Ending it in Dublin

Even though I'm sitting at home typing this out and no longer in Ireland, I still need to wrap up my last few days of this amazing adventure. Writing this is helping to stave off the "Post Trip Depression Blues" (I'm not making it up, it's a thing) and just wait until I start posting all my pictures too. hahaha. My obsession with this trip will never end.

Dublin - Reunions with Old Friends

My trip into Dublin was awful. If you recall from my last post - I was incredibly hungover from the Cork Pub Crawl the night prior. So I didn't think I would be up for much of anything the first night. However, f-it. I only have three days left, might as well make the most of it.

I met up with Sam and Luke (and their girlfriends: Laura and Lily) for dinner and drinks. When I traveled to Dublin six years ago with my best friend Dan, we stayed with his cousins and aunt/uncle. So when I was coming back, I reached out to the boys to hang out. I was a bit worried it would be weird without Dan there, but we transitioned into chatting and drinking rather seamlessly and had a great night.

Reunions and Cider

We started off at the Porterhouse in Temple bar for some dinner and fancy Espresso cocktails (I needed a bit of a caffeine push to continue the night). After that we headed to the Brazen Head which is Dublin's oldest pub. It had some awesome ambiance, a variety of rooms and live music and we sat on the patio and drank cider to my hearts content. A fantastic first night in Dublin!

Security at The Brazen Head

Wandering Around the City
The next day was a bit of a disaster -- Super Organized Susan wise, I mean. I had planned on waking up early and going to Kilmainham Gaol for the morning --- but I slept in. Then when I finally got my ass in gear, I found out that the tickets for the day were sold out and I'd have to return tomorrow at 9am to try to get tickets for Tuesday. Ah well, I'll just move on to something else. Maybe the museums? Nope, closed on Mondays. Okay... Maybe the cool crypt with mummified bodies? It doesn't say they are closed online. Nope! When I got there, the gates were closed shut. Hmmm... what to do? Oh look, The Jameson Bow Street Distillery tour is right beside me. I don't even like Whiskey... OH WELL.

Whiskey for You, Whiskey for Me

The tour was pretty informative and interactive which I enjoyed. There were a lot of cool audio visual tricks and we saw the entire process of distilling whiskey. We had a taste test where we compared a Scotch Whiskey (Johnnie Walker), An Irish Whiskey (Jameson) and an American Whiskey (Jack Daniels) and while I am not a whiskey connoisseur in the slightest -- the Jameson WAS the smoothest to drink. I didn't particularly like the shots, but after the tour I had a glass of Jameson with Gingerale and lime which was delicious.

After the distillery, I needed a nap to recoup before heading out to meet up with Séamus, a travel friend I had met in Derry. As we were both a little rough from the previous nights before, we decided to have a chill evening of pizza, coffee and wandering around the city. Séamus had no idea of my love of loose leaf tea but nevertheless took me to a fantastic little coffee/tea shop where we caught up and learned more about each other. He then took me to St. Stephen's Green and walked me back to my hostel where we had a fantastic view of a rainbow. It was a great way to spend the twilight hours.

Found me a Leprechaun at the end of the Rainbow

When I got back to my hostel, I met up with my two Taiwanese roommates from Cork who were ironically also staying in the same hostel as me. We went down to Temple bar to find some live music and hit the jackpot at the Quays. We had a fantastic guitar player, totally catering to North American audiences, play "irish" versions of various pop songs. It was lively, packed and wonderful. I'm pretty sure that one of my favourite things in the world is listening to attractive men with accents play music in pubs.

Reunited for some live music!

The Gaol and One Last Hurrah

I was much more prepared and left really early to make it to Kilmainham Gaol (Jail) for a tour. I grabbed a day-of ticket and because I had an hour to kill beforehand, I wandered around a park nearby. It was the Irish War Memorial Gardens and with the exception of one other tourist and a man doing gardening, completely empty. Gorgeous and relaxing, it was a gem to find. That's been my favourite aspect of this trip so far, stumbling across beautiful places and experiences that I had not had planned. Maybe I need to rethink my organized nature to allow for a little bit more of this happenstance beauty.

Ireland War Memorial Gardens

Kilmainham Gaol was incredibly interesting. It was a former jail, used up until the mid 1920s, housing "criminals" during the famine years and up to those involved in the Easter Rising. There was a touching story about Joesph Plunkett and Grace Gifford who got married mere hours before he was executed for his involvement in the rising. We saw the jail cells of various important figures involved in Ireland's independence and even saw the spot where they were executed. I apparently have a fascination with morbid history. But honestly, I think everyone should visit places like this (or concentration camps or the killing fields, etc) because only then can you understand the magnitude of what happened here. Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it, no?

