Ok, I think it’s about time I updated!!! So, going back two
weeks, let me tell you about my wonderful birthday weekend!!
When I first realized I was going to be in Ireland over my
21st birthday, I was a little disappointed because with the drinking
age here being 18, I’d miss out on the typical American 21st
birthday experience. But then I realized I’d get to spend my birthday in Ireland, and how could I complain about
that?! To make it even better, my friend Katie who’s studying in London decided
to come visit me that weekend too! So Katie and her friend Mariah hopped on a
Ryanair flight (which I have yet to experience- but from their stories, it
sounded like they basically flew over in an over sized plastic toy plane-
scary!!) in the wee hours of the morning, took the bus from Dublin, and got to
Galway at around 11am. Going off of no sleep for 24 hours, we jumped straight
into sight seeing and I showed them around the beautiful city of Galway!! I
stole most of these pictures from them because they both have those fancy
cameras with the long lenses and insisted on stopping to photograph every
single door we passed (as a random guy on a bike stopped to say to us, “I guess
some people can see art in anything.”).
Shops on Quay St
A Galway Hooker (not what you're thinking- it's a boat!)
Katie's photography skills caught my hair in the wind!
At the Quadrangle on the NUIG campus
We found a sign for Irish Fest in Milwaukee!
Where we ate dinner!
After wandering around the city, we went and had a
delicious, traditional Irish meal at Finnegans Corner, and headed off to bed
because these two were exhausted! Plus, the next morning we had an early bus to
catch to go see the Cliffs of Moher. We got much luckier this time with the weather than the first time I went! It was cold, windy, and rainy, but there was no fog and the clouds even parted to show some blue skies at one point. The water was a gorgeous blue-green color that almost looked like it belonged in the Caribbean!
Blue skies and tropical looking water!
Peeking over the edge ;]
On Wisconsin!
Even though my actual birthday was on Sunday, we all had classes on Monday and Katie and Mariah had an early flight so we went to the pubs to celebrate on Saturday night! We spent the night dancing to some 90s and early 2000s music (so typical of going out in Ireland!) and meeting some interesting characters! One guy taught us some super creative dance moves (the lawn mower and the grocery cart... so 6th grade!), one guy guessed my age to be 14 (I told him to add 7, he said 23, we walked away), and after a lot of laughs, we headed home to get some sleep before waking up a few hours later to get on a bus to spend my birthday in Dublin!
Before I came to Ireland, lots of people told me that Dublin wasn't all that great, that it was just like any other big city, and to experience "true Ireland" I had to make sure to get out of the city and see the countryside. So going in, I had pretty low expectations. However, I absolutely loved the city of Dublin! Sure, it was pretty touristy, and I didn't exactly get same "Irish" feeling from it as I do in Galway, it was nice to feel the hustle and bustle of a big city again. It also was filled with the gorgeous, old architecture that is so prominent in European cities and so lacking in American ones.
We walked around the Trinity College campus for a while, which was absolutely gorgeous. We were looking for the famous beautiful library that's all over Pinterest, and found a building that said library and we followed a student in. Turns out, it was a small, normal looking library- that you couldn't leave unless you had a Student ID card! So we stood in the doorway for a good 10 minutes freaking out until a student came by and let us out!
After we thankfully didn't spend the whole day locked inside the library, we went to explore the two gorgeous cathedrals in Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral. We got to go inside Christ Church Cathedral, which was beautiful, and I lit a candle for Coco. We tried to go inside St. Patrick's Cathedral, but we were there on a Sunday and it was closed for visitors because they were having mass. The outside was beautiful, though!
Christ Church Cathedral
The candle I lit for Coco is the one on the bottom right!
St. Patrick's Cathedral
After we saw the cathedrals, we went to the Guinness Storehouse to learn about the famous drink of Ireland and get our free pints in the Gravity Bar, where we got a gorgeous 360 degree view of the city! The tour was really cool. We got to learn how to properly taste Guinness, where they told us to lift our elbows while we drank because it helps you get to the sweet taste further down in the drink (I thought it still tasted bitter- but I'm not much of a dark beer person). We also met a guy in the Gravity Bar that had been hanging out there a while and had already had a few pints- he told us all about his farm in Maryland and kept telling us to add him on "FacePlant", which we assumed meant Facebook! Everyone in Ireland loves to chat, it's great.
My inner stats nerd was very excited about the plaque dedicated to the famous statistician that developed the Student 't' test!
Celebrating my 21st with a pint!
We passed this kid running across the top of a bridge! He then slid down like it was a slide! Thankfully, he didn't slide into the river!
After the Guinness Factory, and a quick stop in Burger King to use the bathroom, we went to the see the Temple Bar and find somewhere to eat dinner. We were too tired to go the pub afterwards, so we found somewhere to have some birthday cake and wine, and headed back to the hotel and went to bed!
We had a few photo bombers!
Overall, it was my best birthday yet!!! I'm so thankful that I got spend it with great friends, and I can't wait to go to London next month so Katie and Mariah can show me all around their new city!
Thanks for reading!
Love,
Elise
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