Dublin (part 2): on Beer and more beer...

More on Dublin!

So I can't blog about a trip to Dublin without talking about the pub culture and the beer. The Irish drink a lot. This is one of those stereotypes that exist for the reason that it is actually true. The beer and general drinking culture of Ireland is impressive. While Americans tend to stop binge drinking upon graduation from university, Irish people continue their whole lives consuming more booze than I find comfortable to think about. But there is good reason...their beer is good and their pubs are awesome.

The pubs and pub culture is a huge part of Dublin, and Ireland in general. There was literally a pub on every corner, and more in certain hot spots in town. On our first night we went to a brew pub called the Porterhouse in Temple bar and tried some "particular" dark beers, including an oyster brewed non-vegetarian beer and the Porterhouse red. Throughout the rest of the trip we went in to numerous pubs and were continuously awed at how adorable all of the locales were. Every pub, while having a similar "pub"-like atmosphere, was decorated in it's own special way.

A beer highlight of our trip was the Guiness Factory tour. The Guiness Factory was a fun informational amusement park for beer lovers. I really grew to appreciation the smooth "black stuff" like never before and actually found myself enjoying the pint that I learned how to pour myself during the tour.

Dublin (part 1)

Last weekend I found myself in a place in which I had honestly never thought to travel to at this point in my life: Dublin, Ireland. One of my best friends, a crazy Italian girl that travels around the world much more than even I do, is doing a semester of her master program in Dublin. My friend Kelly and I decided to make our way there for a long weekend because honestly the only way to see this dear friend of ours is to physically hunt her down. But she could have been anywhere and we would have gone. So we went to Dublin with the main purpose of having a lovely fun girls weekend filled with Irish beer and some surely some dancing.

Ireland had other things in store for us, though. From the first hour I was already enamored with the city and after our Friday daytrip to the incredible cliffs of Moher on the Atlantic Coast in the west, I simply fell in love with Ireland. The breathtaking color of the green countryside, the castles, the old abandoned monasteries, the city parks, the cathedral, the abundance of traditional Celtic patterns, the friendly people, the beer, the cider, the Irish stew, I could go on forever! Everything we did was great! It’s rare that I go to a place and feel like everything I did was fully worth my time and money, but Dublin and Ireland was definitely one of those places. Strange how places you never even thought to travel to can end up being your favorite places.

I can’t really pick a favorite activity, so I’ll just tell you about a few different highlights.

On our first full day in Ireland, Kelly and I went on an organized tour to the complete other side of the country to go to the epic Cliffs of Moher while our friend Carlotta had class. We stopped by an old abandoned monastery and drove through beautiful green countryside. The day was long, but very much worth the 6+ hours spent in the bus driving. In this case, the pictures say it all.

There was one annoying thing about our trip to the cliffs, though. At the cliffs, there were an insane amount of these nasty little black flies that just kept flying into us! The closer you got to the cliffs, the more flies there were. And once they stuck on you, it was very hard to shake them off. Here’s a picture of Kelly’s back covered with them.

You can even see the black spots in some of the pictures of the cliffs when you zoom in.

More about Dublin to come…

(and more pictures here)