Last weekend (March 12) Anne and I reunited once again with Kaitlin and Dani–this time in Ireland. Anne and I flew in to Dublin on Thursday evening and made it to our hostel after guessing (correctly) which direction to get off the bus and asking a few friendly people along the way for directions. Later we decided to go out for our first Irish drink and we stumbled upon a bar that was having a Reggae Ska night, with live music and all. Sounded strange, but turned out to be really enjoyable!
Christ Church Cathedral
Our hostel
Saturday morning we went out and got a coffee at a cute little café along the river. The coffee was great, the view was nice and the excitement was building! We soon met up with Dani and Kaitlin and began exploring Dublin. We walked by Christ Church Cathedral, around Temple Bar area, through Trinity College and around some cute Irish streets. Although I had heard that Dublin isn’t one of Ireland’s best cities, I was really impressed! I really loved the old buildings, all the brightly painted doors and walls, and the general feel of the city.
The purple building is actually just a pharmacy, but it's painted such a cool color!
Trinity College
Good decision
After stopping for a yummy lunch and a brownie dessert, we headed over to the Guinness Storehouse to do the oh-so-famous Guinness tour. On our way to the factory we ran into about 10 other GU students who are studying in Italy for the year. It was really strange to see them in the middle of Ireland–one of those really out of place experiences. Back to beer…on our tour I learned all about the hops, barely, water and yeast that go into making the perfect Guinness stout. Best part, though, was that at the end of the tour we got a “free” (w/ an 11 euro entrance ticket) pint. Before going on this tour, I really didn’t like Guinness, but something about being there and drinking it in a 7th story gravity bar overlooking all of Dublin really changed how I felt about it. Now I legitimately think it tastes great!
This guy explained to us the long process of pouring the perfect pint of Guinness
{Side note: early that day Kaitlin and I decided to have a who’s-more-Irish battle off so we went into one of those silly tourist shops that has all the last names and family crests and what not. Of course she found her last name (Bailey), but Lucey was nowhere to be found. A serious identity crisis ensued. But all was fixed when one of the employees at the Guinness factory told me that I had classic Irish looks (dark hair and pale skin–thanks dad!), and that even if my last name wasn’t in the shops, I could be sure to find my fist name somewhere. Thanks Guinness guy! Along that same note, my name in Gaelic is Éirrann, which also happens to be the name of the national bus company. I’m just going to call it a tie}
My identity crisis face
That afternoon we tried to find out how we were getting to Rathdrum, County Wicklow, and realized that the only way to get there was to take the 7:30am train. That didn’t stop us from going out and celebrating St. Patty’s day weekend! We went to Temple Bar, a really cool part of town where all the bars and nightlife is, and danced and sang and had a ball! Went to bed around 3 and woke up again around 6.
Before I tell you about our journey to Rathdrum, I need to add in a little background. The four of us had decided that if we were going to go to Ireland, we should definitely spend some time out in the country to get more of an authentic Irish experience. Anne and I decided that County Wicklow (“The Garden of Ireland”) would be our best bet because it is close to Dublin and gorgeous. We booked a hostel for Saturday night in a tiny town called Rathdrum. Everyone we talked to in Dublin looked really skeptical when we told them where we were going. The Guinness guy (the same one who told me I look Irish) had never even heard of Rathdrum and one of his co-workers said we definitely should not go there. A man working at the bus station had to pull out a tattered old timetable to see when buses rain through there. Long story short, I was starting to get a little nervous that we had led our friends astray. The fact that we were going to Rathdrum became the joke of the trip.
Walking to the train station we saw the sunrise over the river, which was certainly something I hadn’t planned on seeing. Once we finally got on the train, the hilarity continued. We were all tired beyond belief, our train was freezing cold, went about 5 mph and sounded like it was about to fall apart. We had no idea what to expect. The train ride ended up being beautiful–we got to see the Irish coastline on one side and the hills on the other. After an hour and a half we finally arrived in Rathdrum.
Dublin sunrise
How we felt at 7am
View from the train
We made it!
