IVIED

So now I’m back in Austria again after my short visit to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day (Sat 17.03.). I had a good time over there once again and it was really nice to meet some great people again and also to get to know some new ones.

Well I went to Dublin from Kapfenberg on Thursday. After two train rides, one tram ride, one bus ride I had reached Graz Airport. From there I had a flight to London Stansted, during which I was able to take some beautiful pictures of the Austrian Alps. In Stansted I had to wait a few hours for my flight to go to Dublin where I finally arrived at 20:15pm, about 30 minutes late. I then went to the city centre on the Airlink where I took a picture of that Guinness commercial you can see below. Although I actually came from home it also felt like coming home and that’s why I thought the text on this commercial fitted perfectly. After a ride on the Luas I finally reached Tallaght at 10pm where I was to stay at Pablo’s flat at Tramway for the next days.

When I arrived at Tramway Court it actually felt as if I had never left because it had become some kind of home for me during my Erasmus semester and in general nothing has changed during the last two months. Well there are CCTV cameras in the yard now and there are quite a lot of different people living there now. Ah yes, and parties are now also officially prohibited in the flats. And therfore the guy living in the opposite flat threatened to call the police when we were having a little “meeting” in one of the flats at the evening of my arrival. So we had to switch off the music and everybody went home quite early.
Anyway, I was totally happy to see all friends again but somehow it really was as always because it somehow felt as if I had never been away.

On Friday afternoon we went down to Metro for a few drinks and in the evening we went to the city centre by bus and spent a few hours at Zanzibar before going back to Tallaght again with the last Luas. Because the next morning we wanted to get up quite early to go to the city centre to see the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

So we reached O’Connell Street at about 10am on Saturday morning. There were already a lot of people there waiting for the parade which was supposed to start a 12 noon on Pharnell Square before going down O’Connell Street, crossing the Liffey on O’Connell Bridge, passing Trinity College, going down Dame Street and finally ending at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Most of the people were dressed up with at least something green or had and Irish flag with them and so those of us who had not previously done so also bought a green hat or something else.
We went over to College Square and waited there for the parade which finally arrived there at about 1pm. In the parade there were groups from different countries like the USA, Germany and of course Ireland who had costumes, flags and often quite big vehicles which were apart from one all pulled/pushed by men. Most of the groups also had a brass band or some other music. It took about one hour for the whole parade to pass by and it was really great to watch it. Here are some pictures of the parade. You can also watch Pablo’s pictures on Flickr.

During the time of the parade some people had aparently filled in some washing powder into the fountain on College Green so there was foam all around there.
After the End of the parade we went to Hogan’s after a short stop at the fun fare on Merrion Square. Although it was not yet 5pm all pubs/clubs were already really crowded and it was to get even worse until the end of the night. Well, after leaving Hogan’s at around 5pm we spent a few hour’s in Turk’s Head, went to Burger King to have dinner and back to Turk’s Head for some time (which was already crowded, that you couldn’t even walk across the dancefloor). Afterwards we took the last Luas home to Tallaght. It was a nice day with good weather fortunately.

Well, and another real great night was on Sunday. The original plan was to go to the city centre to watch some kind of boat-parade on the Liffey and the big fireworks afterwards but luckily we read the St. Patrick’s Festival website before and therefore knew that this event was cancelled due to bad weather.
So we decided to do a international dinner party at Tramway where we originally planned to just invite a few people but in the end it became a quite big & great party that lasted quite long.

Monday was my last day in Dublin once again. We went for bowling at Leisureplex in Tallaght and afterwards once again to Molloy’s right nexdoors for a pint. Well actually I would have liked to stay there a bit longer but during the week they’re closing so early on weekdays, that we were lucky to get at least one beer when we came over from the bowling.

Well and Tuesday was already the day for me to leave. I finally left Tallaght at about 12:30. This time I had a direct flight to Vienna, where I arrived at about 7:30pm before arriving “home” in Kapfenberg at about midnight.

In conclusion I have to say that it was really nice to be over there in Dublin once again although it was actually not the same as before. By the way, thanks to Pablo for allowing me to sleep at your flat during my stay.
Well I’m sure I mentioned that before but I say it once again: It was really nice to meet my friends again. I hope I will manage to meet some of you again somewhere someday…

Leaving Ireland on a warm and sunny day while it was snowing in Austria