Ireland!

Went on a trip to Ireland and Paris with my friends Dezi, Kelly, and Kelley! So here is a post about Ireland!

We left on a Wednesday and flew from Cyprus to London. We all stayed together in a cheap hotel room for a night in London, then headed out for our flight to Ireland in the morning. It was very exciting flying into Dublin, it was nice and sunny and you could see all the little sheep running around in the grass!

So we landed and took a cab into Dublin to find the Shining Hostel... we were a little nervous about it as the names in its title are two of the scariest movies ever. One involving the brutal murders of girls staying in hostels...


But don't worry, it was fantastic! We stayed in a bright pink room of ten girls, and there was this cute little common area where all the kids would cook and hang out. There were lots of kids from all over Europe so it was fun to chat with them.


So after we settled in, we went walking around Dublin... which is an absolutely wonderful city! It's exactly how you would picture it, with quaint little brick buildings and Irish pubs on every corner... and in between every corner as well. That night we went to the Temple Bar, which is apparently the most famous of these pubs. Everyone was super nice and friendly and wanted to talk to us in their little leprechaun accents. They were all so loud and funny... this one kept telling his friend to stop being a f****** negative leprachaun and I just thought it was so funny. Kelley is an Irish dancer so she danced in the pub and everyone just went super crazy. We met some Irish friends that loved us so much that they told us to meet them the next day...




And so we did! First we went to a different hostel, Isacc's Hostel, which was nicer but not as cozy. Then they took us all around the city and showed us all the sights. We saw Trinity College and the Book of Kells, and some other stuff, and then went to the Guinness Factory. It was lots of fun... though they give you all sorts of beer and then lead you out to the gift shop and trick you into buying a bunch of stuff. Including shirts that I impulsively thought were super cool and only later realized are much too small for its recipient to ever fit into... sorry Matt.

Before the Guinness factory:


After the Guinness factory:




OMG CRAB WITH BEER AHHHHHH!!!! I ran.



After that we walked to St. Patricks Cathedral and St. Stephen's Green. They were both very pretty and I was feeling pretty lucky. So then I went searching for pots of gold, but to no avail. Therefore when it was time to shop,I had to use my own money. Therefore, I did not buy anything (except for birthday gifts commissioned and paid for by Mom).


That night we went to another Irish pub, where there was a live singer/guitar player who tried to do impressions of people but failed miserably due to his thick Irish accent. We met some Scottish fellows there for a bachelor party that tried to talk to us, but none of us could figure out a word they were saying, so we just smiled and nodded. It was like they were trying to speak to us,I know it!

The next day, we got up early to go on a bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher. Driving across the country was fantastic, Ireland looks just how it ought to, with tons of little sheep just prancing around in the green grass that stretches out forever. And there is lots of little stone walls and broken down stone houses that they explained were built during the potatoe famine... the houses to live in and the walls to give people a job to do in order to get paid, even though it was pointless.

So we stopped in Limerick and saw the Shannon river, where I thought of my wee little cousin. Then we went to the Burren, which is this rock formation thing by the sea. It was pretty cool cuz it used to be under water and now the land plants that are there used to be sea plants and apparently science dudes think it's cool they adapted to air.







Then we stopped for lunch, where we watched our bus driver throw back a few pints at the bar. Which was good news, as he already was quite the crazy driving hooligan bus man. But of course we got on the bus anyway and drove out to the Cliffs. They were just beautiful!






Then we decided to go past the sign that said something like DANGER UNSTABLE CLIFFS YOU WILL SURELY DIE IF YOU GO PAST THIS SIGN. Or something like that.






Sooo we obviously went past the sign and stood by the edge of the cliffs. It was very windy. And then I fell off.








Juuuussssst kidding. I only almost fell off. But then all of us really did fall off...





But we miraculously survived the 702 foot drop and climbed back up to the top unscathed. It was pretty unbelievable there was no barrier there and it was a little scary. So after a couple hours there we got back onto the bus and went on a wild ride where again we thought we would surely die. But we survived cuz we are awesome. When we got back to Dublin we were tired but there was a big futbol match against Cyprus so we went to a pub to watch a little. Then it was back to the hostel to sleep for a couple hours before we headed off to Paris the next day!