Spring Break: Dublin

The last part of our trip was Dublin! Our flights from Barcelona to Dublin only cost us around 22 euro! Once arriving in Dublin, our hostel has a specific "bright green paddywagon bus" that comes on every even hour to take customers from the hotel to the hostel. So we waited, and waited, and it never came. We asked another bus driver if he knew anything about it. He said it'll come don't worry. We told him we have been waiting for an hour and it still hasn't come, it was supposed to be here at 4. He said it isn't 4 yet, it is 3:30. We forgot to look into Dublin being in the same time zone or not, whoops!! Too funny though, we laughed for quite a while after that. We got settled into our hostel and walked around the city for the evening. Dublin is so cute and a very livable place for me personally. Paris and Barcelona are a little to big for me. I also like Dublin a lot because they speak English! We ate dinner at the oldest pub in Dublin, called the Brazen Head. It first opened in 1189! We ordered a round of Guinness, of course, and I tried the stuffed chicken breast. Amazing! Reminded me more of the food at home, so that was nice too.

The next day we hiked, literally, to an old jail called Kilmainham Gaol. This jail changed history for the country of Ireland as they were changing their political strategies and such. We had a great tour guide who gave us lots of information on the jaol along with the people who came through it. At one time there were 9 people to a room, and they took children as young as 5 years old! At that time, once a child went to work they were considered an adult. A very interesting tour and neat thing to see!

After the jail we went to the Guinness Store House. Arthur Guinness took over his father's beer company, and had so much confidence that he signed a 9,000 year lease for the land that the factory is still sitting on this day. They took one of the old factory buildings and created a museum/informative space out of it. The interior is designed around a pint of beer, which is located in the core of the 7 floor structure. It was so cool and one of my favorite things we saw in Dublin! At the end of walking around, the top has a bar that overlooks the city and where you can collect your free pint of Guinness. We had a great time walking through the building and learning about what goes into the beer, how they make it and where all it is sold and transported to.

We wanted to see the country side and the water, and Sandy heard that there were seals so she really wanted to see them. We took a 30 minute train ride to Howth, which was suggested to us by Sandy's cousin and a guy working at the train station. It is really pretty there and would be super fun in the summer. Sandy got to see some seals, yay!! We didn't have enough time to hike up and see more of the area because the sun was setting, but we were pretty satisfied with what we did see. That evening we ate at a pub located really close to our hostel called O'Sheas. We got fish and chips and free water! Florence does not give away water for free, so we were super excited to get this! All of the pubs have artists come in a play live music. The two guys at O'Sheas were playing a guitar and violin and singing traditional Irish songs. It was a great way to end our time in Dublin!