tater's Dublin Travel Blog

I did my best to caption the pictures I took, and posted them split by day:

Day 1: https://imgur.com/a/jqVQx73 

Day 2: https://imgur.com/a/s5wnGxl

Day 3: https://imgur.com/a/c2wxAf3  

Day 4: https://imgur.com/a/hR2AaPm 

Day 5: https://imgur.com/a/3yOyakM

Overall, some travel advice, tips and stories, though:

I had a phone bank and wireless headphones to navigate.  This was awesome for solo travel.  It meant I could type in where I want to go, and not look at my phone again which let me disguise myself as a tourist.  As much as Dublin is nice, it is also a large city.  There were so many Asian massage parlors, weed clouds, and panhandlers that while I felt safe in large places, I didn't want to give any impression of a tourist when I was wandering trying to find a church or something.  International phone plan is worth every penny, and thats pretty much the only concern - most places take plastic and banks usually don't have any issue with that, so outside the phone I was good to go on landing.

The travel was manageable, but connecting flights were miserable. The last leg, I had to do customs, pick up baggage, drop off baggage, go through security, then rush across the airport. 5 minutes before boarding, and all I want is to have my first pee in 14 hours. And the only male bathroom on the row is closed for cleaning. All this for a connection that I went 90 minutes east for, then 90 minutes south for.  I literally watched as my flight flew over Des Moines to go to Texas.  

When I got back home, I had my dad pick me up a 6 pack of Oreo Speedwagon (which rules) and a snack so I could get some sleep after moving 6 time zones and traveling for another 20 hours on top of that.  It helped, I think, but today I am hitting the wall kind of hard.

I did miss a few attractions, and my last 2 days were hampered but bubble gut.  I missed the Book of Kells and the GPO museum as the big two, but I would have found so much more with the extra time.  Overall I did something like 30 miles of walking, though, so it was a lot to do.  This was my first solo travel trip, and I planned every aspect of it.  So much of it was on the fly as well, going off of local recommendations for what to do, and changing where Lunch/Dinner/Attractions are based on a new understanding of the layout of the town. I also didn't expect to do as much culture as I did.  My initial plan was just drink in pubs and hang with locals, but by day 2 I was sick of Guinness, and didn't have much of a stomach to get really drunk anyway.  I did my first hotel check in/out, my first taxi hailing, and it felt so nice to know that all the successes of the trip were from my efforts.

I said it in a post before, but I watched Lord of the Rings on my way back from Dublin, and I do feel a bit like Frodo at the end of it after my travels.  I just saw so much food, such rich culture, so many places to go, and with nothing holding me back.  I was so free to do whatever I wanted and the biggest constraint was that I couldn't find the time to fit into a day.  Now that I'm back I found myself just killing time with the internet, playing holdover games to keep me occupied, and of course, slacking off while working and it feels so wrong.  Like this is what my boring life is, with only partial escapes to such a grand adventure, and its going to be so hard to get back into finding the interest in the droll parts of it.  

All that being said, it was a fantastic time.  Nothing went too wrong while I was there, I had a wonderful time, and I would gladly do it again.  After getting some more money.  And like, a year without being in a plane.

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taterchimp   

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