Happy belated Thanksgiving! I have so much to be thankful for, especially for being able to spend Thanksgiving weekend with my roommies and best friend from home in Ireland! Maddie, Molly, Virginia and I flew to Dublin on Thursday afternoon and Emily met us a few hours later (she flew in from Madrid). Dublin was one of my favorite cities I've visited, probably because we met the world's most friendly people. Seriously, I've never met so many people who were so warm and helpful - we would ask bartenders for help with directions and they would actually walk outside with us to show us exactly where to go! So many people stopped what they were doing to help us out or just stop and chat! It was so so awesome and fun. Anyway, after we landed, we were determined to find some sort of Thanksgiving dinner and we ended up finding the perfect place right on the river. We later walked around the city and were loving the beautiful holiday lights!
Molly & Virginia
Thanksgiving dinner!
We woke up early Friday morning for a tour of the countryside (Wicklow and Glendalough) with a small tour company and spent the entire day seeing the beautiful country. Our tour driver, Dennis, kept our group entertained by telling us funny stories about the history of Ireland. Before long, we were in the middle of nowhere and couldn't see anything except rolling hills and occasional sheep herds. Dennis made a few stops to let us jump out and take pictures of the view from the top of the mountains. After driving for awhile, we stopped in a small town and Dennis poured us all hot coffee as taught us how to play hurling, the most popular sport in Ireland. (It was FREEZING the entire weekend.. literally 30°.. but not a shocker anymore.) We then continued to drive through the Wicklow countryside until we made it to an amazing lake and had to hike out to it in order to capture some amazing pictures. It was pretty incredible.. no one was around and it was just nature for miles and miles. We also drove up to the top of the mountain and were treated to a view of the lake below. Up next was a stop at the bridge where Holly and Gerry meet in the movie P.S. I Love You (this one.) It was a beautiful spot! If only Gerard Butler was there. The rest of the afternoon involved many stops (including cemeteries and monasteries), and walks in the countryside between lakes and overlooking some incredible views!
It was also SO WINDY the entire time as you can see from this vid!
Our awesome tour group.
So much happiness!
That night, we headed out to see some famous pubs in the area and stopped at the pub where they filmed the karaoke scene in P.S. I Love You (this scene!) and had a really fun time meeting people!
Virginia, Emily, me, Molly & Maddie
Trinity college
Emily, Maddie and I then stopped at a little pie shop for an afternoon snack before heading to the Guinness Brewery for a tour. The Irish are really proud of their Guinness, so I was excited to try some and see how it's made! Less than half a sip into it, I decided it was NOT GOOD. Guinness is a really dark beer and tasted somewhere between tar and tree bark and wilderness. No offense if you like it! (But are you crazy?) Anyway, touring the brewery was actually really cool and it was interesting to see how complicated the process of making beer really is. The brewery was five stories and on the top floor was an elevator to the "gravity bar" which had a 360° view of the city! It was really impressive and a great view. After dinner later on, we meandered around and enjoyed the great atmosphere! Our flight the next morning was at 6am and we had to catch a bus at 3am, meaning we would have to wake up around 2:30. We concluded that getting only one or two hours of sleep would actually be worse, so we decided to just stay out all night and it turned out to be a good call (until we were sitting in the airport at 5am wanting to die.) Getting home was quite the struggle as it literally took a bus, a plane, another bus, a two-hour train, and a metro before we were home. Totally worth it though - such great weekend in Dublin with some amazing people! :)
Live music!
'Tis the season!
Our new bartender friends.
xoxoxo
