On Saturday I left Maynooth to visit Dublin! It was an easy trip by train. The train station is just a 10-20 minute walk from my apartment. This is what the walk to the station looks like. The first picture is the shopping center / mall where I’ve bought most of my stuff (they have a Dunnes). The second is one of the main pubs, The Roost. The last two are walking up to the station and the station itself.

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Roundtrip with my student card is 7 euro (about $10) and takes under an hour. The trains between Maynooth and Dublin are pretty frequent, about twice an hour. The Dublin station is called Connolly and is fairly big with trains going out in all directions. With the Student Leap Card I got at Maynooth I don’t need to buy tickets, I just scan my card at the turnstiles when I get on and off the train and it charges me for the distance I traveled (you can see them in the last picture below).

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Dublin itself has a lot of public transit (buses and trams) but I was able to walk everywhere. I tried out a few pubs but did not go into the famous ones like Temple Bar because I knew they’d be busy and I would be back.

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The streets are cleaner and safer than I thought, and a lot of the city is basically an outdoor mall. In the first picture above you can see The Spire which is a sort of landmark near the shopping area. The next time I am in Dublin I want to go see more of the touristy attractions! Throughout the day I had a decent amount to drink to celebrate my birthday and took less pictures, but I’ll have more pictures of Dublin later.