Once we got off the train we had to find our hostel. You would think that in a town described as having “a pub” (a single, solitary pub) finding a hostel really wouldn’t be that difficult. Our main problem was that the train station dropped us off on a main road that circled the town, but we couldn’t actually see the town. We finally flagged down a man in his car and he so very kindly gave us directions. On our walk up the hill into the town we passed by an old man painting his fence, his cat sitting on his front porch. He greeted us, commented on the nice weather and told us to have a lovely day. I don’t think we passed a single person in the town of Rathdrum that didn’t say hello to us.
After a bit of exploring we made it to our hostel. Seeing as it was only about 9am by this point, the lady that runs the hostel was not in. There was a sign telling us to cross the street and knock on her door if no one was in–when we did so she answered the door in her bathrobe! We got settled in an really let the scenery sink in. Our view from our window was amazing: a green field, a pretty church and rolling hills in the distance.
Once we got settled in we went and had a wonderful breakfast at a restaurant that was located on the most perfectly quaint Irish street. When we turned the corner onto this street, all of us had to stop and admire the street for a minute. We had a lovely breakfast of eggs, bell peppers, mushrooms and brie!
The perfect Irish street
The hostel lady had told us that there was a shop on Main Street (the only real street in town!) that rented bikes so we decided to head over there after we ate. We got to the shop and found that it rented lawnmowers, chainsaws and bicycles. The inside of the shop seriously looked like someone’s garage had just thrown up all over this place: along with lawnmowers and chainsaws, there was everything from toy train sets to rat poison. When we told the shop owner that we needed 4 bikes, he said since it was so early in the season he hadn’t taken the bikes out yet, but that he thought he could round up a few for us. After waiting for about 45 min (more customers kept coming in–probably the most he’d ever had), we had our bikes. 2 were decent mountain bikes, but the other 2 were racing road bikes that were probably older than me. We figured that for 10 euro, though, we couldn’t complain.
Lawnmowers, Chainsaws and Bicycles
During our bikeride
We had heard that Glendalough was a really nice place to visit, and since it was only 14 km from Rathdrum we decided to bike on over there. The ride was beautiful–if we weren’t passing by cute cottages and green fields, we were riding by dozens of sheep. Only problem was that riding up and down hills on an old 3-speed bike w/ finicky gears made 14 km seem like about 40. After just over an hour (and lots of sweating) we got to Glendalough.
A cottage–how quaint (best part is, they were everywhere!)
Bah, ram, ewe
Almost to Glendalough!
Glendalough is hardly a town (smaller than Rathdrum!) but it has a really pretty old cemetery, ruins of an old church and a couple of lakes. Right when we pulled up into the town we ran into the same group of GU students that we had seen in Dublin. Very small world. After chatting with them for a bit we realized that we didn’t have any locks for our bikes. Before we even had the chance to worry about it, though, a woman selling jewelry offered to watch our bikes while we walked around. We chatted with her for a bit, and if we didn’t believe it before she certainly confirmed that the Irish really are the nicest people there are.
Glendalough
The cemetery in Glendalough is really cool–very old and interesting. Unlike modern cemeteries, it was very disorderly and everything looked like it was about to fall apart. There was something very enchanting about it, though. I’ve come to discover that cemeteries in Europe are much less creepy and much more like a part of history than they are in the US.
The cool old cemetary
After a bit of walking around and a little snack we decided to head back to Rathdrum so that we wouldn’t have to ride back when it was dark. (At this point it was only about 4:30 in the afternoon–this day had felt like the longest day ever, but in a really good way). We made it back to Rathdrum and went to drop the bikes off at the man’s house (he told us that if we wanted to keep the bikes until after he closed the shop we should just bring them back to his house–how sweet!), and then went back to the hostel. That night we made dinner, took it easy and fell asleep around 10:30–we were exhausted!
On Sunday morning we got up, made tea and walked down to the church. It wasn’t open, so we decided instead to sit on a little stone wall overlooking the hills and drink our tea. It was a perfect way to greet the day.
Enjoying our last moments in Rathdrum
Our view
Unfortunately, our fairy tale had to end at some point. We got on a train back to Dublin and the 4 of us parted ways. Although this was the shortest trip we have taken, it was one of the best. Our day in Rathdrum was probably one of my favorite days in Europe so far, made all the better by the fact that we really had no idea what to expect going in.
