Left Stockholm (Skavsta Airport, actually) on Sunday, shortly after noon, on a Ryanair flight to Dublin. I was a bit surprised that I got through security without trouble, since I forgot to take the liquids bag out of the backpack.

I fly with carry-on only and use a backpack. I was afraid that it would weigh too much, but it only weighed 5,25 kilo. That means I could have packed a few more things. But my back and shoulders wouldn't have liked that.

I would not advise anyone to buy food on the plane. Unfortunately I was hungry and had to take what they had. It was supposed to be "hot ham and cheese ciabatta". Well, the outside was warm, but the inside was cold. Bleah.

Got to Dublin only a few minutes late. Bought a ticket for the bus (747) at the airport and jumped on the one that was right outside the door. Got off the bus at Busaras. I had booked a bed at Isaacs Hostel and it was supposed to be right opposite the bus station. I got a bit confused at first, because the only thing I saw there was Isaac Hotel and that wasn't the same thing at all. A quick look around showed that one has to walk around the building to see the hostel.

Checked in and paid with my VISA debit card without problems. It's a bed in a dorm room, with shared toilet/showers. The room is clean. The bathroom is a bit run down, but clean.

Took a walk to see if I could find some dinner. Bought some really boring tasteless chicken and potatowedges at a shop called Spar. Not going to make that mistake again.

There is a train or something that goes past the window of the dormroom. It is very loud and gets a bit irritating when trying to sleep. I think it stopped going after a while, but that must have been really late.

Ooopsss... That was supposed to be Monday. Not Sunday. Idiot.

Okay. Now that we are on the correct day.

Tuesday June 16

The train started going past the window again at ca 5.30 in the morning.

There is a very light breakfast included in the cost at the hostel, but it really didn't look like much. Well, I don't usually eat breakfast anyway, so that was okay.

Rented a security storage locker at the hostel. It costs 2 Euro/day, plus a 10 Euro deposit. It's down in the basement and more than big enough to put my entire backpack in it. Sigh. All I wanted to put in it was my handheld computer and my traveljournal.

Today I was going on a halfday tour of the North Coast and Malahide Castle, with Dublin Bus.

Left the hostel and started walking towards the Dublin Bus Office. I'm really bad at reading maps, so I took a few wrong turns. Fortunately I started early enough that I got there before they opened.

After all that walking, I realized that wearing a t-shirt, a sweater and a summer jacket was a bit too much. I didn't have a bag to put the sweater in (the backpack was still at the hostel) so I went into a souvenir shop, Carroll's, and bought a black "shoppingbag-style" thing for 5.99 Euro.

When the bus office opened I went inside to ask where the tour bus was leaving from. I had to exchange my printout of the confirmation e-mail for a real ticket. Then I had to stand and wait for the bus to get there.

The e-mail said to be there a half hour before the tour starts. But the bus didn't get there until ca ten minutes before we were to go. I got a little worried that I was in the wrong place, but I asked the driver of one of the hop-on-hop-off buses and he said I was standing at the right place.

The bus was maybe half full when we left. Obviously not the height of the tourist season.

The drive out to Malahide Castle was rather quick. We were supposed to drive past some place called Casino at Marino, but I think I missed it completely. The driver (I think he said his name was Declan) was rather fun to listen to.

We stopped at Malahide Castle for an hour. There was a half hour "guided" tour. Actually, the guide was a pre-recorded voice that talked a lot. We weren't allowed to photograph inside the Castle.

I bought a few things in the souvenir shop. then I almost panicked because I couldn't find the way back to the bus. Really. Me and geographical directions are not friends at all. Finally found it, but I was the last one there. Except for the driver, who said he'd gone looking for me.

We went through the village and to a place called Howth Head. There was supposed to be a fantastic view from there. Unfortunately, it was like the driver said "If you miss the view, you can always view the mist". So we didn't get to go off the bus for photographing the non-existant view.

The drive back to Dublin was equally fast. We got back at ca 13.00.

I went into the tourist information office and bought a ticket for City Sightseeing's Hop-On-Hop-Off bus. Not the one for Dublin Bus, since I'm planning to do that one later. Jumped on the first bus to get there. It was a yellow bus, with commentary in english. The ticket is valid on both the red and the yellow buses.

I thought about getting off at Christchurch/Dublinia, but wasn't able to get down the stairs in time. Then I decided to get off at Kilminhaim Gaol instead. Took the tour there. Interesting history lesson. Then I jumped on the next bus back to O'Connell Street.

Walked back to the hostel and then found some dinner.

Question is how I'm going to do things tomorrow. I have planned to go to Kilkenny on a daytrip, but I also have time left on the HOHO bus ticket until 13.00. It would be much easier if the HOHO bus started going earlier in the morning or if there was an early bus to Kilkenny. Unfortunately, reality is not that easy.

Wednesday June 17

It's raining. How nice.

I decided to go to Kilkenny, hoping for the weather to get better. I had bought an Open Road Pass for four days of eight. I'd bought it over the Internet and had to collect it at Busaras. I did have to show ID, but I'd expected that, so I had no problems.

The bus took ca 2 hours. It was going rather fast, so I couldn't take many pictures through the window. By the time I got to Kilkenny, it had stopped raining.

I jumped off at the train station. That may have been a misstake. Well, I walked around a bit and found the Castle. There were people doing roadworks on most of the street outside.

