It has been busy these past couple weeks with classes and the arrival of homework (finally!!), but I do want to tell you all about my trip to Dublin! I traveled with 3 of my very good friends and we had such an amazing time! :)
Seeing as my classes end early on Thursdays, and I had no Friday classes (except Physics lab which happens every other week) my friends and I decided to take a 4.5 hr bus ride to Dublin on Thursday afternoon! My bag filled with Peanut butter sandwiches, cheese sticks, cereal, "Let's Go Ireland" handbook, my trusty notebook, and camera, we set off on our first weekend trip! At first I was so nervous to leave our little Cork City that I had become so familiar with in the past 2 weeks, but once on the bus, my nerves left and instead I felt like jumping up and down in excitement!! We were going to explore! Yippee! I was so glad to see green Ireland during the bus ride through the countryside! The picture on the front of my blog is from that bus ride! At some points I could not tell I was in Ireland, because it looked so much like home! There would be rocky hills on either side of the highway, then it would become rolling green hills with brush and bushes as property dividers, then little farms would appear with sheep, horses, and cows! Then just as suddenly as the green hills appeared, they would disappear into the fog, and all I could see was the wooden fence just a couple meters from the side of the highway. What truly made me feel like I was home were the evergreen forests...on and on they stretched...then suddenly melted into the fog. Now I know why people fall in Love with Ireland - it is so delicate and peaceful, yet alive and strong. There is a sense of wildness to it all! I still can't believe I am here, experiencing these things...it is truly a once in a lifetime experience! During the bus ride I wanted to nap, but all I could think of was the Aerosmith song, "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" ... didn't sleep because I didn't want to miss anything of Ireland.
So, we continued driving along, passing through County Cork, County Tipperary, County Kilkenny, County Laois, County Kildare, and finally County Dublin! Throughout the trip we probably encountered 20 "roundabouts" or traffic circles/rotaries. I wish they had signs like we have in the states to caution large trucks as they go around the corners. (A yellow diamond sign and on it is a truck is tilted sideways going on the curve). My Mom always laughs at those signs (and now I do too) because all we can envision is the truck doing a wheelie and making this squeaky noise as they drive around the corner. Anyway, I kept thinking of those little signs and it made me laugh. There certainly were many opportunities for those signs during the bus ride Haha.
We finally entered Dublin city, found our hostel (which was right in the main area of the city) and checked in. Our hostel was very nice, clean, and everyone very friendly. We four girls stayed in a 12 female dorm room...and it was so cool! We did not experience the typical horror stories that everyone is used to hearing about hostels, and it was truly a great time! That Thursday night (night #1) we ate at "ThunderRoad Cafe" ... almost like a Hard Rock Cafe including a Bryan Adams Concert on huge TV screens, lots of lights, great food, and music memorabilia all around! After supper we went back to our hostel, and went out on the town in the Temple Bar area. Our first pub we walked into was THE Temple Bar, and it had a live guitar band playing!! So cool!! What was really surprising were the songs they were playing....we knew almost every single song! I had always envisioned the Traditional Music Sessions to be just that...Traditional Irish Music. But instead they had music we know and love (like OneRepublic...Apologize, Coldplay ... Yellow, and so many other songs!) At the pub I tried Smithwicks...and I definitely will not be having that again. It was great to try, but really preferred the Irish Cider...Bulmers! Me and my 3 friends met members of a local Dublin band, and unfortunately they knew how to flirt/sweet talk especially because they knew we were Americans. Two band members were really very nice, and quieter compared to the lead singer of the band. Oh man what an experience! He told us so many things about Dublin, and how he knew how to say hello, goodbye, flirt, and swear in so many different languages!! He said he learned these from girls he met...of course...and that was a clue to us of his character :) We tried to say goodbye, and I attempted to give them all high fives. Instead they looked at me weirdly, and grabbed my hand to kiss it...the "gentlemanly way" to say goodbye. They were also making fun of our different American accents, our slang, and especially the different southern accents. When we were finished talking with them and wanted to head out, they told us to go with them to another bar and hear more music because they absolutely LOVED being with us. Well, we decided that we four girls were heading out of the pub anyway, (and we still had our wits about us) so we walked down the main street with them and into another pub. This had a more eclectic crowd than Temple Bar, but still it was a great time. The band guys kept saying, "Ladies, enjoy yourselves...You're in Ireland!!!" We thought they were going to offer to buy us drinks (because that's what the U.S. guys do) but instead they asked us for money for THEIR drinks. We did not fall for their excuses of being "poor band members." It got to a point where they were getting really annoying, and it was not enjoyable to converse with them anymore. We finally left - to their dismay - and we prayed we would NEVER see them again. We walked back to our hostel laughing about the night, and happy that we had great stories to tell when we got back!
