Sunday, January 23, 2011

Life is not always a fairy tale...

Three of the American young women I met (Shana, Madeline, and Rachel) and I decided to go on an overnight adventure to a town called Sligo. It was recommended by our Resident Director so we thought it would be amazing. We woke up early on Saturday only to be met with a trip full of disasters. Following are bullet points of the trip.

  • we got to the bus station 1 hour early
  • we went to breakfast to kill time in Derry and it was super hazy and made our eyes hurt and we got runny eggs
  • Shana couldn't pay with her card to get on the bus
  • on the bus we thought we missed our stop so we asked  a 7 year old boy where we were and found out we were only 1 stop away
  • Madeline's leg fell asleep and she thought she got a blood clot
  • the bus was running late...only by 45 minutes
  • we got off the bus and got lost trying to find our hostel
  • the hostel was in a horrible location - a deserted industrial area that was super creepy
  • we went out for the night (to get away from our hostel) and got lost again
  • there were no people around
  • we found a cathedral and went in and old ladies were starring at us
  • we went to the courtyard and a gang was there so we ran away
  • I almost got hit by a car 5 different times
  • the toilet in the hostel wouldn't flush
  • Rachel got abdominal pain attacks
  • the TV at the hostel only had 1 channel
  • THERE IS NOWHERE TO GO IN SLIGO TOWN (it is all in the countryside where we couldn't get to)
  • the pub that we went to in order to hear live music was super dungeony and sketchy so we left before th band came
  • Tesco (kinda like a grocery store) was set up horrible and didn't have cups and just generally sucked
  • we couldn't find cups anywhere
  • the taxi was super expensive - 8 euros to go about 1 mile and he ran a red light and went through a stop light
  • all we had to eat was fatty nasty food
  • we called our Resident Director and he told us that we could have paid the same price for a very nice bed and breakfast and was not comforting and didn't tell us what attractions were around
  • We bought cookies and they were really dry
  • Madeline forgot pajamas
  • phone wouldn't add money to it
  • there were creepy noises in the hostel
  • Madleing and RAchel couldn't sleep at all 
  • the rooms in the hostel were freezing - we payed a lot of money for that hostel
  • I tried to get out of my bed in the morning and got stuck on the top bunk
  • there are NO buses to anywhere on Sunday so we couldn't even go to the countryside to see anything
  • it was misty and eery out all morning
  • Shana got a bloody nose
  • the bus station was closed when we got there
  • since barely any buses run at all on Sunday we couldn't get a bus back to Derry until noon so we waited for 3 hours in the freezing bus station (they didn't close the doors and heaters don't work here)
But...we finally got back. And we appreciate Derry so much more now! Now that I look back on it was quite humorous. I kept a little book with me and wrote down all the things that went wrong. I am definitely an optimist and we made as much fun as we could out of the situation. We learned a lot...like research and plan out your trip before you go and make sure you look up the town and not the county you are in. All in all it was a bonding experience and united us together! The glass is always half full in Ireland :)

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