Ireland!

Hello lads!

Just returned from Ireland (Wed-Sun) and had a fantastic time! We stayed with our roommie from Rutgers (Jacquie) and it was so nice having a "real home" to come back to exhausted every night. We literally came with just a backpack, 5 days of...life for 4 girls in 4 backpacks, quite amusing. Jacq and her rommates have a legit house with a living room, 2 floors, many jail-less bedrooms, a redone kitchen and the nicest roommates ever. Not to mention we got to spend 5 days with Jacq!

So we got in Wednesday night and first stop was of course a pub. We went to Oliver St. John Gogary Pub and had our first Guinness in the homeland. Okay, slight exaggeration, everyone got a Guinness because they felt they needed to pay their homage to Ireland/St. Patrick's day, and Jacq and I enjoyed a much lighter beer, Smitticks. There was an old man band playing pub songs and the atmosphere was just so jolly, like something I've never experienced before. We made friends with some clearly inebriated Irish lads, it only made the night more fun. We headed back after a few hours to get a good night's sleep for hiking the next day.

Thursday morning we got an early start for hiking in the Wickalow mountains. We stopped for BAGEL SANDWICHES (<3home<3) on the way to the bus and loved every bite. The ride was about 45 minutes from Dublin and dropped us off at the beginning of the "Wickalow Way." We hiked through Wickalow National Park and ended up in the town of Glendalough. The countryside was so gorgeous, and it's true, I saw more shades of green than I ever could've ever imagined existed. We also saw some sheep, horses, puppies, adorable old Irish grandparents and many other gorgeous natural sights. We were spent on the ride back so we all took a nap, showered up, and got ready for our first Irish meal. Off to Sheehans for some authentic Irish dinner, they had Guinness pies, meat & potato everything, lots of curry dishes?, fish & chips, basically all of the essentials. Since we had a Guinness the night before we opted for the Jameson & Coke tonight. The meal was delicious but we were stuffed so we sat around and chatted for quite some time. I just loved sitting there A. with my friends (Jill, Jacquie, Morgan and Jen) and B. taking in the overly friendly Irish, hearing the live music (more pub songs) and admiring the adorable pub decor. Once we digested enough to go out dancing we made our way to Messer-McGuires Bar and danced the night away. We encountered an interesting, what we think was a birthday party where we found plastic handcuffs, a blowup doll and some other interesting paraphernalia. Never a dull moment in Ireland! The old man DJ soon became our good friend as we were requesting songs left and right, anything from Lady GaGa to Build Me Up Buttercup. Needless to say, we had a wicked awesome time.

Friday morning we went out for a typical Irish breakfast at Sophie's cafe. It was delicious, sunny side up eggs, sausage (with spices i've never tasted before), bacon (but more like pieces of thick ham) and these baked beans in a tomato sauce. After, Jacquie gave us a personal walking tour of the city of Dublin. It is such a cool city with a mix of very old and very modern attractions, however it was probably ten times cooler because everything was hustle-bustle and decorated for St. Patrick's day. We hit the main attractions, St. Patrick's Cathedral and it's courtyard which had more flowers in bloom in March than I've ever seen anywhere in the USA. Walked along the river, saw all the major pubs, the spire (the 390 ft. stainless steel tower in the center of O'Connell street). We walked along the main streets and stopped in some fun stores which were of course decorated for St. Patrick's day. There were people out in the squares playing music, even a comedian who picked on us for being American, of course. Everyone on the streets and in the stores were so so friendly, oh, and the all spoke English! On the way back we stopped at...McDonald's for the ever so famous March Shamrock shakes...in Ireland. I don't like them so I got a McFlurry, but it was quite an experience going to a McDonald's in Ireland. Friday night was interesting. We got back, ate some dinner at the house and brought Morgan to the bus stop for the airport because her boyfriend was coming Saturday. To make a long story short, she got to the terminal at exactly 47 minutes until the flight (Ryanair says you need to check in only 45 minutes early) and they wouldn't let her on. We didn't know thise so we're sitting in the living room a good 2 hours later and Morgan storms back into the house. She had to buy another ticket which left for Rome at 6am Saturday morning, so obviously we had to go out drinking to cheer her up. There's a slight possibility she may have made the flight if she hadn't stopped to buy some authentic shepherds pie mix on the way, but I guess we'll never know. I have to say, she made it for dinner yesterday night and it was delicious. I don't know if it was worth the extra $175 she had to pay for a new ticket... but it was a great experience!

Saturday we slept in and spent the morning lounging with all the roommies. Eventually we made it out to Stephen's Greene and sat in the sun, people watched and wrote a few postcards. Walked around town a little more, did Merrion square, bought a few souvenirs and just enjoyed the city. Apparently in Dublin they stop serving dinner around 5 which didn't help our hungry stomachs at 8 when we were looking for dinner. (They close at 5 because they assume nobody eats dinner since Guinness can basically fill you up enough, and the Irish don't need to eat before drinking anyway) We ended up going to Captain America's (i know... but you gotta do what you gotta do) and had burgers. It was delicious and a really fun "Americanized" place, but don't worry we went to a great Irish place after. We went to Purty Kitchen, Jacq's favorite place to go dancing, and had so so so much fun. The bottom floor had a live band and the top floor had a DJ. Danced our pants off until the wee hours of the morning, the Irish way.

Sunday came so fast and we decided we needed to do one more Irish thing before we left that night. We chose touring the Guinness factory and were very happy with that decision. The museum-y part was shaped like a pint glass and walked you through the different floors which told you each step in the brewing process. Everything was so high-tech and they accompanied it with the history of Arthur Guinness and his beer, showing all of the quirky old ads. It was really interesting! When we got to the top floor there was a gravity bar which overlooked all of Dublin and they gave you a free pint of Guinness. Not going to lie, I don't love it, but I must say it did taste much better having it fresh from there.

We got back to Jacq's and had to repack ALL of our stuff, including the new things we bought, into our tiny little backpacks. We stopped for dinner on the way at another great Irish place and got an Irish coffee to prepare us for the trip. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare because we couldn't afford missing class due to a Morgan-esque incident. It was good though, caught up on some Dante reading in the airport and tearfully got on the plane to come back to Italy. Oh my life is sooo rough. I have to say though, it was so nice being in an English speaking country. I didn't realize until I woke up from the bus back into Italy and my little Italian headache returned from having to constantly translate every sign I see here. It just felt like the people were so much nicer to us, maybe because we weren't obnoxious poor-speaking students who just frustrate the locals here. Perhaps too it's because they're always drunk there, or maybe we just needed a little break form the harsher Italians. Whatever the case is, we had a fantastic trip and I'm only half kidding, I'm happy to be back here. I have to say though, I would absolutely love to go back and see the rest of Ireland, we only got a taste of what it has to offer.

We couldn't quite stay for St. Patrick's Day, so we went to the Dublin Pub in Florence to celebrate. They had green beer and we had a great time. It wasn't quite like Ireland, but don't worry, we practiced our new Irish accents while we were there. I don't think the holiday is very big here, mostly Americans in the bar, but that didn't impeded on our fun.

Next up: Rutgers excursion #3: Venetto. We'll be visiting Verona, Bardolino, Valpolicella for a winery tour and Venice!

09-03-15 Ireland!