We took 3 trains Monday night, the last to Holyhead definitely being the most interesting. We met some you severely drunk Welsh men who were warning us about the Nazi's in Germany and introducing us to a wide variety of Welsh songs. After that we met a friendly Irishman who was convinced that he now believes in love at first sight and he serenaded me. Sweet guy.
We got to the Dublin port at about 6:30am and hopped on a bus and headed into Dublin, we miraculously drove right by our hostel Paddy's Palace and then checked in and they let us shower and have breakfast. I met a new friend before leaving the hostel and we invited him on the rest of our day with us. We then took a self given Dublin tour. We walked through the 7 story Guinness factory. The sight from the top of the factory was worth the entire tour. For the rest of the day we explored Dublin with our trusty map. We found a fun thrift store and got a new outfits for our trip. When we got back to the hostel we booked tours for the next two days we were there so we could get in seeing the countryside.
Wednesday morning we woke up late and rushed to get ready for our tour that left at 8... we made it and our weather was beautiful!! We got on the Paddywaggon with our tour guide Michael Murphy and he lived up to his name, he was good looking, funny, and had a great Irish accent. He was super knowledgeable and enjoyed making us smile. We got him to sing to us so that was fun, he sang Galway Girl while we were driving through Galway and I think I fell a little bit in love. He took us all over Ireland with our final destination being the Cliffs of Mohr, which were absolutely beautiful! Once again we had perfectly blue skies and sunny weather. We also stopped at a monastery, burial grounds, and a castle. We drove home, entertained by more songs encouraged by our whoops and hollers. He was a good sport. I was shocked at how beautiful the countryside. I just wanted to walk around the roads and run into a cute Irishman who would sing to me. Our tour guide pointed us in the direction of a good Irish pub with live music. We took his advice and headed over there. The bartender was a little gruff. He came over and without a smile said, "If you ain't drinking, you ain't staying" I promptly ordered a beer. The music was so so so good :) We had our Norwegian friend with us that we had met in the hostel.
Thursday we woke up with news of a volcano erupting in Iceland, we brushed it off and thought it had nothing to do with us... ha. We got ready to go on our next tour, this one was the P.S. I love You tour, the tour guide took us to several movie sites which of course were beautiful and then to Kilkenny where we had about 2 1/2 to explore the cute little town and castle. We found another thrift store and I got an adorable blue dress. Our tour guide that day was not as fun. He treated it more as his job, but it was still enjoyable, although I feared for my life a few times while he was driving us around those super narrow roads in a coach bus while other cars whizzed by, oh my! But we got back to the hostel at about 6 safe and sound. We then walked a little more around went shopping, turns out that Dublin has fantastic shopping, go figure I go to Paris, Prague, London and then I go to Ireland and find the cutest stuff. Only downside was that I had only brought a backpack for the entire 8 day long trip. After our shopping we went out again to the same pub to listen to more music.
We got to our ferry at 8 am and the line was wrapped around the building! Everyone was trying to leave because there were no flights, thank goodness we had bought round trip tickets. They ferry was late so we missed our connecting train, but that ended up working out because we were able to have lunch in Holyhead, Wales. Woohoo :) Then our train was so full we got kicked off and they promised to send another train to pick us up, which they did. Overall it was a FANTASTIC time. I definitely want to go back soon. I love it!
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