I LOVE IRELAND

Now you’re speaking my language!

~A whole weekend of English in an accent with friends, cliffs, potatoes and COWS!!!

This is my "Oh My goodness it's windy!" face

Ireland was one great trip that I will never forget. There was a lot of anticipation about this trip as so many of my friends have studied abroad here before and said this is one of their favorite places on the planet; I cannot disagree with them. Right of the plane we experienced the partly cloudy, windy, yet beautiful weather of Ireland. The people in Ireland are honestly some of the friendliest people I have ever met. Even the customs workers were chipper and asking questions and smiling (have you ever seen a happy customs worker before??) We took a bus ride across the country to spend 2 days in Galway first. Even from just looking out of the window I saw the most grass I had in months, not to mention blue skies and hills.

Galway was a small town full of small streets. We settled into our hostel and went out for the night. The group of Tallis, Babb, Greta, Sarah and I started the night with dinner of fish and chips and chicken. Then off to the pubs to converse with the locals and hear some classic Irish music. Wow are these people talented because I could have stayed in these pubs for hours just enjoying the music and talking to the Irish locals about anything and everything. We met up with our other friends as well, Emma, Alex, Shelby and Betty. Emma is an avid Irish dancer and got the crowd quite excited when she started dancing to the pub music! This was also the first time I got to experience the coveted Guinness Brew. Dark yet creamy and delicious.                       After a long travel day we turned it into the                       hostel to get some sleep.

The next day we got up early to get to the small farmers markets in town. We got homemade bagels for the first time since being in Europe. There were shops with jewelry, mittens, jams and jellies, anything! I spoiled myself and got a small ring there to remember Ireland. After we meandered the shops we got on another quick bus to the Cliffs of Moher. Literally an entire mile of incredibly high cliffs that looked out over the ocean. We lucked out and had

beautiful sunny weather. There were definitely times when I got a bit freaked out and needed to step back because it was a bit daunting and high at times. (Don’t worry, we never got close to falling off!) We walked along for a very long time and took lots of great pictures of the beautiful backdrop. At one point next to the cliffs there were a bunch of cows and being my Wisconsinite self, I got extremely excited. Who knew I would get so excited to see my favorite farm animal again. That night back in Galway, we headed out for another night of pubs and fun dancing.

Another bus ride and we were back in Dublin. We started off our day at the Guinness factory. I never knew there could be such an elaborate 7 storied floor building all about one beer. I soon figured out why. The first floor was all about the ingredients and how they go about making the beer. Then there was their advertising floor full of old advertisements and a huge mega screen of tv commercials. Next up was the tasting room right out of Willy Wonka. All blank white with only four cylinders that puffed out mist. The mist each had different smells of the four main ingredients of the Guinness Beer. We then got to smell them all and learn how to properly taste a Guinness.

The next floor was The Guinness Academy where they taught us how to pour our very own pint and we even got a certificate of passing!

Then we headed up to the top floor, the Gravity Bar where it was a 360 glass window overlooking the entire city. What a way to drink a Guinness. We were a bit hungry at this point so we headed down a floor to their restaurant level and got ourselves some famous Guinness Beef Stew with mashed potatoes on top. Boy was that a hardy meal.

Then it was time to say goodbye and head out to the Dublin castle and gardens. We didn’t last long in the chilly wind so we ventured over to the National Leprechaun Museum. We all took a journey back to our childhood and pretended we were leprechauns as we heard stories, myths and legends of the leprechauns of old. We traveled through forests, giants rooms and even over a rainbow. It was a great break in the day.

All the friends decided to nap up in the hostel while I met up with one of my camp friends from Ireland, Josh! We went out to a place to eat dinner and get drinks to catch up on life. Much to our surprise, time caught up to us and he almost missed his train back home. We had to run through streets back to the station which was quite difficult on a full stomach. After that I was surprised by another Irish camp friend, James, who met us all out for drinks in the famous Temple Bar area!! He took us to his favorite pub Sweetman’s and told us all the tasty beers to get. There was live music and lots and lots of laughs throughout the night.

         

Unfortunately that was where our amazing trip in Ireland ended. I wish we could have spent weeks there I loved every second. Until next time!