(March 18, 2010 - March 21, 2010)
After a long wait at the Rome-Ciampino Airport and a somewhat loud plane ride sitting next to a mom and her four three-year-olds, we arrived in Dublin Ireland on thursday night about an hour later than anticipated (even though the loudspeaker on the plane said "Welcome to another on-time Ryan Air Flight"), thanks Ryan Air! Tom, Lizzie, Cara and I were in high spirits, though. WE WERE IN IRELAND! Finally, no one was going to speak Italian to me, nope. They were going to speak English :)
We stayed at an adorable Bed and Breakfast right outside of Dublin called Donnybrook Lodge.It seemed to be run by a couple who lived there, the wife greated us on our arrival and the man cooked all the breakfasts for the guests (which were delicious by the way). Other than not being able to find the receptionist lady when we had to check out on Sunday, our visit was awesome. We had our own room, bathroom, shower, fridge and TV (where we got to watch American Idol!!!). It was so cozy, just like I imagined my stay in Ireland would be.
Our first day we got up early and hopped on a bus to city center to meet up with our tour company for the day that was taking us to the Cliffs of Moher. Our coach bus was very fun, and the Irish driver told us Irish history and sang us Irish songs for a lot of the ride to Galway first, some sights in the Irish couontryside, lunch and then the Cliffs of Moher.The Cliffs of Moher were incredibly breathtaking, I could have stayed there all day and although the two hour break we were allowed to explore seemed at first to be ample time to go explore, when the time was up and we had to go back to the bus, those two hours didnt seem to be enough. We spent time walking along the cliffs, taking pictures and taking in the view.
Our tour bus ended up being abouot twelve hours long, and we got back to Dublin around nine at night. We were quite excited to get out of that tour bus, and were pretty hungry so we set out in search of dinner. We quickly discovered how very expensive Dublin restaurants were, much more so than we expected, and ended up getting some food at the cheapest burger joint we could find before heading back to bed, exhausted from our long day.
We got up the second day for the complimentary breakfast and ate our fill of cereal and toast with jam to avoid spending as much money on food in the city. We first went to the Dublin Castle and got a tour with a somewhat awkward guide, who kept leaning on the ancient furniture and touching all the old things in the rooms while he talked to us... that would NOT fly in Italy! We also walked the streets of Dublin a bit, I just loved the feel of the city. My favorite part were the streets which had "Look Left" and "Look Right" painted on the ground at the crosswalks for people like us who werent used to cars driving ono the wrong side of the street. After seeing St. Patrick's Cathedral, we set out to the Guinness Brewery (One of the coolest places I've been).
We had such an awesome time going through the museum that explained how Guinness was made and how the company progrerssed over time. We taste-tested at the half way point and took advantage of the free beers. We then spent a lot of time looking at all the Guinness Advertisements throughout history and watching their old commercials, they were so cool. At the end of the tour, you end up at the top of the brewery in a large circular room with windows on all sides over looking the city and a bar in the middle handing out our free complimentary pints of Guinness... officially my favorite, but not so much Cara's haha.
Cara's friend from home that was studying in Dublin met up with us for dinner and we shopped around a little bit looking for new cladaugh rings, even though I couldn't bring myself to part with mine, the other girls bouoght themselves new ones. We struggled a bit getting home since the buses sometimes don't stop at the bus stops? As the bus that we needed zoomed past the stop, one of the Irish men sitting on the corner told me that sometimes they don't stop if they're full.. Cara and I laughed and told them to visit Rome to see what the word "full" means. We finally made it back to the B&B and packed our stuff up for our early flight the next morning, and finally fell asleep wishing we had more time in Dublin!
The View from the Window of the Dublin Castle, pretty sweet
St. Patrick's Cathedral!
All of us in front of the (windy) Guinness Brewery!
Some handy little signs :)
