We had class in the morning and we all collectively decided that for our sake...being 8 girls...we should give ourselves the most time possible to travel. We caught the 2:40pm train to Brussels where we would then take a flight to Dublin. Woo! Eight girls always makes things more interesting and the first train alone, I don't think I could breathe I was laughing so hard. A great preview of the week to come for sure. Once we got to the station we had to take another bus to the airport - no problemo. Except the bus was maybe from the 70's. I'm not even kidding. It felt like we were riding a tractor and the interior reaked of the 70s patterns like a pumpking had exploded everywhere. Once again, we were in tears laughing. Who needs a bus when you can ride a tractor to the airport right? We sure didn't.
No problem when we got there. Us non EU candidates got our VISA's checked out, and then it was security. Now RyanAir is so sweet that they have really strict requirements for flying with them. The backpack has to fit in this super skinny little thing and if it doesn't you have to check your bag (30 EUR), and you can only have one carry on. So no backpack and a purse, its a packpack and anything in your hands has to fit in your backpack or you can't bring it on. Okie dokie. We were only there for 3 nights, and we would be drunk for 89% of that anyways, so who needs much? The first part of security is the RyanAir guy. He checks to make sure your bag fits and then we hit the real security check. The guy right in front of me in line must have had the smallest bag we had ever seen (smaller than any of ours) and he was being rejected to enter the plane; he had to check his bag. Crap crappity crap. I put on the big smile, walk up, and I took my bag off and put it at my feet. "You're Canadian? Isn't it really cold at home?" the guy checking my passport says...."Absolutely". Brilliant. Slid that bag right through. I mean, in my defense it would have fit. I just would have had to put 99% of the clothes I packed on. No biggie. The Canadian thing worked just fine. I was through.
Now being diabetic is a whole different game travelling. "Any fluids?" --> Insulin. Okay, no problemo. I handed her my contact solution and walked through. I get body searched. Fabulous. Pat down and she hits my insulin pump thats hidden in my bra. "What's that?". "It's my insulin pump." Well obvi she can't just believe me, so I got taken into this oober creepy little changing room type thing where she wanted me to strip to show her it wasn't anything more. I looked at her and just unclipped my pump. I ain't getting dressed when I can just show you. She was fine with that. Thank you. Come again. And we were off again. Every damn time though. You think I would get more questions about the needles in my bag, but not a word. I'm not complaining.
The flight was fast, we took off at 7:20pm and got in at 7:50 Dublin time. Now we had to get to the place we were staying. We each got a bus ticket for 5 EUR, so not expensive at all and it would take us right there. We ended up catching a different bus that dropped us off pretty close, and of course we had to ask for directions. The irish man was just laughing, 8 girls, and he couldn't quite spit it out. Turns out we were right next to our apartment and when we arrived it was a game of stealth. We had booked for 7 people, and there are 8 of us. Right. Stealth time. We mastered it by the end of the trip but this was a tricky one. You needed a key for every door, and since it was a collection of apartment complexes, there was only one entrance into the courtyard. We did it, but man was it worth it. The most GORGEOUS apartment you have seen. All hard wood, gorgeous bathrooms, 3 bedrooms of 2 beds, and the pull out couch. A huge kitchen, dining room and our big balcony. When we first checked in, the women had said we were the top floor of our apartment, so we are walking and walking and walking, and we get to the top and its the roof. Amazing view! And I think it was our little secret. Needless to say we all went out for some beer before we had arrived at our apartment and we had a nice little part on the roof. Looking out over Dublin, having a Dutch Gold beer (not bad at the beginning but man, after 3 days I will never touch it again). A gorgeous way to start our trip. We stayed up late, chatting and drinking on the roof, but we had planned to do a tour bus the next morning so we called it quits.
Now, with 8 girls, you can only imagine how long it takes for everyone to get ready. Kill me now was more the story behind that one. We had 2 showers and not everyone showered so it wasn't that bad, but we had to get up pretty early. Paddy and I shared a room, and I love the snooze so I had promised her first shower and well...turns out when the alarm went off, my brain turned off, and I just got up and zombie walked to the bathroom thinking she had already got ready. I didn't bring anything with me, no shampoo, no towel nada. Amen for Paddy right. She had a good chuckle when I started yelling her name (once I actually woke up). Once we were all ready, it was time to rock n roll in Dublin.
First - breakfast. We found a cute place called 'Kylemores' and it was the full Irish breakfast for cheap. Incredible: baked beans, sausages, toast, coffee, hashbrowns and bacon. Thank you Irish gods. Paddy and I had been going through some mega withdrawal from the English breakfast...because the french don't eat breakfast? They eat baguettes and cigarettes. I missed a good hearty breakfast. The English pulled through everytime and so did the Irish. Of course, we needed our paraphanalia for the trip. Our Irish gear! We went into Caroll's shop (pretty much the MAIN shop for gear) and all picked out our gear for the week. We ended up all getting matching headbands with sideways green hats on them, and then some people got boas, necklaces, and I got an Ireland scarf. We were thrilled.
