Novembrrrr Travels part 1: Dublin

Helllooooo!
Once again... I have lacked in my blogging but I am here to make amends!

Two weeks ago Alison and I left for Dublin on a Wednesday night! We got super cheap flight with Ryanair but I forgot my boarding pass in my room and got charged a ridiculous amount so that was a big bummer... we are no longer going to fly with Ryainair because as cheap as they are they just find a million other ways to make you pay. The flight was about 45 minutes... the pilot told us we were landing just about as soon as we got up in the sky. The first two nights we got a private room and the last two nights we stayed in a dorm. Alison and I are a little spoiled when it comes to this but the private rooms are usually nicer and obviously quieter. This hostel had beds that were literally like rocks though so it didn't really matter where we were because it was super uncomfortable... anyway.

So Thursday Alison and I were on our own, our friends were coming that night. We did a free tour of Dublin which was really nice because we got to see a lot and learn the history behind some of the things we might not have known otherwise. And, for the rest of the weekend Alison and I took Alex and Zach on the same tour of Dublin we got. Dublin was very pretty and it was sunny which was a plus! We saw Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral and a lot more. It was a very laid back city compared to London and I think I may have liked it better than Edinburgh. There were surprisingly not as many touristy shops as Scotland and the one that they had there was a chain so there were not a thousand on the main road. The tour of Dublin took around four hours... mainly because our guide didn't really know how to walk and seemed to be on drugs or something. After the tour we did our own wandering throughout the city and got some dinner to take back to our hostel.

Christ Church Cathedral

Friday we met up with Alex and Zach to get our Dublin passes. We got free admission to lots of things throughout Dublin and it was well worth it. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain all day so we got very wet and I didn't have a hat or a hood on my rain slicker, odd. (Hence why I look like a wet dog in all of my photos.) Speaking of photos... I left my camera battery at home this weekend so my pictures are stolen from Alison and Zach. So we headed off to Dublin Castle to go inside of it but unfortunately Dublin was getting a new president so they didn't really want us in the castle so that was a bummer. We then went to both Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral which were both very beautiful. Europe definitely has a lot of churches, we have probably been in at least two if not way more than that in every city. After that we made our way to the Guinness Storehouse. This was actually really cool, I am glad we had the pass though because I am not sure I would have wanted to pay for it. It is very touristy but it took you through the process of making the beer and we got to taste it and then got a free pint on top of the storehouse in the Gravity Bar which was a glass circle that looked out onto all of Dublin. That was pretty neat and at about this time it stopped raining so it was clear!

Alex, Zach, me, and Alison at Guinness

After Guinness we decided to keep with the alcohol and head over to Jameson Distillery. I was excited for this because my dad has a new found love for Jameson. It was a pretty cheesy tour but once again showed the process from start to finish. At the end we all got a free drink, the options were straight Jameson, Jameson and cranberry juice, or Jameson and sprite. I chose the latter and it was actually really delicious. Alex volunteered to be a taste tester and she tasted Jameson, Scotch, and Jack Daniels. She along with a few other people all chose Jameson to be the best. Then we all tried hers and agreed... the other whisk(e)y's were just gross. It was nearing 6 pm and so we headed out to find another one of our friends to go on a pub tour with her but it didn't work out because we were starving and stumbled into this little vegetarian restaurant that just piled food on top of food and was delicious. After dinner the four of us went to a pub that had a thousand beers and sat around and hung out for a while. The pubs were really fun because it was just so casual and low key and people of all ages were there.

Jameson and Sprite

Saturday we met up again with Zach and Alex and a market that had all sorts of goodies. We got pesto hummus, tapenade, and olives with bread for a picnic lunch. Alex and Zach's Dublin pass was good for three days and Alison and mine was just for one so they went off to see some more stuff and Alison and I just explored a bit more. We went into their art gallery but 75% of it was closed for renovation so that didn't take long. We also went back to Trinity to see the long library, the longest library... also I guess in Star Wars, and to see the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is  a really old, beautiful book of the gospels in latin with intricate drawings on the pages. After this we met back up with Alex and Zach for dinner before going on a literary pub crawl. The pub crawl was a lot of fun and our two tour guides knew a lot about the writers and performed skits for us and took us to four different pubs. Alison and I had to catch a 7 am flight so we left shortly after that ended and went back to bed!

I feel like I am selling Dublin short but it really was a lot of fun and a nice city to explore. I definitely want to go back to Ireland though because everyone says that Dublin isn't really Ireland. A future trip.

I will write more later today about Croatia but my fingers are tired and I have to run to campus to turn in a paper!

Ta for now!
Julia