Diaster

If you've been reading my blog from the beginning, you'll know that I've had a trip planned to Dublin for St. Patrick's Day for a while now. Basically since November. So it was great when I woke up Wednesday morning, ready to go, and realised that I had accidentally booked my flight for February instead of March. And this is when the disaster began.

After researching $500 flights, connections from random city to random city, I was basically hopeless of finding anything the day before St. Patrick's Day to Dublin anywhere in my price range. But I was determined to get there because one of my friends from home, who I had planned the trip with, was already in Dublin by herself. This is when my angel came to me in the form of Kerry, who found me a combo trip from train to train to ferry to Dublin!

Oh but the fun doesn't end there. We're just getting started. My train left Manchester at 10pm Wednesday night, and with 14 hours until the Dublin parade, I was ready to go.

On my first train ride, a very "special" individual would not quit talking to me. After I told him 5 times I was working on a paper, he still insisted on asking me theoretical questions about the world and telling me that Americans are close minded. Um thanks?

I had a 7 minute layover at Chester where I had to run to my next train, only to find it standing room only. So, now I'm on a 2 hour train from 11pm-1am standing..

Then add a bus from the train station to the ferry dock. And boarding for a 2:40am ferry, where I thankfully was able to sleep on one of the cafeteria booths. Literally every booth on the entire ship was taken up by someone sleeping.

The ferry landed in Dublin around 6am and already had directions printed out to my hostel. Hoping it'd be easy to find, I boarded the first bus. Then, I walked to where the next bus picked up to find that the road was closed for parade set-up. So I started walking, only to find that the road was also closed to pedestrians. And now I'm lost in Dublin at 6:30am because the only directions I have to my hostel are along this one main road and I don't have any other maps.

By miracle, I reached my hostel and was all ready to check in, thinking that since I had paid for the night before, I'd be able to go right up to bed and sleep. Nope, not the case. The hostel graciously didn't make me pay for the night I had missed, but I just had to wait for check-in at 11.... uh whoooo? But hey, at least they still gave me a free breakfast.

The way home was the same in reverse, but with the travel time being 2 hours longer. I treated myself to a showing of Harry Potter 7 on the ferry ship. And then got to sleep on the train station floor from 1-5am. Now I can say I've done it all.

And you're probably wondering, was the weekend in Dublin worth it for all this travelling? 100x again it would be.