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Published: December 8th 2009
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The luck of the Irish may exist, but not when it comes to pub crawls. It is official- I am not meant to do a pub crawl! It’s just not in the stars for me- third attempt and third failed pub crawl. This time the problem wasn’t that our pub crawl no longer existed, or was randomly shut down, but that we were the only people on the pub crawl…..not fun! The pub crawl was “supposed” to be a super popular one, but I guess with it being December and all, nobody else was feeling like crawling. We had a really nice guide though who took us around on the crawl, and even though we headed home early (expensive drinks + not many people to meet), it was a pretty good time. We hit up a bar with traditional Irish folk dancing and another where a bunch of his friends from Trinity College were (so we go to meet legit Dubliners!), so I guess overall it did turn out better than our other two failed crawls. Check out the Irish dancing at-
So here I go again saying that somewhere is my favorite place, but Ireland was sweet! I
still don’t think I can say that Dublin beat Zurich as a city (Zurich, as I’ve previously mentioned, was phenomenal), but Ireland as a whole was awesome! The Irish are so fun and laid back, and the scenery is absolutely beautiful! We spent one day exploring the outskirts of Dublin and the countryside on a day trip to the Wicklow Mountains, Glendalough, and Kilkenny (about a 2 hour drive from Dublin). I think traveling to the country was our favorite part of the trip, basically because that’s what we had really wanted to do in Ireland in the first place, and although Dublin was nice, the country was a thousand times better 😊 We drove through the Wicklow Mountains and stopped to explore Glendalough for a bit, which was where they filmed some of the movies “Bravehart” and “P.S. I Love You” (it was legit!). The next stop was Kilkenny, a small town with lots of shopping and a medieval castle!
We also spent a day exploring Dublin, spending most of our time at the Guinness Storehouse at St. James Gate. We toured the museum and brewery, which was so cool! We learned all about Arthur Guinness and the
ingredients in Guinness…we even got to taste the barley used in the beer and smell the fresh hops! We heard all about the legacy of Guinness and the advertising campaigns used for Guinness throughout the history of the product. We even got a free Guinness at a panoramic bar on top of the storehouse that offered a great view of the city! We also visited the oldest pub in Ireland, The Brazen Head, where we had a delicious meal! All of our meals were delicious on our trip- I even got traditional apple pie and custard one night for after dinner….yum!
I do have to note that we had a television in our room at the hostel, and it was the first time in two and a half months that we have had television. I think we watched about 2 hours of VH1 music videos the first night…it was glorious! Also, we got to see a Friends episode! We couldn’t be more content 😊
Ireland also provided my first homeless experience. We had a 7 am flight Sunday morning and because you have to get to the airport about 2 hours early anyway, we decided to just sleep
in the airport and not spend money on a hostel. The buses to the airport stopped running at 11, so we were forced to go early if we didn’t want to get a cab. We boarded the 10 pm bus, only to stupidly miss our stop at the airport (it was really dark!!!) and had to ride the bus loop twice to get back. The driver was super nice and let us stay on between loops, even though she shut off all the lights and parked the bus for about 30 minutes in between…haha. We looked homeless to the extreme sprawled out on this dark bus in about 3 or 4 layers of clothes and several scarves each (we had purchased more than we had room in our backpacks for in Ireland, and Ryanair is way hardcore about not letting you bring more than one tiny carry on!) So needless to say, we looked super pathetic. However, the night actually turned out better than planned. I had been expecting a horrible night of attempting to sleep in a bright, sketchy airport where I would be kept awake all night by a stiff, uncomfortable chair and practically have to chain my
bag to my wrist out of fear of my stuff getting stolen. But when we got to the airport, we were excited to discover an all night Starbucks with tons of comfy couches and chairs. So I actually had a decent nights rest in a Starbucks in Dublin that played Bob Marley all night long…not too bad at all!
That pretty much wraps up our Ireland trip! This weekend we are traveling to Florence for our last weekend in Europe. I’ll also be updating this next week with some more Venice pictures from throughout the semester, so as usual, stay tuned!
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Mom
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Ah.....how lovely!
Hi Steph! Glad that you got to be a country girl for a while in Ireland. More beautiful pictures to enjoy! I just read your latest blog on your school site and really enjoyed it. (Explore. Dream. Discover.) Was a great wrap up and perspective to all your travels and adventures. Have you thought about reposting it on this site, too? Love, Mom