Ireland

After a weekend in London with my friend, Kyle, it was off to Ireland for the next leg of my trip. I have to be honest, I've absolutely loved Ireland, I think it's been my favorite place I've visited so far. So here we go! I arrived in Dublin at around noon on Wednesday and set off finding my hostel so I could drop off my backpack and start seeing the city. My hostel was great. It was called the Abbey Court and it was located right on the Liffey River across from the Temple Bar neighborhood. After dropping off my stuff, I grabbed a map from the tourist office next door and went off walking. I kind of just randomly explored the city, I walked by Trinity College, pas the Christchurch and St. Patrick's Cathedrals, through the Temple Bar neighborhood where a lot of the famous pubs are and over to the Guinness storehouse. I didn't do the tour at that point, but would get to it later! After all that walking around, |I was pretty hungry for some lunch. I found a pub called Fitzgeralds right across the river from my hostel and had a sandwich and a pint of Guinness. I know everyone says it, but Guinness really does taste better over here! After a delicious lunch, I headed back to the hostel to get unpacked and relax for a little bit before going out that night.

I had a really fun first night in Dublin. I didn't really know anyone yet and was tired from a long day of travelling, but I made it out to one of the bars in Temple Bar where I grabbed a couple more pints and listened to the Irish band they had playing there. Most of the pubs have live music and it was so much fun to listen to them play some Irish music and some American music while everyone danced along.

The next morning, I was up pretty early to have the hostel's free breakfast and then go on the walking tour offered by the hostel. The tour was absolutely hilarious. It was led by one of the guys who works at my hostel and he led a big group of people from a few different hostels around Dublin. We saw a lot of the sights of Dublin and he had great stories about all of them. It may just be the accent, but the Irish are all so funny and great to talk to. We went by most of the places \I had visited the day before, but I liked getting to learn about the places. I also met a lot of kids in other hostels and we all decided to do a pub crawl later that night. The tour ended in a pub and we had a great Irish lunch (Guinness and beef pie, mashed potatoes and roasted vegetables) and a pint. After lunch, two girls I met on the tour and I decided to go check out the Guinness storehouse.

The storehouse was really cool, definitely a must for anyone visiting Dublin. We got to see how the whole brewing process works, learn how to properly "taste" Guinness, see all of the old advertisements and learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. I think the advertisements were my favorite part. I love the old Guinness posters and they also had touch-screen TVs where you could watch any Guinness commercial ever aired. After pouring our pints and drinking them, we went up to the Gravity Bar. The Gravity Bar is an all glass bar on the top floor of the storehouse. It offers a beautiful, 306 degree view of Dublin. All in all, we spent around 3 hours in the storehouse and had a blast the whole time.

outside the Guinness store house

Unfortunately, my Irish luck ran out when I got back to the hostel. It turns out that while I was gone that day, someone checked into the hostel, broke into the storage locker under my bed and stole my laptop, ipod, iphone charger and camera charger. There won't be quite as many pictures at the beginning of this post because I couldn't get them from my camera to the computer. It was such a bummer, but the hostel has the guy's info and the hostel owner was hopeful that the police may be able to do something about it. And what better way to get over something like that than by spending the night at a pub crawl in Dublin? I ended up going on the pub crawl and having a blast. It was a lot of the people from the tour group that morning. We went to 5 different pubs and had a blast drinking and hanging out and dancing to the Irish music bands were playing. It was the perfect way to forget about the theft for awhile!

On Friday, I got up and had to do a little shopping to replace my iphone charger and headphones. I decided that afternoon that I would take the train 20 minutes outside Dublin to a small fishing town called Howth. Again, this is a place anyone visiting Dublin should go to, it was an easy afternoon trip! Howth is on a peninsula and is well-known for it's incredible sea cliffs and views. I arrived at 1 and found the trail that goes out onto the sea cliffs. I ended up hiking a 10km trail that went all around the peninsula. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. The sea cliffs were incredible to walk along and the landscapes were gorgeous. It was exactly what I pictured the Irish coast looking like. My favorite part of the hike went through the Howth Golf Club and offered an amazing view down the golf course and out to the sea. The hike took me around 4 hours and afterwards I found a pub to sit and have a well-deserved bowl of seafood chowder. I was back in Dublin by 6:30, it was such a great afternoon! I was exhausted when I got back and had to get up very early on Saturday to go on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway, so I watched Braveheart (getting pumped for Scotland!) in the hostel's cinema room and went to sleep.

