headed to my hostel. the hostel was right in central dublin, a block off of o'connel street which is the main strip of downtown dublin. after dropping off my luggage i ventured out to try and find a pub to grab some food and a guinness. now keep in mind when i tell you this that it is about 9:45 morning, i step inside a pub and it is PACKED with drunk people. this is unbeleivable, its not even 10am yet and the pubs are packed. i had my first guinness and it literally tasted like gold. since going to dublin, guinness has been my drink of choice everywhere else afterwards. after eating i set out to explore the town as usual. the shopping here is awesome. stores everywhere lined with irish trinkets, i literally wanted to purchase the whole store. not only that but the clothes shopping was fantastic as well, i did a lot of damage to my wallet in dublin lets just say that. after shopping for a good 4 hours i went back to the hostel to check in. on the wall there was an advertisement for a backpackers pubcrawl and i decided i
t would be fun to try. the meeting point was on the steps of historical trinity college which is a really cool area and i was greeted by about 50 people in the street drinking. Now i started to introduce myself to some people and more than one person was form michigan. not only that but they were from michigan state. so i started to delve deeper and to my surprise there was at least 30 kids there from michigan state from various parts of europe, all randomly came to the same pub crawl. There were kids from Brussels, Oxford, Cambridge, Trinty, and even some kids that lived in the same dorm as me in London. the barcrawl was a blast, we went to bars around the temple bar district and ended up at a nightclub.the next day i set out to go see the guinness storehouse factory to go on the brewery tour. this place was really well thought out. 6 floors, all surrounding a glass atrium that forms the worlds largest guinness glas
s. guinness put a lot of effort into this thing and it feels more like a museum than anything. everything is very engaging and the exhibits were fantastic. and at the end of it i got to learn how to pull my own pint of guinness from the tap. they had a gravity bar as well which was one the 6th floor completely enclosed in glass with panoramic views of the city. i got back to the hostel and met some kids that were actually from michigan state and were staying at my hostel. i went out with them and we went out to see some traditio
nal irish dancing at a pub not too far from the hostel. the dancing was actually a lot cooler than i thought it'd be they more their feet soooooooo fast. oh yea and i forgot. earlier that day i was walking around the trinity college area, and what did i stumble upon but a pub called DOYLES!!! the had my family crest on a flag waving high above the pub and inside there was tons of doyle memorbelia, jerseys, pictures, and coats of arms.so i woke up early on monday and headed to the train station to catch a ride to the west coast in a little medie
vil city known as galway. little did i know that i was going during the world famous galway races, which happens to be one of the biggest horse races in europe. this small town of 80,000 has an influx of 60,000 people due to the races. because of this the city was madness. due to a city ordinance, during the week of the races the pubs that normally are required to close at midnight, are allowed to stay open till 2am. i went on a pub crawl with my hostel, and we went form bar to bar around the city and then ended with a few night clubs. it is incredible how many bars and nightclubs here are in this little city. the main eire square is just a circle of ridiculous night clubs and posh bars. i met a lot of people from a lot of different places and ended up stumbling home at around 3:30.i had planned to do a tour of the cliffs of moher that morning but the tour went till around 6
pm and i needed o get to the airport and the bus schedules just didint work out. i was pretty bummed out but i decided that i was going to get at least a little sight seeing under my belt and i decided to do a walking tour. the group was small just me and two other girls but the guy knew his history and i really enjoyed listening to him and learning about the city, as it has a ton of history being on the strategic irish west coast. i spent the rest of the day just meandering around the little shops and watching some street preformers. i hitched a ride to the airport and headed back to london.i had a BLAST in ireland. the people were awesome, i cant tell you how many people embraced me just for my family
name. the food was good, just like englands, and the shopping was great as well. before going to ireland i despised the taste ot guinness, but now i reckon its my favorite beer ive had yet so far and it continues to be my staple at pubs in london. i really dont know how i am going to go back to the states and drink american beer, even the imports taste like shit. i really want to come back to ireland. i would love to go to some of the smaller villages and do some more exploring on the west coast, connemara in particular. When i get home i will be 6 weeks away from obtaining my irish citizenship so i can then apply for my EU passport. it will be a wonderful feeling to be a dual citizen and have the ability to live and work anywhere in the EU, which i have decided is my plan of action after school is over. if any of you out there have grandparents born in ireland and would like some more information on obtaining your irish citizenship, fire me an e-mail, ireland has really lax immigration laws and its a great way to get your EU passport and avoid the hassle of trying to get work visas if you want to live and work abroad.
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