Pubs, Guiness, Pubs, and more Guiness. Dublin, Ireland!

Well, Dublin was my first pretty short trip. We arrived on Friday evening and left early Sunday morning so we really only had one full day to enjoy Ireland. When we got there we got situated and went to an Irish pub of course! On the way there we quickly figured out that walking and crossing the street in Ireland is kinda difficult and scary! (They drive on the opposite side of the road there) They actually have "LOOK RIGHT---->" and "<-----LOOK LEFT" painted at the cross walks!

Anyways, the bar was called the Bleeding Horse and it was really cool. We had some food and drank a bit. I had my first official Irish Car Bomb (Half a glass of Guiness and you drop a shot glass that's half Jameson and half Bailey's in it and CHUG). It was great!

After that we went back to the hostel in excitement for my roommate's friends and sister to arrive in the morning. They got there at around 9 so we started getting ready to head out and made our first stop at another pub at 11 AM. We had Guiness for breakfast and then walked around Dublin for a bit of sight seeing on our way to the Guiness factory. It was set up really well with 7 floors to go up and the top floor was a bar that was just floor ceiling and window. It was basically a panoramic view of Dublin. It was really cool but would have been better if it was raining.

We went to another Irish pub to have dinner and watch the Rugby game, after the Guiness factory. OMG, first time ever seeing the sport and it was crazy! I can't believe any of those guys even live it is so brutal! No helmets, no pads, football and hockey put together but 10 x more insane! After the game we went to the hostel to nap so we'd be ready for a fun long night! After we woke up nice and refreshed we went to Brazen Head which is the oldest bar (I think) in Ireland, if not, the world. It was established in 1198! SO old and so cool. There was....an older crowd there as well but still really cool. There was a live band and they ACTUALLY played the song they played in the Irish pub in "P.S. I love you" it basically made our night!

After Brazen Head we went to Temple Bar which is an area about 5 blocks x 5 blocks of all pubs and little restaurants. It was so much fun! We went to this bar called "The Purrty Kitchen," the bottom floor was like any other Irish pub, lots of wood and live band, then you go upstairs and it's like a club, and the next floor was a like a loft dance floor with the DJ, and then you could go up again from there and there was another bar. Despite the fact that I had the absolute worst service at that bar, (the lady bar tender literally rolled her eyes at me and told me to go somewhere else and walked away just because I couldn't hear/understand her) it was so much fun! They played a lot of 90's/early 2000's music, European club music, and some newer American stuff. All of us girls had a blast dancing and losing the boys! After dancing up a sweat we decided to try to find another bar. Well, nothing else looked as fun so we ended up eating at this little place called "Hungry Harry," just a little place where you stand at the counter that outlines it and eat. It was actually amazing because I haven't had a decent burger since I've been in Europe. We found out after we ate that the bars all closed at 2:30, which is really early in comparison to 6 AM in Madrid. So the night was sort of cut short but a few of us were still up to experience more of Temple Bar so we tried to get in one last pub. We went to a smaller one and had this shot called a baby Guiness which is Kalhua with Bailey's on top so it looks like a little Guiness. It was pretty yummy! After about 30 minutes at the pub we decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel.

The next morning we had to get up early and head to the airport but before we left we had to have a "full Irish breakfast!" We went to the same pub that we went to for the Guiness for breakfast and got something a little more nutritious. The full Irish breakfasts includes sausage, bacon, eggs, white pudding, black pudding, toast, and fried potatoes. It wasn't exactly what I expected but still was amazing since all I've been eating in Madrid for breakfast is a small croissant or little toasted breads. The sausage was weird, kind of sweet, didn't really eat that, the bacon in Ireland in general is THICK almost like ham, still really good. The white pudding and black pudding I did not try, they looked like little sausage patties but BLACK and the white one looked more like a sausage patty but smelled really gross and hard. The fried potatoes ended up being like a McDonald's hash brown but with onion. After filling up we headed to the airport.

WORST FLIGHT OF MY LIFE. Ok those of you who know me, yea I may exaggerate sometimes but this time, I seriously thought I was going to die. People were literally crying and screaming. The plane was shaking so bad from the turbulence, swaying, feeling like we were dropping, HORRIBLE. I was crying my roommate was crying and her sister was comforting me, telling me that it would be ok and she's been in worse. Well when we finally landed in Madrid, (never been so happy!!) she told me that that was definitely the worst that she's been in but she didn't want to tell us that because we were freaking. I am so glad that I am alive and cannot wait to be back from the long flight to the states! Only 4 weeks and 3 days!! (I'm not counting down or anything)