Ireland!

So it's been awhile since I last blogged, this might be a long one!

Last weekend my friends Anne Marie, Liz, and I headed off to Dublin, Ireland. I was very excited for this trip but didn't know exactly what to expect. We arrived late thursday night and checked into the Globetrotters Hostel. This hostel was fabulous, the people were amazing and there was a huge free breakfast which is always a plus! The location was also within walking distance of everything! That night we went to a pub close to our hostel. We really didn't like the music they were playing and noticed that they had something where you could hookup your ipod so we asked if it would be ok if we played our own music. They said it was fine so we began blasting country music, something they had certainly never heard before. It was great!

Friday morning we started our day with a free walking tour of the city! The three hour long tour took us to many historical locations in Dublin and explained much of the history of the city. On the tour we went to Dublin Castle, Trinity College(absolutely beautiful), St. Stephen's Green(a gorgeous park), as well as several other buildings and monuments. The tour dropped us off at an Irish pub for lunch. I had a delicious bowl of traditional beef stew, it was great! After lunch we decided to head to the Kilmainham Jail. This jail had been used for many people involved in Irish rebellions up until 1924. The prison was in use for over 128 years and housed women, men, and children. At that time children could be punished for even very small crimes(like stealing a loaf of bread) by being put in prison. It was very interesting to see all of the cells and to learn about the prison's history.

Saturday morning, after enjoying our delicious free breakfast, we began by going to the Leprechaun Museum(sounds ridiculous, I'm aware). The Museum was actually very fun! It explained and illustrated all kinds of different Irish myths and folk tales. My favorite part was the giant room. This room was supposed to resemble the house of a giant and had extremely oversized furniture that you could climb on. After our visit to the museum we began to head back into the center of the city and ran into a Forever 21. We naturally had to go inside since we hadn't seen one in over 3 months! That afternoon we continued to walk around Dublin and went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Cathedral was beautiful! It was enormous stain glass windows and extremely tall, gorgeous ceilings! Saturday night we had a lovely Irish dinner in a pub across from our hostel and then headed back because we had to wake up extremely early to go on a tour of the Cliffs of Moher the next day. This day seemed even earlier because it was daylight savings so we had to set our clocks forward an hour(daylight savings is a week later in Europe than in America).

Sunday morning we boarded a bus to Galway to go on a tour of the Cliffs of Moher. The tour also included stops at many other places in the Irish country side. After stopping in Galway we continued to the Cliffs. Once we got there they were absolutely breathtaking, and we got lucky and had perfect weather(this is rare in Ireland where it is usually rainy). The huge cliffs overlooked the water and the sight was absolutely amazing and rivaled my favorite view from Portugal! We roamed around the Cliffs for almost two hours, but I could have stayed there all day! This was definitely the highlight of my trip! This view of the huge cliffs all in a row overlooking the water was absolutely amazing! Overall Ireland was definitely one of my favorite trips, I absolutely loved it!

Dublin Castle!

Dublin!

St. Patrick's

Cathedral!

Cliffs of Moher!

So pretty!