After sunny Spain and Portugal, Leah and I thought to ourselves “you know what would be fun? Freezing to death at the end of April!” So, we flew from Lisbon to Dublin. To be honest, we were expecting it wouldn’t be quite so cold, as it is almost May, but you know, we’re not bitter or anything. At all. Right.
Dublin is a little ball of energy. The skies were grey and there seemed to be chaos everywhere. We were never quite sure where the appropriate place to cross the street was, which way the cars would be coming, if we had to order our food at the bar or wait to be seated at a table. Dublin has been host to world renowned inhabitants such as James Joyce and Jonathan Swift, and it’s easy to understand where all their energy came from. There was never a shortage of places to go to duck out of the windy cold, and everywhere buzzed.
Our first stop post-hostel was the Guinness Storehouse, for the factory tour and complimentary pint. I’m not really a beer kind of gal, but I cannot recommend the storehouse highly enough. I finally learned what hops are (plants!!!), and my favorite floor was the one dedicated to the advertising world of Guinness. We meandered around the storehouse (shaped like a pint, of course), and enjoyed our complimentary pint of Guinness while enjoying the 360 view of Dublin.
We walked home past St. Patrick’s Cathedral, St. Stephen’s green, and Trinity College, marveling at the beauty of the grey stone and occasionally slipping into Starbucks when we just couldn’t take the cold anymore.
Tuesday morning, we were on a bus before 7am, headed to the Cliffs of Moher. The cliffs are a magnificent natural formation on the complete other side of Ireland, which took all of 3 hours to cross. On the way, we stopped by, I kid you not, Barack Obama plaza! Apparently his ancestral home is in this tiny Irish town, and after he and Mrs. Obama visited a couple of years ago, the small town gets roughly 1,000,000 visitors per year. It kind of made me giggle for the rest of the day.
The cliffs themselves were breathtaking. I wish there was more to say, but we literally just walked around them for a few hours, gazing out over the Atlantic and periodically getting rained on.
On the way back from the cliffs to Dublin, we stopped through a few interesting Irish places, such as a small fishing village in Galloway with colorful buildings, and the Burren, a rock formation smoothed over thousands of years by glaciers. Dublin was a bit grey for my taste, but I can’t get enough of the rolling green hills of the Irish countryside.
That night, we ate in a pub and listened to some Irish singers while sipping on some drinks. Honestly, I was listening to a lot of Once while in Ireland, and this did not disappoint, although I only wish there had been dancers, as well! Finally, on Wednesday, in a surprising turn of events, we ended our Dublin trip with the free tour. We walked around Dublin, the remnants of the town from medieval times, the whole Temple Bar area (filled with pubs), and particularly focused on the 1916 rebellion, the start of the Irish independence movement. We actually happened to be in Dublin on the exact anniversary of the rebellion!
Dublin might not be my favorite place in the world, but the energy was impossible not to pick up. There was so much history nestled into such a beautiful island. I think I’ll have to have another pint of Guinness when it’s a bit warmer out and I have a bit more time, and see if the Emerald Isle doesn’t steal my heart after all.
Emily Sakowitz 