U of I takes on Dublin!

The first Friday in March is the biggest holiday to hit the University of Illinois campus - Unofficial St. Patrick's Day.  The university thought it would be a good idea to conveniently schedule spring break over actual St. Patrick's Day so we wouldn't have a chance to celebrate.  The bars on campus got smart, and created their own holiday which has been a tradition at U of I for the past 6 years.  Since us study-abroaders felt left out of the festivities, we decided to travel to the next best place; Dublin!  About 50 of us from U of I, studying all around Europe, met up in Ireland this weekend to celebrate Unofficial our own way!

Streets of Dublin!

Twelve of us took an early afternoon flight out of Malaga (thank goodness, it was only a 2 hour bus ride to get there instead of the usual 5 hour ride to Madrid!) on Friday afternoon.  The group included Lauren, Caroline, Cory, Andrea, Megan, Alison, Spencer, Sam, Lauren B, Matt, Ryan and I.  We got to Dublin late afternoon (after a great flight on good 'ol budget airline, RyanAir) and checked into our hostel which was right down the street from the famous Temple Bar.  Our hostel was even called Barnacles Temple Bar Hostel.  The facilities were great, and Caroline, Lauren and I got moved from an 10 person dorm to a 6 person dorm with our own bathroom - WIN.  It just so happened the other 3 girls in the room were Alison, Spencer and Lauren B so it was nice to finally be sharing a room without strangers!  We got into the Irish spirit right away and all went to a souvenir store to buy some attire - more specifically we bought the most obnoxious (but kinda cute) green and cream striped rugby polos... you'll be seeing a lot of them in my pictures!  We got some spiked ciders (best.drink.ever) from the convenient store and all 50 of us hung out in the kitchen for a while... you can only imagine how the rest of the hostel stayers felt about that one, haha.  We checked out a few pubs and I had my first Guinness (Matt Scully you would be proud!) although it was much heavier than I thought it would be.  My favorite pub was a place called Fitzgeralds where there was a live band who LOVED to pick on us for our obnoxious shirts and the fact that we were American, typical 'eh?

The rugby polos!

Saturday we wanted to do some sight-seeing around Dublin.  We decided on a free walking tour, surprise surprise, which actually turned out to be interesting.  Our tour guide knew a lot about the history of Dublin from many different aspects and we learned a lot about the famines and  plagues that took over Ireland's history.  The tour guide was also pretty adamant about teaching us all why them and Britain were such horrible enemies.. and although the story might be a bit bias, I can definitely see why.  Next we headed over to the Guinness factory to take a tour and see exactly how Guinness beer is made... I figured while in Ireland this is a must-see.  The tour was about 5 floors beginning with how the beer is actually made, to a taste-test, to the different advertising campaigns and how Guinness and St. Patrick's Day are celebrated around the world.  Yes, they even included America's famous St. Patrick's Day parade, I was proud.  The tour lead to a sky bar which over looked the entire city and a complimentary Guinness to enjoy.  All of us were wiped out so we split up to get some dinner.  Lauren, Caroline, Megan, Spencer and I  decided to try a famous fish & Chips placed called Burdock's.  On the wall they listed all the famous people that had visited there.. some of them included Snoop Dogg (random I know), Hilary Swank, the cast of P.S. I love you, Justin Timberlake's mom and a million more I can't remember. It was a bit pricey, but definitely worth the money.

Courtyard of the Castle

9,000 year Guinness lease!

All the different bottle types

Most of the group left on Sunday morning, but Caroline, Lauren and I (along with a few others) decided to use one of our "freebies" off of school and take a tour of the countryside on the west coast of Ireland.  We woke up at the God-awful hour of 5:45 am to be at the bus stop for the tour by 6:45.  It ended up being totally worth it.  We first took a 2.5 hour ride to Galway, where the tour actually started. They gave us a "breakfast break" at a nearby hotel to which we received AWFUL service from the waitress and didn't even end up having time to eat at all!  We boarded another bus for the next 9 hours to tour the countryside of Ireland, which made me actually feel like I was in Ireland. We saw castles, cemetaries, and many historical places from Ireland's history.  During one of our stops (which thankfully they gave us plenty and we weren't cooped up on the bus for that long) we ran into a girl from our sorority, Maggie, who was actually studying in Italy... small world huh?  Turns out she was on a different tour company but doing the same sort of thing we were.  It was nice to see a familiar face although really random.  Finally we made it to the Cliffs of Mohr, the main site we were looking forward to.  The view was absolutely incredible and we climbed to some of the highest points around the cliff to see as much as we possibly could.  That sight alone made the whole tour worth the early morning wake up call.  We visited a few more sites along the way home and finally pulled into Galway around 6:00 pm.  They gave us a quick dinner break, which made it only possible to eat Subway (boo!) and then we were back on the bus for the 2.5 hour ride back to Dublin.  I slept the whole way back and we all crashed early after such a long day and an early morning flight the next day.

Cliffs of Mohr

Tower on the Cliffs

Monday we had a flight out of Dublin at 9 am and got back to Granada (after all traveling was over) about 5:30 pm so it was another long day.  My favorite parts of Ireland were hands down the Cliffs of Mohr and seeing everyone from U of I!  Although I didn't dislike Ireland by any means, in comparison to the other cities I've visited I think I have to put it closer to the bottom, but I have no regrets from traveling there whatsoever.

Updated list would probably be: Prague, Paris, Sevilla, London, Dublin, Madrid.  My travels are pretty much over, minus a few other trips, so I'm relieved to finally stay in Granada and check out this city a little more.  I can't wait to blog about things happening around here and show you a little more about where I live!  I'll be here for about a month straight, before our final 10 day break where I'll hopefully be traveling to Italy :)