We will for Ireland; and 'tis time, I trow

So Wednesday was all about going to Ireland.  I packed in the morning and put together our itinerary to give to Professor Miller, and then we were off to the train station!  We went from the Euston station in London to the Chester station, which is on the border of England and Wales, and from there we went all the way across the beautiful country of Wales to Holyhead.  From Holyhead we switched onto a ferry and the ferry took us to Dublin.

On the train, ready to go to Ireland!

I really liked going across the country.  It was a really neat way to see some really beautiful parts of the country.  I was very tired though, and by the time that we got to the ferry I was ready to sleep.  But first we had stopped in Holyhead (and yes, that is indeed the home of the infamous Holyhead Harpies, the all-girls Quidditch team that Ginny Weasley/Potter plays for after graduating from Hogwarts) and celebrated Amy's birthday with a delicious chocolate cake.  We once again forgot to take a picture until it was all gone.

Amy's really sad that her birthday cake is gone.  I appear to be more amused.

Yeah, so I totally fell asleep on the ferry.  I just put my head down on my arms and leaned over onto the table we were at and fell asleep for at least a half an hour.  It was my first time on a ferry, and it was pretty cool.  It was way nicer than I was expecting.  I was thinking that there was going to be metal chairs in rows that we'd just sit in, but instead there were comfortable benches and chairs and little tables everywhere.  Our ship was called the Johnathan Swift, which I thought was pretty neat.

On the ferry.  I don't know why Amy's in all of these pictures with me.

When we got to Ireland we had a bit of a scare at the border because Amy only had a copy of her passport instead of the actual thing.  They let her across anyway (thank heavens we weren't at the airport), but it was a scary moment for all of us.  Amy figures that he saw that it was her birthday, and was therefore more lenient.  I tend to think that he could clearly tell that we didn't have any evil intent, and she did have her international student card, her driver's license, her UK letter, and a copy of her passport.  Plus God was helping.  I almost didn't pack my passport (I know, idiots all of us) because I'm thinking, oh yeah, half of Ireland's in the UK, so it's not really like a different country (yes, yes, ignorant American) but I'm very glad that I did have it.  I got a cool new stamp in it.  My passport has TONS of stamps in it, and it's pretty exciting.

We took a few minutes to recover in the bathroom, because it had all been pretty scary and Amy was starting to freak out about whether or not they were going to let her back into the UK in a few days, but unfortunately the last bus left the ferry terminal seriously five minutes after we'd finished getting through customs.  So we missed the bus.  We ended up taking a taxi, which only cost about two Euros more than taking the bus, so that was great, plus we got the bonus of listening to the driver babble to us about Dublin in an Irish accent.

So we arrived at our hostel about two minutes after Molly and Jason, who had traveled via plane, got to the hostel, so we were all able to check in together.  After we'd dropped our stuff off in our room (we were in a four person room, so it was just us four girls in one room, so I felt good about leaving my clothes and stuff there although my awesome purse had all of the important stuff.  Yes, this is for the reassurance of my parents who read this blog)  we went to find dinner.  Most everything was closed because, just like all of those other small towns we've been to, everything closes at 5:00.  We finally found a pizza place open and had that, but we got to wander through some nice parts of the city and the sky looked really cool.

Of course I took a picture of it.

After dinner (and ice cream, and a hunt for an ATM that took a lot longer than any of us expected) we walked back to our hostel.  There was this really magical moment as we approached our hostel (Amy reminded me about it today).  We were walking past this pub, and we heard this guy singing and playing the guitar in the Irish pub with an ultra sexy Irish accent.  It was a totally whoa I'm in Ireland moment.  Especially because I sort of decided to go spur-of-the-moment/last minute.  It was probably one of the best moments of the trip and was just like something that would've been staged in a movie.

Anyway, we went back to the hostel and spent some time planning the next day.  Around 11:00 I realized (finally, according to Amy) that I was absolutely exhausted and wasn't really fit for any sort of polite company anymore.  I haven't been that tired at 11:00 in a long time.  But my temper was getting short, and I was getting a bit unreasonable and unwilling to negotiate, which is vital in planning, and so I excused myself, took a gloriously hot shower, and collapsed into bed.

Oh, one last funny story.  Amy and Catherine stayed down in the lobby until 1:00 in the morning (something about a really cute Canadian . . .) and so when they came up they knocked on the door in the hopes that Molly or I would let them in.  For ten minutes.  When the people next door to us began knocking back in time to their rhythms (there was some creepy name whispering too, as if somehow I'd wake up to a creepy whisper of Laura) they went back downstairs and got another key to let themselves in.  But I guess that after they'd come in, I woke up a bit and looked at them and made polite conversation about what time we'd agreed to meet Jason at breakfast and what time it currently was before rolling over and going back to sleep after an appropriate good night.  Yeah.  Funny thing is, I don't remember that conversation.  Testament to how exhausted I was.