In the process of putting away my laundry on Wednesday, I thought I was such a genius because I had the perfect outfits planned out for going to Dublin this weekend. Background Info: RyanAir, the cheapest of the cheapest flights only allows one carry on that has to be smaller than my duffle bag so all I had was my backpack. I decided that since Friday and Monday were really just plane days and not adventure days I thought I would wear my jeans on those days so I didn't have to fit them in my bag when it had to be small. For Saturday and Sunday I planned variations on leggings boots and tops, not only does it look cute but it doesn't take up a whole lot of space in my backpack and that way I was only bringing one pair of shoes. Well, they were the wrong shoes, if you don't believe me you can absolutely consult my blisters and they will tell you. With all that being said it was an amazing weekend and I loved it.
We got up bright and early Saturday morning to hit Downtown Dublin at full speed. First stop was the beautiful Trinity College which was gorgeous. I took this picture because the presence of cobblestones is still exciting, little did I know exactly how full of cobblestones the city would be.
After our trek through Trinity College, we hit the Visitor Center to pick up our Dublin passes, the very useful, passes that give us free entry or discounts all over the city for a very reasonable price. Our Dublin passes led us to a nice restaurant for free coffee and cake where we had what I can only describe as the breakfast of tourists because who else eats on top of a map?
The next several hours were full of wandering around and seeing sights that included: a great street band called The Wildlings, St. Patricks Cathedral (yes that St. Patrick), Christ Church Cathedral, another Cathedral (where they were holding a graduation), a gorgeous and gigantic park called St. Stephen's Green, Dublin Castle , then it was a race to the Guinness Storehouse.
Highlights in the form of a few small pictures:
We made it to the Guinness Storehouse...phew. I have to say that the Guinness Storehouse was probably one of my favorite parts. It was really interesting because you take this self guided tour where you learn the process and what goes into each step, in addition, they integrate the history of the company into the tour. Did you know Author Guinness threaten to attack in order to keep his precious water supply? Man was serious about his craft. Once you have seen every step of the process and learned that it takes a total of 9 days for the Guinness to actually be made you go to the tasting experience. They give you a small glass with a little bit of Guinness and the walls have instructions on what you should be seeing, smelling and tasting. I think that was the thing that drew me in because I took my first drink and went "Blech" and then I looked at the wall and saw oh I am supposed to taste that bitterness on the back of my tongue, but there is also the something on the middle (I can't remember and it is driving me crazy) and the sweetness of the malt on the tip of your tongue. Then we continued up through the other displays and finally hit the Gravity Bar (almost entirely windows rather than walls providing an amazing view of Dublin) on the 7th floor right about sunset, which was absolutely beautiful. I got my complimentary pint of Guinness and they had made a Shamrock in the top of the foam, it was awesome and I may or may not have said a little too loudly upon returning to my friends "THEY MADE A SHAMROCK IN MY BEER!" yeah. Focusing on what I was supposed to be tasting I actually enjoyed the Guinness and managed to finish it.
After that there was the great Irish Dinner & Dance search of 2012 which lead us to the conclusion that every Irish Dance show starts at 8:30 and most of them are full or expensive or both on a Saturday night and a good number of them need a reservation. We decided that we should eat dinner first and then make reservations at dinner if possible, the final verdict was that we would shoot for Sunday night as it is less crowded and we found one that was free after dinner.
We ended up having dinner at The Bad Ass Cafe, which drew me in because it had a dancing donkey outside.
Yeah, it did. For dinner I had Bangers and Mash which was delicious and felt like a very Irish thing to order. We got to listen over the speakers to the people playing live music downstairs and generally just have a great time.
After that we made a quick stop at the hostel to drop off some stuff and then went out to the Temple Bar area and somehow managed to run into a free outdoor concert, but couldn't actually go in because it was at capacity, how the outdoors hits capacity I couldn't actually tell you. After walking around some more we went to a little bar called The Quays that was jam packed but it had good singers and a (European) Football game on so we stayed for a bit before calling it a night.
The next morning Hannah and I were off on a day tour that starts at 7 am (british time as in Keele time as in late) and goes until 9:45 pm. So after walking to the place we were supposed to meet the bus we actually had to follow the person from the tour company back the exact path we walked to finally catch the city link bus. The city link bus took us from Dublin to Galway where we switched onto a tour bus and headed out to the farm, which may or may not have had a name, I can't really remember. The tour guides name was Daraugh and he was hilarious and Irish and he walked us up this hill (he called it a mountain, I laughed a lot) to see an amazing view of the town and the bay:
Then we went back down to have tea and cake at Granny's house before departing again. I have to say I love love loved the tea and cake at Grannies house, plus I drank from a cow mug! We also learned about hurling a big sport in Ireland.
The bus then took us out the the Cliffs of Mohr, which were gorgeous and I'll let the pictures say the rest.
Then we went to a village and had a very Irish lunch:
After that we made a few more stops along the way for some pictures before we finally ended up in Galway with an hour before our bus left to head back to Dublin. Through our exploration of Galway we found a park, a mall and a painting of that mall underwater. The mall was especially interesting for us though because it had stone buildings and a stone tower inside it. You just have to see the pictures:
When we got back to Dublin we met up with the rest of our group and finally got to see traditional Irish Music and Dancing which was amazing and I really enjoyed. Then we were off super early Monday morning to catch a plane back to Manchester.
So...ummm just so you know that I got my postcard, or sumthin...now which trip is better? Dublin, or Cardif? (I am guessing from the postcard Cardiff is a better trip, but what do you think?)
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