IRELAND!

Finally made my trip to Ireland a couple weeks ago! LOVE IT! I arrived in Dublin right before 11 pm and took the bus to the hostel. I was immediately grateful to be in an English speaking country...I didn't have to convert to a different language and I could understand what people were saying around me...it was glorious.

I met up with Chris Lee and his friend from FSU at the hostel...then Chris and I went in search of a place to watch the UK and FSU sweet 16 games. Sadly, no place would be open long enough to watch the entire game so once I ate some Subway we just made our way back to the hostel. Luckily, the one computer that the hostel had was open that late at night for our use...so we watched the two games side by side on Espn.com. When UK one Chris and I were screaming and jumping up and down and were yelled at by the hostel dude...whoops. FSU sadly lost, but honestly I was just excited about UK.

The next morning we we started the day off just walking around Dublin. We went to some book stores, walked through some historic neighborhoods and open-air markets abd saw Christ's Church. After walking around for awhile we made our way towards the Guinness Factory...which was awesome. When you first walked in you were standing in a giant pint class that was like 7 stories high and would hold 14.3 million pints. The you walked around the museum to see how Guinness was made, then the history of Gunniess and the different packaging and ads it has gone through since it was first established. There was a bar at the top of the factory that overlooked Dublin, which is where you could claim your free Guinness! Once we got our free drink, we went back downstairs a couple of floors to the restaurant to eat lunch, which was delicious.

After the Guinness Factory we went to the Leprachaun Mueseum. How can you go to Ireland and not go to a museum of leprachauns? Our tour guide had the most Irish name ever: Shamus O'Rielly. He was great. The museum was really cool...we went through a bunch of differnet rooms with different themes. There was a room where everything was sized so you felt as tall as a leprachaun, a rainbow room, a pot of gold, a wishing well, and stuff like that. It was actually pretty fun and interesting.

After we went back to the hostel to drop our souvenirs from the day off, we found an Irish Pub to have dinner in. I had fish and chips for dinner and they were delicious. Towards the end of the meal, these three girls got on stage at the pub and started doing some Irish dancing which was really cool to see in person.

That night we walked around the city with some girls that we met in the hostel that were from Connecticut. We went to a couple places before we ended up somewhere in the Temple Bar district that had a live band. Lindsey and I worked our way up to right in front of the stage and stayed there and listened to this band, who was really good, for the rest of the night. The lead guy was pretty cute too...which didn't hurt anything.

Sunday, we walked around Trinity College and had a tour of that. It was gorgeous! We also went inside library and looked at the Book of Kells (the oldest book in history, the four gospels). The book and the library were very impressive!

After our trip to Trinity, we took the train out to Howth, which is a small, seaside village right outside Dublin. This was the quintessential little Irish town. It was right on the Irish Sea and had BEAUTIFUL views of the sea and coast. First we just walked around the town a little and tried to find somewhere to eat lunch. We walked along the harbor to find somewhere to eat and passed a couple of seals right near the edge. We found a little seafood place to eat that was really nice. After we ate, we walked through the town some more and then headed the cliff path. This was gorgeous! We walked along the path for a couple of hours and were able to see the sea views and country views and cliff views and island views and I absolutely loved it! When I go back to Ireland, I want to go to a smaller town like that instead of Dublin, while Dublin is great...it is just like another big city and I think you lose some of the key characteristics of a country in their largest cities.

Once we got back to Dublin, we did not have a lot of time to waste before the UK v. UNC game. We went to a sports bar that was showing the game on one tv to watch it. There were 4 other people watching the game, and one was also a Kentucky fan! We were watching the entire game and then with about 4 minutes left the people told us we had to leave, but the 2 Irish people that were watching the game talked them into letting us watch the rest of the game since it was almost over and there were 7 of us watching it. Apparently with a minute and a half left in the game they decided that we had to go...so Chris and I literally sprinted back to the hostel and got on espn.com right as the game was over and FREAKED OUT in the hostel because we were FINALLY in the Final Four! I then proceeded to depress myself by looking at how crazy Lexington was wished I was there!

Chris and Lindsey left really early the next morning so I was on my own for the day. I walked around the city some and went shopping! I bought the shoes I am wearing for Julia's wedding...they are really cute! Then I went and bought my Ireland souvenirs...I went a little crazy but I've been dying to go to Ireland for over 2 years now, so I think thats okay! I stopped and had a real Shepard's Pie for lunch before I headed back to the airport to head back to Cologne. This Shepard's Pie was MUCH better than the one we serve at Cheddar's...which I guess would be expected.

I loved Ireland and I cannot wait to go back! I have to afterall since I didn't find my husband during this trip!