Kyle Visits and Wrapping it All Up

One of my best friends from school, Kyle, booked his flights for the last week that I would be in Dublin. He flies home with me on the same plane, which will be a pretty cool sendoff.

On Saturday Morning, I took the bus to get Kyle at the airport. His flight arrived at 7am, and despite the pouring rain I made it to the bus stop to pick him up. He claimed that he was doing very well in the fight against jetlag, but I remembered my first time well enough and had seen enough of my friends to come over that he hadn’t even touched it yet. We headed into city center and after struggling with swipe cards finally made it on to the bus to catch up with Sean, and John who had stayed in Maynooth. The bus to Maynooth takes a long time, but I enjoyed the ride because it gave Kyle and I time to catch up after 5 months of quick phone conversations. We stopped at the store and picked up Stellas, which Kyle was just as excited about as I was the first time I realized that they were the cheapest you could get. We headed to Maynooth for olympics, and spent the day with quesadillas and french fries until we grabbed a mega wheel cajun surprise pizza for dinner. Kyle began to drag and as expected was passed out around 6. I laid on the couch around 8, and quickly decided that wasn’t where I wanted to spend my night. Kyle and I grabbed the bus back to DCU, where we both had beds and crashed early. He couldn’t believe how much walking we were doing, and I warned him that we hadn’t even begun yet. Watching him reminded me of my first week, which made me laugh.

The following morning Kyle agreed to go to mass with me, so we headed there at 11:30. He was just as surprised with the differences as I was, including the clapping during songs and the “free-for-all for communion”. It was turning out to be a decent day, and neither of us wanted to sit around, so I decided that we would take a trip to Howth, which had become one of my favorite spots. When we got there, it was sunny, beautiful and very warm. It had been slightly chilly in Dublin with grey skies, so both of us were bundled up and completely unprepared. We walked around, and I made him sit one one of the edges of the cliffs, because everyone needs that adrenaline rush feeling the wind under your legs from the cliffs at least once. We wandered around, and with the blue skies and sun the visibility was incredible. We

wandered from the path and down around, eventually getting completely lost, but saved it a little while later. We decided that we weren’t exactly ready to head back yet, so we stuck to the purple trail. What we didn’t realize was that the purple trail was a ten mile hike, under the category of “hard”. That word was generous for that hike, but the views were well worth the effort. At one point, we got to sit on the edge of one really intense cliff that formed a solid rock bay with the sea that the trail meandered around. It was absolutley stunning. The problem was that I never checked the train times for the way back, so I had no idea when it was supposed to leave. Neither of us wanted to miss it and get stuck in Howth,

so the last portion of the cliffs we ran through, which was more brutal than I could ever describe. When we thought we had just about finished, the cliff lead directly up the side of an inland mountain. Both of us contemplated giving up immediately, but just laughed. We came across one sign that read “ELEGRAPH CABL”. I took a picture of it, and Kyle and I went down to see what it could mean. I suggested that it might be Irish, and I could look it up later. That was, of course, until I looked at it and quickly realized that we were both dilusional at this point and it was obviously simply telegraph cable. That was a sad moment for both of us. We finally made it back to the village, and after checking on the trains decided to get some food. I needed that massive fish and chips one last time, so I suggested that was
where we should go. He was in, so we headed over. It was as delicious as ever. I laughed as he became impatient waiting for the check and wanted to leave when he had finished his meal. I had become accustom to sitting around for a while, even a couple of hours, after finishing a meal.

Monday morning came just as early, and Kyle really began to struggle with the jetlag. We decided to take advantage of the day again, and headed to Malahide to see the castle. Unlike the day before, it wasn’t a great day and it was sprinkling. As I had done for every other trip, I typed the castle into Google Maps and it retrieved directions. We were obedient and took the bus to a stop seemingly in the middle of nowhere where we were to connect to another bus. To make a long story short, we eneded up waiting for a long time for a bus that would never come- Dublin Bus had changed the route and gotten rid of that stop, but Google had not been updated. Lucky us! We had to take a bus back to the city, and then a bus from

the city out to Malahide. It made for a long day of bus riding, but I was glad Kyle was there to talk to, and we really didn’t mind too much just talking some more. We got to the castle, and took some pictures but headed out after a while for DCU, as we were both getting “hangry”, or as Kyle called it “foodatude”. We ate back at my apartment, and caught up with Eoin. To top off the night, Kyle, Eoin and I ended up watching the Wolf of Wall Street together. It was really cool to see my two completely separate friend groups blending and getting along. Kelsey and Brian came in at the end and tried to convince us to go to Coppers, but as neither of us had been drinking at all and were pretty tired, we declined the offer.

