The original (ambitious) plan was to update this blog as I went along my journey throughout Ireland and even in Rome. Well, that didn’t happen. As it stands now it is the end of my first week in Rome and I still have failed to update this really at all. So, the revised plan (perhaps still ambitious) is to do a once a week type of thing but, of course, I’ll have to catch you up on the first few weeks. Let’s start with Dublin

Upon arriving in Dublin my first task was to find my friends in the airport. Normally this doesn’t sound like a challenge but without cell phones, e-mail, or morse code I was a bit worried the process wouldn’t quite go as smoothly as planned. Thankfully I was dead wrong. I walked down to baggage claim and almost immediately found my friends, got some Euros, and we set off to find our Hostel. The internet told us a bus was the cheapest way so we jumped on and realized that there were no stop names, or anything that seemed to tell us where we were or where to get off. Thankfully, a nice lady next to us was very helpful and shooed us off the bus at the correct time. We had arrived on Dame street, a (supposedly) short walk from our hostel. We asked a few more people which way to go and set off on our first journey. The trip was great for about 3 minutes until Tayler’s suitecase broke making it much harder for her to drag along as well as leaving us a nice marking all the way down the sidewalk. By the end of the journey we were all tired, smelly, and Tayler’s suitecase had lost a wheel but we had made it to our little hostel down an alley in Dublin. The place was very nice, the desk workers were extremely helpful, friendly and all around good people. We quickly settled in, tried desperately to stay awake and set out on the town.

This first day was quite the doozy. By this time we had all been up for what seemed like forever and it was only about noon. We walked around Dublin, stopped and ate at a cool little cafe, had our first Guinesses and just explored. Dublin is a great city with plenty of things to do. We got back to the hostel around dinner because, as it happened, we had arrived on free dinner night. An excellent feast (well, not really) was waiting for us when we got home. We gobbled it up and carried ourselves up to our room before all passing out before the sun went down.

On Day two our mission was simply to go to the Guiness Storehouse. We woke up around 9 or so and headed out on our way, cameras in hand. We stumbled across St. Patrick’s church on the way to Guiness, had a little photo-op and then stumbled across Christchurch as well (not to be confused with the New Zealand city). Both cathedrals were beautiful. It’s very odd to be in a place with so much history for me. The oldest church I’ve seen at home doesn’t even come close to each and every church here. After we had filled up our memory cards we set off to Guiness which was a fantastic experience. As a designer the first thing I noticed was the overall aesthetic. They had great exhibits, fantastic type (in my opinion), it was simply a place you wanted to be in. I learned a few facts (for example: Arthur Guiness signed a 9,000 year lease on the property), ate some roasted hopps (not delicious), and had a taste of Guiness before we made it to the gravity bar and our complimentary Guiness. The gravity bar is an open room with a bar in the center at the top of the Storehouse. From there you can see Dublin in every direction. It was from there we saw Phoenix park and decided to make that our next stop.

We rented bikes just outside the park (later I learned we could have rented Segways, and thoroughly regret our bike decision) and rode around the park for a few hours. The park is simply massive. The largest fenced in park in Europe which houses the Irish presidents house as well as the U.S. Embassy along with a few other places. They even have grazing deer (or elk?) in the middle of the park. Everything about it was wide open and green and beautiful. When our bums could take it no more we made our way out of the park and back to our hostel so we could go out on a pub crawl put on by a few of the hostels in Dublin. This was a great time, hung out with some cool people. Played beer pong with an Australian, ate Ceasar Salad, talked to Irishmen, all in the span of a few hours. Exhaustion soon took over and we stumbled back to our hostel for the night.

Woke up at noon the third day, hopped onto the hop on, hop off bus (a bus that basically just takes you to the tourist areas) and hopped off at Kilarne jail. The tour of the jail was quite interesting and the jail itself was a sight to behold. After the jail we went to the Brazen Head for dinner. Supposedly this is Dublin’s (or Ireland’s?) oldest pub and was quite delicious. Had my first Bailey’s and coffee which was also quite delicious. Bedtime.

Day four consisted of Howth, a small fishing town near Dublin where we fed seals, lost our group, and ate at the local watering hole. It was a quiet little town but very cool. We walked up the major hill and stared out at the Harbor for awhile before heading back and deciding to go see a castle. We tried to ask where it was but the old Irish men weren’t having it. They simply told us that we were wrong because we were Americans (they may or may not have been drunk at the time) so we attempted to make it on our own. Got on the train to the station where we had to transfer, couldn’t for the life of us make sense of the time-tables and simply waited around hoping we could figure it out eventually. Keep in mind that this train station was mostly abandoned, out in the middle of nowhere and kids were running all over it. Up and down the stairs, across the tracks and all that jazz. It was a fantastic feeling place (sarcasm). We soon decided that a castle was not quite worth it and took the next train back to Dublin.

Day five was our relaxing day, not too much to talk about. Went shopping, walked around, saw the City Centre and the National Leprechaun museum. The leprechaun museum was cool in theory but the actual museum was a bit dull. It looked like it had no budget and simply wasn’t as interesting as I hoped it would be. The good news was that at the end you could draw a picture and I got mine put up on the wall. In a gold frame even! Highlight of my day.

Day six, we decided that Malahide castle would be our entertainment for the day. Caught the train out to Malahide, found the castle and spent the day on its lawn. The price to go in was a bit steep in our opinions and the castle itself wasn’t terribly impressive but it was a good day none-the-less. Got back, had our last Irish meal and last pints of Guiness and headed back to the hostel to attempt to go to bed early enough to wake up at 5am and catch our flight to Rome.

I know that was a bit long, probably not terribly interesting (I suppose it was for family more than anything) but never the less that was Dublin. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll write something about Rome before too long.