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Yay, I'm still alive!
So, I got up at 6am this morning to say goodbye to my classmates. Then I crashed for another few hours- I need my sleep. Gonna be busy this week!
I woke back up again at 9:15am, skipped the shower because they turned off the hot water again (probably in anticipation of us leaving), ate my breakfast, and then creatively packed everything in my dad's big o suitcase. It weight 21kg when I got on the place... It's at least 30kg now. It was interesting trying to figure out how to fit everyone's souvenirs, my clothes, my dirty clothes, and other random crap like shoes into my suitcase in ways that kept the breakables from breaking. I managed it, though.
About 11am I headed out to my hostel- Paddys Palace (stupid name, lol). I got there at 12 noon as planned at check-in time. It was a pain in the ass dragging my suitcase downtown, but I made it. Hella hurt my arms! The hostel was pretty quiet when I got there. Their internet is broken, but there's a hella cheap internet cafe (where I am now) right down the street- only 1 euro per hour! I'm in a dorm room downstairs- I think there's 10 beds in there, and they didn't all seem to be occupied when I got there. They DO, thankfully, have a luggage room! This is a blessing, because I can leave the ginormous suitcase at the hostel while I'm on the 3 day tour and not have to worry about people rummaging through it while I'm out and about during the daytime. There's a bathroom downstairs with 3 toilets and 1 shower- didn't look the cleanest in the world but I guess that's what flip flops are for. I think the majority of the dorms are upstairs above the lobby. The lady said there's free breakfast (sure to be minimal if it's free- like a croissant and coffee or something), and my tour departs at 8am tomorrow. Not too bad. Oh, another nice thing is only people staying in my dorm room have access to it, via a key card lock.
So, I rummaged around in my luggage, pulled out what I'd need for the day, and checked all but my toiletries and a pillow into the luggage storage. Then I hopped onto DART and rode to Howth. Got there about 1pm. I walked around looking for a place to eat lunch. While I was walking along the harbor, I saw a crowd of people by the water. So I mosied on over to see what was going on. There were a bunch of giant harbor seals in the water- people were feeding them fish they'd bought across the street! They were pretty cute. I ended up eating at a place called Wright's Findlater, and had some seafood chowder, brown bread and tea. The chowder was a little thin for my taste (I like it thick and creamy), but it had whole mussels and clams in it, complete with shells! I thought that was pretty nifty.
Then I set off on my hike of the Howth Peninsula. I ended up on the wrong street at first (the map was not clearly labelled, and a couple places were incorrectly placed on the map) and walked by St. Mary's Abbey. It's a stone ruin of a building surrounded by grave stones. I walked around it for a few minutes, and then set off to find the right street. I found a side street down a stone alley (pretty cool looking), and hopped onto another street that looked like it might be the right one on the map. I stopped at some radio museum to get directions. There was a really old nice man inside. I told him I was a little lost and was trying to get to the cliff walk. He says in his Irish accent, "Oh well now, there's no rason to bee lost! Just go back down the path toward the pillars and go left to the road!" I thanked him. He says, obviously noting my accent, "Long way from home, are yeh?" Me, "Yeah, I'm from California." Him, "Oh, I hear it's always sunny there!" Me, laughing, "Most of the time." Him, "Kind of a wet day for hiking, eh?" Me, "Oh well, I've noticed around here that if the sun DOES come out you should consider yourself lucky!" He laughed. Nice old man.
So I got back on the road to the cliff walk. I did find it, and it was really really pretty. I got to walk along green hills, with steep rocky cliffs. I could see why they don't want you on it in bad weather- one slip or strong wind, and you're effed. Down into the ocean you go. So I I'm walking.. There's lots of people around. I ran into someone every 5-10min or so going one way or the other. At one point I'm by myself again, and I turn around a bend with a lot of tall grass on either side of me. There's a big hairy black dog sitting in the middle of the trail staring at me. My first instant thought is Stephen King- oh crap! lol, I dunno, but seriously... that's what I thought of. Then I heard scuffling to the side of the dog off the trail, so I took a few steps forward and a big man appears. The grass is so tall, I only see the top half of him. He notices me and starts apologizing and acting embarrassed. I'm thinking, "oh.. crap... I just walked in on the guy peeing or something." Or something turned out to be right. I stood there on the trail not wanting to get closer until he was done with whatever, but he waved me forward and apologized some more. So I thought he was done! So I start walking forward and as I turned the bend in the trail where he was, HE WAS FREAKIN' COMPLETELY NAKED FROM THE WAIST DOWN! What the hell?! lol. I covered the scene with my jacket as I walked by the hairy man, and he starts making small talk with me! "So, where you from?" He sounded like he had a German accent. "California," I squeaked as I walked by. Him,"Oh okay." Me, "Hot day, eh?" Him laughing, "Yeah!" It was cloudy and sprinkling all morning, and the sun had finally peeked out. IT was getting really humid. I think he was changing from pants to shorts or something. lol, NOT the scenery I was expecting during my hike!!
I continued my awesome cliff walk past a pretty lighthouse against some green cliffs. Shortly after that I became very thankful I wore jeans. The vegetation got so high and thick, that I was brushing up against everything and getting really muddy. A giant bumblebee even dive bombed me- scared the s*** out of me! The trail was along the coast in front of people's properties- so I passed by lots of rich rich people houses. I came across another guy, this time peeing. He looked embarrassed and apologized. I told him, "Don't worry, I passed by worse earlier." (The men with their pants down were only 2 of the dozens of people I passed on my hike). Eventually the trail turned inland, and another couple of guys passed me. They had Irish accents and one of them stopped me- "Do you know about the guy camping in the bushes?" Me, "No..." He explained they saw a tent in the bushes up the trail, and then noticed it was surrounded by beer bottles. The guy came out and they booked it. They just wanted to warn me to stay to the left. So I kept going, a little worried at this point, but I never came across the guy. However, I somehow effed up and lost the trail I was supposed to be on. I ended up on a road, so I just followed that for another mile through a rich people neighborhood. It was a good mile up a hill- totally sucked and I was exhausted. I finally reached what's called the Summit, and I was ready to just get back to the village- eff the trail. I finally figured out where I was on the map, and I could have continued down another trail, but I saw a waiting bus that looked very inviting at the moment. So I bought some cranberry juice at a market and hopped on the bus. I was very sweaty, itchy and tired.
The bus took me back down to the village- it would have been another couple miles by road and even longer by the trail. I wandered down the street and stopped into a small cafe to buy a panini- cheese, tomato and pesto. Hella yummy. Then I kept walking down the main road. If I had continued the trail back at the summit it would have taken me the back way to Howth Castle. I still wanted to see my castle dammit, so I followed the roads until I reached it. It was bigger than Malahide, but crumbling in places and deserted. Other parts looked really new, like they'd been restored or added on after the fact.
Then I headed back down to the village again, picked up an iced mocha at a cafe, and then went back to the DART station. It was 6pm at that point, and I was done hiking for the day.
It's almost 8pm now, so I'm gonna head back to the hostel, shower, and pack my things for tomorrow. I'm gonna stuff 3 days worth of clothes and other necessities into my backpack and shoulder bag, and leave everything else in my luggage at the hostel in Dublin.
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