Lucky as can be

Ireland is a dream. Imagine the greenest, most beautiful collection of rolling hills you've ever seen in your life, and you'd find yourself in the Irish countryside. As for Dublin...I have never had more fun at night in a city I've traveled to this semester yet.

We kicked off the trip with a delicious Irish meal at a popular place near our hostel called Murray's, mine being a steaming serving of Shepherd's pie. We ended the night on the earlier side, as the next morning began with boarding the bus for our day excursion at 7am. Friday was incredible. The excursion lasted roughly 13 hours and consisted of visiting the famous Cliffs of Moher, driving through Burren National Park and along the Atlantic Coast, and a stop in the quaint Galway City. The Cliffs of Moher are located on the southwestern edge of the country in the Burren region and loom between 100-200 meters above the ocean. The highest point is 214 meters by the round stone O'Brien's Tower. We had two hours to walk along the cliffs on rocky dirt pathways. The weather was perfect—sunny without a cloud in the sky, not too hot or too cold. This area of Ireland is infamous for extremely foggy days, sometimes so foggy you cannot see the cliffs at all, so we got really lucky. This is one of those places that looks beautiful in pictures and you expect it to be amazing but it just doesn't compare to actually seeing it in person. The sheer vastness of the cliffs is truly breath-taking. Strolling along the grassy hillside and climbing around the rocks on top of the cliffs was one of my favorite parts of the weekend, and maybe even semester. On a less important note, this visit strangely made me really miss grass. Salamanca has about one patch of grass in the entire city and you just don't see much of it when traveling to the big cities we have, but the grass in Ireland (and specifically at the cliffs) is soft and fluffy and makes you want to just lay down and take a nap in it. It's an odd feeling to discover something you miss, simply because you haven't experienced it in a long time, which is precisely how I feel about grass.

The day continued as we drove along the coast and through The Burren, a region of unique rocky landscape. Throughout the ride our tour guide provided countless stories of Irish folklore and legends behind the places we passed. My favorite story was about so-called fairy trees, where according to Irish legend, a tree standing alone in the middle of a field or on the side of a road signified a sacred entrance to the "otherworld" of the "wee folk" aka fairies. According to the legend, if you cut down or damage the tree, you are said to have bad luck for the rest of your life. Most locals acknowledge the legend's cautionary tale by preserving these trees no matter what the cost; it is not uncommon for farmers to work around a fairy tree within their fields or for a road to be re-routed in order to preserve the tree. I think this is a testament to the nature of the Irish people, and I love it. We stopped for lunch in Galway, the cutest little city and probably the next most popular city in the Republic of Ireland after Dublin. Our second traditional Irish meal consisted of fish & chips from a local favorite, McDonagh's.

Friday night was spent drinking Irish beer and listening to live music at a place called the Bad Ass Temple Bar. This band was awesome and who doesn't love live music? We encountered (or more accurately, they encountered us by spilling a Guinness down my shirt and almost hitting Olivia with a broken pint glass) a bachelor party of guys from Wales who were celebrating in Dublin for the weekend. The brother of the bride and the groom's best friend told us we were "sexy American ladies" even though we had literally been out and about since 7am and were definitely looking like a sight for sore eyes. He then proceeded to tell us that he thinks American women are some of the best-looking women in the world, but dress the worst. I couldn't completely disagree with him there...European fashion sense is fiercely, unapologetically unique and trendy. You'll see a girl walking down the street in a fuzzy purple vest and yellow knee-highs and somehow she manages to pull it off. Oh Europe, how I'll miss you.

Bad Ass Temple Bar

On Saturday Andie and I spent the day exploring the lively city of Dublin. We started with the Trinity College Library. Throughout this semester I have perpetuated my obsession with libraries by visiting some of the coolest, oldest and biggest in Europe. There's just something about a library to me that is even more intriguing than cathedrals or castles. The largest in Ireland, this particular library is part of Dublin's Trinity College and University of Dublin but open to the public for touring. It holds the famous Book of Kells, a collection of Gospels as illuminated manuscripts dating back to 800 AD. Commonly considered to be Ireland's "national treasure," the book is known for its beautiful calligraphy, insular style decoration and incredible preservation of such an antique collection of writings. However, I think the coolest part of the Trinity Library is the Long Room, spanning around 65 meters of 200,000 of the library's oldest books, complete with countless ladders, spiral staircases and marble busts of famous philosophers and writers. I would love to curl up in this room with a good book.

