Thursday, May 7th
Our flight left out of the smaller airport in Rome, called Ciampino. I had never been there before and had no idea how to get there so we decided to take a cab. There was tons of traffic since it was rush hour, so it took us about 45 minutes to get to the airport. Our flight was through Ryanair, an airline with extremely cheap flights, but it hits you with little costs if you don't follow the rules perfectly. My 3 girlfriends and I check in and everything is OK, so we waited for our one guy friend who was coming on the trip with us to show up. Once he checked in, we all went and got something to eat and relaxed before our flight. The flight was pretty bad with a lot of turbulence. The landing was also very bad and when the flight finally came to a stop, everyone on the plane started to clap. We take a taxi to our hostel because the bus wasn't running since we got to Dublin around 11:30 at night. Our taxi driver was extremely nice and told us all the good places to go to eat and where the fun pubs were. We checked into our hostel and headed to the pub next door for a pint of Guinness. I never had a Guinness before but I thought it was delicious! It reminded me of a milkshake. We listened to the live music and danced and sang and then decided to go to sleep. However, once we got to our room we realized that we had the lights from outside shining into our room, so a couple of my friends slept horribly.
Friday, May 8th
We got up early and had breakfast in our hostel, which consisted of cereal and toast. After that we headed to the tourism center, but on the way we stopped at Starbucks and drank some coffee since Rome does not have Starbucks. We got maps at the tourism center and booked our day trip to the countryside. After that, we toured around Dublin and went to Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ's Church ( we didn't go into either of the churches because it cost 5 euros just to look around.) Instead, we decided to just peak our heads in and get a look. After that we went and got fish n' chips at Leo Burdocks, which is a really famous fish n' chips place in Dublin. It was really good until you were done eating it and felt sick to your stomach because of all the grease. After we got lunch, we headed to the Guinness Factory. The Guinness Factory has 5 floors and the inside is shaped like a pint of Guinness. In fact, it is the largest Guinness pint in the world. Arthur Guinness signed the lease on St. James Brewery in Dublin for a period of 9,000 years in 1759. Guinness beer is made of hops, water, barley and yeast. Each floor of the Guinness Factory tells you different things about the history of Guinness Beer. The top floor is the Gravity Bar, in which the walls are all glass, and they give you a pint of Guinness and you can drink your beer while looking at the entire city of Dublin. After the Guinness Factory, our group decided to split up, so my friend Chelsea and I decided to go and see the Kilmainham Jail. The map was confusing so we stopped in a pub and ask some old men how to get there. They were really helpful and asked us to come back for a beer once we were done! By the time we got to the jail, it was closed for the day, and it started raining so Chelsea and I jumped in a cab and headed back to our hostel. We heard live music walking to our hostel, so we decided to stop in for awhile. We sat down and a table and happened to come across a "stag", which is basically a bachelor or bachelorette party. The guys were really nice and bought us pints of Guinness and Baileys on the rocks, which I had never had before, but I think its delicious. We ended up going pub hopping with them and danced and drank with them til dinner time. Chelsea and I went to dinner at Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Dublin. We had fried brie with cranberry sauce for an appetizer and I had Irish Stew for dinner which was really good. We met up with the rest of our group after dinner and went to a couple pubs close to our hostel. At the last pub we went to, there was a live band playing Irish music and I ended up Irish jigging with a man wearing a green velvet jacket. We thought he might've been homeless, but he looked like an actual leprechaun and he was really nice!
Saturday, May 9th
We got up early, had breakfast and went to catch our bus for the tour of Wicklow Countryside. It was absolutely beautiful. Everywhere you looked was green and the countryside had beautiful yellow flowers and at one point, the bus had to stop so sheep could cross the road! The tour guide showed us where parts of famous movies took place, like the scene from Braveheart where Mel Gibson is running down a hill and we saw the lake Lough Tay where Lancelot threw his sword into that lake. We also saw parts of where the movie P.S. I Love You was filmed. We got to take pictures on the bridge in P.S. I Love You and three of my friends were almost left behind because the bus driver didn't realize they weren't on the bus and actually started to pull away. We went to Glendalough, where we saw monastic ruins. After that we went to the Meeting of the Waters which is where three of Ireland's rivers meet to form one. After that we had lunch is Avoca village, where the famous Irish television series Ballykissangel was filmed. Once we got back home, we wondered around and went to Grafton Street, which is a famous shopping street in Dublin and after that we went to Stephen's Green which is a beautiful park. That night we had dinner at Calligher's and everyone tried different Irish dishes. After that we went pub hopping and ended up at our usual pub by our hostel and sang and danced until it closed.
Sunday, May 10th
We didn't book a hostel for Saturday night since our flight left at 6:55 in the morning so once the pub closed at 3 am we got our stuff from a storage room in our hostel, called a taxi and headed to the airport. Our check-in process was a little rough this time. Three of my friends got charged 20 extra euros since they didn't follow the directions and everyone was tired and irritated. Once we got to our gate, we all tried to sleep. I managed to fall asleep on a chair with my head on my lap for about an hour or so and once I woke up I looked around and couldn't find my friends, I thought they had left me, but they were only getting coffee. We got on our flight and slept most of the way home and since there was an hour time change we didn't get back into Rome until around 10:30. When we got out of the airport, we wanted to get a cab. The taxi drivers tried to charge us 65 euros for our ride because they thought we were from Ireland, but after fighting with them for about 10 minutes we got our taxi ride down to 30 euros, which is what its supposed to cost to begin with. Once I got home, I got into bed and fell asleep. My roommate Natalie's parents were in Italy so they took us out to eat in Piazza Navona and we had tartufo for dessert, which is chocolate gelato with a cherry in the center and it has a hard chocolate outside. It was delicious! After that, I got home and jumped into bed and fell asleep immediately!
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