"I wanted real adventure to happen to myself. But real adventures, I reflected, do not happen to people who remain at home: they must be sought abroad" James Joyce.

Don't miss the students' videos:
Alfonso Marín https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkH8KPx08RsACStKKJRiENg
Álvaro Hellín https://youtu.be/Ydc-To3WwiA

Our language immersion trip to Dublin. These are my notes of the trip.

Travel log.

Monday, April 16th

19.00 A bus took us from the school to San Javier airport. We said goodbye to our families and friends.

20.00 We checked in. Customs. We waited for our flight.

22.00 We flew to Dublin.

23.50 We landed in Dublin (local time)

00.10 A bus took us to the hotel.

01.00 We arrived at GENERATOR HOSTEL. We distributed the rooms.

Tuesday, April 17th

09.00 We had breakfast at the hotel.

09.45 We went to the statue of Molly Malone, Grafton Street. First walk through Dublin. It was cloudy and it rained a little. This would be the only time we saw the rain on the trip.

10.15 We met the guides for the visit to the city. For two hours they told us the history of the city. Both Simon and Aine (Garfunkel) were wonderful.

12.45 We had a coffee at St. Mary's Church Pub. Some rest.

13.00 We visited the Dublin City Hall.

13.15 We visited the Castle of Dublin.

14.00 We went to Merrion Square Park and visited the statue of Oscar Wilde. Aine explained about his clothes.We had lunch at St. Stephen's Mall.

16.00 We visited the Museum of Natural Sciences.

17.00 We visited the National Gallery.

18.00 We spent some time in St Stephen Park

18.30 We went to O'Conell Street

20.00 We left for the hotel.

20.45 We had dinner at the hotel and had free time before going to bed.

Wednesday, April 18th

09.00 Breakfast at the hotel.

09.45 We left for the Guiness factory.

10.15 We arrived at the Guiness factory. We saw the facilities from the outside, we could not enter because an adult was required by four minors.

11.30 We visited the Christ Church Cathedral.

11.50 We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral

12.30 We visited Trinity College. Library. Book of Kells.

14.00 We had lunch in the Trinity College area.

15.00 We went to the Irish music party. The guitarist-singer-piper gave us an explanation about Irish folklore. We shared dances with guys from Austria and France.

18.00 We went to O'Connell Street.

20.00 We went back to the hotel. We had dinner at the hotel. Free time to have fun in the hotel cafeteria.

Thursday, April 19th

09.00 Breakfast at the hotel.
09.50 We went on a trip out of Dublin.
10.30 We arrived at the island of Bull.
11.20 We arrived at Howth
12.30 We arrived at the Malahide Castle.
13.20 We arrived at the town of Malahide. We had lunch there.
16.50 We went back to Dublin. We went to 0 O'Connell Street. Some of us walked around Temple Bar area to see the atmosphere and the shops nearby.
19.30 We returned to the hotel. We had dinner. We stayed in the hall of the hotel in meetings, making games and eating snacks (saladitos) and clouds that were given to us by the hotel.

Friday, April 20th

How sad today! It is our last day in Dublin!
09.00 We had breakfast at the hotel and Dani's wallet appeared.
09.50 We took the luggage down and left it in the luggage room.
10.40 We arrived at Phoenix Park. We saw the deers and the obelisk.
12.30 We left for Dublinia.
13.00 We visited the Viking Museum.
14.00 We had lunch near the hotel.
15.00 We collected our luggage and a bus (it was the same driver as the first day) took us to the airport.
17.40 The return flight departed.
22.15 We landed in San Javier.
23.00 We arrived in Espinardo.
We finished the trip. We had a great time,we're sad to separate but happy to go back to Spain and see our family. We 45 people have been together in Ireland, that bond will never be forgotten.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT DUBLIN.

Guinness Storehouse

Guinness is synonymous with Ireland and no visit to Dublin is complete without a trip to the Guinness Storehouse – the Home of Guinness.

Located in the heart of the legendary St. James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, this production site has been home to the Guinness Brewery since 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a lease for 9,000 years. The Guinness Storehouse building dates back to 1904 and is built in the style of the Chicago School of Architecture. It was once the fermentation plant of the brewery and is now a seven-storey visitor experience dedicated to the history of the making of this world famous beer.

