9. week
On Tuesday we had our first Spanish exam covering all the things we had studied so far. We were supposed to have our exam on Thursday but we had to shift it because of a day trip with Cultural Tourism to Dublin on that day. Since not all the students had their exam that day, we just did our exam at the side of the lecture room, the others studying professions in the meanwhile. Probably not the best place for focusing, but the teacher didn’t have any other room to provide for us. In the evening Siru went to our classmate’s place to relax and talk. She stayed there for the night as it was quite late when they were done talking. After 6 am Siru woke up and walked home – the city was quiet and tranquil, beautiful. She felt a bit tired in the morning and decided not to come to the Adventure Tourism class, but instead stay home for the day.
Noora, however, went supping – stand up paddling. At first the board looked a bit worrying and unstable, but we were assured that we wouldn’t fall into the lake. The weather was chilly and windy and nobody wouldn’t want to end up swimming, but we decided to give it a go. The boards were quite stable and easy to pilot; with calmer weather supping could have been very relaxed and relaxing, but paddling against the wind required some actual work. Only one student fell over – she was quickly given dry clothes – and we were told that she was the first faller of the year. The SUP provider spoke to us about PR and handling your own business and the talk was actually very interesting – as had been the supping.
On Thursday we took off to Dublin from IT, with the minibus full of our classmates. The bus driver gave us a mini tour of Dublin on our way to the first museum of the day and when we left the bus we were all set for archaeological adventure, but we had actually been left at the wrong museum. Luckily we, the exchange students, enthusiastic tourists, had maps with us and we were able to navigate to the right place without further complications. The Archaeological part of the National Museum of Ireland was indeed interesting with many different sections, but would have been better to have more time and perhaps a tour guide telling about the objects in display.
After a few hours of wandering through the exhibitions we headed for Merrion Square for our packed lunch. On our way there we met an apparently homeless man, for whom we gave some of our food – his thankful expression made our day. At the corner of the park we spotted a statue of Oscar Wilde laying back on a stone his legs wide open looking kind of dirty. It began to rain so we left him sitting there and went to a bus stop to take cover. Not long after a few of our classmates joined us and magically the rain stopped, so we could get into the heart of the park and enjoy sun.
Giving us dirty, dirty looks
After the short lunch break we headed to our next stop: the National Gallery. Our whole group gathered in the hallway just to be divided into two groups for the guided tour. A big portion of the gallery was currently under construction, so many of the paintings were not in their “ideal” or their “own” places. We weren’t really reassured by all the pieces of art there, let alone about our guide. She might have been professional and subjectively good guide, but we both agreed that she concentrated on completely different things than what we would have wanted to hear about. Our group finished before the other, so Noora went along to listen about the last two paintings they were shown. As the grass is always greener on the other side, she would have preferred the other guide, but you can’t always win. After our doze of culture and art we went to the minibus to collect our luggage – we were to stay in Dublin and after a few days continue to Belfast.
We waved goodbye to the others and went on to find our way to the bus station to collect our Freedom passes. The journey went well, as we had previously marked the correct location on our maps and we could enjoy our surroundings: we passed the beautiful Trinity College and colorful Temple Bar on our way. We asked for the directions from the bus station, since we didn’t know where the right stop from where to take our bus to our B&B was and we were advised to go back to the “big needle” and turn left. We were a bit confused; we hadn’t seen a needle on our way there.
The ”big needle”
When we got out we were even more surprised – in the middle of O’Connell street there was over 100 meters high monument we honestly had missed. From there it was easy to find our stop and the trip to Raheny took us 20 minutes.
The B&B looked nice as did the neighborhood and when we knocked to the door there came a sweet looking old lady to welcome us. She was so nice and tried to help us in any ways she could. It came soon clear to us that sometimes she couldn’t remember things that we just told her or she had told us but she was very sweet and funny. By the time we were quite hungry and wanted to find a place to eat, so she made a phone call and booked a table from a nearby restaurant for us. We went there but soon realized that we didn’t have enough money with us for the prices there so we had to leave and find a cheaper place to eat. From the Raheny center we found a nice little pub called Cock & Bull where we ordered a pizza with chicken, BBQ-sauce and goat’s cheese, which was heavenly. After our late dinner we went back to our B&B, where it was quite cold despite all the blankets we were given.
