America 1 + America 2 take a trip: DAY 3: Google Maps, you LIE!

Once again, we woke up before our alarm. That is, the 8:15 alarm we set, after deciding that a 6:30 hike was too ambitious. I am not, however, complaining: I think I got over ten hours of sleep despite the French girl shaking the bunk bed all night and the film viewing on behalf of the other Americans. Our €3 breakfast was utterly delicious, especially since we had outsmarted the hostel who tried to charge us €8 each for breakfast... please. The drive back to Dublin seemed much quicker than the day before, perhaps because neither of us got carsick! And, of course, the other Americans on the bus made us proud again—this time to the tune of SNM by Rihanna.

A bit of the view on the trip back from Glendalough

Once in Dublin, we meandered to St. Stephen's Green where we staked out a bench to eat lunch...and people watch. The park itself was incredibly gorgeous—I'm not sure that the pictures do it justice, but the vibrant flowers and luscious grass was enough to brighten our day. We happened to witness the filming of the evening news whilst attempting to sunbathe, but that occurrence was much overshadowed by the amusement provided by other park guests. The large fountain in front of our bench was like a fly trap for small children. I am amazed that none of them fell in, but there were a few who did their best to try! My personal favourite was the young boy (lacking parental supervision might I add) who managed to crawl halfway around the fountain rim without falling off (in a similar manner to the way JJ crawled along the tree at Glendalough).

The Child Magnet, prior to onslaught of short people.

I can't comment much on the bus ride to Kilkenny, as both of us slept through the first half. It was only when starvation took over that I decided to stay awake long enough to split a sandwich—we are attempting to embrace Ireland's history by recreating the famine. I think we might need to start eating potatoes though if we want to maintain accuracy... Regardless, after the sandwich, the radio show was enough to keep us awake—the main topic was “What has England ever done for us?”

Upon arrival in Kilkenny, I began to ask myself a similar question: “What has Google maps done TO us?!” Yes, we were in Kilkenny. No, we were not at the bus station as shown on Google maps. And NO, the street names on Google maps did not match those of the streets on the map at the station. Where to go from here? My adventurous ambition was a bit dampened by the oncoming rain, as well as our luggage, and we headed towards the taxis. A quick drive later, we arrived at the hostel and settled into our room. Kilkenny Castle was next on the to-do list, so we headed out to find it—and it was closed for tours. We weren't much bothered though, as we concluded that our home castle was much better, and JJ pronounced us “Castle snobs.” I can accept that.

With time to kill and not much to do, we decided to find the bus station Google maps had dreamt up. Thirty minutes later, we had followed the directions to the station and...oh wait, some of those streets didn't exist. Yeah, thanks a bunch Google maps. Good thing we got off at the wrong stop earlier! Our stomachs were empty and we managed to snag some food from a local cafe before it closed for the evening. At this point, we needed to buy groceries for tomorrow, which were much easier to find than yesterday! The evening thus far has been quite uneventful, involving blogging and internet in the common room, accompanied by much laughter (to the dismay of another hostel guest, who clearly disapproved—but hey, we were in there first). If we thought we had escaped Americans for the night, we were wrong again, but the girls we are sharing with tonight are a bit friendlier, even if they are a bit louder. We mostly like them because they said we don't sound American—which is debatable, because I know we don't sound English. We've opted to shower over going out to the pubs, but I figure we can make up for it tomorrow after another long day of bus rides. One thing is for certain, there is no lack of pubs or taverns in any of the towns we've seen!