Temple Bar (Irish: Barra an Teampaill) is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin, Ireland. The area is bounded by the Liffey to the north, Dame Street to the south, Westmoreland Street to the east and Fishamble Street to the west. Unlike other parts of Dublin's city centre, it is promoted as Dublin's cultural quarter and has a lively nightlife that is popular with tourists. Popular venues include The Palace Bar, The Temple Bar Pub, Oliver St. John Gogarty's and The Auld Dubliner (fine boys bar).

DUBLIN CASTLE

Dublin Castle is the heart of historic Dublin. In fact the city gets its name from the Black Pool - 'Dubh Linn' which was on the site of the present Castle garden.

The Castle stands on the ridge on a strategic site at the junction of the River Liffey and its tributary the Poddle, where the original fortification may have been an early Gaelic Ring Fort.

Later a Viking Fortress stood on this site - a portion of which is on view to visitors in the ' Mediaeval Undercroft' which also includes the remains of the original 13th century Castle.

The Book of Kells exhibition.

The Book of Kells is the centrepiece of an exhibition which attracts over 500,000 visitors to Trinity College in Dublin City each year. It is Ireland’s greatest cultural treasure and the world’s most famous medieval manuscript.

Written around the year 800 AD, the Book of Kells contains a richly decorated copy of the four gospels in a Latin text. Originally a single volume, it was rebound in four volumes in 1953 for conservation reasons. On display in Trinity since the 19th century, two volumes are normally on display, one opened at a major decorated page, the other at a text opening. It is accompanied by two pocket gospels.

DUBLINIA

Dublinia, located at the crossroads of the medieval city at Christchurch, is history brought to life in an exciting way for all to engage, learn and share.

There are four exciting exhibitions at Dublinia
In the Viking Dublin exhibition, take a trip back to Viking times. What was life really like on-board a Viking warship? See their weaponry and the skills of being a Viking warrior. Try on Viking clothes, become a slave and stroll down a noisy street. Visit a smokey and cramped Viking house. Learn of the myths and the mysteries surrounding the Vikings and their legacy. Also, new to Dublinia, find out what really happened during the Battle for Clontarf and the eventual decline of Viking power in Dublin.

Visit the Medieval Dublin exhibition and witness the sights, sounds and smells of this busy city. Learn about crime and punishment, death and disease and even toothache remedies of 700 years ago. Enjoy the spicy aromas and so much more in the medieval fair – learn to play medieval games, visit a rich merchant’s kitchen and walk along a bustling medieval street.

See how archaeologists dig deep to uncover Dublin’s past in the History Hunters exhibition. How does archaeology works with history and other sciences to piece together the jigsaws of our ancestors’ lives. See Viking and Medieval artefacts including a medieval skeleton (courtesy of the National Museum of Ireland). Visit the lab and learn how bugs and dirt can be the history hunter’s gold. See how the past has influenced who we are today. Finally, see how we are influenced by the Viking and Medieval era in today’s books, movies, fashion and architecture

The newly renovated St Michael’s Tower, an original medieval tower, is a 96 step climb to the top, where you can see spectacular views of the city. Learn all about the history of the tower and the surrounding parish in our new exhibition at the Tower base.

WRITERS BORN IN DUBLIN

James Joyce

Author (1882–1941)

Joyce came from a big family. He was the eldest of ten children born to John Stanislaus Joyce and his wife Marry Murray Joyce. His father, while a talented singer (he reportedly had one of the finest tenor voices in all of Ireland), didn't provide a stable a household. He liked to drink and his lack of attention to the family finances meant the Joyces never had much money.

From an early age, James Joyce showed not only exceeding intelligence but also a gift for writing and a passion for literature. He taught himself Norwegian so he could read Henrik Ibsen's plays in the language they'd been written, and spent his free time devouring Dante, Aristotle, and Thomas Aquinas.

Because of his intelligence Joyce's family pushed him to get an education. Largely educated by Jesuits, Joyce attended the Irish schools of Clongowes Wood College and later Belvedere College before finally landing at University College Dublin, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with a focus on modern languages.

Joyce's relationship with his native country was a complex one and after graduating he left Ireland for a new life in Paris where he hoped to study medicine. He returned, however, not long after upon learning that his mother had become sick. She died in 1903.Joyce stayed in Ireland for a short time, long enough to meet Nora Barnacle, a hotel chambermaid who hailed from Galway and later became his wife. Around this time, Joyce also had his first short story published in the Irish Homestead magazine. The publication picked up two more Joyce works, but this start of a literary career was not enough to keep him in Ireland and in late 1904 he and Barnacle moved first to what is now the Croatian city of Pula before settling in the Italian seaport city of Trieste.

