Backpacking Trip: day 17

man...day 17 was a long one. I woke up at 4:30am after going to sleep quite late, and conveniently the tube i needed to take was out of service so i had to take the bus from pimlico to paddington train station where i had to pay a ridiculous 16.5 pounds for a 15 min train ride to heathrow. but at least i made it on time. i checked in, then walked about a mile through the terminal to my gate and boarded my plane. i slept pretty much the whole flight which was rare, and it was so cloudy that when we landed i thought we hit something and that we were still flying. I then went through customs quickly enough and then found the 16a public bus to the dublin city centre - and it worked just as planned. once we reached o'connell street i got off and dropped my bag of at the hostel. From there i did a bit of walking and saw the custom house, and the river liffey. then i met at the front of trinity college for my historical walking tour of dublin. The guide was a student from the university, and that was obvious. He talked way too much, but i learned a lot. there was a lady walking by who disagreed with his opinion about the catholic church in ireland's history and decided that she would try to take over as guide for the tour. that was pretty funny. but ya we saw a bunch of things on the tour: trinity college, irish houses of parliament, temple bar, dublin castle, and christ church cathedral where the tour finished. At this point i did a bit more walking on my own and saw things like the Four Courts, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Ha'penny Bridge. Finally i grabbed some mcdonalds before making it back to the hostel where i took a nice nap and called it a day. it was perfect timing too cuz i woke up to pouring rain outside after my nap. as tired as i was all day i think the excitment of leaving the uk and arriving into a new country was enough to keep me going, so that worked out, and now i hope to get around 10 hours of sleep tonight before my day trip to glendalough tomorrow. see ya!