Oh, Ciao Dublin!!!

If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Dublin.



After we went when I was in 7th grade, I was ready to leave. People drank and swore and were out at pubs until 3 a.m., in comparison to the small little towns we had just visited.



But now I love it. Why? Because they drink and swear and are out at pubs until 3 a.m.



I went to Dublin, or Dublino (in Italian), a week ago and had a blast. We had the cab ride from hell to get to the Rome airport Ciampino so we were more than ready for a change of pace... And we sure got one. We were welcomed into Dublin with the nicest security people ever who asked my friend Alana and I what part of Ireland we were from. When I told him I really didn't know, he told me I was fron Donnegal. Hmmm... Our cabbie was awesome: he was built and swore and told us where to go and what to eat. Our hostel was small, but we had our own bathroom, so what did we care?



After we checked in around midnight thursday, we went out to get food. Oh, my god. It was the first time in 3 months I had a chicken sandwich with mayo. To quote the Bible, it was good. We went back and crashed at 1:30 and the next day we got up at the crack of 9.



Because the weather was kind of crappy, we decided to do one of those really cheesey bus tours where you can jump on and off at tourist sites. We got on at St. Stephen's Green, a 5 minute walk from our hostel and my favorite place in Dublin and our first stop we got off at was Kilmainham Gaol. I could bore you with some facts about the jail, but instead, if you want to learn more, here's the link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilmainham_Gaol. It was really interesting (and cheap!). I'm not going to lie, the four of us got a big kick out of the fact that today the Gaol has a tea room....



We got back on our bus and jumped off at Ha-Penny Bridge, where we had lunch at Ha-Penny Bridge Inn. So good.



Having decided that it was a more acceptable time to start drinking, we jumped back on and headed to the Guinness Factory!!! Being the girls we are, we started with the gift shop, where I bought a t-shirt. While the factory, which is the shape of a pint glass, was impressive and huge, our tickets for sure paid for our "free" pint at the top in the Zero Gravity Bar.

By this time, it was time for dinner, so we headed to Temple Bar, the trendy area of Dublin. We agreed on a pub called Oliver St. James Gogartys. I'd like to take this opportunity to say how much I love the girls I traveled with. No drama. No pety arguments. Three hour long dinner.

It was close to 11 when we left and we went back to the hostel. We were tired, okay?! We couldn't bring ourselved to actually go to bed that early, so we went down to the common room and just talked until 1:30.

We got up at the crack of nine again and decided we did enough touristy stuff the day before, so we spent the morning shopping on Grafton Street. We wound up by Trinity College and looked at a pub for lunch called Blarney Inn. It was too expensive so we found a good fish and chips place. Yes, family, I ate fish. Turns out it's good if it's deep fried! We did some more shopping and headed to a dessert place called "Queen of Tarts." Promise me if you ever go to Dublin you will go there. I don' know if it was because I hadn't had a good dessert in 3 months or it it was really that good, but it was amazing!

Afterwards, we headed back to look around Trinity, but on our way, we ran into my high school friend Susan! Susan's studying in Granada and was on Spring Break. I knew she was going to be here that weekend but never thought I'd actually see her! It was so much fun running into her!! We eventually got to Trinity, vowed to come back, and headed to the National Gallery of Ireland. The Gallery was free (you hear that, Rome? free museums!) but we were tired by that time and headed back to the hostel shortly to crash before the night's festivities.

We went on a musical bar crawl. In one word: epic. But first let me go back to our Irish cabbie. He told us that a few years ago during the census, the government realized that there was 1 pub for every 30 people in Dublin, a city of 1.5 million. Do the math. Want to know which pubs were on our crawl? Oliver St. James Gogartys, Ha-Penny Bridge Inn, and Blarney Inn. Got to love irony.

Our musicians were awesome and we had a blast. The music was good and they were funny. Unfortunately, it ended at 10:30 and we'd be damned if we were going back to the hostel that early. The musicians told the four of us about a pub called Devitts, which happened to be across the street from our hostel, so we went.

People say that Dublin is becoming too touristy, but we were the only Americans in the pub and apparently you could tell. The musicians there were just as cool and we made new friends with them and these 3 Irish guys who were probably in their early to mid-20s. Devitts closed at 12:30 and the boys took us to a pub/club just down the street called Flannerys. We danced, had a pint or two and were asked to leave at 4:30 when the place closed.

The next morning, we had to be out by 10:30 and spent the rest of the day in St. Stephen's Green and a nearby coffee shop savoring the city. We stayed there until we had to leave for the airport and headed back to Rome.

I'd like to take this time to tell you I will be living in Dublin soon. I want to go back so bad!!!