Ireland

Not this past weekend but the weekend before, I went to Ireland. We spent most of our time there in Dublin City. The most important thing to know about Dublin is where the River Liffey is because that's the easiest way to figure out your location (well for people who have a sense of direction, which I do not). The Liffey flows straight through the center of Dublin so you're bound to run into it at some point.  Here's a picture of the Liffey with Dublin in the background. 

We flew into Dublin on Thursday and arrived late in the afternoon because we went through Malaga instead of Granada. Our hostel was called Generator Hostel and it is by far the nicest place I've stayed in so far. The lobby was gigantic and looked like a lounge/bar area (aside from the front desk of course). Even though I went with five other girls, we booked the hostel at different times so I was in a mixed room with my friend Jen while the other four girls had a private room. My only complaints were that we had a community bathroom that was kind of far away and the lockers required an actual lock. Luckily one of the other girls brought one so Jen and I shared a locker. 

After checking into the hostel, we were all completely starving so we headed off in search of food. I keep forgetting that Spain is pretty much the only country in Europe that has a different eating schedule than the US so it was kind of refreshing for 8pm to be considered a very late dinner when in Spain that's considered early for dinner. We got a recommendation from some random Irish guy on the street who seemed reliable and ended up eating dinner at a gourmet burger restaurant. I don't remember ever eating a hamburger before in my entire life so it was very exciting. Sophie wasn't in Ireland with us, but she refused to talk to me for 10 minutes when she found out that I had never eaten a hamburger. This is me with my first (delicious) hamburger and Jen creeping in the background. 

After dinner we wandered around the city for a little bit and stumbled upon a famous bridge. It's called the Ha'penny Bridge. A lot of couples go to this bridge and put locks on it with their names on it. I'm not sure why they do it, but it's super cute to see all the locks. 

We woke up early Friday morning with big plans in mind because it was really our only day to explore Dublin. We ate breakfast at this adorable little cafe near our hostel called Cinnamon Cafe. I had my first bagel since I've been in Europe with a nice cup of hot chocolate. It was by far the best breakfast I've had in the past two months because breakfast isn't a big meal in Spain (I usually just eat toast).

The first stop on our list of things to do was the famous cathedral in Dublin. During our search for the cathedral, we stumbled upon another cathedral called Christ Church Cathedral. I didn't know this at the time, but I found out later that Christ Church is the diocean cathedral of the diocese of Dublin and Glendalough. 

We oohed and awed over that cathedral for a while and then returned to our search for the (more) famous one. We eventually found it and it's called Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. It was founded in 1191 and has been designated as the National Church of Ireland. To be honest, my favorite part of the cathedral was the random old man we met who works there. His name is Terry Ferry (Terry is short for Terrance and no I didn't make his name up). He's a retired attorney who has decided to spend his retirement informing tourists on the history of the cathedral. He literally knew everything about the cathedral - from the origin of each stained glass window to every statue in the whole place. 

Here are some tidbits of random information from Terry Ferry: The old tattered flags hanging in the cathedral were taken from other countries when Ireland was victorious in battle and haven't been touched since so they're all originals. The idea of copyright comes originally from Saint Columba, who was exiled from Ireland after causing a war because he was copying another saint's manuscripts and claiming them as his own (there's a statue of him in the church). There were actually three Saint Patricks, but two of them were deemed illegitimate at some point when the church reevaluated all of its saints. Also, Terry Ferry has a cousin named Joe Ferry who's a somewhat famous attorney in Boston. 

After we were able to tear ourselves away from the extremely chatty Terry Ferry, we wandered over to Dublin Castle. It was very disappointing on the outside so we didn't go inside. Our next monument, however, was even better than anticipated. 

Trinity College of Dublin was founded in 1592 and is Ireland's oldest university. The campus was pretty, but the real reason why it's so exciting to visit is the old library. Because of the college's historic standing, it's considered a legal deposit library for the United Kingdom and is therefore legally entitled to a copy of every book published in Great Britain and Ireland. The library receives over 100,000 new items every year and currently contains about five million books. You're not allowed to take pictures inside, but it was literally a huge room with two levels lined with beautiful, old books. Some of them were laid out on display for you to look at, but most of them were just sitting on the shelves (blocked off of course). Pretty much all of the books are accessible to students to use under heavy supervision, but I couldn't figure out how they got to the books on the second floor because each section of shelves went all the way to the wall with no walkway. I asked one of the guards about it and he pointed out a small archway close to the wall in the bottom left corner of each bookshelf so apparently they built the doorway into the bookshelf. It was the coolest room and I felt smarter just being there. 

Along with the old library of books at Trinity College, we were able to see the Book of Kells, an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels of the New Testament that was written in 800. It's widely considered as Ireland's greatest historical treasure. The book itself was pretty, although we could only see two pages of the inside - one page with an illustration and one with a text. I mostly enjoyed reading about how it was made. There were four scribes, each with a unique style of writing, and when they made mistakes, they would just draw decoration over them. There are a few pages that were accidentally written twice so they turned them into giant crosses or whatever they felt like drawing at the time. The Book of Kells is the main reason why people visit Trinity College because it's permanently displayed there, but I liked the library better. 

