Ireland

OK finished editing Ireland.. Here we go.

So we got to Dublin no problem but definitely felt a little shocked by crazy winds and rain drops when we stepped off the plane (after leaving 80 degree Sevilla oops). We got a little mixed up getting to the hostel but had a nice little walk around the city before arriving. Ha. But from then on everything was fine. The hostel was awesome-- a little different from other ones I've stayed in because it was a really universal one with people of all different ages, but still really cool. Had a bunch of different people in our room-- German, Croatian, English, American, etc. So that night we did a pub crawl with the hostel and met some really cool people. We also discovered how brutally cheap Sevilla is after seeing how pretty much everything in Dublin is 4 euros or more. But that's ok. Anyway. Didn't really take many pics the first day so on to the next..

Second day was kind of Dublin day in general. We did a walking tour and learned about some of the history of Ireland, which was really, really cool. It's weird how much you miss in history class in school, even if you feel like you're learning a lot. I guess it makes sense that a lot of the time we really only study things that the U.S. has been involved in, but we miss a lot of other interesting things. For example: the Irish population, as a whole, never recovered from the potato famine in the 1800s; that's to say, in the 1800s, the population was over 8 million, while today it's only about 4.5 million. There were that many people who died or emigrated. WILD. Also: only 1.8% of the population speaks Irish daily, and only 6% are fluent. Pics from the tour: 

This is a statue of O'Connell (important person in Irish history that I now forget given that its been like 3 weeks since I was there oops)

Cool building

PIES so clever

Temple Bar, the main (but touristy) bar area in Dublin

Cool building art

Pretty Dublin streets in ugly Dublin weather

This is a historical building that's now some kind of office building complex for government officials that's SO beautiful

The left part of this is newer, but the tower thing on the right is the original castle (I think of Vikings?? Don't quote me on that.. We talked a lot about Vikings and can't remember where).

This is where Dublin got its name. It used to be a bog/pond, which in gaelic they called "dubh linn" or black pool, therefore, Dublin. 

Pretty colors

Blue walls make for good pictures sometimes

All of these people are waiting in line to try to be chosen as an extra on the show Vikings.. At first I was really surprised. Seemed like kind of a waste of time. But our tour guide told us that extras actually get paid really well, and sometimes don't have to do anything. They get something like 200 euros a day and sometimes that day means doing normal extra things, or sometimes they just tell you they don't need you that day and give you the money, or you have to do something sort of horrible (i.e. he told us this story about one of his friends who had to lie face-down in the mud in the rain the entire day because he was playing the part of a dead person.. Yay!!).

I loled at this

Went back to get some of those pies..

Waiting for pies...

PIES

Bye pies.

More Temple Bar

Trinity College, Ireland style @jillbooth

More Trinity College

And some more.. Super pretty.

The words that come first are in gaelic, which they just call Irish there.

In da park

More park activities

So much green

Daffodils!!

Cool statues

After the tour, we went to the national museum and saw some AWESOME Viking stuff and some dead bodies that were found in the famous bogs that are all over Ireland.

Just some Viking knick knacks, whatever.

Viking ladies must've cleaned up good.

Real life hollowed out canoe. !!!!!

DEAD PEOPLE

Literally still has his hair.. How weird is this. Apparently, the minerals and stuff that are in the bogs where these bodies are found conserve the bodies really well.

Another one

That night we went to this awesome bar to listen to traditional Irish music and drink Guinness and hang out. So fun. The people in Ireland are definitely more similar to me-- much more casual style, much more laid back. Love my Sevillanos but it was nice to be among kindred spirits. 

Day 3 was museum day. We went to the wax museum which was much different than I expected but sort of better because it had a lot of historical figures that were cool to learn about. Pics. 

What up James Joyce.

Just hangin' with St. Patrick himself.

There was also a "horror" section that was legitimately scary.

Haha!! Fun!!!

!!!!

Hangin' out with my friend Franskenstein :))

And then some famous people too. 

Eli's taking on Irish politics.

Accompanied by Maddy & co.

Jack and the beanstalk!!

UR A WIZAHD HARRY

Letters to Santa

Eli or Hermione??

She wishes

U ain't nothin' but a hound dog

Supermaaaaan!

Which one is real??

New Bond girl, look out world.

We then went to the Guinness Storehouse (obviously) which FUN FACT is the largest tourist attraction in all of Ireland. So funny. It was SO COOL. They really take their beer seriously.

Found this wall along the way and thought it wanted a little love.

And we arrived.

:))

Horsies

Guinness hops

Arthur Guinness!!

They definitely take this seriously.

Yum

Toucans

Amen

I thought this was pretty good.

Explanation^^

There was this really cool room full of screens that showed a ton of Guinness ads (old and new) and wow it was cool.

It was also April Fool's Day... Ha.

Day 4 was a day trip to a couple different destinations across Ireland, the feature one being the Cliffs of Moher. So, so incredible. The pictures can't really do them justice but they're the best I can do. 

Irish countryside

THERE THEY ARE.

And there's me.

Lil bit windy

It's weird how small Ireland actually is. It's square mileage is about 32.5 thousand, which is slightly smaller than Maine (35.4 thousand) (yes I did just Google that). So we actually went all the way across Ireland-- Dublin on the east coast and the Cliffs on the west coast-- just in one day. We also saw this AWESOME place that I can't remember the name of that was basically just rocks that went on forever and ever.

SO COOL

 And then we went to Galway, and small city (a little bigger than Portland), which was really cool, too. And there was a food festival going on so that was ok, too, I guess.

:))

Main street in Galway

That night we unsuccessfully tried to go out; it was Good Friday and everything was closed. Oops.

On our last day we went to Howth (pronounced "Hout") which was this GORGEOUS fishing village about 20 minute by train outside of Dublin. We had such good luck with the weather and it was sunny and beautiful and reminded me a little of Portland. 

Ireland or Maine??

How cool is this seriously.

:)))))

Celtic Fisher. So Ireland.

Maddy's first seal spotting

SO COOL diving boards off cliffs. How AWESOME.

And then there were these flowers on the hillside when we were walking the cliffs that were 1. so beautiful, and 2. smelled SO good. Not sure what kind of flower they are but it was amazing.

This was the walking path along the cliff we were on. It went all the way around the island but we didn't make it that far-- had to go back for our train.

Some kayakers

Seriously though. So incredibly beautiful.

And for the finale.

Wow you made it through 128 pictures. I applaud you.

Now (quick I promise) for a list of funny things that were different:

- "Craic" is a word that I think is Irish and basically means like fun activities or parties or something. They use it all the time. 

- List of words/expressions they use differently:

Turn up not show up

Hectares as unit of measurement (no idea how much it is)

Cheers not thank you

Clamping instead of towing

Car park instead of parking lot 

Motorway not highway

Set down area not unload area

"Zed" instead of "zee" to pronounce the letter z

- There are lots of housing developments

- Rugby is the largest growing sport there and it's CRAZY. We saw a match on TV and it's like football but more brutal and without pads.

- There's actually toilet paper in the bathrooms. This does not happen in Sevilla.

- Less discos more pubs.

- There was a lot of emphasis on recycling-- lots of signs and different colored bins for sorting and what not.

OK YOU HAVE DONE IT. You have finished this post. Thanks for looking at it because it's taken me about a week to complete. WOO.