July 3
(21:00) We woke up around 8:30 am to get our free breakfast again. There were two new people in our room that came in about 1:00 am last night. They woke me up when they came in and when they left early this morning. I did feel bad though, because we had all our clothes hanging over the railings of their beds to dry. We didn’t expect anyone to be coming after midnight I guess. After we got ready to go, we started walking toward the Connelly train station to get on the DART to head toward Howth for the day. Once we got close to the station, we could easily see it, but couldn’t find a way to get in. We asked for directions and eventually managed to come in some obscure door. We found out after we had entered that it was the back door for employees to enter or something. Needless to say, we just walked up onto the platform and could have gotten onto any train without having to go through the gated turnstiles and showing our tickets.

Once we got to Howth, a small fishing town north of Dublin on the Irish Sea, we headed toward the fishing wharf. We were able to see the Eye of Ireland, a small, unsettled island just off the coast. The scenery was amazing. Pictures just don’t do justice to all the awesome scenic views we saw today. After we got done with the wharf, we got a map from the tourist office and started to head around the peninsula where Howth is located. The entire peninsula is full of rocky cliff sides and green hills. We found one area where you could climb down the cliff side and access a rocky beach to swim or wade out into the Sea. We got about up to our ankles before we decided that the temperature was like that of Lake Superior; too cold for enjoyment. We explored the trails around the cliffs a little longer before we started talking to two French girls. Their names are Natasha (pronounced Natasha) and Cecile. We ended up walking with them for about four hours around the peninsula even though they said they only wanted to go on a fifteen minute walk. The adventure got interesting from there.

Soon after we all started walking together, we met a dog who kept looking back at us as if we should follow him. No one else wanted to follow the pooch so I decided I should. The dog acted like Lassy; running ahead, then turning back to make sure I was still in pursuit. He led me down a path toward the cliff which eventually turned into concrete steps inlayed into the rock. I could see that the path led towards a secluded beach at the bottom of the drop. I wanted to go all the way but knew it would take some time to do so. Since the others were still waiting at the top of the cliff I only ended up going about one third of the way down. By the time I quit, the dog was already at the bottom looking up at me. I couldn’t believe how small the dog looked from that high up. I didn’t think we were that high until I saw the dog at the bottom. As I was walking back up to meet the others, I stepped in a pile of mud and it splattered all over my Velcros. My socks were so dirty after this that I ended up wearing them in the shower when I got back.

After walking around to the opposite side of the peninsula, we saw a neat lighthouse on the rocks, We weren’t allowed access to go see it though. We checked the maps and the girls decided that they wanted to go check out the field of rotedendrums (my spelling on this is so far off that spell-check doesn’t even have any suggestions) and the castle. We got lost and Natacha ended up stopping a car to ask for directions. At that moment, two ladies walked by and I asked them for directions as well. Then another lady stopped and told us of a “short cut” and also offered to drive us to the gate to enter the park area. So all four of us piled into her small vehicle and rode up the road a few hundred yards. We had to jump the fence to get in and then walked through the football pitch (soccer field) to get to the other side of the trees. On the other side was a golf course. We ended up walking all the way across this golf course to find a thicket and a stone wall from denying us any more advance in that direction. I walked through the thicket to what was on the other side of the wall. I managed to cut stabbed a million times by some sort of Irish poison ivy. My legs are still tingling all over from whatever plant this was. Anyway, I scaled the wall to find myself in someone’s back yard. Apparently, walking through somebody’s yard is a taboo in France, so we had to turn back. We then asked two golfers for directions toward the castle. They helped us out tremendously, although they did get a good chuckle out of our situation. They told us that we had to do a basic 180 and head backward. Eventually we found the castle. It was nothing special, but the adventure of getting there was well worth it. We then proceeded to walk back to the train station and ride with the girls back to Dublin. Their bus stop was right next to our hostel so we showed them where our hostel was and then went our separate ways. We may try to hang out once more before we leave on Sunday.

We then went back to our hostel. I took a shower while Ben prepared some spaghetti in the kitchen. Then I came down to eat my dinner which consisted of four hot dogs. I was so hungry since we hadn’t eaten anything during our entire adventure from about 9 am-5 pm. We watched some Wimbledon with some others. They were rooting for the guy from Scotland, Andy Murray, and we were quietly rooting for Andy Roddick. Roddick won of course so they were all disappointed. I think I even heard some bashing of America going on amongst them since they didn’t know we were American. I then came back up to the room to take a nap. We now have four other people in our room; one from Hungary, two speaking a language I haven’t pinpointed yet, and a girl who just walked in and said hi. We are now going downstairs to plan our trip to Cork on Sunday.