For the week after the Cambridge before my flight back home, I decided to jet on over to Ireland. Oh my holy beautiful! Yes, it is very green and very gorgeous. There was some drama with my bags being too heavy thus shipping a big box home was a challenge at the airport. Besides that, smooth sailing on over.
Upon getting into a taxi, the driver basically became like my best friend. He told me what I need to see and what he recommended for eating and drinking in Dublin. He warned me to stay away from Temple Bar because their prices were insanely high. He dropped me off at the Arlington Hotel which happens to be directly next to Temple Bar. I had two whole beds to myself! Haha… It was a struggle getting the internet, but besides that it was pretty nice.
And of course, my first meal in Ireland is a total American standby: cheeseburger, oreo milkshake, and cheese fries at the Johnny Rockets down the street. I just needed a burger, if you know what I mean! As far as food went in Ireland, I really didn’t try a lot of Irish food mostly because of the fact that I don’t do sausage or anything along those lines. It was the drinks that I more had fun with… But more on that later!
Walking around Dublin, I was amazed at how many musicians there were just sitting around and playing! And most of them were really really good… my favorite group was one on Grafton Street that was playing “Come Together.”
My first night I did a Literary Pub walk that was hosted by two actors who were utterly hilarious and had a really good chemistry together as they performed skits from some of Irelands most famous writers. We hit up three pubs after walking through Trinity college. Pretty much, I sobered up really quick initially because the drinks were bloody expensive! Like over 4 euros at least! It was insane… So I didn’t drink anything at the pubs we went to on the walk, but I did meet a few people who I ran into later that night and so we got drinks together. I was treated to a screwdriver, which turned out to be quite good! Before bumping into them, I went back to the pub the walk started at: the Duke. I sat at the bar and ended up chatting it up with the cute girl next to me, Nadine who recommended Guinness with a touch of black currant in it. I will forever be in her debt–best drink ever! First time I tried Guinness in Ireland and it was wonderfully tainted with it… Just amazing! That night I went back to my room and crashed… I had not slept that well in Cambridge, I remember thinking the next morning.
My first day trip out of Dublin was to Limerick, Cliffs of Moher, Burren and Galway Bay. We met at the train station, had a very scenic two hour ride before arriving in Limerick where we all boarded a bus and had a bus tour around the city. Had lunch at a pub in Limerick where you could see the Eireann Islands if you climbed the stone walls lining the road. Then it was off to the Cliffs… Absolutely stunning! I had an utter blast trekking my way up the cliffs’ backside then leaning over the edge just thinking, “It’s a long way down!” There was also a woman playing an irish harp and singing near the Cliffs who had a stunning voice: Tina Mulrooney. After the Cliffs of Moher, we went to the Burren, which was a limestone jubilee… I guess the rock was eroded a certain way so the cracks that plague the limestone all look the same. The flowers poking out between the rocks were pretty too. We only spent a few minutes here. Then onto Galway! I had to buy an Irish Claddagh ring for myself–that was the ultimate memento to have from here. The one I ended up buying was yellow gold with tiny diamonds lining the heart with an emerald smack in the middle of them. Very expensive but very worth it… I swear it was love at first sight! We got back to Dublin pretty late so I decided to stop at the oldest pub in Dublin that one of the girls recommended on the tour: Brazenhead. Really good food there… and it was just a chill place with music in the front room and a stone entryway where people could sit. Then sleep time!
The next day was Newgrange and Monasterboice… Took a little bit to get to Newgrange, but again, no complaints here because seeing Ireland flash by the windows was still very cool. Newgrange was wickedly sweet! I learned a lot from the tour guide about how the people could have possibly constructed it and how it had been made in such a way that it could stay standing and withstand the test of thousands of years. When they turned out the lights and did a “sunlight demonstration” of how the sunlight would create a single line of light across the floor at the Winter Solstice, my jaw dropped. It was sooo cool! Imagine being there when winter solstice was actually happening! So I put my name in for the Winter Solstice drawing! 3 times! After that, it was off to Monasterboice which I didn’t have a clue what it was beforehand. It is an old cemetery where families have been buried for hundreds of years. I meandered through the gravestones with the guy who I sat next to on the bus, Mike (who turned out to be totally chill despite his intimidating muscles). We wanted to try and find the oldest gravestone there… the oldest dated one we could actually read was dated back to the 1600s. It was pretty awesome! What was cooler is that it was one of the more well preserved headstones as well… Back on the bus, Mike introduced me to his buddies he was traveling with and we ended up going to the Duke pub for dinner together! I had such a blast with them! We swapped numbers since we were all staying in Dublin so we could meet up later that night after my next planned adventure.
Now probably for one of the highlights of my entire Ireland trip, the Irish Music Pub Crawl. It was hosted by two Irish musicians who played traditional Irish music for us all night at four different pubs. It was so much fun! One played an accordian looking thing and the other played the guitar and sung. I got to talk to them while we walked around the city and I ended up telling them that I was a musician myself. They both told me that I should sing for them later when they called for people on the walk to come entertain. I got nervous! I never get nervous! So I got a drink at the next pub (Ha’Penny), a favorite from Cambridge, Koppaberg cider. HMMMM! I love that stuff. That calmed me down a little… So I ended up singing How Do I Live for everyone when no one else volunteered to “entertain”. When I finished, one of the tour guides said, “We forgot one rule: don’t show up the professionals!” I couldn’t help but laugh. It was a really good time and the musicians rocked my socks (they loved me and I loved them too!). But after I sang, no one else had the balls to stand up and entertain us, saying “Who wants to follow that?” I felt bad but I still had fun!
