IRELAND!

The Cliffs of Moher--West Coast of Ireland

Tig Coili Pub! Not the best picture, but it captures at least a bit of the atmosphere :o)

Christ Cathedral, where we went to an Evensong service. Beautiful.

Dublin Castle

The Temple Bar

Brazen Head Pub...est. 1198! Talk about OLD!

Rick Steves (and Cat Swanson!) helped us alot :o)

St. Stephan's Green Park

Grafton Street. Have you seen "Once" ?!

Lots of Cherry Blossoms!

Trinity College

Kilaminham Jail....eerie but informative.

Fresh brewed pint of Guiness at the factory....it actually wasn't too bad! :o)

Howth Harbor. YAY!

The trail we wandered on...

Ahhhhhhh

Looking toward home!

Sorry its taken me a while to post about my last trip, but better late than never, right? :) So, last Wednesday, my friend Keilin and I returned from our trip to the great land of Ireland! We left on a Thursday and returned on Wednesday, so it was quite a long trip! Because of limited flight times, in addition to trying to make the longest trip possible for the smallest amount of money, we decided to sleep in the airport both on the way to Ireland, and on the way back. haha. I am laughing about it now....maybe not at the time :)

Before leaving we found a website for people who do this on a regular basis (sleep in the airport) and it was actually quite helpful because people posted where good places were to sleep, and gave each airport ratings. haha! So, the first night we slept in the Dublin Airport. We found a place that wasn't too bad--we each had our own couch (airport couches though...not normal ones!) and other than security people walking by all night (if anyone were to be walking by, I guess I would choose them...:o)), we were able to get about 3 or 4 hours of sleep. So it was fine. Coming back was another story: we slept in the Skavsta Airport in Stockholm, which is a really small airport in operation almost solely for the carrier Ryanair. Let's just say there were a lot less options for sleeping arrangements. It wasn't the funnest experience in the world...haha...but it WAS an experience, and I can guarantee I will never forget it! We just used the excuse that people our age are supposed to do things like sleeping in the airport. Plus, now we can check it off our life "to do list" :o)

Anyway...to the ACTUAL trip! The first day we traveled to the West Coast of Ireland to Galway. That day we took a tour of the Burren region, where we were able to see lots of the Irish countryside with stone walls, green fields, and grazing sheep on rolling hills. It was quit picturesque, I must say. We also went to the Cliffs of Moher, which were incredible. They are about 200 meters tall, and drop off right into the ocean. Plus, there are no fences! Eeek! But, dont worry, we played it safe :o) It was truly a beautiful sight to see. That night we went to McDonagh's Fish n' Chips (supposedly the best in Ireland), and it was delicious! Afterward, we walked around a bit, and ended up seeing a sign for a pub with live music. So we made our way there, Tig Coili is the name, and is was GREAT! It probably was one of the highlights of the whole trip. There were about 5 or 6 musicians playing different instruments including the violin, the banjo, a drum, and some sort of pipe instrument. The best part was that they didn't have planned songs; they were just jammin' away. It was so fun! After talking about our trip, both Keilin and I agreed that deciding to go to Galway was one of the best decisions we made on the whole trip. We loved it!

On Saturday morning, we headed back to Dublin. The next 3 1/2 days were spent seeing pretty much everything that Dublin has to see. We walked just about EVERYWHERE. We didn't even take a bus the whole time we were there :o) It was really nice though, because our hostel's locations was arguably the best it could be. We were located in the center of everything. You could walk 2 minutes in any direction, and be somewhere new. That was really helpful. So, some of the sights we saw were: Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Grafton Street, O'Connell Street, St. Stephen's Green Park, Marion Square Park, Christ Catherdral (where we went to an Evensong service...beautiful), Temple Bar, Brazen Head Pub, The Guiness Brewery, and Kilmainham Jail to name a few :o) haha. I wasn't kidding! We walked alot, and were tired at the end of each day, but had a blast the whole time.

On Saunday, we took DART north about 30 minutes to a town/suburb called Howth. It is a little community along the water with a harbor, and a fun harbor-like atmosphere. We got there, meandered through the market, bought some fresh Irish Soda Bread (yum), and then hiked along some cliffs looking out over the ocean. It was amazing. The sun was shining, everything was green, and you could smell the ocean in the air. Ahhhhhh. We spent a good three hours walking around, and just sitting and soaking in the gloriousness of it all! That too was a great side trip.

I could go into more details, but I will save that for when I talk to you all in person! For now, this is a little glimpse of our trip! Hopefully the pictures will help you get a feel for what we did as well. I am so glad everything worked out for us to be able to go to Ireland. Keilin and I both had such a great time, and I know that I will be going back someday!!