Weekend in Dublin!

I was in Dublin this past weekend! A group of 9 girls all went on an 8 am bus on Saturday morning. 4 hours and a nap later, we were there!...and only a 5 minute walk to our hostel.

My first hostel experience was a generally good one, I’d say. We walked in the room and there was a Mexican girl there who was about to leave for the day. She left her laptop out and told us we could use it if we wanted to. We were shocked at how trustworthy she was of us….considering I brought my money belt with me which carried my passport money and credit card. But I don’t blame her for trusting a group of American girls who were eating PB&J’S and drinking out of juice boxes for lunch…We were in a room of 12 people including a few men, which was weird at first, but they were really friendly. One was from Ireland, one from Switzerland, and two from Germany.

We then made it over to the Guinness Factory after a half hour rainy walk through Dublin. It was kind of like a prettier version of NYC except it had a river running through the whole city and a different bridge every 3 blocks. After arriving at the Guinness Factory we went through the tour ourselves, with each of the 7 floors representing a different aspect of Guinness. It was probably one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been through. I actually read everything! We got up to the 7^th floor and there was the Gravity Bar. A room with glass walls looking over the city of Dublin. So pretty! We handed in our tickets for our free pint of Guinness and began a difficult task of getting through the whole glass before it getting warm. Success! Sorta..

The girls at The Gravity Bar!

We then walked around Dublin looking for a place to eat dinner. We ended up at a restaurant called Sweeney’s and I got a chicken sandwich- soo Irish. On the way back to the hostel, an short little Irish man began yelling at us for causing the Civil War. We walked away…fast. When we went back to the hostel, we talked to our roommates and decided to go out with them. We ended up going to Temple Bar- which is an area of bars and well as an actual bar. Everything was way crowded and kind of Americanized which was a disappointment. So we just bought some packages of 99cent cookies and went home to sleep in our surprisingly comfortable bunk beds.

The next morning we woke up nice and early to get our FREE breakfast, where we all had at least 2 of everything and then set off on our adventurous day through Dublin. It was sunny and 50 degrees yay!! We first headed over to Trinity College and became very touristy and took pictures of everything. It was soooo beautiful. And I thought Marist was nice…

Gateway into Trinity

Then we walked over to St. Stephen’s Green, which was also gorgeous! A soon as we walked through the gate, there were a group of children wearing yellow daffodil appreciation day t-shirts having bouncy ball races. After creepily taking pictures and videos of them, we walked through a path with fountains and ponds with swans and ducks and there were babies everywhere! A dream come true. I almost gave out my babysitting card…

St. Stephen's Green

We walked over to the Dublin Castle which had a stunning chapel in it, and then headed over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and took pictures from the outside, considering it was 4.50 euro to see inside.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

We kept walking through the streets of Dublin where we saw people of many races and people of different psychological levels. (One man pulled out a real diamond ring and asked me to marry him through a window where I was sitting trying to enjoy my hot chocolate…He stared at me for 3 minutes, until the owner of the café told him to leave…awkwardddd).

We went back to the hostel and took a 4o’clock bus back to Cork…man I missed it here. Although my weekend in Dublin was really fun, it reaffirmed my decision of coming to Cork for the semester. I don’t think I would be able to handle too many proposals for 5 months in Dublin. One weekend was definitely enough.

Some new facts I've learned...

1. You do not have to walk around clutching your purse when walking around the city by yourself- Irish people will only come up to you to tell you to have a nice day or that the weather is lovely.
2. Many bars with many Irish men smell like B.O.
3. The Blarney Castle is meant for only very tiny people.
4. Irish men can tell American women apart from Irish women because we have straight teeth.
5. Irish women can tell American women apart from them because we wear less eye makeup.
6. Girls bathroom lines are long no matter what country you're in.
7. Chicago accents are easier for me to catch onto than Irish accents, unfortunately.
8. Americans have it harddd in college.
9. "Quay" is pronounced "key."
10. They have no hulu here =(
11. I love Ireland even more than I used to.

First Few days!

So I'm here! I arrived here on Sunday afternoon after a 6 and a half hour flight, a four hour bus ride, and a 20 minute walk to my apartments with my 150 pounds of luggage. I arrived at Leeside which a cute apartment complex 15 minutes from UCC. I have my own room and live with 3 other girls. They are all really nice and easy to live with and we're getting along great.


Me and the 3 other girls from Marist walked around city center the first night to find food since we hadn't eaten since the plane ride 11 hours earlier and quickly found out most bars stop serving food at 6 on Sundays. We finally found a place that is actually practical and served us dinner.


Once I caught up on my sleep that night, a group of us went food shopping and tried to figure out what every brand meant and if it was actually expensive or not with the exchange rate. We then gave ourselves a tour of the university which is GORGEOUS (stay tuned for pictures).

UCC Main Quad

Cute river running through campus...a little different from the Hudson

That night a group of us went to a bar call An Brog. It was really fun! We asked many of the locals what we should drink and my first drink was a Murphy's. It wasn't too shabby. That night, we were the only Americans in the bar and everyone was amazed by us. We were asked crazy questions about America that we had no clue the answers to. But it was fun being a "celebrity."
It was a great first night out in Ireland. The next day we had orientation and it was cool seeing all of the international students which I found out there are 325 of us I think.

First night out!

That's pretty much been my life since I arrived! I start class tomorrow and just found out I don't have any classes on Mondays or Fridays...Four day weekend! wooo!!


I'm so excited to continue my journey and fill everyone in!
Side note: My internet in my apartment is absolutely awful and I can usually only get on about 3 times a day for a certain amount of time but I'll try to update this as often as I can!