We ended up finding our tour bus getaway no problem, with the help of an Irish tour guide. He loved our getups, and he had the most intense accent we had heard yet. We had to ask him to repeat everyonce in a while, but we didn't mind. The ginger hair topped it off too. We got on our bus and naturally grabbed seats on the top of the double decker (duh). There were 23 stops in total....and not gonna lie, we got off at one. Now, before you get all judgemental. We were able to take stellar pictures of tons of things, and since it was St Paddys day, a lot of things weren't open due to the holiday. And it turns out it was freezing. The wind was killer, and once again we were all dying laughing at how we came to Europe for the good weather and we were gonna die of cold. Ridiculous. We had our eye on the prize stop: Jameson Whiskey Distillery at stop 20. Laura was ready to kill us at stop 15 because she had to pee so badly, but we had to hang in there. Whiskey would warm us up. Clearly we are students right. We get on at stop 2, and get off at stop 20. Ridiculous when you think about it. But so worth the wait. We get in, and everyone but me heads to the bathroom. Right - I get in line for our tickets for the tour (which is an hour) and the bar next to us while we wait would be stellar. It was calling my name. These pink drinks looked insanely good, and they had something called "Hot Whiskey". Perfect. We get our tickets for the tour and have a half hour to kill before it starts? A drink? Duh. I got the pretty pink drink which turns out to be a Macree, and the most delicious thing your mouth could have asked for.
We are all drinking, sitting at our little table, with our hats, and a TV crew comes over. Yep, we were on TV. CBS morning show to be exact. He asked us where we were from and if we had an Irish background. So that was pretty cool talking to him but it was time for our tour! Now my buddy Adrian said, if they ask for a volunteer put your freaking hand up. We had a little introduction video, all 8 of us sat in a row, and when the time came for volunteers we all shot our hands up. 2 of us got chosen (Hillary and Paddy), but we were just glad we would see first hand what they had volunteered for! Turns out it was Whiskey taste testing...oh boy. We do our tour which was great and then with your ticket came a free whiskey drink - yesssssss. We grab our drinks (Jameson whiskey and gingerale was my choice) and we got some good seats to watch the taste testing. Turns out they had three types of Whiskey, and they had to chase with water? Barf. But very entertaining. Paddy struggled a bit, and turns out Jack Daniels is her fav (please note out of a table of 10+ people she was the only one who didn't chose Jameson as her favorite). Idiot.
Jameson Distillery was fantastic but we were starving now. Home time for some dinner. We catch our tour bus back to the main street: O'Connell. We stock up on beer and snacks for the next day (Dutch Gold obviously) and now we needed to find our new hotel for the night (so sad, we were only able to have the apartment for the first night). But this place once again was booked for 7, and was cheap. We get a cab there and we arrive at the Deer Lake Lodge Inn (or something like that). We walk in and Amy books it to the bathroom to hide (because we are only 7 after all). Turns out they had overbooked, and they didn't have enough room for us. We would be sleeping on cots, and we said hells no. We paid for beds, so we need those. This place was supposed to be for 2 nights, so mine as well make it count. He said he had an apartment style place that 4 of us could sleep (3 in the bedroom and 1 in the living room). We really didn't have a choice, we had booked it, and it was nightime now, so not the best time to look for a new place. Show us the apartment. Turns out, his family member lives there? Are you kidding me? Clearly they had had a party in the living room, chips and laundry everywhere. Righttttt. The guy was super nice, and he was very apologetic. He then mentioned that they had a sister hotel right on the main street O'Connell and he would check with them if they had extra rooms. You do that.
We sat there, busting into the chips now cause we were all depressed at this idiotic situation and talked about how there was no way we would get the main street hotel. It was hard enough to find this one, let alone, on the main street. It's St Paddys day after all. The previous day at the Jameson Distillery we had rubbed the lucky stone, and turns out it paid off. There were two rooms available at the main hotel. No freaking way. We would be main street Dublin for the best time of year! Yessss! Got ourselves a cab back, checked in and turns out the rooms were 110 euros/per person/per night. Because the hotel had messed up overbooking, we were able to get the hotel for what we had already paid: 20 per person/per night. Wow. Could we be any luckier?
Now for real...food time. We figured we would drink and then head for dinner and then the bar. Like the world, its illegal to drink on the street and cops were everywhere. Our hotel guy said we would be arrested if we were caught. Well no thanks, I don't need any of that so we decided to hide them in our coat until we found a little place on a side street or something to finish them. Turns out McDonald's came first. The bathroom? Oh yes. We sure did. We chugged back our Dutch Gold in the McDs bathroom. Could we be any classier? I don't think so. However, the group picture we got was priceless. Okay, beers done, seriously, we need food. We had seen a great place on our bus tour, so we decided to hit that place back up. It was in temple bar area, and now that we were main street, it wasn't far away at all! Turns out, it was closed, but we found a fantastic pizza place right on the side street. Delicious, hot, fresh. Hit the spot. Now we needed to party. Temple Bar area is famous for their bars, and especially with St Paddys day, we were sure it would be wild. Walking down the street alone you were shoulder to shoulder with people from all over the world. I swear there were more tourists than Irish folk. You never really knew someone was Irish until they spoke.
