Ireland

On the first day we arrived in Dublin and immediately went on a walking tour. Our guide's name was Paul and he was extremely hungover but gave us a great tour. He was also really cute with striking blue eyes and his catch phrase, which I managed to catch on video, was ‘Happy Fucking Days.”

Paul took us all over Dublin showing us some great sights and giving us a lot of history. We learned about the castle and how it doesn’t resemble a castle at all because it was burned down and rebuilt. We learned about the statue of Lady Justice and her 4 flaws: she isn’t blind, she’s carrying an unsheathed sword, her scales keep tipping in the rain, and she faces the castle and the Crown not the city and her people. We saw the Spire from a distance, the biggest freestanding sculpture in the world, built in 2003 for the new millennium….only 3 years too late. It also has many phallic nicknames which I won’t go into here.

He took us past the arts centre where U2 won battle of the bands years ago before they became famous. After they won that night, they went across the street to a nightclub where they were refused entry, Bono replied with “don’t worry someday I’ll own this bar,” he came back and bought the whole block. This is in the Temple Bar area, a great block of shops and pubs, even though it’s a known tourist trap. We went past the place where Jonathan Swift lived near the 40 steps, and even the garden/helipad that royals and important people use when they come to visit.

The tour went a few hours longer than expected and we were starving by the time it was over. We ate at The Mercantile, a great pub, and went to check out the hostel. We got lost and I had problems with my hurt foot, before this trip I wandered around Edinburgh for 10 miles and must have done some major damage to my right foot, this whole trip it hurt very much to walk. We went on a pub crawl that evening which was super fun. The first bar, which was the Mercantile again, I got asked for my number by an extremely nice older gentleman bartender, which kind of made my night, I couldn’t cope with the heels and fell at the 3rd pub which was embarrassing but I changed and went back to the party.

When I went to go change my shoes, and the rest of my outfit since I can’t wear a skirt with ugly sneakers, I almost literally ran into a group of people who were taking a picture outside the pub. Without missing a beat these strangers pulled me into their picture and said smile! So now I am in some random group's picture and will probably always be remembered as that one girl they met awkwardly on the street, if they remember me at all. The third pub was my favourite. I had my first vodka lemon slice shot which was incredibly harsh, and listened to this old guy rock hardcore on a banjo as part of an Irish folk band. He reminded me of Jeff, the best guitarist I know.

We had a pretty good time with all the rest of the drunk people in the pub crawl with us, even though they started to become obnoxious after a time, as always happens with booze. There was this one guy who swerved drunkenly into me and nearly hit me. His friend said “don’t worry I’ll protect you,” and I laughed. He offered me his hand as we were walking and I thought he meant it as an introduction like to shake hands but then he weaved his hand into mine and this perfect stranger and I walked hand in hand down the street for no reason at all. Drunk guys are hilarious. Finally, Brooke came and rescued me. Later that night he was too drunk to stand but it was funny all the same.

At one of the next pubs the girls decided to take another shot, having taken pills for my foot I refrained but it was my round so up to the bar I went. It was worth it because I got to make eyes at a cutie who couldn’t stop staring at me. It was pretty funny and flattering, but he was too chicken to make a move. Too bad for him.

We finally ended up in a nightclub where we lit up the floor with our awesome dance moves. It was really fun to just bust out and let go of our worries. We danced with many random men and made eyes at more but we soon realized that this club housed a lot of gay men, not sure whether or not it was labelled a gay club, no women tried to dance with us, but there were a significant number of them there. At about 2ish we caught a cab home and crashed.

The next morning I slept in until 9:30-10ish but nobody else got up until around 11, we took a while getting ready and had an awesome breakfast/lunch next door at the Copper Alley Bistro. They had a Bailey's Cheesecake which was to die for. Next we walked to the Guinness factory, it was a pretty neat place and it was cool to see the city on the way, plus it came with a free pint of Guinness so who’s complaining?...Well I am, because I dropped my camera, just a tiny drop, 2 feet at the most, but it must have hit it at exactly the wrong spot because my screen is all messed up now. On top of that my foot was pretty much in agony all day. Any time I put pressure on it or moved it wrong, pain would shoot up my entire leg. I’m embarrassed to say it made me crabby and irritable. Unfortunately we couldn’t just stop walking, and I couldn’t expect the rest of the group to slow down for me. I just gritted my teeth and pushed on.

We also went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was beautiful from the outside but closed so we couldn’t see the inside, just another reason to go back. Brooke and I ate dinner at a really cool little Spanish place called Havana which had a great apple and plum crumble. We bought some champagne and OJ and relaxed in the hostel for the evening, we taught Kelsey and Meagan to play hearts and have been playing it a lot ever since.

The next morning we woke up and barely made the bus to Galway. When we finally arrived we didn’t get to go to the Cliffs of Moher because they were only running one bus a day, I'll just have to come back to Ireland to see them too, darn the luck. Instead we walked all around the city which was only about one square mile, if that. Galway was such a cute little town. The local Cathedral was beautiful and we went under the Spanish Arches and along the river. We also went through the shopping district and had afternoon tea in the greatest little tea shop called “Cupan Tae” which looks just like cuppa tea and made us laugh. We ended up spending about 2 or 3 hours there sipping tea and chatting, and I finally found some tea that I like, it was great. Later that night we ate in a nice little Italian place and went to bed pretty early because we had to get up early the next day to catch our bus to Cork.

Cork was a bigger town than I expected, and much more industrial, we called it the Glasgow of Ireland. We didn’t spend much time there, instead we took the bus out to Blarney. This was my favourite part of the trip, the town was so small and cute and quaint and I wanted to spend weeks there. Blarney Castle and Gardens were amazing.

The castle is in ruins but is steeped in history. Of course we couldn’t go to Blarney Castle and not kiss the Blarney Stone, which gifts all those who kiss it with eloquence. I went first, then Meagan. Kelsey and Brooke needed a little convincing but finally did it. It’s a scary experience because you have to lay down and lean back over the edge of the castle and you have to literally bend over backward to get to it, you feel like you are going to fall. It gave me an adrenaline rush though and we had the most fun taking pictures all around the castle and gardens, it was a truly beautiful place. It also had a poison garden full of a huge variety of poisonous plants and herbs. I thought that was the most unusual thing to have growing just outside of a castle but it was really neat and informative. We ate an early dinner at a great pub/hotel in Blarney. I sat next to the fire, it was so comfy. I had a really awesome dessert called a fruit pavlova which was basically all kinds of fruit mixed in a cream and meringue mixture, I have never eaten a dessert like it.

The next day was all about getting ready to leave, we woke up, window shopped in Cork, then had a 5 hour bus trip back to Dublin where we caught the plane home. We arrived home about 10 p.m. and I had to get started on my biology report due the next day, it was a long night at the end of a fantastic trip. I can’t wait for the next adventure.