Whiskey In The Jar!

Ireland, Ireland. How I loved it so much! I truly fell back in love with Europe and this whole experience all over again this past weekend. Lauren and I both had very stressful weeks and Dublin and Cork took all of our troubles away. We actually heard "Yesterday" by the Beatles in the pub and Lauren said, "This will be our theme song come Monday." Sadly, it was very true. We got home Monday around 5pm and we both had 3,000 word papers due Tuesday. Procrastination?...Oops.

First night at the pub

On to Ireland. We left Friday around 3pm (after my LAST creative writing class! YIPEE!!) and we got to our hostel in Dublin around 6:30. We took the walk out to the Temple Bar area, a tourist trap with a lot of pubs. We went to one pub for dinner. We had corned beef and cabbage, of course. It was delicious to say the least. After we finished our dinner, we had a pint and listened to live music. Let me tell you, the live music was my favorite part of the whole weekend. It just made the experience that much better. We decided to go to another pub and see more of Dublin, however we only made it right next door. There was a guy playing the guitar singing Irish songs as well as American songs. He sand "Puff the Magic Dragon" and a few Bob Marley songs. What a guy. It was funny because the bar tenders in this pub were wearing uniforms that were what we called, "Dwight Schrute influenced"(they wore short sleeved button up shirts and ties). There were a lot of bachelor and bachelorette parties out that night. WE met a few guys who lived in Holland. They were funny. It is always interesting to hear what people have to ask us because we are American! After the second pub we headed back to our hostel because we had to be up at 5:30am in order to make our train to Cork at 7. The guy in the bunk next to me snored SOO loud, I was not very happy!

Blarney Castle's Park

UCC's campus

Saturday we took the train and headed to Cork. Our hostel was a bar as well, so needless to say a group of guys were there at 10am to great us at the door and kissed our cheeks. What a great welcoming! We headed to Blarney Castle which was beyond gorgeous. The country side of Ireland is breathtaking. If anyone wants to rent a house in a secluded area in Ireland's country side, I will gladly take the trip with you! =) Anyways, the castle was surrounded green lands and it was very pretty. We climbed the steps to kiss the Blarney Stone and good luck is now on my side! After the castle we headed back to Cork and we talked to UCC, University College Cork, where Lauren's older sister went to school when she studies abroad. Wow was I jealous!! It was a campus that looked like a park, not fair! We had a chill night and just went to a restaurant and shared a pizza. In our hostel room was a couple from Australia. They are backpacking across Europe for 8 months. Think about that. Backpacking across EUROPE for EIGHT months. How fascinating! It takes a lot to be able to do that, I'm not to sure I would be able to.

Luck of the Irish!

Lovely day for a Guinness!

Sunday morning we took a train at 8am and headed back to Dublin. That day we went to the Guinness Storehouse. It was kind of boring, not as exciting as Heineken was, however the view from the top was very pretty. We got to see all of Dublin while drinking our lunches..that is what I think of when I drink a Guinness...It is like eating a meal because it is thick and it tastes like coffee and bacon. After Guinness we walked around Dublin and made our way to St. Stephen's Greens. I can't thank Kristyn enough for suggesting it! It was another large park that took my breath away. Everything was so green and colorful, I couldn't believe it. We sat on a park bench for about an hour just watching people in the park. After we bought souvenirs and had dinner at Eddie Rockets...Johnny's brother ; ). That night we met up with Lauren's friend who was studying in Dublin. We went to a few pubs then called it an early night for our flight home on Monday.

Lauren with all the pretty flowers

And now I am here, wishing I could go back. It was a great, must needed weekend. The Irish have such a laid-back, easy going lifestyle. They can be hard to understand at times, but that makes it even more fun and interesting. One more trip and it's to Wales. It will be a lot of fun!

-Cheerio!