Ireland...sigh.

day 1 (March 16)
After the shitshow that is RyanAir, we arrived in Dublin just 3 hours behind schedule. Our schedule, you ask?! To drink Guinness and be Irish. That's it. That's all we'd planned. As we wandered looking for our hostel, 2 different Irish folk came up and offered to help. Without being asked, people. I couldn't tell you the last time I encountered such a situation in the US. And their awesome accents made the whole conversation ooze with joy.

Our hostel was adorable, we basically chucked our bags into our rooms and set off in search of beer. I'm not sure which pint of Guinness was my favorite (although the one at the brewery might be the winner...so fresh, so cold, so delish, so loveable), I had been looking forward to the first from the moment we decided to visit the Land of Ire (or wait, maybe that's Jamaica...Irie?! I'm lost).

We attempted to visit the Jameson whiskey factory on our first day, but the last tour was sold out...bummer. Since we were in Ireland, we ate (lackluster, although this was not unexpected) Thai food for dinner. Hehe...we're rad, so we can do that. We decided to hit the hay early to rest up for the shenanigans that would ensue on St. Patricks Day.

day 2 (March 17)
During our full Irish breakfast on the big day, our hostel arranged for an Irish band to play while we ate. Fun music + fried eggs, potatoes, real bacon, sausage, red beans, soda bread and tea = a kick-ass morning. The Guinness brewery opened at 9:30am, so we hit the road early. They even let me in the building, and nothing was damaged - that puts my track record at 2 safe - 1 unsafe brewery, by the way! Woot! We had intended to blast through the brewery and be on to Jameson by noon, but the place was so rad (with beer tastings on EVERY one of the five floors) that we dawdled and soaked up the green. I was jazzed by how dressed up people (even locals) got for St. Patrick's Day...

possibly my fave picture of the whole trip. Guinness' rooftop bar is called the Gravity Bar, and this is obviously pointing us in the right direction. as I snapped this pic, I knew it was a winner and instantly busted up laughing...with which a nearby security guard was infected and started a laugh of her own. awesome.

After wrapping up at the Guinness brewery, we headed to Jameson and enjoyed an Irish coffee while waiting for our tour. During the tour, I was lucky enough to be selected as one of eight whiskey taste-testers at the tour's end. Schweet! The guide mentioned that it would be blind, so I paid extra-close attention to her descriptions of how Jameson differed from other whiskies. Only later did I find out that the test would not be blind (she wasn't joking when she said it would be, I swear). I was surprised at how different the whiskies really do taste - Johnnie Walker (a Scottish whiskey) is really smokey and Jack Daniels just tastes like throwing up in reverse. Good to know, huh?

one of my fellow tasters (Rob and Kel got to sample the differences too)

Up next was a power nap, some pizza, and a pre-game beer before heading down to Temple Bar. We wandered over around 7pm and thought we'd be waaaay early for the super-rowdy crowd, but should have known better. Chaos. Shenaningans. Whatever you want to call it...it was crazy. I loved it. As with most 'drinking holidays', there were the usual amount of scantily-clad, boozed up girls, there was a guy in a man-kini, there was revelry and dancing and shouting and drinking. The bars were packed, but everyone was in a great mood (with smiling Irish eyes, of course).

sunset on the River Liffey (on our way to Temple Bar)

I almost don't know how to explain this...a leprechaun, maybe?

over the whole night, the entire street in both directions looked like this

We rounded out the night by heading back to our fave bar (conveniently located across the street from our hostel), O'Sheas for Guinness and to listen to an awesome Irish band.

day 3 (March 18)
On Wednesday, we decided to avoid the hungover crowd and headed out of town to Killarney. In my planning, I thought we'd surely be able to take a quick n' cheap train, but found out that it would be much more expensive than expected, so we took a bus instead. It took about eight hours to cross Ireland through the countryside. It was gorgeous...

For dinner, we checked out a pub around the corner from our hostel, where they served the biggest hamburger I've ever seen! Rob and Kellie ordered potato cakes to die for...


day 4 (March 19)
Since we'd trekked out to Killarney for a countryside experience, we got up early and rented bikes. Our bus was due to depart at 4pm, so we pedaled our little hearts out. In the process, Rob helped save a poor sheep that was snagged on some barbed wire, we found some Asians, climbed a beautiful waterfall and drank from an Irish spring (really!).





And, to prove that I, in fact, rode a bike (I still maintain that the bikes I rode in Guatemala and Hawaii were not set up correctly...), here's a wee bit of documentation:

The day was gorgeous and sunny, and we worked up quite a sweat during our ride. Once we dropped the bike off at O'Sullivan's, we headed over to O'Sullivan's for lunch. No joke...almost everything in the town was named O'Sullivan's. Creative. Kellie spotted an ice cream shop, and totally twisted my arm to get a scoop. Check out the flavors below:

Kel's ice cream flavor: Irish Coffee
the shop literally made Irish Coffee and froze it...with whiskey in it

Rob's ice cream flavor: Guinness

they actually mixed Guinness, sugar and milk and popped it in the freezer

my ice cream flavor: Whiskey Cream
toss some sugar, some whiskey and some cream in a bowl and freeze it, and voila!

After enjoying our moonshine ice cream (seriously going to attempt to make my own when we get home), and with minutes to spare, we hopped on the bus to head back to Dublin.

day 5 (March 20)
Kellie had an early morning flight on Friday : [ so Rob and I were super-lazy. After breakfast, we lounged around the hostel and finally ventured out to Trinity College. My mom and stepdad have been raving about the place, but we didn't know what the deal was: Is it just really old? Are there leprechauns on campus? What the hell is the Book of Kells?

The campus is amazing, with cobblestone walkways and giant campaniles and looming spires. Everything in Ireland was so green, and the landscaping of TCD was no exception. We latched onto an in progress tour and heard a little about the Book of Kells. We thought that you could just walk on into the library to see it, but naturally a fee was involved. Since we were a little shell-shocked at how much we'd spent so far, we skipped this step to look up the book online : ] Instead, we spent 7Euros and had beer and chips on the patio overlooking the football pitch...

Since no day in Ireland is complete without a Guinness, we finished the day with Irish stew and some delicious Guinness-y goodness.

I was beyond bummed to wrap up our trip in Ireland, and a little tiny tear might have escaped my eye as we took off for Prague...