We were walking from bar to bar trying to pick a place to go when all of a sudden two guys approach and asked us if we would hold a sign for their friend Robin. Turns out their buddy Robin was evicted from the country and was sent back to Canada! So they were taking picture of a bunch of girls holding this "wish you were here Robin" sign. Of course we did it!
The night was fantastic and filled with bar hopping between different places. All we wanted was a place that played some damn Irish music that we could dance to. We came back around 3ish, considering it was St Paddys day and we knew we were in for a long day. We had no idea. We got up the next morning, got our gear on, and went and got some damn good breakfast from Kylemore's. HAPPY ST PADDYS DAY! Because we were on the main street, we were on the main street of the parade! 500,000 people were there, everyone dressed in green, it was super cool. We decided to hit up the Guinness factory and then hit Temple bar at night. The Guinness factory would only take a little bit right? Right. Turns out we were there for almost 6 hours. Of course, Paddy got in for free because anyone with a derivative of Patrick. Damn her. We thought about getting fake ID's...but it was only 11 EUR to get in, so we figured we would just suck it up. There are 7 floors to this place - just massive. Where do we begin?
Free food and drink on floor 2. And we were off. A guinness bread with salmon, complimented by Guinness stout. Delicious. Minus the bread - I just ate the salmon. But still - who can complain about free beer? We went up a couple levels and we were waiting for the others to join us when all of a sudden a man approaches me, and asks where I'm from: Canada. "Right then, follow me". A little hesitant he says "I'm an Irish man, you can trust me". So I take his hand and follow him not even 5m away to a radio booth. Oh shit. "Take a seat love". I heard that, looked at Paddy and said "sit your ass down too". So she did. Turns out we were on a live radio station. We talked about Canada, and my "love" for Celine Dion. Super sarcastic by the way. And what we were doing here, and how we came for St Paddys Day. At the end of the chat, he handed us two gift bags filled with Guinness apparel: a magnet, pens, note books, and stuff from his radio station TODAYfm. We got a "Turned on yet" tshirt, and Guinness chocolates. Free stuff! We were off to the party room, it should have been called that, because they were handing out free Guinness like it was their job, they had Irish dancing, and the best part: we were able to join in after. Of course we jumped on that. I had a partner from Michigan, and then an Italian. But god did we laugh. The women beside me was turning her partner round and round; needless to say she was wasted and lost her balance on more than one occasion.
Then we were off to the top floor: floor 7 for the 360 degree view of Dublin; and our free drink. Hells yes. The best part: the foam of our Guinness was stamped with a shamrock. Unbelievably cool. I was a Guinness virgin before St Paddys day, but I gotta say, by the end of the day I was quite pro. We easily must have had 8 each with all the freebies, but we had a blast. There was music, drinks everywhere and of course people. Friends we had met at the Jameson distillery we met up with at Guiness too, so that was cool.
Once again, we hadn't eaten since breakfast so we were starving. We took the classy way home: a horse carriage ride. I have always wanted to take one, but this had to be the funniest one yet. So Paddy, Basia, Maggie and I got in one, and we were off. We were taking pictures, joking around, when I asked what the horses name was: I heard Lily, Maggie her Millie so we weren't quite sure. But quickly, Maggie discovered she was allergic to the horse. Holy crap I have never laughed so hard in my life. We were all in tears as she is cursing Millie for being our horse and wondering how close we were to home. By the end of the ride her eyes were the colour of our red blanket. I couldn't breathe laughing so hard at one point. Maggie did not thank the horse for the ride. We were dropped off in Temple Bar district and we in search of the great food place we had wanted the other night. Of course, being St Paddys day, the bars overtake the restaurant area of restaurants and there was a little dinky thing outside with food. No luck.
We finally settled down at an Italian place and it quickly became the funniest dinner I have ever experienced. I couldn't even repeat half of the things we talked about, but it was a combo of Maggie dying in the corner and men. I'm pretty sure we were dying laughing the entire trip really. We all went home for a power nap, and started drinking. Back to temple bar and boy we were ready this time. We met 'Robin's' friends again (the one we held the sign for) and I ended up writing another message on my arm for him. Too funny. We danced the night away, drank away and just loved every second of being there.
Some of us ended up closing the bar. On our way we hit McDs and realized it was almost 4:30am; our cab to take us to the hotel was coming at 5:45am...ugh. That came so quickly. We pretty much just took a nap. When the alarm went off I thought it was a joke, there is no way this is happening. Then I hear Paddy "you have 10 mins". Crappppp. Pretty sure we were still drunk as I am trying to pack my life back into my damn backpack. I could barely fit it all (considering we got our gift bag from the radio guy) slash I was drunk, which never really helps your packing skills.
So we jumped in the cab and began our long ride back to Lille. The airport was quite humorous, the longest line ever getting into security and finally we all collapsed waiting for the plane to start loading passengers. We were all out cold within minutes, and all you could see from behind the seats were our green hands slowing falling to the side as our heads bobbed.
All in all, the trip was filled with Dutch Gold, leprechauns, Guinness and some really good times. The fact that Dublin was gorgeous and the people are so nice just topped it off. I could not have asked for a better trip.
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