Hello,
This weekend I had my Irish Residence Permit appointment in Dublin on Friday and then I went to Croatia with Ava and Anya!
There are massive fuel protests going on in Ireland, mostly Dublin, right now, so I took the train instead of the bus to and from Dublin this weekend. The trains were completely sold out all of last week because of the protests, so I’m glad I got a ticket! One of the guys in my program said his bus was an hour and half delayed and they got stuck in traffic getting to Dublin.
In Dublin, there were just massive trucks and tractors parked along the main road. The police had set up barricades, so cars couldn’t drive where the protesters’ vehicles were, which was very interesting to me. I would’ve expected them to be doing everything possible to clear the roads, but instead it seemed like they were helping the protesters.
Anyways, my IRP appointment was very easy, so I’m officially an Irish resident! Only until May sadly 😞
After the appointment, I walked around Dublin to see the Dublin Castle, Molly Malone Statue, Trinity College and the Book of Kells.
The Book of Kells exhibit was really cool! I was very impressed by how straight and equally spaced they were able to make the lines of text freehand. I saw page 174-175 which have parts of Mark 13 & 14. You can see the pages and read about them here: https://www.visittrinity.ie/book-of-kells-pages-on-display/folios-174v-175r-gospel-of-mark/?_gl=11shwqm5_upMQ.._gaMTQ4ODgzMDg4MC4xNzc2MDgzNjA3_ga_NZKZL9ENYK*czE3NzYwODM2MDYkbzEkZzAkdDE3NzYwODM2MDYkajYwJGwwJGgxNTk2NzY5MzMy
The next morning I met Anya and Ava at the airport and we landed in Dubrovnik around 2pm. We stayed at this cute hostel within the Old City. My only complaint was we had to go up a million flights of stairs to get there 😂
Once, we’d settled in, we got gelato and went down by the water to enjoy the sun. The whole city is beautiful, but especially there! We spent more than a couple hours at this marina over the whole trip.
That evening, we went to dinner at Richeta Dubrovnik, which had amazing Italian food and reminded me of the Folklore cottage! The next night, we went back to the same restaurant because we liked it so much!
That evening, we tried to see the sunset from our marina spot, but unfortunately our sense of direction leaves a bit to be desired and the sun was blocked by the city walls 🤦🏼♀️ We still got some pretty pictures though! And we got more gelato after, so who can complain?
The next morning, we did some shopping along the main street and at a market just off of it. Unfortunately though, a lot of things were closed because it was Sunday.
After that, Anya and I had a bit of an adventure trying to go to mass because we tried to go to an English mass at 11am, but it never happened. There was a decent group of us there, but no priest ever showed up. So, we ended up at 12pm Croatian mass, which was fine, although we couldn’t understand anything. They had a good choir though and the church was packed to the point that the entire back and aisles were filled with people standing, which was cool to see.
After that we had lunch and then took a ferry to Lokrum Island, which was really pretty. It had gardens, an old monastery and many, many peacocks. It also had a fort at the peak you could climb to the top of and see the entire city from across the water!
That evening, we climbed up to a viewpoint above the city to see an unobstructed sunset. However, it ended up being too cloudy to see the sunset anyways 🤦🏼♀️ But again, we gelato, so oh well! We actually went back to the gelato place, Roma, that we had gone to the day before because we also loved that place!
A few other photos from around the city for you:
We all loved the city from the first few hours of being there and have decided whoever gets rich is buying us all a vacation home there!
– From Dublin to Dubrovnik
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