Dublin or Bust!

Today was filled with excitement as Dani and I went off to work ready to go to Dublin that afternoon. We had a bit of work to do before we could leave at lunch to make an early enough train. I, for one, had to set up another Pulsed-Field. I have much higher hopes this time, though. Turns out Fiona had written up the wrong conditions when she typed the protocol, using the ones for Salmonella instead of E. coli. Sandra and I are pretty sure that this will make all the difference, but Niall isn't convinced that it'll change anything. Fingers crossed!! I also set up some Integron PCRs to run. Sandra's had worked, so I set up a set with high hopes. We'll see come Monday how it goes.

Dani and I left work at 1:00, and ran home to meet up with Josh. We gathered all our stuff and took the Corrib Village shuttle at 2PM into Eyre Square. From there, we got a sandwich and snacks in town for the three-hour train ride. It sounds painful, but it really wasn't that bad. The three of us got a set of four seats (like a booth) with a table in the middle. The ride was spent eating, listening to music, talking, and sleeping. Lots of fun.

When we got to Dublin, we survived the crowd out and took our bearings. It was an easy enough walk to our hostel, all along the River Liffey, which runs through the city of town. The weather was nice, so we enjoyed it. The town looks nice so far, definitely a huge city. After a bit of a walk, we made it to the Temple Bar area of town. Here, we found the street that our hostel was on and went to check in.

The place was called "Cobblestones", and it looked alright from the outside. We were pleased to discover that they had room in a room for all three of us (originally it was supposed to be Josh and I in one room, Dani in the other), and so we went upstairs to put our stuff down. It was unreal. There were 8 beds, as with usual hostels, but this one had junk EVERYWHERE. Apparently the place houses people who stay for long amounts of time, and ours happened to have five of them. They had their stuff piled under beds and on the window sills - empty bottles, coins, etc.

We got out of there pretty quick and walked down the street to scout out some food. We'd also decided to go on a Musical Pub Crawl for the evening, so we needed to wait for Shelby and Amanda to show up as well (they had come back to Dublin after being in England and before they headed back to the States). It was really fun running into them again. :) Josh and I got kebabs for dinner, and then we all went up to Gogherty's pub next door to start our pub crawl experience.


Two musicians guided us down the road to a pub next to Ha'penny Bridge, where we had time to get drinks and sit down before they started playing and teaching us about the music. It was a really fun time. They were energetic and very talented, and had lots of fun/funny songs and stories to share. The next pub we went to was a bit of a ways away, across the river, so it gave us a nice chance to see part of the city and walk into the main shopping district. At this next pub, we had pretty much the same experience as the last. However, they had a segment they called the "Heraldic Call", where members of the audience went up and performed/sang songs from their country. That was pretty amusing. And we also had a sing-along as well. All in all it was great craic, even though it sounds super cheesy.


After we finished, the five of us walked back across the river and went into Trinity College. There, we hung out at a pub on their campus for a little bit and had a good time. Once it closed, we walked down the street to the Porter House, which is a bar that has its own microbrewery. We had lots of fun there, dancing and enjoying ourselves. A few hours later, we parted ways with Shelby and Amanda (who were staying at Trinity) and went back to the hostel for sleep. Lots to do tomorrow, and so looking forward to it.


So, I've finally got a new Irish saying of the day/week/month (lol): "knackered". This is often used to mean exhausted, wrecked, etc. For instance, after my flight back to the states, I will be knackered. Cheers!