En Route to London

Woke up at 9, arranged my 3500 pictures, showered packed and woke up Toufic. We ended up walking to the park, grabbed sushi (I had bang bang chicken)from sushi king and strolled through dublin. Saw st patricks cathedral, the dublin castle, temple bar, O'connell street and henry street before grabbing my bags and narrowly catching the bus to the airport. My host in london is supposedly meeting me at the airport. I catch my flight home at 1040 am to arrive to MSP at 330 pm. Got to the airport and through security no problem. Hopped in line right away only to discover all the emergency exit row seats were reserved with paper. Took another seat and waited as the airplane filled up. Doors were shut and emergency exit row was still open so I asked the flight attendent if I could sit there, sat next to 2 foolish irish guys who had a fear of flying. They busted out their irish whiskey and chew candy as soon as the airplane was being pushed back. Apparently they knew the flight attendent also so they purchased 3 more rounds of whiskey and were quite noisy. Hilarious dudes. Arrived and got through customs no problem-- I just had to turn in my boarding pass from the irish isles. Earlier in the day, I had emailed pete explaining customs took forever last time and to not get to the airport too early. I was waiting about 20 minutes and he showed up on his phone with his sign with my name on it. We made it back to his car and headed towards his house. Stopped at a lovely restaurant on the lake and then grabbed a pizza for the way home. Stayed up talking and learned about the rules of cricket before falling asleep at 230am. 730 am was quite early but showered had breakfast and pete dropped me off at the airport. Got through checkin (no emergency exit row or window seat, but got an aisle seat up front) and now my 38 day Eurotrip of a lifetime comes to an end. Here ENDS "AMERICAN GIRL IN EUROPE BLOG. Follow me as i tour around Europe this summer! stops include: London, Athens, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Karlsruhe, Heidelburg, Frankfurt, Lubeck, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona & Dublin"

Dublin Day 2

Woke up at 645 am to make my 745 am bus from dublin to Galway to begin my full day tour of the west coast of ireland including the cliffs of Moher! Slept the entire 2 hour bus ride and easily found the tour group. Boarded the coach bus and now I'm really touristy :-) there is an asian family of 5 and 3 other couples none of whom speak english or the same language... Drove through the small towns of Oranmore, Clarenbridge and Kilcolgan before stopping for 15 minutes inside Dunguaire castle and then for 30 minutes in Kinvara where I stopped at the local Cafe for a Chai latte. We then went through ballyvaughan, blackhead and doolin where we stopped for lunch. I had baked salmon and mashed potatoes. It was quite tastey. Then we made it to the cliffs of Moher. I walked to the south through the "private property dangerous cliffs" section then towards O'Briens tower before my hour of time was up. Hopped back on the bus drove through lisdoonvaria and kilfenora one of which is famous for the matchmaking festival. Then to the leamanahg castle and we stopped at poulnabrone dolmen which is a tomb burial ground from 3000 years ago. Our bus tour then brought us home to the Galway bus station. We arrived at 525 pm and the next non-stop bus service to dublin left at 715. Sooo, I walked around the square twice before choosing to stop at murty Rabbits- an irish pub established 1764. Actually I checked it out and as I was leaving the bar tender asked if he could be of help. I ordered a cider at sat next to an older irishman to watch the horse races. Galway is known for their week long once a year horse races that is held just a few miles up the road. Apparently there was 45,000 people there yesterday. Mr old irishman also bought me a cider before I had to leave for my 715 non stop bus to dublin. I ended up keeping the glass as a souvenir and got one of the last 3 spots on the bus. The wifi wasn't working so I asked the girl sitting in front of me who was waving her iPhone around if I could use it since I was from the states and had to get ahold of my friend who was meeting me at the bus stop. meanwhile the chick sitting next to me goes "you're from the states?! What part?" Turns out she is from San fran and is in radio and TV and her husband was from Blaine. We talked the entire 2.5 hour bus ride home and I grabbed her facebook when we got off the bus. Her tour guide leader was waiting for them to greet them off the bus (McCoole tours) and Toufic was no where to be found. I used the tour guides phone and started towards the harp bridge for toufic. Found him, got home, changed, and went to watch some crazy irish at the nearby pub. Got home at about 2.