dublin!

i have had a brilliant week!
ok get your mind in order aisling, start from the beginning
on tuesday april 5 after my last post i stayed up until 1am skyping mum and making sure i had everything organised. i had a taxi booked to take me down to the bus depot in high wycombe and then a 1 hour bus ride to luton airport. at the airport it all got a bit intense as ryanair are the devil and really strict on size limits. after squashing my bag down i managed to make it small enough to satisfy the people working at the desk and i boarded the flight where i finally realised how exhausted i was! i got excited when ireland loomed on the horizon and i was through customs in a couple of minutes (hurray for having a british passport). my aunt andrea collected me and took me straight to see my granny for breakfast and then we went on to the pavilions in swords, near where i used to live. after visiting the pavilions andrea took me out to the house i had lived in when i was very young and we went to another shopping centre! eventually we headed back to her house, i saw my uncle patrick and put my case away etc. in the evening andrea and i went to see "killing bono" at the cinema which we both thought was great; very funny and very attractive leads.

on thursday i met my granny in town and we had morning tea...lunch...and afternoon tea, while she did some shopping and we had a nice chat. i had to work out how to ride the bus which was scary, but i did it! also while i was standing at the bus stop in dublin waiting to go back to my aunt and uncles house, a drug deal was casually going on beside me. in broad daylight. thanks for moving us away mum and dad!
 the in the evening andrea and i attempted to go for a walk...but ended up window shopping again.

friday i met up with angela, my great aunt and she took me out for lunch. again it was very strange to see someone who i had known when i was a kid and now treated me like an adult. i found it weird anyway.
friday evening/night i went out to a pub with my cousin daniel and his friends. it was a good night ,ending quite early around 2am and i then talked to people online for a couple of hours.

saturday i was staying at my granny's house, we saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof performed at the theatre and i had an early night - asleep before midnight for once!

on sunday around 2pm andrea came to get me and drive me out to donabate where i used to live until i was 12 and i was staying with my friend aine. almost immediately after arriving at her house we went for a 2 hour "clifftop walk" around the peninsula that donabate is on; just catching up. aine's parents took us out for dinner and we talked the whole way through dinner like no time at all had passed. we both discovered the other loves the vampire diaries which filled in the next two evenings as we worked our way through her season 1 dvd.

monday morning aine and i went in to trinity college where she is studying, to meet with her boyfriend and go for lunch to a creperie just down the road. after this they discovered that i hadn't had marks & spencers cookies and decided to end this travesty and brought me to the store where we waited around for the fresh bags of cookies to be put out before buying individual portions of milk and going back to the trinity grounds to eat them. it rained on the way so aine's plan of sitting on the grass was thwarted and we ended up in a corner sitting on couches and eating our way into a food coma where we remained for a good hour or so. when we got back to donabate aine studied a bit and i downloaded music, organised my things and generally kept out of the way.

tuesday morning aine got up early to study so i talked to friends at home until her sister ciara got home from school and we went to the pavilions. again, we spent quite a lot of time hanging around and just talking.

wednesday was quite similar - aine studied and then we went to newbridge park near donabate, played on the playground i used to visit which has changed monumentally and then went home. in the evening another friend of mine - orlaith, came over and we talked for hours and had a couple of drinks before she went home just after midnight.

yesterday alas aine had to leave around 11am to go to a revision lecture - i cleverly timed my visit to dublin to co-incide with the preparation period before uni exams - so i walked her to the train and then finished my packing before her mother took me to the airport. after spending a good 8 hours hanging around for a 1 hour plane ride and quietly checking out the swedish guys sitting near me; i got back to godstowe and went upstairs , jumped on georgie and ate chocolate before going to bed.

we're going to turkey on sunday morning, our flights and tour are booked and paid for, i just booked a taxi to take us to heathrow and then we realised that we have no accommodation booked for our last night in turkey. yay! well done us! it's all under control now but it was a tense few minutes.