Dublin/Ireland: Where are all the Redheads?!

the flight was mad quick from london to dublin and we actually got there in the daylight! we found our hostel which was called dublin international house and it used to be a nun convent. how fun. it was actually REALLY nice and clean and breakfast was included mmmm. after dropping our stuff off kate and i headed off to find the tourist office because we decided to take a day trip into the country side of ireland. this, of course, was NOT inspired by the countless romantic movies in which a hot irish man with an amazing accent decides to marry you just cause youre both on a beautiful landscape in ireland. nope, really...i mean i wasnt expecting gerard butler to find me on this day trip and make out with me. psh. thatd be silly :) so we booked that and found some food before heading back to our hostel. the only girl in our room at that time was this girl named alison from chicago. shes 25 and backpacking through europe for a year. holyyyy monkey. but she did the pub crawl the night before and recommended it so thats exactly what me and kate did the first night (and the third but ill get to that later).
so dublin has an area called temple bar which is jampacked with bars and clubs. we made our way down o'connell street which we walked up and down probably like 30 times. and guess who we saw at the pub crawl...the AUSSIES. hahaha jk.. they were in poland but thatd be funny. anyway, there was only 7 people on the crawl altogether but it was actually a lot of fun. our leader, louise, was an awesome irish girl. we met two other americans: james and his gf amber who were great! and there was also two german guys..that were odd but hey, they're german haha. so we had a ton of fun the first night, got some food on the way back (I DIDNT GET A KEBAB!! haha) and went to bed.
we woke up for breakfast and went to take the 11 oclock free tour (btw..in case youre wondering why we took all these free tours and went on pub crawls..theres this company called "sandmans new europe" that has these free tours and (not free) pub crawls in most major cities in europe. good deal!) the tour was again, fabulous. our guide, whos name i cannot pronounce cause it was way too irish for me was funny and we learned all about how the mean english took over ireland for 700 years. psh assholes! we saw lots of old buidlings and learned about the famine anndddd other fun stuff. the vikings were actually pretty prominent in the tour because they had ireland for a while too. oh the poor irish. so overall the tour was nice and the city of dublin is awesome. we went to the national museum after that which was aiiight, went to the hostel and asked about a pub that serves authentic irish food. murrays was where we ended up and when i sat down, a group of 4 guys walked past us and i was like "kate, i KNOW those people" but i wasnt sure. and then 15 minutes later tim from PC walked in with like 7 other people from providence and i was like WTFF!!! it was so weird. theyre not even studying abroad. they just decided to come to dublin for spring break. well anyway, that was funny and then we went to hostel to get ready to go out.
alison went out with us and we went to a bar that louise told us about (a band that she knew was playing there). the band is called funzo and they were pretty sick. i even got a cd from them fo' free! after that, we went to the temple bar and guess who i saw?! all the PCers again. so randddom. well anyway, then we lost louise so we went to one more bar before getting...KEBABS..and going to bed.
we woke up mad early cause of our day trip with the paddywagon bus haha. we walked down o'connell..again..and made our way onto the green coach bus and awaited our departure. our driver (AND tour guide) name was seanny and if you have enough imagination to picture an irish hillbilly that was him. he was so funny but dumb as a bell..he knew his facts but he just didnt seem all that educated. it was hysterical. we first stopped in glendalough which was a scenic area with a monastic city. it dated back to some ridiculous date that i have now forgotten but basically this dude secluded himself from the world..HERMIT. there was also some waterfalls and mountains and it was really pretty. then we made our way through wicklow which is where ps-i love you and parts of braveheart were filmed. wooo. and no gerard butler did not greet us :( very sad. it was gorgeous and there was LOTS of sheep. lotttts of them. then we arrived in kilkenny where we saw about 3 churches and a CASTLE. SO COOOOOOL. they were all really old and the actual town was so small and cute. finally, on the way back to dublin we stopped to see the heaviest and one of the oldest tombs in europe! basically, it was two rocks with one more on top of them which served as the entrance to a tomb back in the stone ages. it was pretty cool if you got over the fact that you were looking at a big..rock. we got back to dublin around 7 and decided to do the pub crawl again since it was saturday and we figured the crowd would be bigger. skipping dinner seemed like a good idea at the time....
the pub crawl was a lot more crowded. we met TONS of people..italian, american, australian, canadian, argentinian, and french. it was so great. we had a lot of fun and even louise (our guide from the first crawl) was there! the club at the end was bumping but we left kinda early cause we were tired from our day trip. we got SUBWAY (theres SO many) and went to bed.
OH and by the way, dublin has SOOO SOSOSO many polish people in it. it was great, i heard it everywhere AND there was mad polish stores too..yayy :)
so we woke up...breakfast..and checked out. we had a while til our flight so we went souvenir shopping, ate ANOTHER breakfast and sat by the river liffy cause it was so sunny and warm out. then, sadly, we made our way back up o'connell street for the last time, took the bus to the airport, flew into paris, took forever on a bus to get into paris, got on the metro, and arrived home around 11.
and that concludes my winter break...a great experiance. seeing awesome places and meeting great people. cant wait to travel again!