Ireland!! 1/31-2/3

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This last weekend was my first trip outside of Spain! I went with Natalie (who is studying abroad in England), Lauren, Hannah and Emily to Dublin. We flew out around 10:30 from BCN, and tried to sleep the entire way since we were up very late at night packing. We got there are 12:15, and once we stepped out of the airplane, realized how cold this weekend was going to be. It was freezing! And there was a lot of wind. Us Barcelona people went through customs, and then waited near the exit for about 30 minutes for Natalie to meet up with us. Once we met up with her, we took a bus to the center of the city and then walked to our hostel called Oliver St. John Gogartys. We finally got there around 2:00. Once we checked in, we went out to explore and have some lunch. We went to a little café called Café Eire, and we all got paninis, which were delicious. It wasn’t typical Irish food, but it was delicious nonetheless, so we were happy. Afterwards, we walked around the city to get a feel for it. We went shopping (which is much better than Barcelona!) and hit the major streets. Around 7 or 8 we returned to our hostel, had some snacks and changed, and then went out to see a traditional Irish Pub. Since we were staying in Temple Bar, the most central part of Dublin, the pub we ended up going to was right across the street. There was traditional Irish music, and it was packed with people watching football game (aka soccer for those in the US). We talked to lots of locals, who almost all asked us why we were in a touristy bar, to which we replied, well we are tourists, why are you in a touristy bar? They didn’t have a good answer, so it showed that although touristy, it was still a pretty good pub. Lauren and Emily went home around 11, and then Natalie, Hannah, and I stayed out till 1, but then decided to go home since we had to get up early to get ready for the Wicklow Mountains day tour.

Friday morning, we woke up around 7:30 to get ready for Wicklow. We then went downstairs to have some breakfast in the kitchen of our hostel. It was only a continental breakfast, but it still held us over for a couple hours. We then headed over to Suffolk street to catch the bus for our daytour. Once it arrived, we saw that we had a 24 person Mercedes mini bus. Our bus driver was very friendly and very informative. We first drove down through southern Dublin. We got to see the coastline, and saw a group of women around 70 or 80 years old, who swam in the ocean everyday in the nude. It apparently keeps them healthy and active, and wow they must be brave! The water and air is so cold, it must be terrible to swim there. After we took pictures along the south side of Dublin, we drove down through Dun Laoghaire, where we drove past the houses of Enya, Bono, and Van Morrison! Our driver had even met Enya and knows her brother personally. After that, we went to Avoca Handweavers est 1723 (a restaurant/craft shop) for a coffee break. Natalie and I each got a scone with butter and jam (sooo good!) and coffee. After our short break, we continued our driving to get to the countryside. We drove through many gorgeous places, that I can’t even begin to describe. Ireland truly does have “40 shades of green.” We even drove by lots of sheep! There are two types of sheep in Ireland- colloquially called protestant sheep and catholic sheep. The protestant sheep have black faces, and are called such because they are the sheep that the English brought over. The original Irish sheep are the ones with the white faces, and are called the catholic sheep.

After driving for a while and getting lots of history, we arrived in a small place called Glendalough, which is a 6th century monastic settlement. We were first taken through this two-walled entry way, which is where the people would have to come through to get inside to the monastery. Back then, women weren’t even allowed in. Then we walked to this tall tower, and our tourgide explained all this history behind it. The first entrance to it is 15 feet up, so back then they had to use a ladder to even get inside it. It was a pretty impressive building. We then examined the different crosses and we shown once from the 7th century. You can distinguish the very old ones from the newer ones because the old ones did not have intricate carvings in them, like most Celtic crosses. Instead, they look very plain with no carvings, but that is because they used to be intricately painted. But over the hundreds and thousands of years, the paint faded away. We then were told that if we could get our arms around this one particular cross, we would have good luck. Of course it was so wide, nobody fully got their arms around, though it was still fun to try. We then went inside an old chapel, which is now just ruins of the four walls. Inside, was a grave of a woman in the 1600s who lived to be 106 years old! Living that old in the 17th century is absolutely amazing. People who come there rub the 106 for good luck, so the number on the grave is all shiny, and apparently has had to be re-carved many times because so many people rub it.

