Dublin!!

I think we are at Dublin in my journey recap now. From the Cliffs of Moher we took a bus ride that lasted about 5 hours to Dublin. We got there mid-afternoon and just kind of walked around and explored a bit.

Dublin!

Temple Bar Area

A church by our hostel.

We were tired so we didn't do too much. Very late that night another friend was arriving to join us for the rest of our trip before we all started student teaching.  She got in late so as she was sleeping we obviously had to go to the Guinness brewery! Duh!

The lease sign by Mr. Guinness

We also got a pint of Guinness by purchasing a ticket for the brewery. There were 2 options to obtain said pint: there was a sky bar at the top of the factory where one would just get served their beer like any bar, or you could learn how to "pour the perfect pint of Guinness" and pour your own. We decided we would take the challenge of pouring our own pints because that is so much cooler! And the bar was crazy crowded anyway (which we found out after enjoying our pints).

Me pouring my "perfect pint of Guinness"

My finished pint!

That was the first time I had Guinness and it was sooooo good! Ryan has told me not to try it back home because it's not made the same so it doesn't taste as good, so I waited until this moment to try it. If it really does taste different in the US, that is very sad because Americans are missing out on some tasty beer.

After we went to Guinness we walked back to our hostel to wake our friend up to explore with her. We ended up just walking around a little bit, seeing the sights, and going into some of the shops. We had lunch at a little cafe and they had a song on repeat. Now every time I hear that song I think about being in Dublin!

I know on "vacation" and when in Europe one should be exploring and seeing the sights, but after we ate we decided to go see Hunger Games. I started the Hunger Games series in March and finished them about 2 weeks after I started, even while having papers and plans to write for school. The movie came out a week before we left so my friend and I saw it when we were at school. The other 2 girls had finished the first book this very morning and really wanted to see the movie after finishing, so that is what we did.  Hunger Games was one of the things we talked about while we were traveling-we were just so obsessed!! If you like to read, I really suggest reading the Hunger Games. They are too addicting.

After the movie it was getting late and we were getting hungry so we went to find somewhere to eat. Along with our dinner we decided to enjoy some tasty Guinness's. My one friend was really excited to try typical Irish food so she had lamb stew. She also had lamb stew because it was one of the character's in the Hunger Games favorite food (see, obsessed!).

 The next day we explored some more. It started raining and hasn't stopped too much since. We went to the National Wax Museum and then explored Trinity College. Such a pretty campus. Wish it wasn't raining though.

 We made our way to the Dublin Castle. We were thinking about taking a tour but by the time we got there there were no more English tours left. Whatever. We didn't really understand how it was a castle either because it wasn't what we had in mind of a castle, but it was nice to walk around.

 

 We also walked to St. Patrick's Cathedral. We were going to go inside, but it was more than we wanted to pay so we just stayed on the outside and walked around.

 For dinner that night I had some fish and chips! It was really good and I'm glad I tried some! We also went out to a bar that night. We wanted to find somewhere that had live music and didn't want to go to the Temple Bar area because it is more expensive and so crowded, so we walked a bit and found a nice bar. They had traditional live music of a flute sort of thing and 2 string instruments I think, something like that. It was pretty cool.

That concludes our trip to Dublin. The next afternoon we took a train up to Belfast in Northern Ireland.