Being in Dublin is so refreshing. I'm loving everything about it. Not only do they speak English (yes, I can't get over it!!!), but it's an absolutely beautiful place. I don't know why I'm so surprised, I guess I always figured the countryside would be stunning, but never really thought the city would be.
So, here's the airport (I know, I'm almost done with airport pics, I promise):
We hopped in a cab and not only is the steering wheel on the right, but they drive on the wrong side of the road! What a trip!
Our cab driver was great! He was so friendly, he even gave us a tour of Dublin and told us what to see and where to eat. After about 20 minutes, we were in Temple Bar (an expensive, touristy area, but centrally located in the middle of Dublin). Here's Apache Hostel:
I know, it's just a door, but it was late and dark and I'm jet lagged! After check-in, we headed next door to Apache Pizza.
If you stay at the hostel, you get 50% off the food at the restaurant, making a personal pizza about $3. Not bad, considering it was delicious!
Here's the pizza menu, in case you were curious:
At this point, it's about 2:30am, so we quickly showered and were off to bed. Or so we thought...
It went on forever!
It went on forever!
The next day, I slept in until about 2pm and all the other people in our room had checked out (we were in an 8-bed dorm). We had the room to ourselves for a minute until a guy named Jeff walked in. Turns out, he went to UC Berkeley and it was so nice to talk to someone from home, we must have talked for hours. We ended up waking Aaron with our chatter and we spent the better part of the afternoon just talking. Of course, pizza got involved at some point:
Aaron snapped some pics of the neighborhood while he was picking up our pizza:
A couple other guys showed up in our dorm and we were all chatting for awhile. We ended up getting some great advice from Jeff and the others about what to do/see in Ireland. That's the great thing about hostels, you meet really cool people and get to exchange info about where you've traveled. For example, Jeff's next stop is Peru, so we were able to give him some insight into what to expect. Ahh, the joys of speaking English!
At around 6pm, we wanted to go out exploring. Jeff said he would join us and be our tour guide (he'd already been here a week). Our main goal for the evening was to pub-hop and drink beer, so Jeff was an expert. He took us down the street a couple blocks to the famous Temple Bar (which the neighborhood is named after), just so we could have one over-priced drink and take some pictures before heading to the less touristy, more reasonable area. The neighborhood itself is so pretty:
Here's one without Aaron's mug:
For our first beer, we tried Smithwicks:
It was light, not too hoppy and delicious! Ireland, I'm so ready!
In every pub, they have live music at some point:
Say hi to Aaron and Jeff!
Slainte! That's cheers in Irish!
Then we left Temple Bar because not only is it super touristy, it's very pricey. It was about 8 Euros a beer, compared to the normal 4 Euros, so we were on our way to greener pastures. About the Euro: Euros have always been worth more than USD, usually 1 Euro is about $1.50 or so. However, with Greece basically taking a dump all over Europe, 1 Euro is now only worth about $1.15! This literally happened maybe 2 days ago, so we lucked out! Greece's failure is another man's fortune!
Our next stop was Murray's Pub, and Jeff gave us a short tour of the city on the way.
The cobblestone streets have bottle caps randomly scattered throughout:
These guys were awesome (esp the one playing the violin):
More city:
This is the River Liffey:
This is the statue of Daniel O'Connell:
Penney's Department Store sells super cheap clothes:
This is the post office:
There are bullet holes in the columns from some sort of revolution (it wasn't a real tour, okay?):
This is the statue of James Joyce:
Look, he's got fans!
Random city:
And here's Murray's:
Murray's is just a random pub, but Jeff likes it because it's got cheaper beers than most other places.
Check out the table tops:
When you're ready to order, you push this button and the waitress is there like immediately:
This time we got Guinness:
I'm not a huge Guinness fan (I used to drink it a lot more than I do now), but I have to say there's nothing like Guinness in Ireland. It is rich and deep and chocolately and amazing! I'm in love! The head is just perfect, they have a special technique to pouring. They pour 3/4 of the way and then let it rest before pouring the head. I know there's more too it, but I just think it's interesting they let it rest for about a minute or two before topping it off. They never do that back home!
Yum!
Some guys played traditional Irish music for awhile:
We ordered a pork and leek sausage with Guinness and sweet onion gravy and roasted garlic mash.
It was very good. I'm not gonna say it was epic, but it hit the spot.
Say this in the bathroom:
Thought it was kinda nice.
We had a few more pints, I tried a beer called Harp and another called Qute Hoor, both yummy. Then we were off to the next pub. It finally got dark around 11pm! The sun doesn't set until 11pm and rises again around 5am! It's pretty crazy.
The city is beautiful at night, all lit up.
These are at every crosswalk, to remind the visitors which way to look (which is very helpful because it's so easy to get confused):
We we at our next stop: The Brazen Head
I was told by the bartender that this was in fact Ireland's Oldest Pub, first opened in 1198! Can you believe that?? Nothing in The entire U.S. is from 1198! It was crazy to think I was drinking in a pub where guys in 1198 drank mead or whatever they drank back then. Nuts!
Beer on tap selection:
I got a Guinness with red currant (a random girl I met at Murray's let me try her's and it was delish! Kinda on the sweeter side, but it adds a really nice depth of flavor).
We met some really nice people from The U.S. doing an internship program in Dublin. It's so nice to talk to people from home!
Then the bars were closing. Believe it or not, most bars were closing around midnight! I wonder they're open later on weekends. Crazy! Yet, somehow, there are SO many drunk people walking the streets, they must start pretty early! Jeff took us to his favorite kebab place, called Zaytoon:
This is the pita oven:
Aaron and I shared a half chicken, half lamb kebab:
No, it wasn't like a shish-kebab. Insanely good! Best kebab I've ever had! Probably also some of the best lamb I've ever had, the flavor was perfection.
We ended up finding another pub still open (probably the only one left because everybody was there!):
It took us so long to order drinks, that we ended up getting a bunch, so we wouldn't have to go back.
We hung out until they kicked us out of the pub and told us to leave or go downstairs. What's downstairs?? It was a club. Random, but we hung out there for about an hour and danced until they closed. Aaron wanted to go to the pizza place before bed, so I went with him and we ended up sitting outside the hostel talking to the funniest drunk guys ever! They serenaded me with a song.
So far, Ireland is awesome. The ambiance is just warm and inviting, the city is simply breathtaking and the people are so friendly (even the sober ones). We are loving being in Dublin! Today will most likely be a hangover day, we want to try some authentic foods and maybe do the Guinness Storehouse Tour. The internet at the hostel sucks, so posting is going to be rough, but I'll do my best.
Isn't that a Rod Stewart song? So fun. Ireland sounds like a blast so far.
ReplyDeleteAnother dream of mine, Ireland!! I have heard that Smythwick's is amazingly yummy!!
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