Tuesday we decided to tour the actual city of Dublin, as we’d already done a decent job on the outlying areas and he hadn’t seen the city at all. Upon seeing the spire I explained the nicknames for the “Spire of the New Millenium”, whcich the Irish preferred to refer to as the “Stelleto in the Ghetto”, “The Stiffy by the Liffey”, or one of his personal favorites, “The Erection in the Intersection”. His original comment was that the cathedrals were a lot smaller than he’d originally pictured them, so I decided it was time for him to see Christ Church and St. Patricks Cathedrals to change that opinion. It certainly worked! We coverd the tourist highlights of the city, and a couple of insider tricks that I had learned in the last four months. It was really cool to guide him around, and see how much I actually knew about the city, including directions which everyone who knows me knows that I don’t specialize in. We grabbed nutella crepes at Gino’s for one last time for me, and I enjoyed it just as much as I had my first

one. We continued around the city, before heading back to DCU. I had a program dinner tonight, and it was our departure dinner at the restaurant that I had gone with Picones to for my birthday dinner, so I wasn’t going to miss it. Kyle wanted to stay back and maybe get some sleep, as he was exhausted from traveling and walking, so it worked out perfectly. We had a great dinner with all of our friends in the program, and Brian joked about Krista looking like Michelle Obama. We all laughed, and the girls threatened to cry when we left dinner together that we would be splitting up so soon. We headed back to campus after Boxty Pancakes and I joined Kyle playing cards when James and Eoin walked in. They ended up joining, as I taught James, Eoin and Kyle Steal the Pack. After a couple of games, Kyle taught us Yuker. We ended up playing cards and laughing together until around 1:30 in the morning, despite Eoin having to work the next day. It was a great time. I realized then that I wasn’t ready to leave Eoin and James in Ireland, and I was leaving a lot sooner than I had realized. Unlike a couple of weeks before, I wanted to see my family and friends, but didn’t want to leave at all.

On Wednesday it was John’s 21^st birthday, so we all went into the city to celebrate and grab lunch at Nandos, a local chicken restaurant. Sean and I split the wing platter which was massive, and unlimted soda was included. I could’ve counted on one hand the number of sodas I’d had in the past four months, so I decided to take advantage and make up for it. It was a great meal and we headed to Caroll’s Irish gifts after, which was a group favorite place. We stopped at the store again before heading over to John’s room for a his birthday party. Sean and Addison and a couple of the girls came in from Maynooth, and Kyle was staying with me so we decided going out would be against our better judgement with security and jumping over the fence. We ended up having a great night, as all of the girls came over to celebrate with us.

On Thursday, Kyle and I met Sean and John in the city center after we ate lunch. We walked around the city some more, and toured a couple of the museums that I had intended to all semester. We went to the museum of archaeology, which was interesting but not quite my favorite. Our next stop was the natural history museum, or as the Irish referred to it as “the Dead Zoo”. Naturally there would be a created name for that as well.  I’ve never seen so many animals in one place, everything you could even think of was preserved in that museum, with animals as diverse as the african serval cat to the penguins. The displays were incredible as well. Maybe this was just an example of how much I missed my dogs, but I really wished that I had visited before, because it was definitely a place I would’ve brought everyone who visited. We stopped after and grabbed student special burritos for 5 euro, which were absolutely stuffed and enjoyed those for a while. From there we headed to Bull and Castle for a pint with Kyle. We ended up there for a long time before heading home.

