Dublin for St. Patrick's Day

Since the beginning of my study abroad experience, I knew I had to take advantage of traveling around Europe. Everything is (relatively) close and much cheaper than if I were coming from the states. Because of this, I instantly knew I had to travel to Dublin, Ireland to celebrate St. Patrick’s day!

My friends and I arrived in Dublin, Ireland late Thursday night. We stayed at the Generator Hostel, directly next store to the Jameson Distillery. Exhausted from traveling, we grabbed a bite to eat and called it a night. Friday we began our day on a walking tour around the city, but then it began to rain. In Dublin, they refer to this as “Irish mist.” To my roommate and I, it was just an excuse to go inside and drink a beer. We spent about an hour or two drinking at the the infamous Temple Bar Pub. A few friends and I then went to grab lunch. We had walked by a restaurant earlier that looked good so we decided to check that out. It was called CrackBirdand served all types of chicken (perfect for me–a vegetarian). I managed though. I ate a wrap with hummus and couscous…it was so good! After lunch, the group headed over to tour the Guinness Brewery. The tour of Guinness was different than the one through Heineken. I’ve never been a big Guinness beer drinker, but for the short amount of time I was in Dublin, I was quickly converted. That night, my friends and I stumbled upon Gourmet Burger Kitchen, a restaurant specializing in, what else, burgers! Fortunately, they offered many options for non-burger eaters like myself. After an amazing dinner, we bar hopped through the Temple Bar District. We wanted to have a relatively mellow night so we could prepare for the next day.

Saturday we woke up extremely early to quickly prepare for the upcoming day. We were out the door around 9 am and ready to start the day. At around noon, we crowded around the main street of town to watch the St. Patrick’s Day parade. After our cameras were filled with parade pictures, we were ready to celebrate. Our day was filled with green Guinness, jäger shots, and so many laughs! It was such a fun day. Long, but extremely fun and well worth the trip. Since we had been up all day drinking, we were tired to say the least. We were back at the hostel around 11 pm and called it a night. Sunday morning we headed back to Barcelona!

I loved visiting Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day, but I really hope I can go back — there’s still so much I want to see there.  A few weekends ago I visited Valencia and last week I was on spring break. My friends and I started our week in Prague and then we made our way down to Croatia. I'll post these trips soon. I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter/Passover.

Ciao.