Kilmainham Gaol

After the Gaol, I walked over to a museum recommended to me by Séamus: The Museum of Art & Design. I was getting a little museume-d out, but I did check out the beautiful portrait gallery, some information about Ireland's involvement in WWI (Including a life-preserver from the Lusitania -- the "pretense" for American involvement), and an entire section devoted to the 1916 Easter Rising. As I didn't have time to do a walking tour of Dublin, this was a nice encapsulation of that era of history.

My final night in Dublin consisted of meeting up with Luke, Lily and Hugh (the other brother who couldn't make it out the previous night). Luke, Lily and I enjoyed some bubbily with our traditional Irish sushi? haha, Luke had suggested it and I couldn't believe it. I had been talking to my fellow travelmates how much I had been craving sushi! It was quite delicious and afterwards we met up with Hugh and went to a bar off the obvious Templebar path. Can't for the life of me remember the name of it, but I enjoyed some Guinness and Cider before retiring for the night. I really hope the boys come visit me in Canada soon!

Goodbye Drinks!

Stop-Over in NFLD
My flight left at 8 in the morning, but I had a long layover in St. John's, Newfoundland. My Dad has a lot of family still over there, so I met up with some of his cousins and was toured around for the day! I was surprised by how similar the landscape is to Ireland!

Ireland or Canada??

My Dad's cousin Gail drove me to Cape Spear and we watched some whales. I had lunch with more relatives in honour of my Great Aunt Lee and Uncle Bruce 's 54th wedding anniversary (what good timing I have!). Aunt Lee was my Nana's younger sister. We also met up with Aunt Silvia and Uncle Bruce.  Then my Dad's cousin Jan took me to Signal Hill for some hot chocolate before dropping me off at the airport. It was a whirlwind tour, but so kind of everyone to be excited to see me for even just a few hours.

Happy Anniversary, Uncle Bruce and Aunt Lee!

Welcome Home
And now I'm home. Don't get me wrong, I had missed so many of my friends and family when I was over there, but its a little strange being home. I missed my dog and cat. I missed my bed and shower and the heat of the city. But I feel a little changed and I don't think its very noticeable upfront. I went on this trip not sure if I would make any friends nor have any fun. I was worried I would just want to be back in London with people I knew. I thought I was a little crazy to decide to do it myself.

But after this trip, I realized how fantastic it is to travel alone. You can choose when to wake up or what to do. You are forced out of your comfort zone to make friends and those friends want to be friends with you just as much as you do with them. I used to be sad when no one wanted to go to a festival or event with me. Now? I'll just do it on my own and make friends there. I've developed the confidence to eat in a restaurant alone or to just spend time with my own thoughts and that's no longer a bad or scary thing. I still LOVE being around people and actively search for things to do with others, but this trip helped restore my confidence in myself. And for that, I will be forever grateful to Ireland.  To its friendly people, it's amazing scenery and my fellow travelers on the road.

Sláinte!

Put a Cork in it!

Next stop on the trip: Cork. Dubbed Ireland's "second city", this place was very different than the hip and fancier Galway I had just came from. It has more of a gritty feel to it, but also seems more "real", had a crap ton of music and would probably be a place I would love to live in. Less touristy for sure.

Modesty at its finest.

I arrived and quickly made friends with my new roommates who were traveling all the way from Taiwan! I grabbed some fish n chips take away from a fantastic place called "The Fish Wife" and settled in the common room to enjoy my meal. The hostel I was staying in was called Bru Bar & Hostel and had live music in the bar downstairs every night! Perfect! I didn't even have to get dressed up to listen to some good jams.

New roommates enjoying some music!

The musician on the first night was a girl who played a mix of acoustic covers and originals. I enjoyed some beverages with my new friends, ending the night when we lost one friend who went out for some air and didn't come back for half an hour.

Ring of Kerry

The next day I signed up for a bus tour of the Ring of Kerry. I had tried to extend my trip by another week to add more time here but had to settle for a bus tour.  I was gutted when I realised that if I had changed my flight a day prior, it would have been feasible (300€ return) but because I waited an extra day the flight home would have been 500€! So sadly, no extension for me.

Ireland is 😍

Luckily I was still glad I had a chance to get a taste of County Kerry. It was beautiful. We had a 2 hour stop in Killarney. Killarney is a town beside a national park and while it's rather touristy, it has good reason to be. Its beauitful and relaxed, very removed from the hustle and bustle of the cities nearby. I wandered around the Killarney House gardens (Queen Victoria once stayed there) and a saw a slight bit of the national park. I do want to come back and visit more of this area.

