Ireland day 7 – Go weeeeest! No… east (I was thinking of a Pet shop boy’s song)

Damn, you sleep well in those beds at the Old Mill hostel. Last night ended with us in bed, completely naked, reading books too each other and just catching up after that dreadful walk up the mountain. We pack our belongings, which for some odd reasons seems to add up as we go along, and head for downstairs for some breakfast. On the menu there is toast and jam - what a shocker. Andreas refuses to eat, there has been way too much sugar and empty carbs – so he has a gum instead. The gum diet is born.



We put today’s destination into the GPS and we are of on the N5 going east towards the Japanese garden as we promised Tobbe we would go and see before returning the car and head back home. (Tobbe’s note: have to feed my metro-sexual side as well right?)

After a three hour painful journey on the roads of Ireland we find ourselves back where we first started, Dublin. It’s about a 20 minute drive down to Kildare – and after some bad turns we find our ways safely. This place is actually two in one as it is Europe’s biggest Japanese garden AND The Irish National Stud Museum.



It costs you €10 to get in – and after explaining to Daniel that it COULD be worse, that there could be a bunch of girls in the group going on about where this and that would look beautiful back home he finally agrees to tag along – OR that it could be books we were paying to watch (internal joke, see above…. Hehe). There is actually a guided tour at this place, but we decide to do it in our own as the tour doesn’t start in another 40 minutes.



The garden looked nice, but not at all as big as it sounded in the book, but it was a nice walk around looking at plants and horses. There were a small café at the venue and we decide to have some chocolate before turning back to Dublin. They had some really tasty smoothies and some excellent sweets to chew on (so much for the no sugar diet).







After missing the freeway exit to go to Hertz for returning the car, we agreed it would be better to return it at the airport. And so we did, and they actually allowed us to with out any trouble – even though we had wrote “Sweden Rules – IRL roads = LOL” on the back of the trunk. She passed it by with a smile, and that was that… Even Tobbe’s foot prints on the front window got passed, yuck!

Have you seen the Pepsi Max commercial when a guy jumps into a taxi and tell the taxi driver to go to the airport and he starts telling a monkey, that’s doing the driving? That’s how we felt trying to tell the taxi driver where we wanted to go. After showing him two maps, and giving him three alternative addresses and him speaking to the taxi office, he finally gets it.

Our hostel “Ashfield House” is located very central and turns out to be quite a nice one – although a bit expensive (€24/each). We check in and ask for some directions to some place to eat – and an ATM as cash is running out for all three of us, isch. We find this restaurant Gertrudes which is hidden in a back alley and has a lovely waitress working this evening. Yuuuuuuum. Andreas has some kind of Irish stew which pretty much reminds us of what we have back home – and Daniel and Tobbe has a burger with chips, sweeeeet.

The plan was to hit the cinema, yeah – AGAIN, but after finding out that they only show crappy movies we head back to the hostel to turn in early as we are all pretty tired.
Andreas actually gets back out to get some live music and perhaps some pictures of the night life – cant wait to find out how they turn out.

Andreas note: I found a nice pub with a guy playing classic rock songs on acoustic guitarr... NICE.. I hung a round for a while before heading back to the other guys.