I didn't want it to end.
Ryan and myself parted ways today he went off to Madrid while I'm going to Belgium we agreed to meet up again someday just not sure when. The time is the biggest issue. But no doubt we won't. I've been traveling for a little over 2 months now and I still have a lot to see.
Cheers
On the twin to the top
Loving all the experiences and people I'm meeting. Thank you all. Belgium next stop
No comments:
Post a Comment