Weekend in Dublin

Oh what a weekend! So we took off early Friday morning for another adventure of traveling. It was just 6 of us this time but still quite a group! We got to the airport and Beth realized she had forgotten her passport back at the apartment and they wouldn't let her board without it so she had to cruise back to the apartment but made it back with minutes to spare! When we got to Dublin, we bused to the city center but had no idea where we were going, so got off the bus and hiked for a little while, with backpacks and pillows in hand, to find where we were staying (Alyssa's friends apt). We decided that forking over money for a cab was a better plan. Once we dropped our stuff off we got some food and then headed to the Jameson's Distillery, we were all ready for THAT tour at this point. The tour was pretty cool because I had no idea how they made whisky and how special Irish whiskey really is. I volunteered to be the taste taster of our group :) so can tell you first hand how much better Jameson's is than american and scotch whisky. The other kinds made me want to puke! I got a pretty sweet award though and all those free shots and then another free glass of Jameson's. Leaving the factory, needless to say, I was feeling pretty good :). By the time we got back to town we just decided to grab some dinner and then get ready to head out for the evening. This was when Molly realized she lost her wallet-either left it behind or got pick pocketed, either way it was not a good situation. She was super calm and took care of it like a champ, I was proud! We all helped her out money wise for the rest of the weekend and we got through it! We went out to a few pubs with Alyssa's friend and a few of his friends and had a really fun night. Saturday morning we got up early for a day FULL of sight seeing. We started out at the Guiness factory for the tour and a free pint. We ate some lunch in the restaurant there and enjoyed the beautiful view of Dublin City from the sky high bar. Once we drowned our pints, we headed to the Dublin Castle and St. Patrick's Cathedral. We then went to Grafton Street (the main shopping area) and hung around there until our 7:30 Literary Pub Crawl which was super fun! The crawl took us to 4 different pubs with little performances from our guides along the way! Once we got back to the original pub, we went to meet up with our new found friends to have a few more drinks. We went home a little early because we were all dead from the day of walking and touring around town. Sunday morning we slept in a little bit and then headed to the zoo. It was great! Although the weather wasn't the best, we got to see a lot of animals. There were rhinos, elephants, tigers, flamingos, seals, tons of monkeys and lots more! After the zoo, we went to the Museum of Modern Art which was really interesting. Modern Art is so unique and always makes me think..I could make that, but it's all so fun to look at. We then headed back to town to get some dinner at Porterhouse. It was delicious and a meal we all needed after another long day. After we ate, we headed back to the apartment to relax for the evening before our super early flight monday morning. We ended up finding the super bowl on tv so stayed up until 4am watching that! Getting up at 6am for our flight was not so fun but we were all troopers. Flew back without a problem (I think I was awake for about 2 min of the whole flight) and arrived back in Cork, home sweet home. It felt so great to be back home after a weekend of lots of walking, a little too much together time, 1 lost wallet, but tons of great memories! Being in Dublin made me realize how much I love Cork and how much it feels like home. Dublin is much busier and a lot more touristy, although it was a great place to visit, I was glad to be back home in my warm, dry apartment in my own bed!

P.S. Pictures from the weekend are up on shutterfly so check those out!