After taking the tour of the monastic settlement, we were allowed to take a 30 minute hike to the end of the valley, ending in two beautiful lakes. I have never been so cold in my life! I was wearing leggings under my jeans, a sweater, a peacoat, a scarf and gloves, and I still froze. Almost all of us girls walked with our scarves around our faces to try to keep warmer. But it was all worth it, because it was so gorgeous. I’ve seen many beautiful places, but none quite like this. Glendalough truly did have 40 shades of green, and there was just a sense of tranquility. Beautiful undisturbed nature. I definitely have to go back there at least once in my life.

After our small hike, we got back on the bus and tried to warm up. We drove to this town right outside of Glendalough for a bite to eat. Once we got to the pub we were eating at, Natalie and I decided to share two lunches so we could try multiple things. We got the stuffed turkey and ham dish, as well as the Guinness Beef Stew, a very common meal in Ireland. Both were absolutely delicious. Once we were sufficiently full, everybody got back on the bus, on our way back home to Dublin. We saw some of the suburbs of Dublin and heard more current politics of the area. Most of the girls slept part of the way home because we were so tired, but I stayed awake the entire time because I just couldn’t get enough of the area.

Once we got back, we went to check in at our new hostel, named Jacobs Inn. It was more like a hotel than a hostel, though there were more people in this room than the last. We quickly showered and changed for dinner. Lauren’s friend from back in the US is dating an Irish guy named Jerome, who lives in Galway, so he was going to meet up with us that night. Daniel, a friend of Jerome who Lauren had met once, lives in Dublin, so he was going to meet us for dinner, and then Jerome and the other boys meet after. So we met Daniel at the Spire (this huge flagpole thing in the center of O’Connell Street) and then went off in hunt of food. We wanted to go to this famous place called the Brazen Head, which is Ireland’s oldest pub, established in 1198. But by the time we got there, around 9, they had stopped serving food. So we had a drink, and then quickly left because we were all very hungry. Ireland is very different in its eating habits from Spain, because Spaniards eat usually around 10 at night, but in Ireland, almost all the food is closed by then, so we had to eat at an American food place. Yet it was actually nice to have a burger and fries since we haven’t had one of those in a while. After dinner, we went to go meet up with the other boys at the Porterhouse, which was an amazing Pub. It wasn’t very touristy at all, and they had a DJ, so we listened to some good music. We met some of Daniel and Jerome’s friends who were all really nice. We hung out there until around 1 or so, when the bar was closing, and then decided to go to this club that the boys wanted to go to called Coppers. Once we got to the club, Lauren and Hannah were tired, so they went home, and Natalie, Emily, and I stayed to go to the club. Coppers was the cutest little club ever! So much better than anything I’ve seen in the states because there weren’t any sketchy people, and everybody was just dancing and having a good time. By the end of the night, the DJ started playing some Irish music, and everybody would go crazy and sing- they knew every word! Daniel and I were dancing, and when the Irish music would come on, he would try to teach me how to Irish Dance or how to do the jig. Both Emily and Natalie were dancing with Daniels friends, so we all had a great time. Then, once the club was about to close, the last song of the night they played was Riverdance!! Everybody in the club got super excited and were jigging and spinning each other in circles, and having a great time.
As we were walking home, along with everybody else who had been out that night, we noticed a Saxophone player in the walking street that we were on, playing Irish music, along with classic American songs like Tina Turner. Everybody started dancing, and it was an impromptu dance party in the street. After a few songs, we were exhausted and tired since it was really late at night, so the boys walked us back to our hostel, and we promptly fell asleep.

