This is Dublin. It's a beautiful city and I honestly keep wondering why I had to leave. Contrary to popular belief (i.e. that of my Nani) I had a lovely time and felt safe the whole time I was there.
I met Julianne in Dublin last Saturday evening. My flight got in long before her's, so I had a few hours to myself to poke around and come up with some activities for us to do all week. I walked around the neighborhood that housed my hostel and then across the river to Temple Bar, Trinity College, and Grafton street. I knew close to nothing about Dublin before going, so having time to wander really helped me to orient myself and understand a bit of the map.
I walked around until the sun started setting, then I headed back to Jacob's Inn (our home for the week) and went brochure crazy. Julianne got there and I proceeded to overwhelm her with ideas and potential trips we could take. I literally had a stack of brochures, maps and information that had been marked and read over by me that we used to then semi-plan our week. We decided on a few days worth of solid activities, but also wanted to keep our days open a bit, to explore and find things.
So, Sunday morning the week really began. We woke up in our very loud hostel and made our way to the free walking tour that all the hostels in town offer. It was really great too- about three hours of walking around Dublin learning all about the history and culture of the Irish capital. The tour started on Dame street and brought us to the Dublin Castle, a few of the churches, Trinity, the Temple Bar area and quite a few points along the River Liffey.
The best part of the tour was probably the stop for Irish coffees though, during which both of us decided that coming to Ireland was a fantastic life decision.
After the full tour, we felt like we had a better idea of where we were and what we wanted to do with ourselves in Dublin. We walked around and I showed Julianne everything I had found the day before. And this is when we found what would become over the week our favorite pub, the International Bar. It's almost sad that we frequented it so much in only a week, but the stew was tasty, the drinks were affordable and the bartenders were entertaining to say the least. It is a cosy little pub with a nice long bar where we ate, drank, and talked until we warmed up.
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| My first Guinness- Kenny even gave me a clover |
Sunday was a rather long day. And the more I write about it, the more I realize
how much we did that day. I had met a girl that was in the same hostel as us, and trying to be fun and social, I invited her out with us that night. Good decision. Her name was Ashley and basically she was meant to be friends with us. Too much in common. We all went to dinner together and then headed over to O'Neill's Pub on Suffolk street where there were lots of people and some great live music. They played Van Morrison's "Tell Me Ma." There was lots of jumping and clapping coming from Julianne, it was hilarious. Apparently it was her favorite to listen to in the bath ad a kid. She even called her mom on the walk home to tell her all about it.
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| Live music and lots of Halloween decorations |
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| Together at last! |
The next day, on recommendations from quite a few people, we headed out of the city and down the coast to Bray. Everyone we talked to said not to just stay in Dublin, but to see a little of the country side and Irish village life. We took the train about 30 minutes south and were stunned by how gorgeous Bray was.
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| Bray's Beach |
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| Looking North |
We walked down the boardwalk and then headed up to the Cliff Walk to Greystones. And it's not really visible, but there's a cross at the top of that hill that we head had the best view of the area. It was quite picturesque at the top of the town.
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| Cross at the top of the hill |
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| Jetties and Wind |
The cliff walk was about 6km total, but we just walked until we were tired and ready for lunch. I'm not sure how far we got, but we were trudging along the cliff for a few hours, taking breaks here and there to climb up or down different things along the path.
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| The Cliffs |
Our walk was so relaxing and a really good time to catch up and ponder about our futures. What are we doing here? What are we going to do when we get back to the U.S.? How soon can we come live in Ireland? A few more hours, dinner, and a train ride later we were back in Dublin where we happily passed out.
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