We then drove around the Ring of Kerry which is a beautiful drive along the coast. We stopped at the seaside town of Waterville (aptly named) for some lunch. Random Waterville fact: Charlie Chaplin used to vacation here and ever since then they've had a comedy film festival and Chaplin celebration every year.

We also drove along the coast and saw Skellig Michael from a distance. HEY NERDS, IT'S WHERE THEY FILMED THE NEW STAR WARS. Yeah man. #tripofthenerds

Skellig Michael from a distance.

I arrived home tired and lazy so the roommates and I just decided to take it easy and listen to the band performing at our hostel. They were a great rock/metal band covering Jimi and Black Sabbath as well as just tearing it up on the harmonica. 

Blarney Castle

Turns out it only took half an hour to bus it to the castle so I decided to do that on my final day in Cork. Even though I definitely do not need any help with being chatty, maybe I'll be a little less foot-in-mouth now that I waited an hour to kiss the Blarney Stone! Haha.

*Muah!*

The castle itself was pretty interesting to walk around. In addition to long halls and bedrooms, there were things like murder holes and oubliettes (Labyrinth anyone? I kept waiting for  Hoggle to hop out). There was also a Poison garden with all these dangerous plants, their descriptions and sometimes even cages around them. I kept referencing my herbology lessons from Harry Potter and felt very smart. Haha

Madrake roots are not screaming babies apparently.

The grounds itself were the most impressive though. The Fern garden and rock close were very pretty with a lot of gaelic/fairy/witches lore attached to it.

Fern garden 

Never one to turn down folklore and superstition, I walked down and up the witches stairs with my eyes closed focusing on one wish. I'll let you know if it ends up coming true. ;)

The witches stairs

After the castle and gardens, I met up with Christina and Cindy again to go on a pub crawl! Joining us was Christina's friends Susie and John and we had a great time roaming around Cork doing random shots in alleyways and getting hit on by bizzaro Italien men (hahaha, NO patch).

First bar on the pub crawl!

The train ride to Dublin was ROUGH the next day and I fufilled the Howse family motto of "Its Not a Trip til Susan pukes" with gusto. ;)

Next and final stop: Dublin.

Galway Girl

After the craziness of Derry, I needed a bit of a downswing on my trip. Not to say that I didn't go out and have fun, but I was taking life at a much slower pace for a bit. I spent two full days in Galway and really liked the vibes of this city.

Welcome to Galway!

I met two Italian girls in the hostel named Tatiana and Christina. They also had just arrived that day and decided to go on a mission to find some live music and Guinness . Surprisingly this was my first Guinness of the trip! I think I thought I wouldn't like it because it's a dark beer but honestly it's fantastic. It is not too hoppy and kind of reminds me of a coffee.

Bonding over Guinness

It wasn't too hard to find a place to hear music because it was the Galway Races this week and the streets were boppin'. The races are THE event of the year in Galway (and maybe all of Ireland?). They have the same glamour of the Kentucky Derby or Royal Ascot with big hats, big shoes and tons of smartly dressed, very, very drunk Irish folk. The races end around 9 and then the streets are filled with race goers.

It was a big week in Galway!

We settled on checking out the Quays, which had some fantastic atmosphere and a pretty handsome and talented musician who preformed on a stage above the bar.

Cliffs of Moher Day Trip

The three of us had booked a day trip to the Burren & Cliffs of Moher that departed early the next morning. It was a long trip but seeing the Cliffs made it all worth it.

First stop was Dunguaire, a 16th century Castle. We unfortunately didn't really learn anything about it (our tour guide talked a lot but never about things that were very factual).  I did take some pretty pictures though!

We continued with a drive through the Burren. It's a national park/protected landscape that is comprised of many hills of limestone rock. It was quite beautiful. From a distance the hills just looked like they were streaked with grey and then as we got closer we could see how the rocks basically took over everywhere.

The rocky landscape

We had a quick stop at the Poulnabrone Tomb where the bones of 33 people were discovered dated between 5800 and 5200 years ago. It's also known as a dolmen and apparently archaeologists still do not know who erected these dolmens. Cue the conspiracy alien theories.

Where's Mulder to investigate this Dolmen?

We went to a more modern cemetery next to see some Celtic crosses and then had lunch in the town of Dooling.  It was all just a lead up to the Cliffs at this point and man were they worth it.

I was a little underwhelmed when I had gone to Giants Causeway so I was a little hesitant to get excited but I needn't have worried. They are  stunning. Majestic and massive. Not to mention being featured in two of my favourite movies  (The Cliffs of Insanity in the Princess Bride and in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince). #tripofthenerds

Cliffs of Moher

I was a rebel at one point and crossed over the fence to get an amazing photo. Don't worry mom, I didn't go too close to the edge!

