We're in Ireland? Dublin for St. Patrick's Day!

Dublin for St. Patrick’s day? I can honestly say that is something I NEVER thought I would have the chance to do…but here we are! We survived the most outrageous, hysterical (we still can’t stop laughing), and probably the most fun weekend so far.  Since we booked the trip over four months ago, and since it also happened to be STACI’S 21^ST BIRTHDAY (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), we had high expectations for this weekend.  But I have to say, Dublin far exceeded our expectations.

When we landed in Ireland (still cannot believe I was actually in IRELAND…), I was expecting to see rolling green hills and sheep roaming around everywhere.  Instead, we were greeted with an adorable city filled with ridiculously nice people (every single person that we met was so friendly and loved to help us), green things everywhere, and a whole lot of beer. 

Here’s how we did Dublin:

We arrived at the airport to be welcomed by hundreds of St.Patrick’s day balloons…even the airport is festive!

And after overcoming the confusion of having the cab driver come out of the wrong side of the car to help us with our bags and then proceed to drive on the wrong side of the road… we made it to Barry’s Hotel of Dublin! Although it was also a Casino, it turned out to be very nice.  We met our friends Amy and Sam (they are both studying abroad in London) who were staying at the hotel with us and began our Dublin adventure.

Before doing anything, we of course had to stock up on our St. Patty’s accessories for the weekend…

Our first stop? The Guinness Factory, of course.  We learned about how Guinness is made, and then had the chance to drink a perfect pint at the Guinness Gravity bar -  a bar on the top floor of the factory that is made of all glass and has a 360 degree view of the entire city.  

We also saw the Dublin Castle, which was beautiful!

We couldn’t be in Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day and not go see St.Patrick’s Cathedral! The inside of the Cathedral was beautiful, and it reminded us a lot of the churches in Florence.  

St. Patrick!

We also stopped to see Christ’s Church on the way, which was beautiful as well.

Since it was St.Patrick’s Day weekend, there were a lot of festivities going on during the day.  We decided to check out the Irish Dancing Festival where we learned some Irish Dancing steps, along with a few hundred other people in the middle of the street! 

We also took a walk all the way down the River to George’s Dock where we found the Irish Craft Beer Festival.  This was a festival on the dock with live music where we tried Irish Cider and Guinness Pie!

As we walked around the city, we also found the Spire of Dublin, a giant Stainless steel monument on O’Connell Street! 

And we walked over the O’Connell Bridge, which had a gorgeous view!  

The best stop of the entire weekend? The Dublin Zoo.  On Saturday morning, all of my friends and I made the impromptu decision to take a little trip to the zoo.  We hopped on the tram (the main form of public transportation in Dublin) and began our journey.  

With Irish Coffees in hand, we made our way into the Zoo.  We quickly realized that we were the only people over the age of 5 there, and also the only people dressed head to toe in green St.Patrick’s Day attire…but that didn’t stop us from having a great time.  Since we were in Ireland, this was very different from any other Zoo I have been to before.  We saw tigers, lions, seals, penguins, Rhinos, Gorillas, Chimps, Peacocks, and our favorite…the Giraffes!

Since I’m sure you are all sick of seeing all the food I eat, I’ll spare you most of the food we ate in Dublin.  However, we did try Boxty- Irish potato pancakes – which were delicious! And we couldn’t resist the Guinness cheesecake for dessert!!! Apparenty the Irish just put Guinness in anything…

Now let’s not forget the most important part of the weekend…THE BIRTHDAY GIRL!!!! We started the weekend off with a bang when we got the live guitar player at the bar to sing happy birthday to Staci at midnight! He also did an impromptu performance of “Staci’s Mom” right after…YAY Abbie G!! We of course had celebratory birthday hats, balloons, biscotti and chocolate from our favorite spots in Florence, and a LOT of birthday candles to blow out!!!

"Staci's Mom has got it goin' on!"

And we obviously had plenty of celebrations in the Temple Bar area – the main area where all of the best bars and restaurants are.  No matter what time it was, there were hundreds of people walking around on the streets, live music playing, and ridiculous costumes everywhere.  We even made friends with a horse!!

We woke up on Sunday morning to loud music, and when looked outside we found the St.Patrick’s Day parade was starting right outside of our window! We were lucky enough to catch a few minutes of it before heading off to the airport.

And even the airport was green!!!

It is going to be tough for a weekend to top this one… Well played, Dublin. Well played.

It was very interesting to get back at 10:30 PM on Sunday night when none of us had even started studying for the MIDTERMS we had on Monday, Tuesday, and Wendesday…whoops! Somehow we survived the week (and hopefully passed!) and just finished packing for our Spring Break!!! We are having a minor panic attack that Spring break is happening already…but we could not be more excited.  We spent a great last day in Florence with a Panini from Pino's, gorgeous views from Piazzale Michelangelo, and gelato from Gelateria de Neri. 

Next stop: London, Amsterdam, and Paris – get ready, here we come!  6 countries, 3 weeks.  Is this real life?

Arrivederci!

Jordan

P.S. The Italian word of the day is: Buon Compleanno - it means HAPPY BIRTHDAY!