Luck of the Irish

Took Dublin by storm this weekend!

Flew out thursday night...so proud of myself cause I did it all alone...it went very smoothly.
London tube -> airport express bus -> ryanair plane -> airport bus ->walk to hostel
Talk about transportation, jeez louise.  Once I navigated my way to the hostel I put my stuff down and changed then went to meet up with the crew.  Took a cab to our friends house ( two girls from Syracuse are in grad school in Dublin).  We all went to a pub that was crazy...irish soccer, i mean football, fans screaming and yelling and spilling beer everywhere...loved the spirit.

Friday morning our friends who are studying abroad in florence came!!! They snuck up on us in the hostel lobby and we all screamed like 5 year olds in excitement. The hostel was really nice and in a great location, they let us all stay in the same room...plus we had one italian women that didn't speak english (kinda felt bad for her) By the time we all got caught up and ready to go it was lunch time so we went to a cute place for fish and chips and some bulmers cider..pure love. We then began sight seeing...did the tourist bus thing hop on and off. We saw a lot of really cool things including St. Patricks cathedral and trinity college.  Trinity is gorgeous, it looks like Hogwarts from harry potter.  Our next stop was of course GUINESS. It was just a huge museum of the history of the beer and how it was made...a few free tastings...a tutorial on how to pour the perfect pint...and then a beautiful view of dublin from the 7th story. Then back to the hostel and got ready for the night...got dinner at a nearby pub...Alex and I decided we had to be adventurous and try the traditional Irish food so we got Guiness and steak pie with a baked potato....not too shabby if i do say so myself...we then went to the girls house and then out to Temple Bar.  We realized temple bar is actually an area not just a bar but there is The Temple Bar which is a bar and it was just a huuuuuugggeee pub.....really cool...had an awesome night with everyone.

Next morning we met up with everyone and went to Howth a small fishing village in the suburbs of Dublin... there were birds and seal lions and pretty water and hills...we saw a boat named Syracuse!!! We went to a seaside restaurant to warm up and eat (the wind on the coast made it sooo chilly) everyone got really good seafood... i got fried calamari and a veggie burger...then we headed back to the city and check out Grafton street which is the shopping street of Dublin.  You can't drive on it and there are street performers everywhere, so cool.   We met up with Lauras friend who lives in Bellfast who came to see her...he used to do a foreign exchange program and would spend summers with her family.  He came with his friend and their accents were so hard to understand...they explained to us the fighting between north and south ireland, never knew.  We went to the Porterhouse for dinner which is a famous pub/restaurant.  We had garlic bread and thin crust pizza : )  then off to the pub crawl.  hahaha. we went to 4 different pubs around dublin and ended at a club...free entry, some free drinks, and many specialty drink offers. It was def a good time.

Theta Does Dublin.

Next morn slowlyyyy awoke, packed up, went to the famous Kilmainham Jail.  It was interesting to learn about and really neat to see.  After that we had to part way from all our friends : ( it was so good to see everyone and catch up on everything in person.  I love that we can all get together and pick up where we left off, there is never that awkward first few hours re-meet up.. i love it, i love them.  So we said goodbye and the londoners were off.  We got on the airport bus, had not problems at the airport and easily went through...got some yummy frozen yogurt while waiting..and then hopped on our easy 1 hour 15 min flight.  Then another bus and a tube and finally home.


im exhausted. i have no voice. i loved dublin.
(all pics are already up on fbook)