The Rubini’s Realm

The Story of Dublin, Ireland

Dublin city …. What shall I say .. its beautiful but to the utmost beauty that I have seen… there are greenies but not to the extent to which I would recommend the most outstanding ones…

Day 1 (19^th March)

Left home at 4.30am to catch the bus to airport. Arrived in the airport and met our other 3 friends, Hui Bee, Pei Man and Bee Peng. Our flight was at 6.50am. We straight checked in using a machine and headed to the boarding area. The boarding gate did not open till it was nearly 30min to closing time. Can you believe it? Well, I guess its because there was not many people boarding the flight so there is no need to start the boarding very early.

Inside the flight, it was really small. There was only 3 seats at each side of the aisle. It wasn’t really that comfortable to sleep there as we were the last back seats and we couldn’t really lean our seat behind. Arriving Dublin International Airport, we straight headed out of the airport and bought the 3 Day Ramble ticket for the bus.

Arrived to the hotel, the room was fantastic. There were 2 single bed and one double bed as it was a Quad Room. Everything was just perfect. Once we were all ready to get rolling, we left to see the Guinness Storehouse. Mainly, this place just tells you the history of Guinness Draught and how Sir Guinness got into this and made it popular. So, it was alright. Then when we reached the top of the tower, we were all offered a pint of Guinness. I tell you guys, it was utterly bitter. It was tasting horrible (no offence to Guinness lovers, its just that I am not used to drinking alcohol). Hehehe!!!! It took us quite some time to finish the Guinness tour that we felt hungry once we reached the top and so we made our way to find a restaurant to have our lunch. It was already 3pm and we had our lunch in an Italian restaurant. Then, we visited the Christ Church Cathedral. It was one of the oldest Cathedral but to be honest it wasn’t something unique from the rest of the cathedrals in UK, but still, we took some pictures just around the place.

That was pretty much what we did.

Day 2 (20^th March)

I was the first to wake up as I was having trouble sleeping with my phlegm stuck in my nose and lungs. I did not have my medicine the night before and I was having some difficulty in breathing. So, I thought, might as well wake up and get freshed up. Everyone was not ready to wake up yet as it was just 6am and we needed to leave the place at 9am. So, then I went back to sleep. And then, one by one, we all started waking up. Had our breakfast in the room and made our way to Dublin Castle. Only part of the castle was still alive and the remaining is either demolished because of war or used as parliament building.

Then we visited the Trinity College. Just took some photographs. Then we went to the Kilmainhom Jail. I must admit it was a little scary and when I imagine the prisoners that has lived there, it must be really sad. One, there was no heater, and two, they didn’t have good cloths to keep them warm.

We went back to the city to have our lunch. We looked for a restaurant in specific but we were not able to find and therefore we just went into a restaurant and had our lunch. It was ok. Later on we went to the Powerscourt House. It was a house built by some guy. But I am not really sure about this one. Anyways, we went shopping after that. There were a lot of shops around. But one thing to mention, things there are much more expensive then here in UK. After shopping, we went to the room and freshen up and left to The Temple Bar. It was one of the most famous bar. We went there, but we didn’t drink anything. Instead, we took pictures and went to the opposite ice cream shop and at ice cream. Hahahaha!!! On our way back to the hotel, we passed by the river, River Liffey. It was just a river that is in the middle of the city. It was just like in London and Paris. I wonder why does all this cities are famous and they have the river passing in between. Weird!

Day 3 (21^st March)

We went to the Dun Laoghire pronounced as ‘Dun Leary’ by train. Dun Laoghire is a port. We were able to see the sea. It was a nice time because there was sun shine though it is forecasted that there will be rain. It was very cold though. Then we came back to the city centre and took a bus to Powerscourt (Wicklow Mountain). The scenery there was magnificent. It was really nice but guess what, it was freezing up there. We went to the Powerscourt House and spent some time there just browsing around. There was a garden that we had to pay to see but we did not do that as we felt the weather was not nice and plus its just winter and there wouldn’t be anything so nice with the gardens. There are some sculptures and that’s it. The house is made out of granite stone, that was the unique thing about the house. Then we went back down to city centre and back to hotel and then we went out for dinner. The restaurant name was Fitzers. It was one of the restaurants that was advertised as a nice place to dine in the Airflight magazine and so made our decision to do so. It was really expensive there. But that was ok, just once in a blue moon. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to have alcohol as it was Good Friday. Later the night, we had no where to go and so wanted to go back to hotel and play some games and get drunk but no shops sold any alcohol due to Good Friday.

Anyways, we went back and ended the day there.

Day 4 (22^nd March)

Our last day. We checked out in the morning itself and left our luggages there itself. Then went to the Malahide Castle. The nice part is, the descendent of this castle is still alive. The castle was built by the Talbot family but now its owned by the City Council for tourist purpose. The only descendent, Lady Rosemary, is at her 95 years, living in Tasmania. The reason for her to leave the place is because she was the only one from that family who was still living and she didn’t have enough money to pay the Heritage Tax which was very high and moved to Tasmania, another house that the family owns. Another sad thing is that she is not married which means there is no descendent after her and she is the last one L. Quite sad to hear that. But the castle wasn’t very big. Its very small. In the dining room, you can see a long table, and that’s where the 14 members of the family had their breakfast before going for the Battle of Boyne in those days. In the end, none of them returned. Very sad indeed! Unfortunately, in the castle we were not allowed to take any pics. And another unusual thing about this castle is that, they built a doorway of 4 ft just for a ghost. They said, that the ghost was only 4 ft. The ghost will only come out when it feels unhappy with the way people are treating the castle. We were shocked when we heard this. I mean, a doorway just for the ghost?!!

We came back to the city and had McDonalds. I know, of all things why had McD? Well, we felt that was the best choice ;).

Then we went to hotel and got our stuff and waited for the bus.

Now, another unexpected event happened here. Hui Bee got robbed. It was really ridiculous. She saw the thief took out his hand off her bag and she was certain that he took her money but she was checking again and again until she was very certain that he was the one. But we missed him by that time. He actually got into the bus and once he knows that we know, he faster went out. But lucky there was not much loss. Just money!

Well, learned a lesson there. For all of us!

This was all Dublin was about. In total, it was a pleasant holiday. J I enjoyed myself and I am sure the rest did so too! It was great travelling with these companions. J Hope there will be future travelling together