Monday, October 27th Trip to Wicklow

The day started fast and furious as usual hahah. Breakfast at the hostel consisted of toast and orange juice which seems pretty common for hostels. Then Hannah, Kristen, and I tried to catch an early bus to Wicklow, but as we later found out Monday was a bank holiday so the buses didn’t run as often and many of the shops were closed. So we went to St. Stephen’s Green, walked by a marathon that was going on, saw Dublin Castle. It doesn’t exactly look like a typical castle but it was really neat to see. Then we went to Christ Church which was by far my favorite as far as architecture, it looked like a small palace. Afterwards we went to a really cute bakery that Maddie’s mom had recommended called Queen of Tarts. Oh and I haven’t mentioned yet that Maddie’s mom studied abroad in Ireland when she was in college. So Maddie spent the rest of that day going to see her mom’s old apartment and everything which was really neat. At the pastry shop we all got scones, mine was raspberry, and in Ireland and Scotland they serve scones with butter, jelly, and cream. The cream was really good on them. And right next door was an Irish souvenir shop where I bought postcards and a Claddagh ring!!!! I’ve been waiting forever to get an irish Claddagh ring and I finally found one I really like in Ireland of all places haha. Kristen got a matching one as well, and got one for Marci, one of our roommates because she wanted one as well. Im still so excited about it ahh!

At 12 our bus left for Wicklow which was about an hour away. Wicklow was even colder than Dublin so I was completely bundled with my scarf wrapped around my face hahah it was quite the site. When we got to Wicklow we weren’t really sure what to do so we walked up to a church on a hill and then over to the Irish sea and up a hill where there were amazing castle ruins. That was definitely my favorite part of Ireland because it was sooo beautiful! Oh for those of you that know the movie P.S. I Love You, when Holly is young and traveling Ireland she walks through Wicklow National Park and that’s when she meets Jerry for the first time. Anyway, the three of us girls love that movie and when we heard that was the same town we knew we had to go haha. Oh and on the bus ride to Wicklow we passed a hotel called Tara Tower’s Hotel and a pub in the hotel was called P J Branagans Bar! How crazy is that?! Anyway, it was the cutest thing ever and put a huge smile on my face. I just I wish I could have gotten a picture of it but the bus was going too fast! Oh and there’s also a Tara’s street in Dublin and one of the dart stations is called Tara’s as well. Apparently my name is very popular in Ireland. And in Wicklow there was a shop named Fitzpatricks which is my mom’s maiden name so I was really excited about that too haha.

Dublin is such a small city compared to London, it just had a really cool small town feel. Not to mention the fact that the people were all so friendly. Seriously they were so sweet and talkative I loved it…and they had amazing accents haha. That night we wanted to go to our first pub, so we ate at a Spanish restaurant (we were very cultured throughout this trip hahaha we ate at so many different ethnic restaurants it was crazy). After dinner we went to Temple Bar. The girls ordered a guiness and bulmers cider to share. I tried them both and it’s still official that I do not like the taste of beer. Yuck! Anyway, the cider wasn’t horrible, but I didn’t partake. We all found stools in the room that the music was playing in though and that was awesome. It was so so fun being in a real pub in Dublin listening to a guitar player, who was singing Irish music, accompanied by a violinist. It was so neat because people would join in singing the songs every once in a while or clap to them. We had a few unwanted visitors but I guess that’s expected being in a pub…and after livening in Italy we’re all really talented at avoiding unwanted attention! Oh and to continue our ethnic experience that night we had gelato for dessert haha. I actually got a gelato shake which was most definitely a first and they don’t really make those in Italy. By the end of the night we were all exhausted from site seeing and walking as usual so we called it a night!