FINALLY. It happened. People kept telling me that travelling solo was a great way to not only spend time by myself, but to meet others along the way and be totally open to forming new friendships. I thought they were crazy of course, because in all my travels last fall, I never once met someone new who I spent more than four minutes with! This was because I was always with someone else, though, be it classmates, others from DIS, or The Significant Other. It’s not very easy (or fun) to try breaking into a group of giggling twenty-somethings or a couple staring lovingly into each other’s eyes and saying, ‘HI! I’M (insert name)! BE MY FRIEND OH PLEASE OH PLEASE OH PLEASE I’LL BE NICE I PROMISE,’ even if that is what every solo traveler is thinking as they eavesdrop and stare with jealousy in their eyes. (Okay. Maybe that’s just me.)

But this time, I was utterly and completely alone. (Mr. Robot Man doesn’t draw too much attention.) When I got off the plane in Dublin, I was in a rather poor mood. I was tired, and I had forgotten about crazy UK/ Ireland customs. I had to stand there for ten minutes trying to connect to WiFi and pull up proof that I really was leaving Europe in ten days and was not planning on bumming around the streets of Dublin for the rest of my life. (I think that was a run-on sentence.) This took so long that I missed my bus to Malahide castle, for which I had pre-booked tickets for a specific time slot. This reminded me fondly of my experience at the London airport and my pre-booked Harry Potter tour tickets. I was NOT going to spend another fifty dollars on a taxi though. Not in a million years. So I sat outside gloomily and sleepily for an hour until the next bus arrived.

It was on this bus that the magic happened. I had my customary seat: second story, right side, in the front. After a few stops, an Asian girl came and sat next to me, so I made room for her and continued staring off into the distance, or reading, or whatever I was doing. Essentially, every part of my body language was probably screaming, ‘I AM IN BAD MOOD. TALK TO ME NOT.’ But this girl was resilient and unaware of cultural norms! She soon asked if I was going to the castle, since that’s really the only place this bus went. I was, I said. She was also. And then,

BOOM.

Friendship.

Beautiful, isn’t it? Her name was Xi, and we spent the next two full days together! How does that even happen? She is from China, but she is studying English language and literature at a university in Geneva Switzerland, and she was in Dublin for a couple weeks doing a language course. Just my luck!

The Gardens were pretty, and they contained a lot of exotic plants I’m surprised could survive in the Irish weather. The castle and grounds have been owned by the same family for over 800 years, and then a lady finally messed it up in the seventies and had to sell it to Irish tourism. Sad.

 

A view of the grounds from inside the castle

 

And the castle itself!

 

After all of our exploration, we were well and pooped, especially since I had to carry my giant backpack through it all. We sprawled out in the grass and watched some Irish kids and their dads play soccer for almost an hour tehe. It was nice to finally relax, because I really hadn’t done much of that up to this point. Thanks Xi!

 

More garden exploration followed.

 

And the other side of the castle…

 

After this, we went into town to drop off my backpack before heading back out for Adventure Round Two in the coastal city of Howth. Here we met up with Davide, her Italian friend that was also doing the language course. We ate some fish and chips while the seagulls relentlessly stared into our souls and demanded that we feed them.

 

Davide walked around for us for a bit, and then we were left to ourselves so he could head home to do some homework. Poor guy.

The wind was NUTS here. Not as bad as up in the tower on Calton Hill in Edinburgh, but pretty close. We held hands so we wouldn’t blow away, but the seagulls were loving it! I really wish to be reincarnated as a seagull. They have so much fun, and they still get to eat people food!

 

We went for a little hike to get this great view.

 

Then I relaxed in a giant swing while Xi played with some Irish boys on this dangerous spinning-walking contraption while a bunch of parents and younger sisters watched curiously. It was so funny. The moms all said thank you and goodbye to us when we left! So that was tiring (for Xi, haha).

We slept the whole way back after planning a crazy day trip for the next day! #Adventure

More to come…

Venlig hilsen/ Best regards,

Lizzy-wa