My roommate Alexis and I arrived in Dublin early Thursday afternoon. We were met at the bus stop by Callan and our other friend Katie who was visiting Callan on her spring in the states. After dropping our stuff off we immediately set off to the Guiness factory. The Guiness factory was really interesting and you get a free pint with each ticket! What a great way to start our trip off in Ireland!
Friday Callan and Katie went on a trip so it was just me and Alexis left to explore Dublin. We started the morning off with an American breakfast. This may have been the most exciting part of my day because I got to have waffles!!! You need to understand that in Spain all we have for breakfast is cafe and toast. That´s it. So when I had waffles I was in heaven. The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around the city of Dublin. Dublin is such a small city that I knew my way around by the first day. (As a side note, if I get anything out of this trip it´s that I am an all star navigator and can basically get you anywhere with a map and my superb internal sense of direction, just sayin).
Saturday was the day, St. Patrick´s day!! We got up early (well early for us Madrid people who never see the sun before 10am) and decked ourselves out in our St. Patrick´s day apparel and set off for the parade. We got there around 10:45am and it was packed even though it didn´t start until 10:30. We walked around until we found a decent spot behind some old people who happened to be really short/ leprechauns so we could see over them. I managed to weasel my way towards the front however by the start of the parade which was awesome because I actually knew people in the parade! What a random coincidence that my cousin´s dance team from Texas and my friend in the Notre Dame marching band were both in the parade the year I went to Dublin for St. Patrick´s day. Even though I didn´t get a chance to catch up with them it was really exciting to see them in the parade! The theme of the parade was science. It was kind of odd, actually really odd. Callan and I both agreed that we think the Buffalo parade is more ¨Irish themed¨ but this parade was still awesome, the costumes and floats were incredible.
Sunday Alexis and I went on a New Europe free walking tour. Now if anyone is traveling abroad I highly recommend these tours. I went on them in Sevilla and Granada as well. They are free walking tours, usually promoted by the hostels, that usually last about 2 or 3 hours and take you all over the city.
For me the best part of the trip was Monday when we went out of the city to Kilkenny and Glenalough in the Wicklow Mountains. Seriously everything in Ireland is GREEN!! It´s just like you imagined, and there´s cows and sheep grazing in the fields! We loved every minute outside of the city and wished we had done more but overall our trip to Ireland was grand! And I would love to go back.
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