Ireland

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Le vacanze! SPRING BREAK! Early morning; we woke up at 5:30am and left for the airport around 6:30. Rome Ciampino airport is kind of like the "ghetto" airport of Rome. It's where all the cheap flights fly out of; our flight was through RyanAir, which I refuse to ever fly on again. Our checked luggage had a weight limit of 15kg which is roughly 33lbs. Unfortunately, my suitcase itself weights at lwast 10lbs, so with 2 weeks of clothes and stuff in it, it weighed 28kgs! Luckily, the lady at the desk had pity on us and only charged me for 4kg over, but at 10 euro a kg I had to pay 40 euro....grrrr. Definitely not worth flying "the cheap airline" as my luggage cost just as much as my flight. We arrived in Dublin and took a bus to a road near our hostel, then lugged our suitcases to Temple Bar and checked in to Oliver St. John Gogarty Hostel. We stayed in a 10 bed mixed dorm which was an interesting experience considering there was only one bathroom, but we made it work. First stop, FOOD! We went to the Stag's Head for lunch/dinner, and since it was Friday, we all ordered fish and chips, something I had to try. I figured I wouldn't like it, and I was right, but now I can say that I had fish and chips at a pub in downtown Dublin. After we satisfied our stomachs, we visited several tourist sites in Dublin. Trinity College was gorgeous, and I'm sure it would have been even better if there was sun. The Book of Kells, supposedly the oldest book in the world, is in the Trinity College library, but we didn't actually go see it...haha. Next, we walked to St. Stephen's Green which is basically a park in the city center. That was also very pretty, and there were several odd-looking birds that I had never seen before. Jess said one of them was a "Cuckaroo" and I actually semi-believed her just to find out later that she was definitely playing with me...haha. We also visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and Christ's Church. Later, we went to a pub in the Temple Bar area called Porterhouse where I ordered a pint of strawberry beer; I was skeptical at first, but it was absolutely amazingly delicious! The next morning we did some shopping, and Micki and I indulged ourselves with some Starbucks coffee before we walked to the Guinness Storehouse. The walk kind of sucked because it was cold and rainy, but once we got inside the factory, everything was fine. Luckily, we didn't have to wait in the line outside because we ordered our tickets online, very highly recommended by the way because the line was insane. The Guinness Storehouse is an old factory that was turned into a museum. It explains the steps involved in brewing Guinness and gives some historical background on the brewery and on Arthur Guinness, the inventor of Guinness stout. The factory is absolutely huge with 5 floors, and it is the biggest tourist attraction in Ireland. Our journey after the Guinness Factory was kind of a nightmare. Of course, it was raining and freezing cold outside, and we had a half hr walk back to the hostel where we picked up our luggage. Then we made our way to the Lui which took us, wet and cold, to Dublin Heuston Station; we were all very cold and angry, but we made it. Trains in Europe are much nicer that at home. I think that is because Europeans travel by train much more often than Americans. Anways, we will be in Killarney in 3 hrs! I can't wait to go to a pub where it's warm, order some corn beef, and listen to authentic Irish music. Until then...