Getting up at 9:30 was pretty difficult, seeing as though we had gone to sleep around 5. But we still got up and got ready for the day fairly quickly. We then packed up our stuff, because we decided to cancel our hostel for Saturday night and just all sleep at Daniels. He had said that all of his roommates were out of town, so there was plenty of extra space in his house, and that way we all saved 30 Euro. We took a taxi up to his place because he lives about 15 minutes outside of the city center- right next to University of Dublin, where he goes to school. Once we got there, we dropped off our stuff, had some tea and toast, and then headed back into the city to walk around. By the time we got into the city, it was around 2, and time for lunch. We went to this little pub, and Natalie and I again shared- we got a sandwich and the beef stew. Most of us also got coffee to wake up a little. There was the huge Ireland-Italy rugby game, so we watched that as we ate. After lunch, we started walking to the Guinness factory. It is the number 1 tourist attraction in all of Ireland, so we figured that we needed to see it. It was so large it took us hours to see all of it! Basically, we were given a map with descriptions of what was on each floor. There were about 8 floors to explore. The first couple were about the four main ingredients they use, and the process they take to make it. Then, there was a floor with all their old advertising and commercials. There was a floor about their social responsibility, and a floor about the architecture of their building, etc. Finally, the top floor was called the Gravity Bar, where we all got a free pint of Guinness. This floor had 360 degrees of windows, so we could see all around Dublin. It is the tallest point in Dublin, so we got a birds eye view.

After we finished the tour, it was around 6:30. Lauren and Hannah wanted to go check out some cathedrals, Emily was going to go have dinner with Alan, and Natalie and I wanted to go back home to take a shower and relax for a bit. So we took the bus back to Daniels (got a little lost after getting to the bus stop,) and then once we got back, Daniel made dinner for me, Natalie and Jerome. It was a very good dinner, and it was nice to sit down for a bit. I then took a shower, and then watched TV with the boys as Natalie got ready.

Around 10:30, we were finally ready, and went into town to meet Lauren and Hannah. They had stayed out in the city the whole time, and were really happy to meet up with us. We all went to a club called XXI, which was pretty fun, but not as fun as Coppers. Friday night was one of the most fun nights that I have had in Europe so far, so Saturday night didn’t quite live up to my expectations. But it was still really fun, and again Daniel and I danced most of the night. Around 3, we all wanted to go home, so we got our coats and then went out in search of a taxi. Apparently Saturday night is the big night to go out, so the taxi cue was huge. Everybody else was hungry, so we quickly went to some burger joint to get some munchies, and then went to a taxi cue further away in hopes that the line would be shorter. The others wanted to walk around, so Daniel and I stood in line for the taxi to save a spot. It took almost an hour to get a taxi! And keep in mind how cold it is in Ireland at 4 in the morning! We had to get two taxis home because there were 6 of us, but we finally made it home and went to bed because yet again we had to get up early the next day, because we wanted to go on a walking tour.

After only about 3 hours sleep, we all got up, got dressed, walked down to the bus stop, and said our goodbyes to the boys. It was sad saying goodbye because we all got along so well, but Daniel said he will try to come down to Barcelona to visit me, so hopefully we get to see each other again. Also, Emily and I liked it so much that we are considering going back for another weekend, but we’ll se if we have time. Us girls then got on the bus, and headed for Trinity College- the start of our walking tour. It was cold, windy, and raining, so it was a pretty miserable start to the tour. We heard some good history of Ireland, but our tourgide wasn’t speaking loudly enough to get heard through the rain, and he barely talked about the buildings we were in front of, so we were skeptical. After about 30 minutes, we made a group decision that the tour was not worth it, plus we were freezing, so we ditched the tour and went to Starbucks for a coffee. Afterwards, we went to lunch and got some Mexican food. Definitely not traditional, but there is almost no Mexican food in Spain, so we were all excited to see it. After lunch, we went to Christ Church, which is a gorgeous chapel in Dublin. We walked around it for almost an hour taking pictures and such. Afterwards, Natalie and I wanted to go souvenir shopping while Lauren and Hannah wanted to see St. Patricks Cathedral, so we split up. Natalie and I then walked by this cute little pastry shop called the Queen of Tarts, which is apparently written up in many tourbooks for being amazing. We stopped in and had tea and cheesecake. I think it was the best cheesecake I have ever had! It was a delicious little stop, and once we finished our snack, we went into a little souvenir shop to look at the trinkets. I didn’t really buy anything except a couple postcards to remember certain areas by, because I had such a good trip that I felt that no expensive trinket could possibly symbolize my weekend. So then we walked back to the Spire to meet up with the rest of the girls to take the bus back to the airport to go home.

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