Day 19: First Day in Ireland

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

          So today was SUPPOSED to be our last big push of the trip, however that is not the case. But I'll get to that later. So today was probably our biggest travel day transportation-wise. We took two trains and a ferry to get to Dublin. Our first train was from Liverpool to Chester, where we had a 50 minute layover before our train from Chester to Holyhead.
          While we were waiting at the station for our next train, Avni and Roshi showed up!! I was just saying yesterday how I really wanted to see them, and then we saw them! I was so happy to randomly run into another team. It was so nice to see people we knew. We just talked the whole time on the train, and it was really very nice. Once we got to Holyhead, we had to go on a ferry to get to Dublin. While we were at the station, we saw Tom and Paula! Seeing them was also random and also really great! We all went on the ferry together (which was huge by the way) and it was half empty! There were so few people in this giant boat, and so everyone could have as many seats as they wanted. 
          We spent the whole ride planning out Dublin so that when we got there we could just start. I actually planned most of Dublin, which was a lot of fun but also a lot of pressure. We were so exhausted today and we really just wanted to be in NY already. But we knew that to chill in NY, we had to grind through this leg to place really well so we would be in a good place for the end. We just walked everywhere, did a lot of different things, and finished. 
          Dublin is very nice. It's not too crowded, it's windy but the weather isn't bad, and I had a good experience. Everything was in walking distance of each other. It was all either really really close together, or it took like 35 minutes by bus. Because we were so tired we just did everything that was close together. We went to a couple cathedrals, saw a lot of statues, went to different cafes/pubs/restaurants, and a couple bridges. This was all in the span of maybe 3-4 hours because we got to Dublin at 2pm, then we went from the port to our hotel to drop off all of our luggage, and we came back to the hotel around 6pm. There was not a whole lot more to do in Dublin than what we already did, and we were so freaking tired that we just decided to call it a day. We saw Bill, Pamela, and Luca at the bus station, so we talked with them on the way back. We talked about our experience in Europe, what we think of the trip, what they were doing these past couple days, tings like that. It was really nice to talk to them, and it was also a very nice reminder that we had made it to Ireland, and we were done with this Europe leg. 
          While we were talking I mentioned how excited I was to be heading back to the states to have cellular and places I know, and all those things. Me and my dad were very excited, and then Bill looked at us like we were kind of delirious and was just like, "We have one more country! We're not going back to the US yet." My stomach dropped. We had worked so hard so we could totally relax in NY, and we had that mindset for probably the past week. So learning that we had one more place to go was just, so shocking. It was our won fault that we thought that. We had heard from previous years that the Europe leg finishes off the GSH before heading to their ending point, and we hadn't counted up how many places we've been. So we still have one more place to go before NY. I went to the room and screamed into my pillow for a couple minutes about it. Not because it was bad news, but just because I had not prepared (mentally, physically, and emotionally) for having another place to scavenge before NY. 
          I had some stuff I had to catch up on, and I had to shower before our meeting at 10pm, so I was doing all of that while my dad was napping. I was very jealous of him. But eventually I got that stuff done and we went down to dinner and ordered some food real quick while talking to some more teams before our big group meeting.
          Everyone was talking about their trips, and there seemed to be a lot of things that went wrong for people travel wise. Everyone went on the wrong trains, the wrong way, to the wrong country, and it all just seemed very chaotic. I had no idea our experience here actually went so much smoother than so many people's. We had one small hiccup with the train and that was it. The Traveling Bohemians spent 3 of their days traveling the whole time trying to get from one place to another, and I felt really bad for them. 
          So overall Europe was a very good experience. I think Europe is absolutely beautiful, it would be a great place to visit, and I think we did pretty well. Even though we stopped earlier than we could've for Ireland, we worked so hard the other 3 days, and we were so exhausted that it was okay to stop early. I was paranoid about the fact that I would feel super terrible if we worked so hard except for the last couple hours and we lost by a small amount, but then my dad reminded me that is someone beat us, it was because they worked harder than we did and they deserve it. So we will figure out our scores and placements tomorrow. We are off to our final international scavenges before heading back to NY (which I am SURE OF), so until next time!! ;)

Daddy's View:

Dublin was very nice, but I am a little hesitant to say, it was pretty unremarkable.  It was notice-ably less diverse than the UK, the weather was very pleasant, the city was well laid-out and the sites and scavenges were, but it was just largely unremarkable.  There were no "wow" experiences or people or locations or sights.

The most memorable thing about the city, for us in the context of this trip, was that sydney and i were totally expecting to go back to the U.S. and instead we found out we were headed to Iceland.

We all gathered and turned in our Europe leg books at 10pm.  Everyone was totally exhausted and beat.  The planes/trains/automobiles-adventures that everyone endured to get to dublin were incredible.  the logistic parts of this europe leg were i think unexpected, and kept everyone off balance and not on their game.

It was great to share a meal with everyone at the end of such a long and painful leg.  we did not get as much time as sydney and i would have liked to bond with everyone, but as bill and pamela are accurate in saying, it's hard for people to bond when they are actively in the middle of heated competition.

Notable items:

-  we always have "mandatory" scavenges in each location.  they usually are related to food, ie "go to one of these five places and eat/drink something..."  one of them for dublin was the winding stair.  this is a picture of ian, one of the owners of the winding stair.  he and the red-haired woman were very charming and welcoming.  they were concerned that like 20 other people were going to show up at their restaurant as part of a scavenge that night.  they offered us smoothies at the shop they owned at the corner :)



-  this was a real highlight.  trinity college of dublin, book of kells in the long room.  the book of kells is, as far as i can tell, an ancient comic book of the bible.  this room was magnificent.  it was huge, right out of a movie.  thousands of ancient books, floor to ceiling, size of a football field.  now i know where they film these ridiculous shots when they do it for a movie.




Comments

  1. I learned that Find My iPhone really works - in trying to make sure Grandpa was walking home from the library, I saw a macbook air and iphone in Liverpool (no luck on the iphone last seen in Dubai). Sounds like you have met some really great people on this trip. Cool that you planned Dublin - now I have someone other than Daddy to help me plan vacations. I know you were looking forward to NYC, but you are on the last lap of a cross country race and should be so proud of your effort.

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  2. Iceland! I hope you get to see northern light. A lot of hug and kisses awaiting for you home. Proud of you two!

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