Friday morning we planned to meet up with Gillian, Morgan, and Krista and Kyle and I headed to Phoenix Park for the day. We left DCU at 9:15 to head to Metro Café, which was one of the first places I’d been out to eat. I had remembered that Turkey, Bacon, and Brie sandwich the entire time, and luckily enough they served lunch all day. In a gesture of symmetry, I decided to go for it again. It was just as good as I remembered, which I was concerned that it might not be as that was the first real food I’d had that whole first week. We tried to rent bikes after that to ride to Pheonix park, but the rental machine requried a 150 euro deposit on a credit card, which is something that none of us were willing to chance, so we took the bus instead. We were dropped of at the very bottom of the park, and unfortunatley the nice part that we were trying to get to was near the top. Side note—Pheonix park is the largest park in any city in Europe. Sounds more problematic now, huh? About halfway through the walk, Gill and Krista had to go to the bathroom, and upon finding a Garda officer, he suggested that they go in the woods. I repeat- a Guarda officer encouraging them to pee in public in a park. Well, this was a new one. After being unable to find a spot that wasn’t visible to somebody, they ran ahead and out the side of the park to a shop. After walking that far, we went out and sat for a long time, eventually Sean, John, Julia, Kelsey, and Brian met up with us. We all laughed as Gill tried to to a handstand, and they tried to throw Kyle. After spending all day there, we headed back to DCU for one last family dinner, or as it was called “the last supper”. Everyone brought their food that they weren’t going to be able to finish, and we ate a rediculous amount of pasta and chicken. They planned on going out, but with Kyle here we opted out because we had to be back before 11 to not get caught by security. We decided instead to head to Gogarty’s in Temple Bar with Morgan and Krista to enjoy some live Irish music and Guinness, which I was very happy about as it was one of my last days. After a couple there, we headed back to campus and made a stop at NuBar. I figured I had to show Kyle a good time, and we had a couple of minutes so we grabbed a couple quick pints. He decided that it would be a good idea, and on his last one he tried to chug it after saying, “this is for the Maher clan”. He made it slightly more than halfway throgh it before he was walking around the outside of the bar “walking it off”. I was cracking up, I don’t know how he even managed to keep it down because we were both still so full from dinner. We played cards again and had a great night when we got back.

Somehow we managed to eat more pasta before we went to bed, and decided collectively to not set an alarm for Saturday.

Saturday was my last day in the apartment, so the majority of the morning was spent packing up my belongings and seeing if it was possible to make it all fit. Kyle’s dad wanted to buy us all dinner, which is something we were excited about again. After hanging around in St. Stephen’s Green with Sean’s friends from home, we went to Mexico to Rome in Temple Bar for the early speical. It was yet again a great meal. We went out later and met Sean and John in the city, returning to John Gogarty’s for more music and one last pint of Guinness. When we’d finished, we headed back and said goodbye to Sean, who was flying back to the states in the morning. When we headed back, we packed up more and stopped to take a picture with the DCU sign. We met a couple of the other kids in the program at NuBar, but none of us felt like drinking. We said goodbye to them, and afterward our group of close friends met at 12:30 in Gill’s common room to say our own goodbyes. It was great seeing everyone one last time, all agreeing to stay in touch and promising visits at some point. I couldn’t believe it was already coming to an end. I didn’t want to leave these friends at all either, with Morgan from Wisconsin and Gillian from Boston. They weren’t as far as Ireland, but it would still take a considerable amount of effort to meet up, but they are worth it at some point.

Sunday morning I checked out and cleaned the apartment with Dave while Kyle slept in. I really don’t think he ever adjusted to the Irish time zone, which will make going back so much easier for him. We headed off to the airport Radisson for the night, while John was convinced that he could get away with staying in the apartment another night. We took the bus to drop off our stuff, and headed back into the city center for one last trip. We ended up heading to Mexico to Rome again for lunch. Clearly we didn’t like it there too much! We all headed down to the river one last time to say goodbye to the city we’d all learn to love for the past four months. We were having a great time just reminiscing over some of the things we’d done and stupid things that had happened around the area. Our party was broken up by a crazy man that approached us and offered to take us somewhere. I guess that was one way to end it all. We headed back to the hotel early, as we had to be up at 5 am the next morning to be ready for our flight and clear customs.

We woke up at 5, grabbed breakfast bars and headed to the airport together for one last time.

As excited as I am to see my family and friends again, I can’t believe it’s really over now. It really was the best four months of my life, just as everyone who had studied abroad had promised. I’ve certainly had my fair share of crazy abroad experiences, but also feel like my perspective has changed quite a bit over this adventure. If I could do it all over again, I’d be right back on that flight on Februay 2^nd, this was the best opportunity I ever could’ve taken advantage of while studying in college. I will certainly miss my Irish friends, but hopefully will see them sometime soon when they visit the states. There aren’t many kids that are lucky enough to be sad about missing their friends they met while living in another country, and I really do appreciate that. I really can’t thank my parents enough for this amazing experience, and all my friends that supported me through it. I will certainly miss Ireland, and can’t wait to visit again.

1. Unless you’re in the physical shape of Lance Armstrong, never ever take the purple trail.
2. The Maher clan, eh not so good.