Wanderlust: Kiss me! I'm (not) Irish!

   When studying abroad in the UK, what else would we do but spend St. Patrick's day in Ireland?! Since the land of the leprechauns is only a hop and a skip away from England, traveling there was quite easy. It seemed as soon as the plane had leveled from our take off, the captain announced preparation for our descent! The flight was approximately 45 minutes, the shortest I had ever been on, I wish all travel was this simple! There was not much of a change in scenery, we left cold, rainy, gray Guildford to arrive in cold, rainy, gray Dublin! Dublin was decked out in St. Patrick's day decor, from the moment we stepped off the plane into the airport, there were orange, green, and white balloon arches, shamrock decorations, and Irish flags wallpapered the airport. Our hotel was spruced up for the holiday as well. We stayed at a Hilton, the usual, but this hotel was quite a trek from the city center of Dublin, in fact, there was really nothing nearby the hotel aside from a bus stop and a Tesco supermarket. The employees of Tesco became very familiar with our group, as we were in the shop every day. It was there that we purchased our St. Patty's accessories, our snacks, medicine,(we needed aspirin for the uh...elevation change of course...) and whatever else we needed, Tesco was the place to go.
   Until our Irish adventure, I was not very familiar with public bus systems, but I had become a pro at hailing taxis, as well as traveling via train and underground tube. I learned very quickly that no one in all of Dublin knows how to give proper directions. At the beginning of our study abroad experience, I would have blamed myself and my travel companions for our lack of directional skills. However, we are now expert navigators, and the directions given to us were simply rubbish. We spent half of our four day trip walking in large circles around the city, and going down incorrect roads on the buses.
   A public bus in Dublin is the last place you want to get stuck on for an extended period of time, there are quite a few characters inhabiting the city. Safety in numbers is all I have to say about that one. There was also a language barrier issue, you would think that since we all speak English we could communicate effectively. Not so much. I could not understand half the things that were said to me with those Irish accents! I thought the British accents were confusing, but this was like a whole new language!
   The most ironic part of the trip was that we met more American and other various nationalities than we did Irish folk. Apparently, all of the locals flee the city during St. Patrick's day because they don't want to deal with all of the rukus of the celebrations. The tourists then replace them. I don't blame the locals leaving, the town was one massive sea of green, drunken fools. If I was not one of those fools I probably would've hated the experience. We adopted the "if you can't beat em, join em mentality" of the weekend's debauchery.
   The entire weekend was filled with holiday themed events, with St. Patrick's day being the main event. We watched the St. Patty's day parade down the main street, drank green beer, watched the Ireland vs. England rugby match on T.V. in a pub, and had Irish car bomb drinks. Funny thing about those drinks, apparently it is very politically incorrect to order those in Ireland, although it is perfectly acceptable to order them back in the states. Luckily, our bartender was not insulted, he just advised us to not use that name while ordering, oops! You learn something new every day...I was lucky that I did not get thrown out of the pub from yelling at the top of my lungs and rooting for England during the rugby match along with my other exchange friends. We had to be faithful and cheer for our adopted home!
   At the end of our last night, I met a girl who also went to Bloomingdale High School! She graduated 4 years before me and now works in the hospitality industry, now I have a great new contact! It really is such a small world. We also took a tour of the Guinness factory, which really is the only thing that Dublin takes pride in. It was an interesting experience to see how the beer is brewed, we learned the history of Arthur Guinness and how the "black stuff" came about. I'm not usually a fan of beer, more of a wine or cider gal, but Guinness isn't half bad! We even got to enjoy a complimentary pint after our tour, the was everyone's favorite part.
   I hiked yet another mountain! It is becoming my tradition of traveling to a new country. We grew tired of the dirty city of Dublin, and went in search of the picturesque countryside. Our main goal was to see "the rolling green hills and sheep," as we envisioned Ireland to look in our minds. We took the train about two hours outside of the city and came across a beautiful shoreline and mountainous coast. This mountain was a bit more rugged than the one in Barcelona. It was about a 50 degree incline, not even exaggerating. We had to grasp the roots peeping through the ground to haul ourselves up, there were no nice stairs or cleared paths. At one point I dropped my scarf in some shrubbery and when I attempted to put it back on, found that there were sticker thorns all over, and lord knows what else. Once we reached the top, I could feel every inch of my legs burning, mouth dry and in desperate need of water, and my heart was beating faster than a hummingbird. But the view was once again worth it. We finally got to see sheep! And horses too, and gorgeous hills, there was green everywhere you looked.
   On our last day, we decided we should be cultural and see the important architecture in the city. We toured Trinity College, the oldest college in Ireland, which was absolutely gorgeous. We viewed the Maggie Malone statue, and General Post Office building on O'Connell. We became very familiar with the Temple Bar district, as well as the famous Temple Bar in the Temple Bar district.
   Unfortunately, the luck of the irish was not with me. On this trip, my black eyeshadow shattered and pigmented dust covered my entire makeup bag and some of my suitcase, my curling iron broke, and I was carrying a bag of shot glass souvenirs in the rain and the paper bag ripped sending my glasses catapulting to the ground, of course they shattered. The funniest part was, on my first day I bought a key chain with a real four leaf clover in it to give me good luck, and that broke too! Even with the minor setbacks, Ireland was yet another successful adventure!