While I do know that it has been over a week since I returned from Ireland, I've just been really busy with school and haven't been able to post, so here it is....IRELAND!!
We had a British Studies Exam on Wednesday before we left, so we were kind of mentally gone on Thursday morning at 4:30 am when our cab came to pick us up. haha! We made our flight just fine and arrived in Dublin around 8 am. We checked into our hostel (but we couldn't get into our room until around 4) and walked around the hostel for a bit, got breakfast and then did a Jameson Distillery tour at 10. We got to see how Jameson is produced and then we got to try it. It was very sweet, nothing at all like the Scotch Whiskey from Scotland!! I had a Jamesone and giner ale and then we had to do a taste test for what was better Johnny Walker Black Label, Jameson or Jack Daniels no 5, I personally chose Jack, I'm American haha!! After that we got a ticket for a hop-on hop-off bus tour we road to Temple Bar area and went to Hard Rock for lunch, I had a veggie burger and fries and onion rings. Then we shopped around some more and then went to Trinity College where they were having a protest against testing on animals, we got back on the bus and road past Christ Church and St. Patrick's cathedral, and then got off at Guinness and took a tour of that storehouse. It was kinda cool, but I'm not sure it was worth the €10.60. We had a free Pint of Guinness at the Gravity bar that provided a 360 degree view of Dublin, it was really cool. I could only finish about 3/4 of the pint, but I can still say I had some Guinness at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin! After Guinness we shopped around a tad more then walked back to our hostel and took a nap, we tried to try some Irish Coffee, but the pub was too full, but they were playing live music so that was neat to hear. We slept through dinner so we bought some cookies at a grocery store (before we found the pub to be too full and that our hostel stopped cooking at 9 pm) so I had 3 large biscuits for dinner.
The next day we woke up at 5:30 to get our taxi to the Paddy wagon tour at 5:45am!! We met a girl named Lauren on our tour, she had just graduated from Temple. We took a public bus from Dublin to Cork and arrived around 11 am, where we found out our tour was only us 3 people, very cool!! Once we were picked up in Cork we went to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone and see the beauty of Blarney!! We went into the dungeon and basically were crawling to get through a small passage, and our legs killed us after we got out because we basically did 50 yards of lunges in and 50 back out!! After that we climbed ALL the wet, slippery, uneven steps to the top, holding onto the rope hand rail very tightly. It was breathtaking when we got to the top, and then we kissed the Blarney stone!!
After that we went into the rock close, but we didn't see the wishing steps. After Blarney we headed to Cobh (pronounced Cove) for Lunch, this was also the last port of call for the Titanic. During lunch we tried Irish Coffee, it wasn't made with Jameson and so it was gross, I also tried a soda bread sandwich, that was GROSS!!! We got to see the Lithuania and the Titanic Memorials. the Lithuania one was beautiful. We also saw a huge cathedral built for the immigrants leaving for America to pray in before they boarded the ships, then we left for Kinsale. Kinsale was AMAZING!! I LOVED IT!! We found a small silversmith shop and I bought a ring I got to watch him make in a different size. Kinsale is on Kinsale bay (Atlantic Ocean). After we headed back to Cork where we went an saw a covered market that was pretty cool, then we boarded the public bus back to Dublin. We went out that night and I tried Bulmers and Irish Cider, it was pretty good, and we listened to live music in the Temple Bar pub.
The next morning we met Lauren at the Leprechaun Museum, that was really cool!! We went through a Giant's house then through a rainbow and found a pot of gold and heard stories of fairy people and Leprechauns! Then we went to a Quizno's and then Elizabeth and I headed for the Dublin Airport.
I loved Ireland, I didn't so much love Dublin, but I would go back in a heartbeat, I would recommend Ireland to anyone wanting a trip overseas!!
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