Post-Dublin Update!

Dublin was SO fun! My friends Liz, Mevy, Shannon and I ended up staying in the Generator Hostel in Dublin, which apparently used to be a big hotel. It's super close to downtown, maybe a 10 minute walk, so we didn't have to worry about a cab much when we wanted to grab a bite to eat or go out at night. I realized I never got a picture of the outside of the building, but this is a photo from the website.

That being said, our stay there was great. There were tons of people there, and the walls were paper thin, so besides being woken up by kids in the hallways every morning at 8 am, I can't complain much. We booked a private quad, so we had the room to ourselves, and a private bathroom too. Downstairs there was a cafeteria and a bar, so we could always go down there for a beer at night or breakfast in the morning. I only ended up taking one picture of downstairs, and it's a picture of the cool light fixtures in the bar.

We got into Dublin Saturday night with time to check in and walk around downtown to find somewhere for dinner. We ended up trying to go into like four different pubs before finding one that actually had a table available for four people. I guess that's what we get for trying to go out in downtown Dublin on a Saturday night...gotta get there early to get the drinks!
The next day was cold, but we decided to go on a three hour free walking tour around Dublin. Our tour guide Sinead was super knowledgable, and the guides work for tips only, so even though the cold ended up getting the best of Mevy and Shannon and we left early, we still tried to tip her decently. We went to a great sports bar for lunch called Fitzsimmons where we got to watch a great soccer game between Chelsea and Brentford!

This is Christ Church Cathedral, one of the oldest cathedrals/churches in Dublin. Find out more about it here. 

We got to see Dublin Castle on the first part of the walking tour, which ended up not looking much like a castle at all. This is the only remaining part of the castle from centuries ago, the prison. Here is more info on it.
I can't remember what the river is on one side of downtown Dublin, but we had to cross a bridge every time we wanted to get there. It was beautiful!

After lunch we ended up walking around downtown Dublin in an area called Temple Bar for a while. Eventually Liz and I decided to go to Dublin Zoo, while Mevy and Shannon wanted to continue walking around. When we got to the zoo there was so much more to do than just see the animals! There were tons of open green spaces to walk around in, and a giant monument that I'm honestly still not sure what it stood for.
Just saying, at the zoo we got to see lions and tigers super up close, and they had a pack of wolves that started howling for like 5 minutes all together! Is it bad that that was probably the highlight of that day? I feel like I shouldn't have been as excited as I was.

Just to give you some perspective on its size, that's Liz at the base after the stairs up.

That night when we all met back up at the hostel (and I had a little power nap - as in an hour nap) we all headed out to dinner, only to find that the bars, again, were all crowded. And on a Sunday. Literally, there were no seats. Instead, we went to this small Greek restaurant called Corfu, and it was amazing. We had pretty much been having muffins and sweets every chance we could, so the soup and vegetables there were delicious. Not saying we didn't get dessert (because we absolutely did - best chocolate cake ever), but the food warranted another trip...so we went there again Monday night for drinks after dinner.
Monday's weather was SO much better and prettier than Sunday's. I haven't seen such a beautiful, clear and sunny day since I've been abroad. Some vitamin D was definitely needed. Monday we walked over to the Guinness Factory to check out how the Irish make their beer.
So obviously we took advantage of their free beverages.

Once we were good and full after the tour, we headed over to the Connolly train station to take a 25 minute train ride to Howth, a fishing town that my friend from Southern Weddings Magazine told me to check out! Howth was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. The town is right on the water and has some amazing views. Though we got there pretty early, around 2:00, we ended up staying for dinner to have some good, fresh seafood. I had crabcakes and shrimp, which were de-li-cious. Of course, not near as good as the seafood at Edisto or Beaufort, but still so good!

Being so close (though definitely not in, it was still only like 45 degrees) to the water made me miss Edisto so much, but the Irish accents are so cool to listen to. I couldn't decide if I wanted to stay in Dublin or come back to London.

The flight was only about an hour, so we made good time coming back! I don't know how people travel so much, the flight was short, but I was so knocked out this afternoon. Congratulations to all of you who can fly better than I can!

So that's it for the trip! This week I don't have classes because Westminster has a GIS week, but I'll be working on lots of presentations and projects that are due mid- to late March. I have a trip to Stonehenge and Bath this weekend, but luckily that's just a bus ride away!