There, Joyce taught English and learned Italian, one of 17 languages he could speak, a list that included Arabic, Sanskrit, and Greek. Other moves followed, as the Joyce and Barnacle (the two weren't formally married until some three decades after they met) made their home in cities like Rome and Paris. To keep his family above water (the couple went on to have two children, Georgio and Lucia) Joyce continued to find work as a teacher.

All the while, though, Joyce continued to write and in 1914 he published his first book, Dubliners, a collection of 15 short stories. Two years later Joyce put out a second book, the novel Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

While not a huge commercial success, the book caught the attention of the American poet, Ezra Pound, who praised Joyce for his unconventional style and voice.

The same year that the Dubliners came out, Joyce embarked on what would prove to be his landmark novel: Ulysses. The story recounts a single day in Dublin. The date: June 16, 1904, the same day that Joyce and Barnacle met. On the surface, the novel follows the story three central characters, Stephen Dedalus, Leopold Bloom, a Jewish advertising canvasser, and his wife Molly Bloom, as well as the city life that unfolds around them. But Ulysses is also a modern retelling of Homer's Odyssey, with the three main characters serving as modern versions of Telemachus, Ulysses, and Penelope.

With its advanced use of interior monologue, the novel not only brought the reader deep into Bloom's sometimes lurid mind, but pioneered Joyce's use of stream of consciousnesses as a literary technique and set the course for a whole new kind of novel. But Ulysses is not an easy read, and upon its publication in Paris in 1922 by Sylvia Beach, an American expat who owned a bookstore in the city, the book drew both praise and sharp criticism.

BERNARD SHAW

Shaw's first plays were published in volumes titled "Plays Unpleasant" (containing Widowers' Houses, The Philanderer and Mrs. Warren's Profession) and "Plays Pleasant" (which had Arms and the Man, Candida, The Man of Destiny and You Never Can Tell). The plays were filled with what would become Shaw's signature wit, accompanied by healthy doses of social criticism, which stemmed from his Fabian Society leanings. These plays would not go on to be his best remembered, or those for which he had high regard, but they laid the groundwork for the oversized career to come.

Toward the end of the 19th century, beginning with Caesar and Cleopatra (written in 1898), Shaw's writing came into its own, the product of a mature writer hitting on all cylinders. In 1903, Shaw wrote Man and Superman, whose third act, "Don Juan in Hell," achieved a status larger than the play itself and is often staged as a separate play entirely. While Shaw would write plays for the next 50 years, the plays written in the 20 years after Man and Superman would become foundational plays in his oeuvre. Works such as Major Barbara (1905), The Doctor's Dilemma (1906), Pygmalion (1912), Androcles and the Lion (1912) and Saint Joan (1923) all firmly established Shaw as a leading dramatist of his time. In 1925, Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Pygmalion, one of Shaw's most famous plays, was adapted to the big screen in 1938, earning Shaw an Academy Award for writing the screenplay. Pygmalion went on to further fame when it was adapted into a musical and became a hit, first on the Broadway stage (1956) with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, and later on the screen (1964) with Harrison and Audrey Hepburn.

Shaw died in 1950 at age 94 while working on yet another play.

JONATHAN SWIFT

https://www.biography.com/people/jonathan-swift-9500342

BRAM STOKER

https://www.biography.com/people/bram-stoker-9495731

OSCAR WILDE

Born on October 16, 1854 in Dublin, author, playwright and poet Oscar Wilde was a popular literary figure in late Victorian England, known for his brilliant wit, flamboyant style and infamous imprisonment for homosexuality. After graduating from Oxford University, he lectured as a poet, art critic and a leading proponent of the principles of aestheticism. In 1891, he published The Picture of Dorian Gray, his only novel which was panned as immoral by Victorian critics, but is now considered one of his most notable works. As a dramatist, many of Wilde’s plays were well received including his satirical comedies Lady Windermere's Fan (1892), A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play. Unconventional in his writing and life, Wilde’s affair with a young man led to his arrest on charges of "gross indecency" in 1895.