In the morning the sweet lady cooked us Irish breakfast with sausages, eggs, bacon, and of course black tea, which was a bit strong and bitter after getting used to green tea. After breakfast we went to Dublin city center and got our Dublin city passes for the following day. As keen fans of flea markets we searched for charity shops in Dublin city center – they were so many, but we only ended up visiting a few of them. In the evening we found a great looking restaurant – Le Bon Crubeen – where we decided to have our dinner. They had a wonderful early bird menu, from which we ordered the whole lot of three courses. For a starter Siru had Caesar Salad and Noora settled for Goats Cheese Salad, both equally tasty. For the main course we both took modernized version of fish and chips, which was seasoned pretty mildly, but was still good with some lemon squeezed on top of it. As a beautiful end we had raspberry bavarois with mango and strawberry salsa topped with a chocolate snap. The dessert was a bit sweet, but altogether the food was as good as we had hoped for as was the service we got.
On Saturday morning we went to the city center and hopped on to the Dublin City Sightseeing bus, as we planned to visit as many places as possible that day. We stopped at the Chester Beatty Library, where we took a stroll around a nice green area where you could just walk around and sit on the benches. From there we walked to Christ Church Cathedral – a huge and noble building. We visited the crypt downstairs, where there were a few statues and glass showcase with some golden items. There was also an exhibition of costumes from The Tudors. In the very last corner of the crypt there was a vitrine, which held a cat and a rat – both mummified – which were found dead inside the organ.
After the cathedral we continued to Dublinia, a collection of exhibitions where “the history is brought to life”. We were interested in seeing the exhibition of Viking and Medieval Ages. The experience was horrid – the whole place seemed so phony, childish and fake that we lost interest pretty quickly and wanted just to get out. Luckily we went to the St. Patrick’s Cathedral next – the beautiful and skilled architecture helped us to regain our moods. There was a choir from United States performing and we stayed and listened for a while. A great cathedral was truly an inspiring surroundings for such tranquil, touching music – we only left when they changed to negro spirituals, which didn’t seem to fit with the context. From the calmness of the cathedral we proceeded to the buzz of the Guinness Store House.
Because of our pre-purchased tickets we didn’t have to queue but could instead get straight in. The tour of the brewery took us through several floors with countless machines and information on how the famous pint is produced. The higher we went the more crowded it got. On one of the floors there was a point for beer samples and on another there was a guided tasting – the lines for those were longer than anywhere. In the tasting experience there was first a room where there were barrels with steam coming from them. They presented the four distinct tastes found in the Guinness and you could try and smell the caramel, malt, barley and hops. In the next room we tasted a small sample of the Guinness beer with a guide who told us how to properly savor it and taste the most aromas in it. After the guided tasting we continued to our last stop – the Gravity Bar on the topmost floor with supposedly best view over Dublin. In the suffocating crowd we squeezed ourselves forward and collected our free pint. The floor was crammed and there wasn’t any possibility to see outside, let alone the windows. After some squeezing and pushing we managed to catch a glimpse of the view outside and soon enough after that we saw it best to retreat to the lover levels – the heat was incredibly intense and the air felt very thick.
The day had been long and exhausting and finding a restaurant that would satisfy both proved to be difficult. In the end we just gave up and went to Talbot 101, of which Noora had previously read about. The place was small and almost as crowded as the Storehouse before. We managed to get a free table, so we decided to stay even though it was extremely noisy in there.
On Sunday we went yet again to Dublin center where we bought some postcards that we could send to our family and friends. We would leave for Belfast later that day, so to pass the time we went to a café to write the cards in advance. After some difficulties with two different buses and a couple hours long bus ride we arrived at Belfast. Once there we discovered that there had been a football match Finland vs. Northern Ireland, due to which there were many Finns in the city. We asked a passerby of the outcome of the game, but to our grief (or indifference in Noora’s part) we had lost it. Our apartment was within a reasonable distance from the center and as we found our apartment seemed to be more like a hotel, to which we were very satisfied. After we had settled in we went to a nearby shop to pick up little something to scrape together in the apartment’s kitchen. We ate and bathed and went to sleep, because the next day would be again a busy one – we would be going on a trip.