After our tour of the Book of Kells and the old library, we did a tour of the Old Jameson Distillery. I wasn't that excited about the tour because I don't particularly like whisky and didn't have much interest in learning about its history, but I was pleasantly surprised. Our guide was funny and the tour itself was very informative. I learned that Jameson whisky is different than Jack Daniels because Jameson is distilled three times while Jack Daniels is only distilled once, making Jameson smoother. Also, whatever Jameson uses in the kiln eliminates a smoky flavor that some whiskeys have. In order for a whisky to be considered and whisky it must be aged for three years, and to be considered Irish whisky, it must be produced and aged in Ireland. Scotch is basically the same thing as whisky but it has to be produced and aged in Scotland.

We grabbed dinner at a random restaurant after some down time in the hostel. We wandered around the pubs again in the Temple Bar area. The actual Temple Bar is basically just a famous pub, and the street it's on is very lively at night. I really liked the pub scene because you basically just sit or stand and listen to live music. We heard an array of American songs including Brown Eyed Girl, Galway Girl, Sweet Home Alabama, and Chasing Cars. I got hit on by some old Irish men which made me uncomfortable, but other than that it was really fun.

All day Saturday was dedicated to one of the Seven Wonders of Ireland - the Cliffs of Moher. When we booked our trip to Ireland, we also signed up for a tour with Extreme Ireland to take us to the Cliffs of Moher. It was an all day extravaganza that started very early in the morning, but it was totally worth it! The bus ride itself was really cool because we literally drove from Dublin on the eastern coast of Ireland, straight towards the Galway area on the western coast. Once we were outside of Dublin, the drive was pretty much all rural land. I have never seen so much green in one place and everything was the greenest green. The best description I can give is that it was very lush.

Even though the main attraction of the tour was the Cliffs of Moher, we made some stops along the way there and back. Our first stop was the River Shannon, which divides the west of Ireland from the east and south. It was pretty with the big bridge and random castle in the background.

This is everyone I went to Dublin with in front of the River Shannon - Nicki, Janel, Hannah, me, Brittany, and Jen (from left to right).

After River Shannon, we went straight to the Cliffs. The Cliffs of Moher are one of the most popular tourist attractions in Ireland. They actually appeared in the movie The Princess Bride as well as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The Cliffs don't really have any historical significance, but they're breathtaking to look at. The visitor center is also really cool (it's won a lot of awards) because it's built into the side of one of the mountains. 

As you can see they're extremely high up. The highest point is about 700 feet tall and is near O'Brien's Tower, which is just a stone tower built by Sir Cornelius O'Brien to impress female visitors. In the picture above, there's a wooden fence, but most of the fence surrounding the edge of the cliffs is actually giant stones. There's even a large part of the cliffs that's blocked off with a sign in front of it as a memorial to the people who have fallen/jumped off the cliffs. The reason it's blocked off is because they haven't built a fence there yet, but there's already a path so people just climb over the flimsy fence (someone even built a stone staircase there to make it easier) and wander around in the fenceless area. I went over there for a while and it was really cool to see the cliffs without the manmade fence, but after a while it made me nervous because people were getting way too close to the edge and it was extremely windy.

Right after we finished up at the Cliffs of Moher, we went to a different set of cliffs. I don't know the name of them is or if they even have a name, but they were so cool! It was a similar idea to the Cliffs of Moher except it was really rocky on top so we were jumping all over the stones to get to the edge. You could literally just walk over to the edge and look down, which is exactly what we did.

We made a quick stop at Corcomroe Abbey on our way back to Dublin. Corcomroe Abbey is a Cistercian monastary in Burren region of County Clare, Ireland and it's known for its detailed carving and decorations, which were rare for an early 13th century structure. The first thing you see when you walk into the abbey is the cemetery. Normally I don't like cemeteries but this one was quite beautiful, and I enjoyed wandering through the inside of the abbey too.

After we left Corcomroe Abbey, we went straight back to Dublin. We were all exhausted so we got dinner and went back to the hostel. On Sunday morning, we took the bus to the airport and our flight went smoothly. We were all ready to be home by the time we got to Malaga so the bus ride from Malaga to Granada was kind of painful.

Other than the fact that Ireland is in fact the greenest place on earth (from what I've seen anyway), I also learned that other Irish stereotypes are pretty accurate. The weather was dreary the whole time were there. It rained a little bit and was cold and windy. So far, the Irish are the friendliest people I have ever met. They're also very superstitious, historically and even still today in the rural areas. Our tour guide kept telling us stories involving ferry castles and various things people do to ward off bad luck.

I noticed that the Irish have a great sense of humor too. The first time I realized it was when we were walking over a random bridge across the Liffey and there was a painted stamp on the bridge that said "Troll Below?". Then, when we were wandering around Dublin City on Friday, we kept seeing these giant tour buses shaped like Viking boats, which was funny in and of itself, but everyone in the boat buses had to wear Viking hats to participate in the tour.

My favorite Irish joke though was the signs we kept seeing that pointed tourists towards a leprechaun museum that doesn't exist. I thought Ireland was a fantastic place and I would love to go there again some day!