That evening, I met up with Christina (from Derry) and her friend Cindy. We went to the Front Door to have a few drinks but got waylaid enroute by some fantastic buskers. There were musicians as well as "feats of strength" such as holding onto a bar for 100 seconds to win 100€... but the bar moves! We saw one person get to 78 and that was after like watching 30 people try it.

Cheers to new friends!

My plans for joining a walking tour got thrown out the window for the following day so I met up with Christina and Cindy and did our own walking tour. We wandered the riverside and saw the Cathedral, capping the morning off with some Quesadillas and burritos (and man, watching Christina eat her first quesadilla was amazing haha).

Who needs a guided tour anyways?

I left the ladies to explore the Galway museum which amongst other things had a statue of Pádraic Ó Conaire (one of Galways most famous authors to write in Irish not English), a scale replica of a hooker fishing boat  (Not *that* kind of hooker haha), and Galway's involvement in WWI.

What a looker, that hooker.

I also visited a small museum of the Claddagh ring. I've been wearing this ring since Grade 8 (obviously because of THIS) and it was really nice to visit it's "birthplace".

Onwards to Cork next!

You are now entering Free Derry

When I first planned this trip, I wasn't going to include a trip to Derry. It seemed a little out of the way and wasn't a massive tourist city like the other places I had planned on going to. Well thank goodness Kevin suggested I'd go here because so far, it's one of my favourites.

Derry's Peace Bridge 

Derry is located on the northwestern part of Northern Ireland. It has a lot of history with the troubles, such as the infamous Bloody Sunday, and is Ireland's only walled city. So for Little Miss History Dork, I was already excited. I had also heard about a lot of awesome pubs to hear Irish music.

When I arrived in my 6 bed dorm, I was immediately befriended by my new roommates (and shared a load of laundry with one of them). We were a multicultural bunch of solo kickass female travellers who all coincidentally wanted to have an epic night out. Christina (Germany), Priscilla (Brazil), Madeline (USA), Christine (Germany) and I headed off to the town for a night of mighty criac.

The ladies of Cheeky Wink

We grabbed some pub food after wandering around... realizing many kitchens were closed and the locals had already moved onto liquid diets. After dinner, we settled on Peadar O'Donnells, a highly recommended and BUSY pub. An Irish man and his guitar provided the music for the night and the drinks started flowing.

We became friends with two Dublin boys, Seamus and Adam, who were up on holidays. The night then devolved into fantastic good times and inside jokes (that stupid boars head, Priscilla's enjoyment of "loonie/toonie", half naked Madeline, "patch-patch-patch-patch!", Christina's dancing skills, messing with Adams hair, Seamus' voice messages to my friends back home, 18 year old babies, pizza holding, "we've lost someone!", and so on). We all drank probably two drinks (and one whisky shot) more than we should have and left at like 2am.

Epic Craic

My fav part of the evening though was when we returned to the hostel. The common room was closed and after repeatedly being told to shush, we went outside our hostel to chat a bit longer and enjoy Madelines street preforming.

The end of the night 

The next morning was rough for all of us ladies. The boys left early and we all struggled to try to eat breakfast. Naps and Advil later, Christina and I went on a rainy walking tour of the city walls. I think we paid attention to about 20 minutes of the hour long tour. We came home, napped and decided to have a mellow evening.

Priscilla, Christina and I decided to make pasta for dinner. Madeline joined us later and the four woman Derry crew went on an evening walk. We crossed the peace bridge to some walking trails and wandered about. It was beautiful and finally not raining. A great way to end the day.

Evening stroll in Derry

I decided to push back my bus to Galway until the afternoon so I could explore the Free Derry museum/corner/memorials and murals. This is exactly the type of history I am interested in: modern social justice history. The museum was sobering and interesting. It explained the origins of the conflicts, the marches, bloody Sunday and the aftermath. Ths museum held somber reminders of the murder such as items of victims clothing, Daly's white handkerchief, rubber bullets, etc and ended the experience with a celebratory video of the results of the second inquiry.

Funeral program for those murdered on Bloody Sunday 

After, I walked to the Free Derry corner and viewed some of the murals. My favourite I think was the civil rights/ bloody Sunday one which depicts a group of men led by Father Daly, carrying the body of Jackie Duddy (the first fatality of the day). It's beautifully painted and a stark reminder of what happened here.

Free Derry corner

So combining my love of History and my fondness for live music and making new  friends: Derry was a fantastic two days and a place I'd recommend all to check out.