Feelin' Spontaneous
On Thursday my boyfriend and I decided to take a spontaneous trip to Dublin for the weekend. How lucky are we that we get to just decide to go to Dublin for the weekend?!? Thanks Mom and Dad! But just in case you're wondering, planning a last minute trip isn't nearly as fun as having the idea to go. We had a heck of a time trying to find a place to stay which probably had something to do with the fact the we were booking it two days before we got there. Luckily, we ended up finding a hotel right on the river for super cheap!! Now, it wasn't the nicest hotel in the world but the location was amazing and it actually had a great view. We ending up leaving Saturday morning because the night before we went to the Munster rugby match which was the coldest night of my life but they won! Anyways, we took the train to Dublin because 1) it wasn't very expensive 2) trains are cool and 3) the train station is right across the street from my apartment. The train was definitely the way to go because the views were gorgeous.
After we got settled into our hotel we set off to find a place to eat lunch and watch the Six Nations rugby game, I was mainly concerned about the lunch part. Since our hotel was so close to city center it didn't take long to find a place to eat. Once we finished up lunch it was time to explore more of Dublin. Honestly, in my opinion Dublin is just a bigger version of Cork (still cool though!). Saturday night we went to dinner at a little restaurant that served Mexican and Italian food. We both went for the Mexican and it was sooo good. Then we decided to see what all the hype was about for the Temple Bar District. However we only ended up going to one place because we met a bunch of locals that chatted us up the entire night. It was a great end to our first day in Dublin!
On Sunday we took a tour of the Guinness Storehouse because you can't go to Dublin without seeing Guinness. Let me just say it is unreal. The tour takes you up the entire 7 levels of the store house and the topics range from ingredients all the way to advertising. Without spoiling too much I'll tell you about my favorite parts of the tour. First would have to be the pouring of your own pint. Surprisingly, there is a science behind pouring the perfect pint and in this part of the tour they teach you how to do it correctly, then you get to drink it after!! Another part of the tour is tasting the beer in a specific way. They tell you all of the tastes you should get in your mouth but I'm not talented enough for that, I just tasted beer. My second favorite part was the advertising room because I'm a marketing major and geek out over that kind of thing. I thought it was so interesting to see how their logo/adverts have changed throughout the years in order to keep up with their surroundings. I don't want to give away too much because it is definitely something I think everyone should do. After the tour we met up with one of our good friends from Cork who was visiting Dublin with his girlfriend. This time we made it to more than one bar but since it was a Sunday nothing was super packed. All in all it was a day well spent.
Monday was filled with food and more exploring before the train ride back this afternoon.
Oh P.S. if you're ever in Dublin go to the Bubble Waffle Factory for the best dessert ever.
