The Dubliners

Well everyone, I arrived back from my trip to Dublin on the lovely Emerald Isle. Ireland is famous for its Irish music, the mass exodus to New York, courtesty of the potato, famous authors, and lest we forget, beer and whiskey.

I left Sevilla on Saturday with my buddy Jay, and we flew to Dublin. The first day was pretty lo-key, just trying to get situated in our hostel and walk around the city. It was pretty strange walking around and hearing ENGLISH. Really it was, after leaving in a non-English speaking country for 3 months. I caught myself several times responding and asking questions in Spanish. I didn't realize how much I had learned after all.

Dublin is such a cool city. Right now, it ranks on Lance's list of favorite places I've been too ever. The people are extremely friendly, there is an abundance of redheads, and the culture is completely different. The city is a very clean city and very tourist friendly. Case in point, the street that my hostel was on had probably 12 or 13 hostels in a row. There is a river that flows through the heart of Dublin, the River Liffey, It's not the Thames, the Mississippi or the Seine, but keep in mind most major European cities are built on rivers. The first night in Dublin, Jay and I decided to do what any other self respecting, English speaking, guys would do...head down to the pub for a pint! The pub culture is really cool, I wish they had it in America. The pubs are actually more of an old guy hangout, kind of like the cevecerias here in Spain. My first Irish pub ever was at this place called the Millenium, across two streets from the Guinness Brewery. Our bartender had the thickest Welsh accent and we could barely understand except for:

Bartender: Whatcha you readin?
Jay: My Ireland guidebook.
Bartender: I see it's from 2005, not much has changed here in 4 years.

But sitting in a pub, drinking a Guinness straight out of Dublin, probably ranks on my list of great experiences.

On the way back from the pub, we stopped through the trendy bar district, called "Temple Bar" It was a really cool area. As we kept walking, we saw a green car, with the sticker, "University of North Texas."

Lance and Jay: I think that says the University of North Texas, No way.
Guy: Are you guys from Texas, yeah?
Lance: Yeah we are, we're students at Texas Tech, but here in Dublin on the weekend, since we are currently students in Seville, Spain.
Guy: Yeah, I graduated from UNT in 1998.
Lance: No way, that's awesome.
Guy: What part of Texas are you guys from?
L&J: Mesquite and Plano.
Guy: My first job out of college was working for the Mesquite Newspaper.
Lance: That's such a small world
Lance: What brings you to Dublin?
Guy: My mother is native Irish, and I've lived over here in Dublin for 8 years now.

Yeah, small world.


On to Day 2. Day 2 was spent seeing as many sites as possible. We visited the Trinty College of Dublin, the home to the Book of Kells. One of the oldest, most preserved illuminated manuscripts of the Bible. Trinity College was such a beautiful campus and reminds me of what a college is supposed to look like. Jay and I visited both the Guinness Brewery and the Old Jameson Distillery. The Guinness Brewery tour was 7 stories tall. It highlighted the beer making, the history, the advertising and so forth. At the end of the tour, was the opportunity to receive the Guinness straight from the source and look upon the city in a 360 degree viewing area of the city. Simply amazing to see the city, the Irish sea, and the Dublin and Wicklow mountains. Next was on to the Old Jameson Distillery. Jameson is another staple of Dublin, producing Irish whiskey. That was a fascinating tour as well, and that making whiskey is a bit more complicated than it looks. I didn't know that American whiskey is only distilled once, and Scotch is distilled twice. One, Twice, Three times a Lady. After the tour, we went to go see St. Patrick's Cathedral. The cathedral really was a beautiful structure on the outside, very old and very Anglo-Saxon looking. Our last big adventure of the day was going to a town called Howth, on the Irish sea and suburb of Dublin. This is what I imagined an Irish fishing village and town to look like. Docks, and small houses lining the water. We went to go have fresh seafood at this rather nice restraurant and it was tasty because I had seafood chowder and crab legs to eat.

Day 3
On Day 3 we took the Irish rail to Cork and went to go on our pilgrimage to kiss the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle. For those of you who don't know what the Blarney Stone is, it's believed to give who ever kisses it, the gift of eloquence. Apparently, it worked for Winston Churchill.
Blarney was a perfect representation of what Ireland is supposed to be. It had very green hills and pastures with a bubbling creek, and a small town. This is the Ireland I wanted to see so badly. After touring the Blarney Stone, Jay decided it was a good idea for me to talk to this girl who walked by, and issued a man challenge to me. So I took it and went on a stroll through the gardens and trails by the Blarney Castle and talked to this chica, named Allison who is studying in France and goes to school in Portland, Oregon. Too bad, she has a bf.

Well after me attempting to be Don Juan, I missed my bus back to Cork. Being the ever clever man I am, I hailed a taxi and made it back with minutes to spare. My cabbie was pretty cool, in fact the took Irish cabbies I had were awesome. Good news, I made it to the train station in time.

On our last night in Dublin, Jay and I decided to go on a mini pub crawl. We started at an old man pub called Malloys, went to the "oldest" pub in Dublin, the Brazen Head and heard live music, and finished at Malloys.

Again. It's great to be 21 and traveling Europe.

At 5am the next morning, we left and scurried to the airport, via a cabbie with a ridiculously thicj Irish accent and I quote as we were leaving the cab...

"Best of luck to ya lads, come back Ireland and see us."

Yes sir, we will.