Killarney grew on me...It was wierd at first because we met this man who lives there during our train change in Mallow, and we weren't sure if he was a creeper or not. Lol. He was probably just being friendly, but the whole situation was kind of odd, so we just avoided him. Anyways, we got into Killarney kind of late, say around 9pm. Of course, we were starving, so we checked into the hoste. and went out in search of some good pub food...BUT, Killarney being a very small town and all, nowhere was still serving food, sooo....we ended up eating at a fastfood pizza joint that gave me terrible indegistion. Eww...The point of all this is that our stay in Killarney did not begin well, but the next day made it all better. We went to mass at St. Mary's Cathedral which seemed absolutely huge for such a small town...I'm kind of jealous. The mass was nice because it was in English, although the whole congregation would break into Gaelic at random times throughout the mass, like for example during the "Our Father." It was freaky. It was also really interesting because it was a special mass for Christ's Passion (the week before Easter), so we got palms and the Gospel was read as a narrative played out by 3 different people. After mass, we went to teh Malton (formerly the Great Southern Hotel) to have "high tea" on Molly's Grandma. It was my frist tea experience, and it was awesome! We got coffee, tea, sandwiches, and pastries. It was basically lunch. After tea, we took a cab up to the Gap of Dunloe, which is just a low valley road that winds through the mountains. After a pit stop at Kate Kearney's Cottage for a bathroom break, we started our 2.5 hr journey into the gap. It was a really n ice walk even though the weather was crappy; the mountains seemed to block the wind, so it was actually warmer. It was a really pretty walk, and we had fun listening to the sheep baah and then mimicking them...haha. When we finally got back to town, we were all starving, so we asked where we could get good pub food, and the hostel guy directed us to Murphy's Bar. I ordered beef stewed in Guinness and stout with vegetables, and it pretty much made my tip to Ireland! ...SO FREAKING GOOD! I want to try to make it at home. FOr desert we ordered Irish Coffee or Bailey's Coffee in my case because whiskey is absolutely disgusting. After dinner, we made our way to a pick your own candy store (a frequent stop on our trip) and then back to Neptune's for the night. The next morning, we got up early and walked to the bike rental shop, where we rented bikes and started out on our 14 miles exploration ride around 9:30am. It took us a minute to get used to riding on the opposite side of the road, but once we made it to the bike trail in Killarney National Park, it didn't really matter anyway. The scenery that we biked through in the National Park was absolutely gorgeous! We were surrounded by mountains, trees, and of course water because the trail took us around the Lakes of Killarney. We made our first stop at Muckross House, which is an old estate with beautiful gardens that is now open to the public. This is where I made my favorite purchase of the trip thus far, a pair of hand knit authentic Irish gloves that turn into mittens. They have been the most useful item of the trip, and they're real cute! PERFECT COMBINATION! We continued along the trail, all the while praying it wouldn't start to rain, and made our way to the Torc Waterfall. We had to lock up our bikes and walk up to the waterfall which was not really THAT big, but since I've never really seen a waterfall before, it seemed really big to me. And of course, it was gorgeous! We hiked up the mountain trail awhile to see where that would go, stopped to take a picture where there was a great view of the city below, and decided to get back on our bikes and ride back to town to watch the St. Patrick's Day Parade. Let me just say that 14 miles is a long way to ride a bike and took us a total of 4.5 hrs to complete with a few stops here and there. That being said, we were exhausted by the time we got back to town, not to mention sweaty. Also, my butt hurt like whoa the next few days and I couldn't sit w/o squinching, haha. Anyways, the parade was cute. I think the whole county came out to watch it. It was just like the 4th of July parade back home in Fox Lake, only there were a lot of Irish dance and rugby teams. My favorite was the float carrying a man dressed up as St. Patrick holding a real live baby lamb! It was so cute. We took a nap before getting rather dressed up for dinner at Pepper's Restaurant in the Malton on Molly's grandma. The prices were outrageous, but the meal was terrific. I had a steak with vegetables, wine to drink, and apple crumble for desert. It was awesome. I tink the two things I loved most about Ireland, was the meat and the fact that the Irish speak English. Lol. To bed then back to Dublin in the morning...

Well, our first impression of Abraham House Hostel in Dublin was having to carry our bags up, no joke, 5 flights of stairs!!! I swear, Europeans do not believe in elevators! Grrr....With Jess's help I made it up those stairs with my 30 kg suitcase, chubs (my backpack), and my HUGE purse. For our last day and a half in Dublin, we didn't really do much because we had already seen most of the sites, so we just kind of walked around, shopped, and tried not to get too wet. Yes, so far it has rained at least a little bit every day we have been gone. Figures, right? Anyways, we visited St. James Distillery, which is the old whiskey factory in Dublin. We also walked to the Gregorian District to take pictures of some famous Dublin doors. We had a great dinner at Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin, and spent the rest of our time shopping along Grafton Street. All in all, I really liked Ireland, esp. Killarney, but Dublin wasn't much different from any American city like Chicago, only much smaller and with an overwhelming number of pubs. Next stop...PARIS!

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