Weekend in Dublin

So, I know it's been a while since I've updated the blog, but there wasn't much going on last week until we went to Dublin on Saturday. Marco has to travel to Germany in a couple of weeks for a meeting, so we had to go to Dublin to visit the embassy for a travel visa. We decided just to make a weekend out of it and see the city. So we hopped on the bus from Galway, which is about 3 1/2 hours to Dublin city center. We did a lot of exploring and walking around the city just to see what was there. I have to say that we are getting really good at reading maps and navigating new places. :o) We went almost everywhere on foot, so by the end of the weekend we were pretty tired. The Liffey River runs right through the middle of the city (you can see me standing in front of it in one of the pictures.) We took a walk through Trinity College, which is a beautiful campus, and saw a cricket match in progress. I still don't really understand that sport! On the way to our hotel we passed Montague Street, so I had to take a picture!



We had great intentions of going out for dancing on Saturday night so we set out to explore the Dublin nightlife. We walked and walked and found lots of places to go, but didn't really like the music we were hearing. Electronic/techno music is quite popular here, and neither one of us really enjoys dancing to that kind of music. I'm sure if we had more time we could have found a place to our liking, but we were pretty tired. (Are we getting old or what?) The one thing that really became clear is how much partying and drinking is part of the culture here. The unfortunate part is that for many people drinking is not just to have fun, it's to get completely trashed! There were drunk people everywhere and there was vomit on the streets. Pretty disgusting. We even saw a girl vomit as she walked out the door of a disco. One funny part of Irish nightlife that we have witnessed is Stag and Hen parties. This is the equivalent of bachelor/bachellorette parties in the US. But these guys take it very seriously here. Women go out all dressed the same, or have t-shirts printed for the event. We saw one party of women dressed as bees.....yes, bees. They were in full costumes with wings, like you would see at a good Halloween party. We ended up going to a disco that was on the first floor of our hotel. Yes, the music went until about 3am both Saturday and Sunday night and we could hear it in our room. :( Anyway, we saw a Stag party there that was just hilarious. All of the guys were dressed in full costumes like superheros or movie/cartoon characters. There was Indiana Jones, Rocky, Papa Smurf (with his whole torso and head painted blue) Teen Wolf (with his full body in a hairy suit and a basketball uniform!). But the funniest one for me was definitely Wonder Woman....a real manly man in a wig and full costume, including fishnet stockings! What a night. I wish I would have taken some pictures of that experience. Oh well.

The next day we did some more exploring. We visited a place called Phoenix Park, which is a massive park in the city. We rented bikes for an hour and didn't even make it all the way around the park. It was absolutely beautiful. We saw huge numbers of deer in the park and lots of green areas. An interesting note, the US Ambassador's residence is right in the middle of the park.....I wonder how that happened? We then went to take a tour of the Guinness Storehouse. Now, I'm not a big beer fan, but everyone said we had to go there if we were going to Dublin. Well, during the visit, Marco and I both decided it was our favorite place so far! Seriously. They did an amazing job of setting up an experience that you walk through that tells the history of Guinness and how it is made and how it has become a part of the culture here. I can't even describe how cool it was. At the end of the tour, you go up to the top of this tower and visit the "Gravity Bar". It's way above the city and has walls of glass so you can see all of Dublin! (You can see in one of the pictures where we are holding our pints.) And, with your entrance ticket you also get a pint of Guinness to enjoy (or a soda). So, even if you don't like beer it's still a place that should be visited in Dublin.



The next day we got up and headed for the German embassy. It was fairly easy to get there by train and everything went smoothly. We then hopped back on the bus and headed back to Galway. After being in the big city for a couple of days, we really felt the difference and were glad to be going back "home" to a smaller, quieter place. We realized that we really like Galway and the way of life here.

This week I started volunteering in a community garden at a local school. I pulled weeds for 2 1/2 hours!!!!! But it was really fun and it's a great learning experience for the kids. There were some people there the day I went who have decided to do a documentary on the project and they may show it next year at the Galway Film Festival! I'm making my Irish film debut. :o)

Last night we went out to a bar where they have Salsa on Wednesdays. One of Marco's colleagues plays the keyboard in the band so we thought we would check it out. We met up with some of his friends from work and listened to some good music. We didn't hit the dance floor, but will definitely go back one of these days. There were many more girls than guys, so we were thinking that all of our single male friends who know how to salsa would be very popular here!

I forgot to mention that I also met an American lady who is living here with her husband. His company brought him here for a year, so they've been doing a lot of traveling to make the most of their time. She just got a care package from the US with margarita mix, so we are going to meet them this weekend for "Mexican" night. We're going to attempt to make the closest thing to Mexican food as possible with the things we can get here. Should be fun!