St Patricks Day in DUBLIN!

Utrecht to Dublin
Lindsay Saunders I'm doing a little bit of catch up here on this travel blog... from all of the travelling, visitors, sunshine and school work, ive fallen behind! anyways! here is an update on the trip to ireland in march!

as soon as i found out that i would be going to the netherlands for my exchange, i knew i had to see dublin on st. patricks day! i knew that if it was a blast in calgary, it would be just insane to celebrate it with thousands of irish people, in ireland! so ya.. little to say i had been excited for this little 4 day trip for 8 months!

i left utrecht on march 15th and had to catch my ryan air flight from eindhoven again. before i hopped on the train, i decided that i would buy one of the holland train discount passes. it's 55 euros and gives u (and 3 friends travelling with u) 40% off of train tickets within holland. i was told that i needed a passport picture before they would accept the application, so i went over to one of those photo booths in the train station. i selected "one photo" which i figured would give me one passport photo... but then out came a postcard sized mug shot of me! - horrible. anyways. 8 euros later i finally figured it out and was on my way. of course the discount pass application form was all in dutch and i was stuck on the train trying to guess what most of the words ment. finally i built up some courage to ask the girl sitting across from me what some of the words were (since everyone here speaks english and dutch). but of course, with my luck, the one girl i decide to ask was deaf! :(. man did i fell stupid. she was super nice tho and ended up helping me out still! then we wrote back and forth to eachother on my note book for the whole 40 min train ride. crazy experience.

so anyways! i got to dublin and my friend hailey (who i work with at bustloose), was there to meet me. she is studying in sevilla, spain and decided to meet me in dublin for the crazy weekend. my irish friend andy, who i met in 2005 in bali was there to pick us up! he luckily let us stay at his house. its a good thing, cuz hostels were booked up months in advance and hotels were super pricey. andy showed us the down that first nite and thats when hailey and i's love for the wonderful black beer all started! GUINNESS! we decided we had to start the trip off with a mini pint... and then we never stoppped. infact, i dont think i drank a single other type of beer (or any time of liquid for that matter), the whole weekend! so its true... the guinness in ireland DOES taste better!

the next day andy took us up into the dublin mountains in his car. we were heading up there to see some sites and have lunch at the highest pub in ireland - jonnie fox's pub! it was bulit up there in 1796 and is really famous. i guess if ur a celebrity and u are in ireland, u go to this pub. anyways. after gettin lost in the windy roads, we finally made it. after hailey lost her breakfast in the parking lot, we headed inside and had some nice smoked salmon on guinness bread! it was fun! the place was so authentic irish.

the next day (ST PADDIES DAY) was the best. we got up super early and headed downtown to o'connel street. bought our green stuff (hoodies, flags, boas, hats, etc) and headed over to the parade. it was really cool. a lot different than our stampede parade... less floats and more cool costumes. it was a blast!! we spent the days wandering around, going into pubs that u couldnt even move in, watching some big rugby match on tv and meeting halarious people. we went to the ceili mor, which was this big irish celtic dancing festival on the street. they had a band and there were tons of people swinging around and singing and dancing. it was probably the most traditionaly irish thing we saw... it was perfect!

the day after st paddies, hailey and i did the touristy thing. we saw the oldest church in europe - christ church cathedral... it was amazing. we did some shopping, wandered around, and of course went to the GUINESS FACTORY! the 1 hour line up in the rain and wind was SO worth it! at the end of it, u get a free pint of FRESHLY made guiness at the top of the building (which has 360 degree windows). such a good view of dublin. it was great - and the guinness was PERFECT!

the next day hailey and i took our flights home... and began our detox. it was such a good trip! i loved it there.. it was super comfortable and the irish people were so friendly and halarious! id definally like to make it back there sometime soon and get over the the west coast. i hear its supposed to be really really nice over there.

Sláinte!!! ("Cheers" in Galic!)

---

---