Monday, 20th of June

When we woke up this morning the weather was absolutely perfect. But I know now that you shouldn't keep your hopes up too high because the weather in Ireland is never stable. The sky can be blue and the next moment it's turning against you with a hail and rain. Anyway, we decided to visit two cities today, Dun Laoghaire and Bray. Around eleven we got on the Dart and we had a wonderful time in Dun Laoghaire. The sun was shining the whole time and we made a great walk on the pier.   

After two hours or so we wanted to go to Bray and that's when the weather turned against us. The sky turned grey with clouds and the sun was buried in them. There's a big mountain in Bray and it would've been absolutely astonishing to stand on the top and enjoy the view, but we never got the chance. Rain started to pour down on us. We looked at each other and decided at once to go back to Dublin.

After a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant, where all the employees speak Italian only, we headed back to the hostel and watched a film while drinking Bulmers... :)

Sunday, 19th of June

Today was absolutely great! Mum and I first went to the Christ Church Cathedral for a nice sermon. After that we had a quick bite to eat and went to the Streetperformance World Championship in Merrion Square. It was absolutely great again! I watched the Space Cowboy again and was flabbergasted for the second time. Mum was terrified when he swallowed the sword and I couldn't suppress a gasp when he was on his nine meter unicycle and dropped his running chainsaw by accident. There was another nerve breaking moment when his assistant threw a knife up to the top of the unicycle and it almost ended up between his ribs. All and all, a great performance again. After that I decided that I would vote for him. (he won the Streetperformance World Championship in the end, so I voted for the right guy!)

Tonight I wanted to show mum the place I go to on most Sunday nights: The Sin É! With a small group of friends from the Four Courts Hostel we listened to the amazing live Irish music.It was so nice to share this experience with my mother. 

Saturday, 18th of June

Embarrassed, sad and stupid. That's what I felt like this afternoon. After weeks of looking forward to this day I totally blew it... Full of adrenaline and energy I went to the airport at 3.30pm to pick up my mum. I arrived way too early at the airport, but I didn't mind. I just waited until 5.40pm. I waited - and waited - and waited. Nothing. My mum called to ask me where I was, she just arrived. Frantically searching the airport I still couldn't find her...

Did she slipped past me? Is she at the right airport? Are there two airports in Dublin? Those questions raved through my head while I was running from terminal 2 to terminal 1 and back again. It turned out that she was in a different arrivals hall in Dublin Airport. I, stupid blond girl, thought there was only one arrivals hall. It turned out there were two arrivals halls and I happened to be in the wrong one! I was extremely happy when I finally hugged my mum, after three quaters of seemingly endless searching.

The rest of the day was absolutely great! I showed her off to all of my colleagues and we went to the oldest pub in Dublin (The Brazen Head) for a nice diner. I introduced her to the best cider in the world: Bulmers! And --- she --- loved --- it! After the very needed diner I showed her around Dublin. Tomorrow I've got a nice planning as well, looking forward to it!

Thursday, 16th of June

I love Thursday, bbq-day!!=D Every Thursday I leave the desk for an hour to escort a couple of guests to Darkey Kelly's, a nice pub which hosts a free bbq every Thursday! The good thing about that is that people actually talk to each other. Most of the time people spend their time behind their laptop in the hostel. It's a good thing to socialize, but people seem to forget how to do that nowadays. That's why the free bbq is an excellent way to meet new people who are also staying in the hostel! So that's where I was for an hour today.

Before that I went to an awsome event: Streetperformance World Championship 2011! The best streetperformers from all over the world are invited to perform in Dublin and everybody can watch their acts for free:)! It was absolutely amazing, I saw a guy swallowing double edged sword, a guy riding a three feet unicycle while juggling blindfolded with three razorsharp blades... I'll post a film of that soon, I promise!

The weather was even more unpredictable as normal today. A normal day in Dublin is as followed: Showers, a lot of sun and heavy wind all in ONE day! Irish people use to say that you've got four seasons in one day. Well, today was even more crazy. When we left to the Streetperformance World Championship it was very, very sunny. But when we arrived at Merrion Square it was 'pissing rain', as the Dubliners like to say. The weather switched a thousand times from cold an rainy to hot and sunny. After a while we were wet to the bone because the wind destroyed my umbrella...

Tuesday, 14th of June

It's all going to happen next Saturday: My mum comes to Dublin!! She'll be arriving at 5.40pm and she'll stay until early Wednesday morning. It's gonna be legendary! That's what I'm looking forward to now on my very quiet shift as a desk-monkey at the Four Courts Hostel. The last couple of days went on very quietly, that's why I didn't put anything on my blog.

It might sound weird to people who know me for a long time, but I try to stay away from alcohol for a couple of days. It's not that I've turned alcoholic or something, but it's hard to stay away from alcohol if you're in a hostel and especially when that hostel is in Dublin. Don't worry by the way, I don't drink much, but a pint of Bulmers while playing card-games or watching a movie is great.

That's why I set myself a new goal, it's easy and simple: Don't drink alcohol for the next couple of days:) I'll let you know if I can keep my goal;)

Tuesday, 7th of June

At breakfast this morning I talked to Jaan, an Australian guy. He works at a hostel and a tourist office in Dublin and because of that he can go on tours for free, just like me. He told me that he was planning to go on a city tour through Dublin and asked me to go with him:)! I didn't have any plan for today, so I immediately said yes.

It was a great tour. The bus-driver was extremely funny and told us a lot about the history of Dublin.

Monday, 6th of May

The inevitable happened... I had to go to the airport to say goodbye to my boyfriend again... Fortunately it's not for a long time, I'll be back in the Netherlands in only three weeks! Time really flies. At the beginning of this trip I can remember several times that I wished I could take the next plane back. Right now I want to stay longer than three weeks... I met so many interesting, friendly people and made some true friends here... I'm definitely going to miss them... When I'm back I'm not going to be homesick but hostelsick, I'm afraid.

Back to today. The saying goodbye part wasn't easy, but it was easier as the first time for me. I knew that when I left the airport I would come 'home' to a whole bunch of people I care about. And I had something planned for tonight to keep myself occupied. The plan was to go to a comedy night in a pub. Regrettably this stayed a plan, because the pub didn't do comedy night because it was Monday and a bank-holiday... So we went to Sin É instead.

Sunday, 5th of June

Waking up in another city as Dublin, that's nice for a change! Galway is a nice city, it's very small if you compare it to Dublin. We started our day with a nice breakfast at the hostel, we dropped our luggage and made a nice, long walk along the coastline of Galway. Halfway through our walk we encountered something strange. A peculiar thing was happening in the water. "It looks like water polo", was Dirk's first reaction. It did look like water polo, except for one thing... The players were  in canoes!

It was hilarious to watch. The players were fanatic and over-enthusiastic, which resulted in clashing, toppling and crashing canoes. It's quite friendly though! We asked one of the referees what the sport's called and he said: Canoe-polo.Hmm, we could have figured that out...;) It turned out that the Dutch canoe polo team is pretty good. The actually won the World Championship a couple of times! I'm amazed....

After this spectaculair experience we ate fish and chips and went back to Dublin. Back at the hostel I wanted to show Dirk the amazing Irish music in the Sin É. He loved it. It is something you won't easily forget!

Saturday, 4th of June

5.45am, that's the time that my alarm went of this morning. It was for a good cause though, we went on a tour to the Cliffs of Moher today! We met up with the owner of the tour company at the Tourist Office in Dublin and after a quick explanation of the day we jumped on the bus to Galway. After 2,5 hours we arrived in Galway and hopped on the next bus in the direction of the Cliffs.

"You'll see real cows and sheep and maybe even a couple of baby-sheep", the busdriver announced. In Barneveld Dirk and I practically live on a farm, so no surprises there;) So the first stop on the way was a farm. We looked at the feeding of the baby-sheeps and baby-cow. Two of the guys on the farm gave us a walking tour in the Burren mountains. We had a spectaculair view of the landscape of Ireland when we were on the top of the mountains. The sun was out all day which made it amazing.

We enjoyed a cup of tea/coffee at the farm and waited for the bus to bring us to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are astonishing. I've never seen anything like it. I'll upload pictures of it soon, I promise!:) We walked along the pathway of the cliffs until a huge sign told us that we couldn't walk any further because there was danger ahead of us. This sign didn't impress some people and they climbed over the barrier and strolled along. The dangerous part of it was that there was no barrier to the edge of the cliff...

After 1,5 hours we headed back to Galway with the bus. My manager arranged it for us to stay in a hostel in Galway that night. The hostel was not impressive. The shower was hardly working, or as Dirk stated it: "It was like an old man peeing on your head". Besides that there is a pub right next to the hostel and a band started playing exactly when we tried to sleep... Fortunately we were both too tired to care and we fell asleep anyway.

Friday, 3rd of June

My heart beats frantically against my chest and it feels like I'm wired from head till toe. That's how it feels when the one you missed for the last 3,5 weeks comes to visit you and you're waiting on him. It's 11.30 now and I have to wait another 3 hours to pick up Dirk from the airport.

Unlike the first time that he was about to visit, I slept well last night. I don't know what to do with this time on my hands though. Hmmm, I will go to the park and read a book, I guess.

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"Airlink Express Bus: Improved Route!" "Journey Time to Dublin Airport 60 mins approx from Heuston station and 30-40 minutes from City Centre." Yeah, right... Well it didn't take 30-40 minutes to get to the airport, it took me at least 60 minutes to get there and that's when I don't count the fact that the bus was 15 minutes late! This resulted in disaster... (I know I'm exaggerating) I was too late at the airport to pick up Dirk... He called me when I was almost at the airport, he was looking for me;)

Fortunately the rest of the afternoon and evening went quite well. We picked up some groceries and made a perfect diner. I bought tickets to Pirates 4: On stranger tides yesterday. We went to see it tonight at 9.10pm. It was superb! I looooove the Pirates films, I watched them all several times.