According to information I'd found on the Internet, access to the Castle is by guided tour only. This turned out to be wrong.

I decided to buy a Heritage Card. Yes, I should have gotten one yestarday, but I was stupid. It took some time to get the card. The people at the reception said I should get it in the bookshop, so I went there. But the person at the bookshop had some trouble with the cash register. It probably didn't help that the ATM at Busaras had only given out 50 Euro bills. Well, I finally got a Heritage Card and went in to look around. No photography allowed, of course. There were a lot of old paintings and old furniture to look at.

I thought of doing the Hop-On-Hop-Off buss, but couldn't find it. So I walked around a bit more and got a bit lost. Asking for help got me back to the city centre and I found Patrick Street. The bus was supposed to go from there.

There was a shop that said it sold tickets for the bus. It looked closed, but a sign outside said that the bus for Dublin would be leaving from outside ESB. Okay. Looked around and couldn't find any ESB. I did find EBS, though, and it turned out to be the right place. Decided to go back to Dublin on the 13.15 bus.

Note: Be very careful when showing the Bus Pass to the driver. They keep wanting to scratch off a day, despite the fact that it's already been done that day.

The bus was supposed to get back to Busaras at 15.30. It got back to Dublin at ca 16 and then had to take a detour because of a big accident. So I got to Busaras at ca 16.20.

anyegr - I am so sorry you missed the greatest walking tour in Kilkenny!! Starts at the Information Bureau and takes about an hour and a half. Very good.
We were in Kilkenny for 2 nights and two days this past May.

tod: Well, I couldn't find the tourist information place.

Thursday June 18

Started the day with the wonderful task of getting my clothes washed. The laundry room in the hostel is in the basement. It costs 3 Euro to wash and 3 Euro to dry. Okay. The machines said they only took 1-Euro coins. Not so okay. Well, I smiled nicely at the man in the reception and he managed to change a 5-Euro note to 1-Euro coins. Washing powder costs 0,50 Euro, but the package contains two pieces and I could see no reason to use both. It took ca 35 minutes to wash, then the dryer claimed it would take 90 minutes. Well, I really didn't have time to wait that long, so I opened the machine after 60 minutes and everything was perfectly dry.

So, now that I had clean clothes I bought a bottle of Pepsi and opened it. Ooooppsss. I think someone must have shaken it earlier.

I had booked and prepaid a daytour with Bus Eireann to Newgrange and Boyne Valley. The tour started at 10 from Busaras. There were only thirteen passengers. Clearly not tourist season yet.

The driver/guide was named John. He talked a lot and he was quite fun to listen to.

We went to Tara first and got to see an Audio Visual presentation in a Church. Then a Guide showed us around outside. The wind was blowing very nastily, so as soon as she stopped talking I ran back to the bus.

Then we went to the Boyne Visitor Centre. We had some free time inside, then we took another bus (small, blue bus) out to Newgrange. We looked at the big mound and got to go inside a few minutes. They showed us how it would look on Solstice.

Anyone who is claustrophobic should probably stay outside the mound. It's got a very narrow and twisty passageway, with a low and uneven ceiling. I was inside Maeshowe on Orkney two years ago and this felt very much alike.

After Newgrange we went back to Dublin.

I liked this tour. Much better than the halfday tour I did on Tuesday. This may be partly because we had more time. The driver stopped a few times for photo opportunities and we still got everywhere on time. Clearly, that sort of thing is calculated into the schedule.

I came back to the hostel and found that they had removed the toilet and shower that were outside the dormroom. What??? Well, there are more showers and toilets further away in the corridor, but it's still a bit irritating. And there was no warning.

Well, tomorrow I'm leaving Dublin.

Went out to an Internet Cafe and to get dinner. Got back to the hostel again, and was met by one of my roommates. She told me that she had gone into the room and found a man in there, half an hour earlier. The man had quickly ran out of the room and down the fire escape.

Well, people who actually have a good reason for being in a room would not run off like that. So it was quite likely to be a thief. I got up to the room and saw half my things spread out around my backpack. Well, fortunately, I had left my valuables in the locker down in the basement. So there were mostly clothes, toiletries, a book and a few other things of very low value. And the chargers for my phone and handheld computer. I looked through everything and couldn't see anything missing. Of course, I can't be absolutely certain, because I didn't have a list, but I think it's all there.

What I did find on my bed was a computer bag that was NOT mine. It turned out to belong to another roommate. She had been foolish enough to leave it in the room. Fortunately, the computer was still inside the bag.

What I think happened was that the thief went first for the bags/beds that had electrical cords sticking out. He must have taken the other woman's computer, then put it down on my bed while looking through my bag. So when he was discovered, he had to run off without anything at all.

As far as I know, no one else was missing anything either. So we were very lucky.

The big question is, how did he get in? The keycards only work for specific doors.

"I came back to the hostel and found that they had removed the toilet and shower that were outside the dormroom."

HUH???

maureencol: Yes, they had. I did see a sign about renovations being done in the building, so I guess that was what was going on. And there were more toilets and showers only a few meters (and another door) away.

maureencol: This is off-topic for this forum, so please excuse me. I just read a much older thread of yours from 2007 about your father's sister marrying a McGowan and moving to Minneapolis. Very exciting, as this is part of my family tree (Annie and Barthomolew McGowan: i have the ship record for your father if he is Thomas McDonough and she is Ellen. Could you contact me by email at [email protected]? Thanks, Michael McGowan in California