Next we stopped by the Dublin Castle, which was considerably less impressive compared to other castles we've visited this semester, so we decided to save the €7 and just admire it from the outside. We ate loaded hotdogs from a food stand outside St. Patrick's Cathedral, stumbled upon a cool flee market and enjoyed simply strolling through fun streets and admiring the unique building facades. We hung out for a while in St. Stephen's Green, a beautiful park in the city centre. Mid-afternoon we had a drink in Dublin's most famous Temple Bar (that red corner building you always see pictures of). This place actually lived up to its hype, in my opinion, with multiple rooms, live music at 3pm and an open biergarten in the middle of the building. We planned on getting Irish coffees to embrace the ~full Irish experience~ but after learning of their absurdly unfortunate price of €11, I settled for the Temple Bar's special Irish whiskey on the rocks for only €5. This is also a testament to the nature of the Irish, I believe.

St. Patrick's Cathedral

St. Stephen's Green

The Temple Bar

Another highlight of the trip was the Guinness Storehouse tour, which we did early evening on Saturday. This was my second brewery tour after the Heineken Experience in Amsterdam the weekend before, and while I loved the Heineken tour, Guinness was even cooler. The best comparison I can make to describe the brewery is Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory—lots of levels, escalators, flashing lights and interactive effects. The first part of the tour was set up like a museum about the history of the Guinness company and process of brewing Guinness beer. Then we entered the "Tasting Room," a white-washed room with cauldron-like pots spouting smells of Guinness ingredients, including hops, barely, etc. The purpose of the white room was to heighten our smelling and tasting senses to fully experience the beer as we tasted it in a mini pint glass. Another section of the tour was dedicated to Guinness advertising and marketing, so naturally I enjoyed that. My favorite campaign was "Fish on a Bicycle" (see pic below), which was related to a photo of women drinking in a bar that had gotten backlash and sported the tagline "A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Preach !! We ended our tour by pouring our own Guinness (it's a process, people) and enjoying views of the city from the sky bar. Definitely recommend this visit even if you're not a Guinness fan; you'll probably become a fan in the process! Speaking of which, prior to this weekend I've never disliked Guinness but it wasn't my favorite, as I'm not a huge fan of stouts. However, my time in Dublin has made me appreciate Guinness in a way that only drinking a beer in its place of origin can. Guinness is like the blood that runs through the veins of Dublin. It's so symbolic of this city that whenever I drink a Guinness now I think I will subconsciously associate it with my amazing weekend here and it will taste that much better.

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Saturday night Addie, Olivia and Elise rejoined us from their day trip for our last night in Dublin, which we celebrated with our third and final traditional Irish meal. I'm sad to say I don't remember what mine was called (this is so unlike me, I know) but it included some sort of Irish stew, potatoes and sausage. After this weekend it's tough to say if I like German or Irish food more. After dinner we stumbled upon another Irish bar/pub/live music venue (almost every other building in Dublin is this type of place, I swear) called Gogarty's. Coincidentally, the same band that played at the Bad Ass Bar the night before was now playing here. Even more of a coincidence, so was the same bachelor party, only this time the groom was dressed in a blonde wig and kilt rather than Friday night's Elvis costume. The place was packed, everyone dancing crazily to the Irish fiddle while holding their beers in the air in hopes not of spilling (which was inevitable, of course, and I left the bar with my white jeans not looking so white). Dancing to Irish music at this place was hands down one of the most fun times I've had at night this semester. I've been to some of the biggest, most famous clubs in Europe but there's just something about a hole-in-the-wall bar with good beer and good music that makes for the best of time. Irish nightlife can be described as nothing short of wholesome, authentic fun. Or as the Irish would say, "craic," meaning "good fun" and pronounced "crack" and therefore extremely confusing in phrases like "that place has great craic" or "I had so much craic last night". All in all, Dublin is great craic.

This was my last weekend trip before our program in Salamanca ends this coming week, then it's off to Interlaken and Nice before flying home. I can't believe my semester abroad is almost over... Ireland, I miss you already and thanks for being the perfect end to our weekend European adventures. Sláinte!!!