Kate (Ireland): "I know where all the pubs and prisons are"

So I went back to Dublin this past weekend. My favorite friends here in Galway are part of a study abroad program called CEA that has a handful of organized trips. They were scheduled to take an early train to Dublin on Saturday, so my friend Siobhan (crazy awesome Irish name, but she's from Las Vegas) and I decided to tag along. Little did we know that every single hostel in the city, and I do mean every one, was booked because of the Six Nations rugby tournament--freaking huge rugby matches including Ireland versus Scotland (Ireland won), France versus Wales, etc. So thousands of people came from all over Europe and took up all the accomodations. Were we dissuaded? Why no! We joined Couchsurfing.com, a brilliant and slightly terrifying travel networking site, and found a random young Dublin man to stay with for free. The reviews on his page were absolutely glowing and we bought him a bottle of wine and a pineapple, the international symbol of hospitality.

Our trip might have been under a bad star. We get up at 5:30 and crawl over to a 7am train. We're on the Dublin bus to couch surfing guy's house and the bus driver announces that the stop we need has been rerouted. Why? A bomb. A pipe bomb. In Fairview Park, one block from where we were staying, the Irish Army was disabling a bomb. Princess Anne of Britain was attending the Six Nations match that evening at a neighboring park, the scene of 1920 Bloody Sunday (in the middle of the Irish War for Independence). Sinn Fein, the political wing of the IRA, also held a protest to Princess Anne's visit during the match. Totally surreal...really made it clear that nationalist conflict here is still very much a reality, especially since Ireland only offically gained independence in 1949.

We tried to move on with our day but I got hit with a huge wave of flu-ish something in the middle of the National Gallery of Art. I've been struggling to form coherent sentences and keep my head from drooping to one side since then. Wish my failure of an immune system luck in this damp climate.

On a positive note, I will leave you with a Robert-esque list of things I've been appreciating:
+ every single taxi driver in this country (one of whom is responsible for the subject line of this post)
+ walks by Galway Bay
+ Jenna almost getting attacked by swans
+ the wildness and sketchiness of 80s night at a club called GPO
+ seeing a blues band in a tiny pub with Robert's friend Philip
+ gossiping in the kitchen with Kate at 3am while we drunkenly devour everything in sight