Bridget...Abroad: Spring Break

The next day, we left super early and arrived in Dublin! This would be our first of two stops in Dublin, thanks to Ryan Air's cheap prices, which would serve as a bit of a base for our more far-out stops.

After Prague, we headed back to Ireland with the intent of seeing more of Ireland than just Dublin! Somehow, with only 2 1/2 days, we were successful!

Good morning St. Stephen's Green, you're looking quite lovely today.

We managed to have excellent weather everywhere we went in Ireland.

It's ALWAYS Guinness time :)

We took the train about 1/2 hour outside of the city to Howth - pronounced nothing like how we would say it.

We saw a lovely little cross and anchor for all of the people lost at sea...

From here on, the pictures are pretty much just of landscape so I'll say if anything is interesting, otherwise, its all landscape of Howth and the Irish Sea.

It was SO windy!

A little gate - I think its for the leprechauns!

And thus ended our first day in Ireland. What a beautiful walk it was, we walked from about 2 until almost 7.30 and much of it was up mountains! As expected, we returned to our hostel, expecting to crash and need to sleep all day, but instead, we headed out for some live music and Irish dancing - and of course, Guinness. Oh and of course, the lovely little pub we went to for live music - we were trying to follow some hostel friends around Dublin but got a bit mixed up and ended up alone - was full of a fire squad wearing wigs. We definitely did not get the message that we were supposed to wear wigs. There were also quite a few strange drunk people. We met quite a few interesting characters including the fiddler in the band who had a strange chunk cut out of his shoulder from 'falling down.' Regardless, we had fun and had a few free Guinnesses and with fuel like that, how could anyone want to do anything but hike the next day? We woke up early and headed for Enniskerry, a small town about an hour north of Dublin in the Wicklow mountains.

What a lovely little gate!

I think we decided that this is Martine's summer cottage - don't worry, I have one too, mine is in London, keep an eye out for it!

Oh yes, there she is, posing in front of that lovely house.

The road we walked on for about 7 miles had this lovely little bridge on it. Notice the lack of sidewalks. It took us about 2 hours to walk to the waterfall, which we thought would be nice and close to the city. Nope. Actually, there is a good story here. While we were at the waterfall it began to rain, we were eating our lunch and all we could think about was its going to NOT be a nice walk back into the city (can you call a place that when it literally has five shops and two restaurants?). Somehow, the guy who checked our tickets (oh yes, you have to pay about 5 euro to see Ireland's tallest waterfall) read our minds and offered us a ride back into town. It took us about ten minutes to drive back. We were literally flying down these country roads. Oh well, it made for an experience. Oh and his name: Sean Patrick Michael O'Hannigan. Lovely chap.

From here on, there are pretty much just landscape pictures, but I'll make comments about anything else.

I was determined to find a baby lamb and to my delight, I found one! Unfortunately, the land it was on was marked Private Property and I couldn't bring it home with me...

After a long day, we headed into town - just in time for the Guinness truck to come round, delivering the night's Guinness.

move these above

We thought we found St. Stephen's Green, but it was really Iveagh Gardens - they were really pretty too though.

A picturesque cottage inside Iveagh Gardens.

Two guys playing rugby on the green green grass. They actually got in trouble about ten minutes after this for drinking in the park - totally not allowed.

I took this picture because its called the Irish Times & I wanted to relate it to Irish Times in DC, but then I noticed the movie poster underneath for Lesbian Vampire Killers - as our British friends would say: top film. (Don't worry, I haven't seen it).

Finally, we found St. Stephen's Green!

This statue was given as a peace promise - The Three Fates.

The Famine Memorial.

St. Stephen's Green.

I love daffodils :)

Faiche Stiabhna! Good thing I understand Gaelic! By the way, we learned a couple interesting things about Gaelic - or as our friends call it, Irish. First off, there are schools that are taught entirely in Irish, weird, right? Also, our friend SPMO'H told us that almost everyone in Ireland speaks it, just reallllly badly. Also, signs don't translate. Thats why its important to talk to strangers! You learn so much.

Trinity College - I'm dropping out of CUA to finish school here.

More of Trinity.

How could you not like this school, they have solar compactor trash cans. Woahhh.

Martine, just chilling on campus.

There was some O2 festival going on - live music and the like - and they were handing out flags so we grabbed a couple. Doesn't it go so well with her coat???