It blows my mind I can casually travel throughout Europe for the next three months. France. Ireland. Spain. Wherever. (Don’t worry, Mami & Papi, I won’t go crazy). Last weekend, 16ish of us went to Dublin from Thursday to Sunday. I’ve been anticipating if for so long, last weekend felt like it would never come. When it finally did- I was excited! I can honestly say none of my ancestors were Irish, I mean… look at me, but Dublin was really full of hundreds of cultures. Only about 10% of true Irish live in the city, but that doesn’t stop signs to be translated to Gaelic.
Our journey to and from Dublin was no easy one. Our flight was at 6:30PM from the London Airport to Dublin. Morgan and I split a large suitcase we checked, so we wanted to be a bit early to have time for everything. Leaving the flat around 1:45/ 2PM, we grabbed our large-large-large suitcase and carry-on bags and dipped. A 2- minute tube ride, an hour-long bus trip to the airport and a 2 second shuttle bus to our desired gate was our journey. Finally, we boarded and RYANAIR took us to Ireland. Morgan and I ended up sitting next to a primary teacher who was visiting her parents for the weekend… what are the odds! We then take a bus to our hostel. When I heard the hostel was called The Shining, I thought nothing of it (despite the jokes everyone told us). The Shining… how should I explain it. Well, this is the view from my bed:
It definitely taught me one, ok, TWO things. One: if you’re going to stay in a hostel, don’t stay for more than 3 nights (because its gross). Two: don’t stay in a hostel (because its gross). We got in rather early, so it was dinnertime when we landed in Dublin. After checking in and sorting out the beds, Morgan and I go a very beautiful, very Irish restaurant called… McDonalds! YUM. We’re pretty tired so we go to bed early. The next day was Friday. We went on a “Hop-On, Hop-Off” bus tour around Dublin. Thank goodness for it because it got all the tourist-y/ dorky things out of the way. The bus tour was conducting so that if you wanted to get off at a stop, you could and every ten minutes another bus would come and get you to take you to the next stop. The stops we got off of were Trinity College:
St. Stephen’s Green (beautiful, beautiful, beautiful), Dublin Castel, and the Guinness Storehouse. Throughout the tour, we still saw Abbey Street corner, the National Gallery, Leinster House, Temple Bar, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Old Jameson Distillery, and so many more (23 stops total!) St. Stephen’s Green & the Guinness Storehouse were my favorite- for two very different reasons! The Green: BEAUTIFUL.
Guinness Storehouse: AWESOME.
Really, it was nothing short but amazing. It made me appreciated something I knew nothing about. I recommend it! At the end of the self guided tour (the levels and levels of the self guided tour), the top level of the storehouse was the “sky bar” that overlooked the entire city:
Later, we went shopping at Pennies aka Dublin’s PRIMARK. We all (all meaning Morgan, Addie, Russell, Helon, Mandy and Kristen) got “ready” and went to this old pub and had scrumptious food! It was called… hmm… Malagins? Magalans? Something like that. It was then we realized how “wickedly nice” the Irish are. Maggie (Lindsey’s big) studied abroad in Dublin last fall so she gave us some pretty sweet tips and being from the big Mass… her use of “wicked” was appreciated! (and definitely accurate). We went back to our hostel room, crammed in and “pregamed.” We went to two bars after that. Porterhouse and Fitzsimmons. Fitzsimmons was where the million of us (yes, all 16ish of us piled into the bar. Um, you’re welcome Fitzsimmons!) spent the majority of the time. There was a “wicked” cool live band who, in reality, were “no bodies,” but by the tone, volume, energy we gave them, you’d think Jay Z was performing. The next day, Morgan and I made sure to sleep in ( meaning 11AM) because we knew we’d get no sleep with our flight back to London being at 7 30AM on Sunday. Sleeping in, we were able to have the whole hostel to ourselves. We packed up so that we could make sure we wouldn’t leave anything behind and set off. We had lunch at this adorable café called “Scrumptious:”
We really just walked around after that. Meeting up with more people (not everyone), we went to a really beautiful Irish pub to watch the anticipated Ireland versus England rugby game. Really, all I could tell you about the game and the only thing that mattered, really, was that Ireland won! I think I saw a grown man cry out of happiness.
Celebration mode kicked in. We went to McDonalds!
and then back to The Shining for some pregaming action. Wow, the stories that were told. We then went back to Temple Bar (a tourist-y area full of bars, etc) and went to Fitzsimmons. It was such an amazing, amazing day. Because we started off so early in the day (the rugby game being at 4PM), everyone was tired so the night ended rather early. Well, 1 30AM, but still: early. Morgan and I know we have to stay up because of our early flight so we go to McDonalds! (wow…) and talk for 2-3 hours STRAIGHT. We go back to The Shining, get our packed bags and head to the airport. Blah, blah, blah… airport buses, shuttles, and the tube: we get back to London aka “home sweet bed” and sleep forever. Only bad thing: my sleeping schedule is off.
I’m so into Dublin and London though (even though they don’t exactly get alon with each other). At Fitzsimmons the last night, Morgan and I met these hysterically funny and nice Irish men who were fascinating by Morgan’s Dolly Parton accent and the United States. We got them to hate South Carolina and love North Carolina and hate Southern Virginia and love Northern Virginia (no offense to any one from SC or SoVa… but, I mean, come on).
This life rocks!
Other picture of Dub:
