Good bye Dublin, Hello Wales...

So Day 4 is here....I can't believe it's going this fast....
6 am and almost everyone is in the bus, except for 2 people who did not get a wake up call so they were still sleeping after stayinh up all night. After about 15 mins, they finally came and we headed towards Dublin Port for our ferry ride. I was expecting a little boat type thing that may carry upto 75 people but what I saw at the port was giagantic cruise ship with 11 floors that was just amazing.
As soon as the cruise began, everybody fell asleep on the firt seat they found, literaly, due to exaustion from the night before. Since I can't sleep while travelling, I stayed up the whole time, staring at the open water (I love staring at open water) and talking to Cate and Kyle until we docked at the Wales port. I long bus ride awaited us. Mike (the best bus driver I've ever met) loaded our luggage in the bus and our journey began in Wales. The sights were breathtaking, and I love countryside. Our first stop was this little town with the longest name ever. Grabbed lunch on the go since we only had an hour there and the line at the restaurant was crazy. Then we headed to our first castle Beaumaris. It was just beautiful. The view of the castle as well as the view from the castle was amazing.


Then after a three hour long ride we finally made it to our hotel. The Hand hotel, which was supposedly haunted. Oh, and get this, there was no elevator in the building, that was fun. The creepy thing was the fact that I knew the place inside out only a few minutes after we got there. Everybody was a little dissapointed because there was nothing much to do. I, on the other hand, was pretty happy because I loved it there. After resting for about half an hour, we had dinner was then we decided to go climb a mountain to visit this other castle when it was pitch dark. When David (our tour guide) said castle, I thought he really meant castle. But after a good hour of mountain climbing, when I thought I am about to die, we got there, and all I saw was the ruins of this castle names Dinas Bran. We had to take a group picture to show it to those who decided not to come.
After coming back to the hotel, since I was exausted from today's long bus rides, I decided to call it a night after a couple hours. After all, tomorrow we will be going to London.

Day 3 in Ireland...

Today was an optional tour to Wicklow Mountains and I chose the option of not to go and partially catch up on my sleep as well as explore the city on my own. Exploring new places by myself is one of my hobbies so I took this opportunity to do so. The day started with breakfast and after the bus left for the tour, I was back in my room. I started out by laying the map of city on the bed and planning where to go today while sipping coffee but ended up sleeping for a good two hours. Anyways, woke up and left for the city around noon. Took the dart into the city and ended up going to a whole series of museums and galleries... First I went to the National Museum, where the gold collection was phenomenal...then I went to the National Library, and later the National Gallery where the pictures and paintings from different early eras such as the Baroque era and the Renaissance era were on display. Counting every gallery, there were a total of 53 galleries which was impossible for me to go through in one day so I decided to just take a peak at some of my favorite topics. After that, I stopped at the Huguenot Cemetery and then headed to the Natural History Museum. I couldn't find the entrance so when I asked a local about the entrance, he told me that there was an accident recently in the museum where a whole staircase fell down and four people were killed and several injured, due to which the museum was closed until renovation. I walk down the Grafton Street for some snack and coffee and then later some pictures of the Dublin Castle, and finally went to the Chester Beatty Library where I met with the professors and a couple of my friends. The Beatty Library had a very nice collection of the manuscripts and other info on religions of the world. Then my friend and I decided to walk towards the restaurant where we were going to meet the group for dinner. On the way, we stopped at the St. Kevin's Church where the sound of organ was very appealing. We talked with the organist for some time and my friend Anjuli sang a song for which he played. Here is a little clip.

The dinner was okay and after that we took a long walk down the Grand Canal to catch the bus back to our hotel. Since this was our last night in Dublin, we decided to just hang out at the hotel rather than going out since we needed to be in the bus at 6 am for the ferry ride into the Wales. While some of my friends were hanging out chilling and playing card games, I decided to give Macintosh and internet a chance (I HATE Mac, don't know how to use it and we had to pay for internet). After spending a good hour or two, I finally got a hold of internet and barely learned how to open "internet explorer" in Mac. That 30 mins of internet went very fast. Anyways, so my roommate and I stayed up until 4:15 just talking when I finally called it a night and went to sleep. Not to mention, I still had to pack my suitcase.

Day 2 in Dublin

Day 2 in Dublin is going great so far. St. Patrick's day parade was awsome. Since everything else was close due to parade, we ended up having a pretty Americanized day. Ate at burger king and watched an American movie after that. Pictures are on their way to this blog. Since nobody brought USB cable to the net cafe, pics will be posted in a day or two. Everything here is great. A little cold for me, but I can deal with it. We also visited Trinity college and the Book of Kells, which was fun. Many great stories to tell once I get free time. Time for dinner now so gotta go...