My Goodness, My Guinness

Trip Start Jan 06, 2008
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Trip End May 2008


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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

I'm in Dublin!  We spent the day walking around town.  Early into our adventure we helped an older man get his bicycle filled with oranges onto the sidewalk.  We talked to him for a good 5 minutes or so and he made me completely fall in love with Ireland!  He was so nice and it was good to just talk to someone without anyone seeming in a huge hurry to get somewhere.  We found another outside market, but this one had no samples and was small.  We were at a fruit stand and the lady there pretty much told us off because we were taking to long to buy something.  Well, I guess we experienced a little America hatred there, but no worries, it got none of us down.  We stopped in a supermarket and found a Heineken pony keg and bought it.  We spent the beginning of the night playing drinking games with two other kids in our hostel, Chris from Colorado and Ryan from Australia.  Our hotel is so nice!  Our room holds about 12 people and the hostel was pretty much filled with kids just like us, wanting to see the world!  Well, a funny story about our first night in Dublin is a bouncer asking me how many drinks I had and my response, "only three."  Then Jackie proceeded to speak Spanish to him as if we were back in Granada.  Sometime during the night Jackie and Amy made their way to a minimart and made sandwiches, Amy made two.  The next morning I woke up to cheese and crackers next to me and my face washed.  Let's just say I owe Julie.

Despite the night before, we made it out of the hostel by 10AM.  Our first stop was the Guinness Factory.  It was so neat!  It ended at the Gravity Bar, the top floor surrounded by windows overlooking the city.  We got a free Guinness, but my coke tasted a whole lot better thanks to the night before.  Afterwards we walked around Dublin.  We visited Trinity College and met a kid from Illinois.  I guess he has been going to school in Ireland his whole life and his parents live back in Illinois.  It would be neat to go to college in Ireland, but I felt a little bad for him because he has no idea what school is like in the States.  Next we went to the Dublin Castle.  We didn't get to go inside or learn much about it, but at least we got to see it.  We walked around in this garden for a bit until it began raining.  We did a little souvenir shopping, aka pencil shopping, for awhile.  Tonight we ate an Irish three course meal and watched Irish Dancers!  The appetizer was a sample of three dishes: salmon, cabbage and ham, and goat cheese on soda bread.  Amy and I ordered a beef pot pie for the main meal and it came with fresh vegetables and mashed potatoes.  Julie and Jackie ordered salmon.  For dessert we got a mini apple and cheery tart, some type of chocolate thing, and whipped cream in the middle.  We were all so full!  That night we went out with these kids in our hostel from Belgium.  We went to a club and danced the night away.  They played a lot of songs I haven't heard in awhile like Dancing Queen, the "I would walk 500 miles" song, and that's all I can remember right now. 

This morning we got up, packed, ate breakfast, and made our way to the airport.  We all passed out for the first flight that took us back into London.  In London you can only have one carry-on so Jackie put on almost every piece of clothing she brought so she would not have to check a bag.  Seriously, so funny, it worked though!  I was hoping she would get stopped going through security and have to get patted down because she would have had to take off about 8 layers.  She made it through with no problems though.  I'm sad our trip is over.  I had so much fun and made tons of great memories.  One thing that was kind of weird was when we arrived back in Granada.  Part of me was happy and satisfied to be back in my little city.
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