The Luck of the Irish

Dublin

After waking up at 4:00 am, traveling by tube, train, plane, and bus, we arrived in Dublin at around 10:45.  We had a long day ahead if we wanted to see Dublin in a day.  As I soon found out, all I needed was a day in Dublin.  We took a supposedly 3 hour walking tour of London.  It was supposed to by 3 hours but it took 4.  It was a very cold and rainy day and not typical walking tour weather.  My toes, fingers, and bottom lip had gone numb. 

Places we saw:

*City Hall – my favorite building because we were able to go inside for 10 minutes!

*Dublin Castle – all that remains is the tower.  The top of the tower has different stone-work because it was added on later to make the tower look more castle-y

*Where U2 was discovered and the hotel and bars that they own.  Quick Anecdote: U2 used to always practice in this blue warehouse and across the street was The Clarence Hotel.  They went there one time to eat but they wouldn’t serve them because they weren’t the type that usually eats there.  Bono told them that when they become rich and famous they will buy this hotel and fire them.  And so they did!

*The Temple Bar- Dublin’s cultural corner where there are a lot of pubs and a big tourist attraction for night life

*The Spire- A big monument in the center of Dublin.  It was built for the millennium but wasn’t finished until 2003.

The Spire

Kate, Me and Danielle at the Spire

We ended the tour at O’Neils.  It is a very well known Irish restaurant in Dublin.  We got a deal on the food for being part of the tour.  I ordered the Irish Stew.  It was beef stew with Guinness sauce.  It was pretty good but not as good as my mom’s stew!!

That night we went to two pubs.  The first one near our hostel.  They played Irish music and four old couples did some Irish partner dancing.  It was fun to watch!  It was interesting that most people out at these pubs were older folks.

We also went to the Temple Bar area to a pub with live music.  This was a younger band that played Irish music and U.S. music.

Me, Kate, and Danielle at O'Sheas - pub near our hostel

Hostel Experience

To get to the point I am not a hostel kind of girl.  In Dublin we were able to get a private room for just the 3 of us.  Our room smelled like pee and I’m pretty sure there was pee on the ground of our bathroom.  Either that or the toilet was leaking.  The toilet and sink were so close together that in order to use the toilet you had bend backwards to get under the sink.  In addition, it was freezing; I slept in a ball and woke up with a hand-print on my face from sleeping on my hand.  Luckily it was only one night there. 

I feel the complete opposite about the hostel in Galway.  I absolutely loved it there.  I could have stayed there for a whole week!!  The moment we walked into the place we knew it was so much better.  It had a huge staircase, carpeted, and painted walls.  The lobby was enormous with couches, pillows, and free Internet.  The staff was very friendly.  In this hostel we weren’t able to get a private room and shared with 3 strangers.  Everyone kept to themselves and there was very little interaction with the strangers.  Our room was nice and toasty so I slept very well for the 2 nights.  I was told that not all hostels are like the Galway one and most likely they will be like the Dublin one L

Galway

Galway is a very small city and I bet very pretty and popular during the summer months.  Unfortunately for us, it rained and was freezing cold on our trip.  After our bus from Dublin to Galway we met up with our friends that had flew straight from London to Galway.  We walked along the coast of the Ocean and had taken some scenic shots. 

The girls on the Coast

That evening we went to a recommended restaurant called McDonagh’s.  It is a seafood restaurant.  Here I had my first meal of Fish and Chips and I liked it!

My fish and chips (after the first bite)

Cliffs of Moher

There are two big tourist sites in Galway: Cliffs of Moher and the Aran Islands.  We chose to go to the Cliffs of Moher (we didn’t think we needed to do both).  It was a full day bus tour where we went to sites on the way up to the Cliffs. 

I wanted to post this picture to show how rainy and cold it was.  

This is a picture of the rocky fields on our way to the Cliffs.

We left for the tour at 10:00 and by 4:00 we had made it to the Cliffs.  We had about 1.5 hours to explore up there.  Luckily for us, it had actually stopped rainy when we got to the Cliffs.  The view was amazing.  We were so high up.  The Cliffs were huge.  There were two different sides and we walked both ways.  I took so many pictures so I am going to post the ones I think looked the best. 

Me and my roommate Danielle

The Girls

Castle at the Cliffs

It was so windy right at the spot.  The picture isn't straight because the wind was so strong it was pushing my over!

IT WAS SOO MUDDY! My shoes got too heavy it was hard to walk!

Last Day

Sunday was our last day here but Galway being such a small city we really didn’t know what to do.  After checking out of our hostels we walked a very long way.  We were trying to get to the aquarium but took a long detour through a residential area.  We walked for over an hour and came across the coast.  It smelled like fish and it was very nice to walk by the ocean (kinda like in Mexico but imagine 70 degrees colder).  We found the aquarium but of course it was tiny and decided to ditch that idea.  We found lunch near by at a pub and I got a very delicious pasta.  We spent the rest of the night watching sports at the pub.  We saw a soccer game, a rugby game, and then the big soccer game of Chelsea vs. Manchester United.  It was an exciting game and in the last 5 minutes ended as a tie.

Journey Home

Thanks to our poor planning we had to spend the night in the airport.  Our plane back to London left Shannon airport at 6:30 am.  Shannon is about a 2 hour bus ride from Galway.  Unfortunately the last bus leaves at 8:00 pm.  We were hoping to be able to watch the Super Bowl somewhere in Shannon but there was nowhere to go.  We got to the airport at around 9:00 and started to entertain ourselves.  We bought loads of food and played a camp game called Mafia.  By 12:00 everyone got tired and we slept for about 4 hours at the airport.  After a flight, train ride, and tube ride we finally made it make to our flights at around 9:30.  I slept all day until 3:30.  Hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight.

It was a very fun trip!! I have two weekends of no trips so I am excited to be able to see some more sites in London.  At the end of February I’m off the Prague!