The next morning (Day #2) we got up for a free breakfast provided by the hostel. The reason I mention this is because the breakfast was in a little pizza place about 3 buildings down the street from the entrance of the hostel...and we used our hostel cards to unlock the pizza place. It was so random! After breakfast, we locked our backpacks under our beds, and explored for the whole day! We saw Dublin port, bronze statues of the Irish Famine, accidentally found a playground/park (which we initially thought was St. Stephen's Green) and took lots of silly pictures on the swing set and jungle gym. We walked through the shopping section of Dublin, went window shopping, and tried on sunglasses, picked out cute outfits, then laughed about the prices! (Mum always said I had great taste *wink*) We kept walking through the city, and found St. Stephen's Green, and it is absolutely beautiful!! I took so many pictures, but pictures do not even begin to show the beauty there! Throughout the weekend, we truly were the typical tourists with our cameras out at every opportunity...but we didn't care! We have great pictures to remember our Dublin experience :) We then kept exploring until we found Trinity College, looked into the Book of Kells bookshop (but did not get to see the actual Book of Kells), took a tour of Dublin Castle (a really cool fort that was inhabited by the British, had a throne room, ballrooms, beautiful artwork, and so much history and archaeology!!), and finally took a tour of the Guinness Factory at St. James' Gate!! Phew what a day that was! The Guinness factory was really a great experience, and of course we had a complimentary pint at the end of our tour. We enjoyed our foam mustaches at the "Gravity Bar" which is the top floor of the factory and had a great view of the entire city at dusk! That was probably one of my favorite parts of the weekend!! The pint o' Guinness was ok. It is of course it is the best at the factory, so knowing that, I probably wouldn't order it at a pub for 6 Euro (which = $9)...it just doesn't seem worth it. But I tried it!! And it was a great experience! After that, we were so hungry so we walked towards our hostel and got the "EuroMenu" at McDonalds!! That was probably the best choice for food that we had ever thought of that entire weekend...it fit our needs perfectly: cheap, quick, and enough to fill us for the night ahead.
That night (night #2) it was POURING with gale force winds, but we still went out to explore! We tried going to a different bar than the previous night (to try something new, but then also to avoid our 3 Irish band friends hehe). We ran into Sweeney's by the sheer necessity to get out of the rain, stayed to have a pint, then moved on to our favorite place in Dublin: THE Temple Bar. The previous night's bad experiences were totally wiped away because this night was so much better!! They had popular rock music playing over the stereos, and another live band. We danced and sang the night away there, and enjoyed the atmosphere. Hysterically enough, we saw our 3 Dublin band buddies there again...and at the same table as they had been the night before!! The band played for hours, and they played so many songs: U2, Sweet Caroline, country songs, Don't Stop Believing, I'm Yours, Empire State of Mind, Talk a Walk on the Wild Side, and so many others!! We had such a blast, and I would honestly go back to Dublin just for that pub :) I took a coaster as a souvenir, in hopes of adding it to my scrapbook of bus tickets and pub napkins.
Day #3, we explored only for a little bit to find St. Patrick's Cathedral. It was so beautiful! I only wish it wouldn't have cost anything to get in, but I suppose it is because it is a "historical place" - St. Patrick performed his first baptisms in the fountain just outside the Cathedral in the park. Amazing! Inside, I took lots of pictures and prayed at the "Lady's Chapel." This was my favorite place inside the Church because it was dedicated to Our Lady, and it also had the Magnificat prayer inscribed there. This prayer reminded me of the women's group back at school, and all that we do for each other during our struggles, and the amazing faithful support I can always count on :)
After the Cathedral, we took advantage of more window shopping on Grafton Street. We found all these beautiful wedding dresses, and dreamed about our futures hehe . . . Oh what fun we girls had! We then walked back into town and had Starbucks for lunch, then boarded our bus back to little Cork City!! On the ride home, I definitely needed a nap, and it was dark so I couldn't see the scenery anyway. The ride home went by so quickly, and before I knew it, I was back home in my little, clean, warm room, with over 200 pictures to show of my adventures and so many new memories.
This trip already has shown me that there are so many people, places, and things I have never seen in my entire life. I feel like I am just taking everything in, and I want to hold it in my memory and never forget any of this. To end, I'll leave you with David Cook's song, "Time of My Life." :) Here in Ireland, and during my college years, I feel that this is truly the "Time of my Life" and I am so blessed to be here! I'll be writing again soon!
Marissa
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