After the pub crawl, I met up with the guys I’d met earlier in the day back at the Ha’Penny and had another Guinness garnished with black currant (you really don’t understand how good it is!). I had a little bit of a blonde moment… When I had been there earlier in the night, the bathrooms had been upstairs. So when Mike got up to use the restroom, I followed him through the door without paying attention to what was written on the door (not very legibly, mind you) and quickly realized I had walked straight into the mens room. Yes, mortifying but totally hilarious! My new buddies laughed with me for a few minutes before I decided to go get some food. We tried to meet back at my favorite pub, Gogarty’s, then Mike and I lost the other four. They decided to bail and go back to the hotel. Mike and I chilled listening to Irish music, danced a little, and drank a little more. Then we said ta-ta as we went different directions and I headed back to my hotel. That night, I remember going back to my hotel and seeing the Irish dancers putting on quite a show! What a fascinating thing to watch with their feet and legs flying like that!
The next morning, I made the twenty minute walk back to the train station to for my day trip to Blarney Castle and Cork. Blarney Castle was first… it was pretty cool! After much deliberation, I decided to kiss the grimy stone that millions of peoples peepers have pecked before (and word is, soldiers peed on as well). I got a picture 🙂 I can say that I actually did it! I made friends with two more guys (Chris and Diego) on this trip and we walked around the Rock Garden or something like that and then we took the path around the lake to see the lake but didn’t end up seeing any of the lake until the very end which was kinda disappointing. But its ok! Still cool! Then we had some lunch and boarded the bus for Cobh (pronounced Cove). First we hit the chapel that was there… it was stunning! We visited the Queenstown museum thingie that had details on the emigration of Irish people to America during the famine and also how it was the last docking point of Titanic (which of course made me really excited!). Then back to the train station for the way long train ride back where I sat with Chris and Diego where we talked and slept until we got back. I then took them to the Brazenhead for dinner which we all quite enjoyed. We went to Gogarty’s after, where I ran into my Irish Music pub tour guide who told me he thinks I will go far and he gave me a free copy of the Gogarty’s Irish music CD. I quite liked him! I met a couple more of the musicians… one was totally cute, but he had a ring on his left hand. Bummer! Oh well! Then Chris, Diego and I wandered a little checking out a couple more pubs. Me being me, I headed back to Gogarty’s one more time before calling it quits for the night.
The next day was the only day I didn’t have a day trip planned out of Dublin, so I was going to use the day to actually see Dublin! I slept in a little after the exhausting week. Then I woke up and headed to St. Patricks Cathedral of which I got some amazing pictures! I wanted to see Christ’s Church but unfortunately it was closed that day… for the filming of the Tudors!!!! Jonathan Rhys Meyers was, no joke, about fifty yards away from me! Besides being pissed at not being able to see the church, it was still pretty wicked to briefly see a tv show filming! After that, I headed off to the Guinness Storehouse Factory. It was so neat seeing the history and how they make Guinness… that and it was niceto get a free Guinness when the tour was done. No lie, it was sunny when I was enjoying my Guinness (free of black currant… but still tasty!). By the time I went downstairs to leave, it was pouring buckets. It was weird… and I didn’t have a jacket. After that, I figured that I should probably work on my essay that was due the next day. Haha! It’s incredibly hard to sit and write a paper when there is so much to see and do in a new place… like insanely difficult. That night, I met up with Chris and Diego for a while before they left on a huge pub and bar walk. Then it was back to the Brazenhead with Mike and his buddies for drinks. It was with much sadness as I said good bye so I could pull an all-nighter to finish my essay and pack before my flight back to London in the morning.
Yeah, not so easily done. Stayed up all night worked on my essay, packed, got a taxi and headed to the airport only to discover my mom had booked my flight for 8:15… PM! Not AM, so I spent an extra 300 bucks to rebook my flight for something sooner. Not fun or happy about that. I tried to catch an hour of sleep on that short flight so I could manage to stay awake in London and on my flight from London to Minneapolis. Landing in London, I searched the entire airport for an outlet and an area that had internet connection… yeah not so easy. I found an internet connection but no outlet so I finally gave up on the internet part and decided to go to my gate and charge my laptop while I tried to write my essay (which would be due a half hour after landing in Minneapolis). On the flight, I wrote my essay and was pretty close to being done when… wait for it… my laptop DIED on me! So what the heck was I supposed to do for the next three hours that could help? I marked a few passages I wanted for sure to include in the last bit of my paper and ran through in my mind what I needed to write. Then I watched Sunshine Cleaning… and 17 Again… then we landed. I booked it out of the plane and grabbed my luggage and tried to get through customs as fast as I could so I could finish my paper and hopefully have some sort of internet connection along with an outlet for powering my laptop. Five minutes before it’s too late, I hit the submit button. Yeah, drama… I was in definite need of a Guinness at that point.
Let me tell you when I went out to dinner that night with some family friends that lived in Minneapolis, I was very disappointed when I couldn’t have a drink especially after a hellish day. Pretty sure the harsh reality that the UK has ten times better food in general became apparent quickly as well… That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my dinner, I did it was pretty good but just nowhere near as good what I had over the pond. I was certainly spoiled over there! But I crashed at 10 PM so my jet lag coming home was very very minimal. Maybe the all-nighter had an extra benefit I hadn’t forseen…
Sorry so long, but I wanted a full account of this! If you stuck around and read the entire thing, I give you props for not having a life 😛 Haha, totally playing with you… Because this took me an hour and a half to type. So who has a life now??? If you would believe this, I wrote this all from memory nearly a month after. I’m kind of surprised I can remember this much! That just tells you how much fun I had and how I really don’t want to forget it 🙂
The link for the Ireland pics is in the sidebar if you want to check it out! Nearly 200 photos!
Cheers!
PS: Guinness is nowhere near as good in America as it is in Ireland… just thought I’d throw that out there!
.:. Kel in Cambridge .:. 
