Day 7

Today was our last semi-day in Ireland and our last day in a hostel until the last week of our trip (YES!!!). At 9 we had a scheduled lecture at Trinity College, so we left at about 8:20 to walk over there. Our lecturer was Jeffrey Callen, who is not labeled as a professor in Ireland but a senior lecturer, but in the states we would call him a professor. I thought his lecture was really interesting! He is a linguist and has been in Ireland for the past 30 years (he is American) studying Irish English. He spent most of the lecture talking about the history and how English came to be in Ireland. He also gave some fun examples with signs in Ireland and how they use both English and Irish to do clever things. For example, he showed a picture of a glass repair truck and the company was named Brishta glass repair. But it is funny because in Irish briste (pronounced brishta) is the word for broken. So he was talking about how you pick up on all kinds of funny things like that if you know Irish.

After the lecture me, Robyn, Marissa and Mandy decided just to wander around for a while until we had to be back at the hostel to meet a bus at 1:30. We found a street called Henry Street that had a bunch of shops and I finally bought a hair dryer! I have been waiting for a week to make that purchase. Besides that we just looked around and went into a few shops and didn’t really buy anything. I have definitely decided that souvenirs for the most part aren’t really worth it. I usually always get something small if I really like it and/or some postcards, but I will only buy something expensive if I really really want it and I know I will use it again. I also don’t really believe in clothes shopping while on vacation for the most part. I figure that I can always buy clothes while at home, but why not spend my money on something I can’t do at home? For example, going to plays and musicals in London. Can I do that at home? I think not. No offense to anyone, but SGMT and Tuacahn are not exactly the same caliber as London west end theatre. It is just a fact. So I am definitely going to be taking full advantage of my close proximity and go to as many shows as possible.

Then we ate lunch and tried to spend as much of the rest of our euros as we could since we wouldn’t need them anymore. Robyn and I ended up with a combined 17 cents, which I think is pretty impressive if I do say so myself. We took a coach from the Hostel to the port in Dublin to get on a ferry that took us to Wales. If you are picturing like I was a little ferry in which you have to stand outside next to the cars, that is not the kind of ferry we took. It was really huge and reminded me more of a cruise ship than anything else. There was just a big lounge that all the passengers sat in, so while we were there a bunch of us played scum (a card game) with the cute sheep cards I bought in Ireland and semi-watched Cinderella 3, which was playing on the TVs. Once we got off the ferry we had to catch a train from Holyhead, Wales to Crewe, England, then changed trains and took another to Euston Station in London. Then we took another coach to our flats! It took about half an hour to get our keys and everything in order, but we finally got to our room. I was so excited to be there!!! When I got in I hugged the bed. That is how excited I was. I got to bed at around 1 and slept peacefully, happy to finally be in London.