Dublin...starts with an AWE and ends with a SOME

We got into Ireland yesterday around noon straight from Malta. It is so cold in Ireland! We got off the plane and immediately realized we would be needing our coats. I lost my shoes somewhere in Greece and all I have are my sandals so my toes have freezing since we landed; and no, mom, I'm not going to wear socks with them. Ireland is such a complete change from all the Mediterranean countries we've been in so far. It's so green!

From the airport we hopped a bus to Dublin city and got off at the city center to walk to our hostel. You can tell a lot about a city by how friendly people are when you stop and ask for directions and Dublin is very friendly! We stayed at the Four Courts Hostel which is right on the River Liffey and right down from the Temple Bar district. This was the first time we've stayed in a hostel where we didn't have a room to ourselves. Our 12-bed dorm was packed out. The best part was meeting a few girls from Wales who were getting ready to go on a pub-crawl. Everything they said was funny to us because of their accents. They had the cutest clothes and the shortest skirts and they said they didn't care how cold the weather was. We wanted to go on the pub-crawl with them but we had been out late our last night in Malta and were completely pooped.

We found out food in Dublin is pretty expensive, 10 euro and up for dinner. So while everywhere else we've tried to eat authentic, we decided to go cheap in Dublin. Jeanne and Stephanie went to subway and I got a kebab. Then, even though we felt incredibly lame we went back to the hostel and went to bed! We're hoping that we're going to be getting a little more rest in Ireland than we've been getting so far.

Four Courts hostel is a great place to stay. Its really in central location , the staff is really friendly and the beds seem clean. When we checked in the staff-guy said, "Noow say what all Americans say that starts with an Aw and ends with a Some". The best part about Four Courts is there is free international calling. The connection isn't the greatest but for ten minutes you can talk and not worry about how much it's costing.

Now we're off to Galway city and hoping to see the Aran islands and Cliffs of Moher. We'll be back in Dublin in a few days. The bus system is pretty cheap in Ireland if you use Go-bus or CityLink. Iit was only 8 euro for about a 3 hour bus ride to Galway with free wi-fi included.

I leave April 15th for Dublin and then....

Scribbler Too

Awesome online drawing program. I didn't even try all the different effects you can use. Draw your own....

Mercy.

http://www.mercyglobal.com/stories.htm

Griffin House

Mumford and Sons, may I be your groupie?

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~My new favorite band.

worth the effort

I'm so excited, I made croissants this weekend and they turned out just like they're supposed to, flaky, buttery and fattening.

It's a rather long process, you make regular bread dough, put about a pound o'butter in the middle, fold the dough around it, roll it out, fold it again and stick it in the fridge to chill. You then do the roll-and-fold-and-chill process two more times before chilling the dough overnight. The next morning I rolled it out as thin as I could get it and cut long triangles that I then rolled into croissants. I was really skeptical that they would turn into just blobs of greasy bread, but they are amazingly crispy and flaky; exactly how croissants should be!

I used a tutorial on Wiki-How: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Croissants