Dublin, Ireland

Hey!! I went to Dublin this weekend with Pilar and her friend Ange. It was amazing and I would definitley love to see more of Ireland in the future! We were only there from Friday night to Sunday but we still managed to take almost 300 pictures?! lol

Friday, April 24

When we got to the airport in Dublin, I had to stand in this long line because I was a non-EU citizen and they asked me how long I was staying, where I was staying, why I was there, and who I was with - it was so weird!! We got out around midnight and found our hostel in the Temple Bar area pretty easily. We were really lucky that Pilar studied abroad in Dublin for a month last semester so she knew where everything was!! We dropped our stuff off and went to Temple Bar until it closed around 2:30. Then we got some food (along with everyone else haha the party just seemed to move to the street even though it was raining) and headed home to get some sleep for our long Saturday.

Saturday, April 25

We woke up, ate breakfast in the hostel and headed towards the tourism office (which was inside a beautiful church!!) to get some maps and buy some souvenirs. On our way there we crossed Ha'penny brigde which was the first bridge to be built in Dublin in 1816 and was really cute lol. We almost died a few times because they drive on the other side of the road!! Which made crossing the street kind of a process haha - we probably looked ridiculous! Pilar told us that because all the doors and doorways look the same, they paint them all different colors so they can find home at night coming back from the bar!! haha it really was like St. Patrick's Day every night - it was crazyy! Then we saw the Molly Malone statue which is really famous in Dublin - she is the theme of "Dublin's National Anthem." We also went to Trinity College which was gorgeous!! (tons of famous people went here like Oscar Wilde) It is the oldest college in Ireland and it was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth. The buildings were all huge and amazing and the Book of Kells is housed here (a super ancient celtic book from 800 AD) We didn't pay to see it, but we saw the exact replica in the Bank of Ireland which was also amazing!! It was the first custom-built parliament house in the world built in 1739!! And inside was amazing. It is now a restaurant/bar, and it has all these old war tapestries and a huge 18th century chandelier on the ceiling. After the Bank of Ireland we stopped in Starbucks because I almost had a panic attack when I saw it (there is no Starbucks in Granada) and the 2 Starbucks virgins I was with wanted to see why I was freaking out. Haha they thought it was amazing of course and took a little photo shoot inside. Then we headed down Grafton Street which is this huge amazing street lined with the best shopping in Dublin (Chanel, Brown Thomas etc etc.) and right when we got to the end of the street and we were about to go into St. Stephen's Green, it started to rain - so we headed into the Stephen's Green shopping center to wait it out for a little bit. This mall was really pretty inside (and there was a TK MAXX haha)!! By the time we used the bathroom and bought some candy, the rain had stopped and we went into the 22 acre St. Stephen's Green Park which was beautiful!!! There were flowers everywhere, this pretty pond with little kids feeding ducks, and lots of green grass. After walking around for a while, we bought sandwhiches and took the bus to the Guinness Factory which was one of my favorite parts of the trip! It was absolutely huge and it had all this info about the history and how it is made and everything. I loved it. Half way through, you get a sample and the workers teach you how to drink it to get the full effect. When we got to the top of the factory (2 1/2 hours later) there was a gorgeous view of the entire city, and we got a pint of guinness with our ticket. After leaving, we headed back to the hostel to pick up our luggage and took the Dart (train) into Harmonstown which was a residential area where Pilar's old host family lived. Being there made me feel really homesick because it was the first time in 4 months I have actually seen houses in a neighborhood, and it reminded me a lot of home. Pilar's host family was awesome! Her mom, Sara, was 28 and her dad is from Lybia so she didn't look very Irish - but her dad, Declan, was 33 and had loads of freckles and orange hair!! He had a really strong Irish accent too haha it was really funny. She also had a Spanish "brother" Ricardo who was still living there since last semester. We all talked for a while and then Sara made us dinner - chicken curry yumm! And we got ready to go out. We took a cab back to the Temple Bar area and met a lot of Pilar's old friends she had made while she was studying here and her cousin who lives permanently in Dublin. It was a lot of fun, and we were exhausted by the time the night was over!

Sunday, April 26

We woke up to the smell of real breakfast which was amazing since I have toast every morning. They had made us eggs and sausage (seriously soo nice) and Declan drove us to Howth (a suburb of Dublin) so we could get a little taste of the country too. He drove us up to the summit and showed us the path we should take to get back into town. All of the green hills and cliffs were amazing and there was a lighthouse in the distance and we could see all of Dublin - it was soo pretty!! But we ended up going the wrong way and heading down by all the fisherman (which was very muddy) haha it was an adventure. After we finally saw someone and asked them the direction to town, we found a road and walked for about another hour and a 1/2 before realizing we were in Sutton instead of Howth...so we found the Dart station and took it back to Harmonstown. We got home, had sandwiches and talked to Sara and Declan before they drove us to the airport. We got back to Malaga around 9 and Pilar's brother picked us up from the airport. It was a really cool experience, but it was too short! We were so lucky to be able to stay with Pilar's old host family and see too really different parts of Dublin.