Dispatches from Elsewhere: Adventures in Ireland

Though Ireland wasn't initially on my destination list for this semester, when a friend from school back in D.C. asked me to tag along it seemed like too great an offer to turn down. So, this past weekend I met two friends who are studying abroad in Madrid and one who is studying abroad in London for a weekend full of beautiful green grass and rain in Dublin, Ireland.

Though we were only there for 2 days, we managed to pack in lots of sightseeing and even travel outside of the city. Our first day in Dublin was filled by wandering around the town, starting with a tour at the Guinness Brewery. It's set up on this large industrial compound with tall brick buildings and lots of machinery. The tour was self guided and entirely worth doing, but it felt more like walking through a Guinness museum than taking a tour of the brewery. The exhibits were really well done though, and we learned everything we wanted and more about how Guinness is made.

Learning how to pour our own

Success

At the end of the tour, we also learned how to pour our own glass of Guinness, an entire 6 step process! The brewery has a beautiful sky deck that has wonderful views of the city so we were able to enjoy our glass of beer with a view (and though it was pretty early in the morning, it was still good).

Views from the top

Rainy Dublin

For the remainder of the day we wandered through Dublin taking in sights and trying (unsuccessfully) to stay dry. We saw St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity College, ate corned beef and cabbage sandwiches, and wandered through the "Temple Bar" area of the city where we were staying. The city is charming and no one seemed bothered by the eternally wet state of their clothing and shoes.

Dublin Cookie!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Rainy walk

Corned beef sandwich

City park

That evening we wandered around our neighborhood and stumbled into a wildly fun evening at an Irish pub playing live Celtic music. The venue was situated right above a bar and was packed to the brim with locals and unsuspecting tourists like ourselves. There were two guitarists and fiddler who all sang and introduced us to both modern and more traditional Celtic music. Everyone in the audience was so engaged and sang to every song (we started to catch on by the end of the evening) and best of all, everyone was dancing to the point that I thought the floor would give way under the small upstairs bar. Though it was clear nobody in there had any idea how to really do an Irish step-dance, it didn't keep anyone from trying their hardest the entire evening. We had the most incredible time.

Our second day in Ireland we took a tour outside the city to the opposite side of the island to visit the Cliffs of Moher and a small town called Galway. The day was filled with a lot of driving, however we were able to see beautiful Irish countryside and learned many fun facts. My favorite: there are more sheep than people in Ireland (it's true).

Sunrise on the bus

Castles/ fortresses everywhere

So green!

The cliffs were massive and intimidating and beautiful against the ocean. We had a couple of hours to explore the area so we hiked along the edge through lots of mud to see as much of the cliffs as possible.

After the cliffs we drove on to a small seaside town called Galway, a charming little area filled with incredibly nice locals and great fish and chips. We took a short walking tour around the city and then were left to our own devices to explore around the town and have a chance to eat before the long bus ride home. The area was small but lively and I certainly want to go back and explore more in the future.

Forgot to take more pictures oops

That evening we went to "the original" Temple Bar (who knows if it's really true since there are 5 or 6) for another evening full of wonderful live music. That night it was more of a Celtic-American fusion but incredibly fun nonetheless. I had no idea that Dublin was such a vibrant live music scene (every bar had performances every evening) but I'm so glad I got to experience a little bit of Ireland during my time in Europe this semester.