The coast in Howth

A beach along the Cliff Trail

Looking down the cliffs to the sea

The view up the coast from the Cliff Trail

My trip to the Cliffs of Moher on Saturday was phenomenal. The tour bus I was on left from Dublin at around 7:30am and drove right across the country to the cliffs. It was pretty wild to be crossing the entire island and going back in one day, I guess I didn't realize how small Ireland is. Anyways, we drove through the Irish countryside to get there. The drive was spectacular. The countryside was so green with lots of rolling hills, castles and sheep. Again, it was exactly what I pictured the Irish countryside looking! We arrived at the cliffs at around 11:15 and had 2 hours until we had to leave for Galway. The Cliffs were mind blowing. There was such a sheer drop down to the sea and they were so tall, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I took a great walk along the cliff-edge to O'Brien's Tower at one end and then all the way back to Hag's Head on the other.

The Cliffs of Moher

Looking down the Cliffs toward O'Brien's Tower in the distance

Another view of O'Briens Tower

It was beautiful and I had just enough time to walk pretty much the entire edge of the cliffs. We then drove through Burren National Park to Galway. Burren Park was really interesting. It used to be the old seabed before ice age melt off, so it was an almost lunar landscape along the coast to Galway.

Burren National Park

The coast at Burren

A castle we passed on the way to Galway

Galway was a great town to go visit. It was much smaller than Dublin but also a much younger crowd. I found it hard to believe, but there were actually more pubs there than in Galway. My tour guide said Galway was kind of like Ireland's Las Vegas in that people like to go there to vacation and party. We only had about 2 hours there, so I went on a quick walking tour led by the tour guide, and then the tour guide and I went and grabbed a pint and sat outside talking and people watching. It was a great time! We then got back on the bus and made the 3 hour drive back to Dublin! I got back pretty late and made some dinner in the hostel kitchen (chicken sandwich and pasta, my travelling go-to meal). I wasn't sure what |I wanted to do for my last night of going out in Dublin, but that was soon fixed when a guy I met the first night I was there invited me to a party at his friend's apartment. The guy I met at the hostel, a Canadian named Dan, was in Dublin working and staying in the hostel while he searched for an apartment. I ended up going to the party, Dan's friend lived in an apartment right above the Temple Bar, it was really cool! I had a great time meeting Dan's friends, they were from all over the world and were in Dublin working. We then went out to a pub, but by then it was getting really late so I just had a Guinness and headed home.

Downtown Galway

Sunday was my last day in Ireland and so I had to fit in the rest of what I wanted to do in Dublin. I got up and walked over to St. Stephen's Green to have a picnic lunch. It was a beautiful park and I really enjoyed eating and watching people walk around the park. After lunch, I walked up toward St. Patrick's Cathedral where I ended up running into a guy named Chris who I met in my hostel the night before. He ended up joining me and we walked over to try to see Kilmainham Gaol, the old prison in Dublin. The walk ended up being much farther than we expected and when we got there we were going to have to wait an hour to take a tour. Chris wanted to watch a football match and I wanted to see the Jameson Distillery that afternoon so we decided to bail on the prison. I then headed down to the Jameson Distillery. The distillery was great, the tour pretty much went through the entire distillation process and ended in Jameson's bar where I could have a drink. There was also a whiskey tasting, but unfortunately I was not randomly chosen to do it so I had to watch while I worked on my Jameson and ginger ale.

St. Stephen's Green

The Jameson Distillery

After the distillery, I headed back up to the prison because I really wanted to check it out and knew it was still open. I ended up getting on a 4:10 tour of the prison. It was so cool, I'm really glad I went back! The prison was built in 1796 and was in use until the mid-198s. Many of its prisoners were Irish revolutionaries making it very interesting to hear about the Irish political past. Walking through this old prison was definitely an eery experience, but I'm glad I did it because it was unlike anything I had ever seen before. After the prison, I headed back to my hostel to have some dinner and get packed up. I've got to be up at around 4:30 tomorrow morning to catch my flight to Edinburgh, so I'm thinking I'll grab one last pint of Guinness in Dublin tonight and get to bed early!

Kilmainham Prison- The newer, East Wing

Despite having some of my things stolen, I absolutely loved Ireland. I was nervous at first that I wouldn't have fun being here without anyone I know, but that ended up being one of my favorite parts. I loved meeting people and also being able to do things on my own schedule. It was such a fun experience! I haven't left yet but already can't wait to come back! It'll be tricky for me to keep this updated without my laptop (I've totally been monopolizing one of the computers at the hostel here) but I'll do my best!

For some more pictures of my trip to Ireland, go to: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151614864390481.847267.588220480&type=3&l=f882bd81e2