Hi everyone! Sorry I have been such a bad blogger lately... it has been crazy since getting back from Ireland! I had a lot of projects to do and finals to prepare for. Back to Ireland, I LOVED IT! It is absolutely beautiful there and the people could not have possibly been nicer! It was the perfect last trip in Europe to finish my semester.

We arrived in Dublin on Wednesday night. As we were trying to find our hostel after getting off the bus we had two different people stop and ask us if we needed any help finding our place! We could not believe how friendly and helpful people were! After finding our hostel and settling in, we visited the Temple Bar which was next door to where we were staying. Temple Bar is perhaps the most famous bar in Dublin ( I have no idea why?) we had so much fun there that we went back to it every night! We really lucked out with the location of our hostel because we were so close to all of the nightlife, pubs and shops!

The next day, Thursday- thanksgiving, we explored the city a little bit and visited the Guinness Storehouse. I could not believe how big the Guinness campus was! It was very interesting seeing how the beer is produced and distributed. We were able to get some really great pictures there too! At the end of our tour we were given a free pint of Guinness and drank it on the top floor of the building where we could see a beautiful view of the entire city of Dublin. Surprisingly, I didn't mind the beer to much! It was definitely much different than the typical Bud Light or Natural Light (haha)! Although I didn't mind drinking it, I don't think I will be going out of my way to order one at a bar when I'm back in Sandusky! After visiting the Storehouse we visited some shops and had lunch at Subway. We were so happy to see a subway and decided to all have turkey subs to celebrate thanksgiving. That night we did not have any luck finding a thanksgiving meal anywhere so we ate at a traditional pub where I ordered Irish stew. It was very good!

The following day, I visited the Cliffs of Moher with Jill and Danica. It was an entire day adventure. Our tour guide was great, his name was PJ and reminded me of a little leprechaun! He knew everything I think there is to know about Ireland and Irish people. We took a tour bus to get to the area where the Cliffs were and had the chance to see much of the Irish countryside. The Cliffs were beautiful! We had a perfect day to go to them. I have heard Dad talk about them so much that it was very cool to actually see them for myself! Following the Cliffs we visited the Burren. This is an area that was once frozen over during the ice age. The area is very rocky which is from all the sediments that settled in the area from the freeze. This area was beautiful as well. After visiting these areas we ate lunch in a little town called Doolin and then drove back to Dublin. That night we met back up with the rest of the girls on our trip with us and visited several pubs and listened to Irish music! It reminded me of Nashville, just with a different accent!

On Saturday, we all took another bus tour to Wicklow. During this tour we saw an area that was once a monastery. It was very beautiful and tranquil. Just outside of the Monastery was a huge park area that had two large ponds. We hiked through the park area and then had lunch at a another pub. The food at the pubs were great! It was a nice change from pizza and pasta! We ate seafood chowder, mashed potatoes, cabbage, fish and chips, it was all great! That night we walked through Grafton street which is the big shopping area in Dublin. It is very cool and looks very pretty with all of its Christmas decorations. I was very surprised with the fashion in Dublin. I don't think of Ireland as a fashionable country, but I was proved wrong! Everyone there is very stylish and the window displays in the stores were some of the best I've seen throughout Europe. The most impressive store was Brown Thomas. It is luxury department store that can only be found in Ireland. It is a close equivalent to Nieman Marcus here in the US. The also have an entirely separate store called BT2 that targets my age group and has very trendy and less expensive clothing. It seems like it is a great company. For dinner, we ate at a nice restaurant that had the traditional Irish food but was designed very contemporary. Yet again, everything was excellent.

Sunday was our last day in Ireland. Fortunately, our plane wasn't taking off until 7PM so we still had most of the day to do things. I woke up early and headed towards St. Patrick's Cathedral to attend the mass at 10 AM. Unfortunately I was misinformed about the times and the mass didn't start until 11:15. All of us girls had plans to meet up at 11:30 so I was not able to go to mass. But hey, I tried! St Patrick's was very beautiful, everything from the grounds to the cemetery was very well maintained. After seeing the cathedral I did some shopping on my own on Grafton street. Here I visited the BT2 store and tried on a dress for New Years. I couldn't decide if I should get it or not because I needed another opinion so I ended up not purchasing it. Since then, I have thought about this dress every single day and decided that I NEED to have it! :) Because of this, I called the BT2 store, explained the dress to them and was able to purchase it over the phone! They are shipping the dress directly to my house in Sandusky so it will be waiting for me when I get home! After shopping, we all met for lunch at a pub for one last time near O'Connell bridge. After lunch we still had about 3 hours to kill so we decided to go to the movies and see High School Musical 3. I was in heaven!! I had been dying to see that movie!! I seriously think it was the highlight of my trip! It was so good that even my friends that saw it with me liked it and they hadn't seen the first one or the second one! I must warn you though, it is quite the tear jerker, so be prepared to shed a tear or two. After the movies we headed to the airport to catch our plane back to Italy.

Overall, our trip to Ireland completely exceeded my expectations. Dublin is such a great city! It is large, but not too large and everyone seems so friendly and welcoming. I was also very happy with how much of the countryside I was able to see. It is definitely a place that I want to visit again and I am very proud to say that it is the country that I am from! Since returning from Ireland I have presented my large projects that I have been working on and have been preparing for finals this week. I only have 4 days left!!! It's unbelievable! This weekend I am doing some last minute things- buying gifts for people, visiting the Duomo and beginning to pack. I will post one more blog on here before I arrive back in the United States so keep a look out for it. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving back home. I was telling Mom and Dad that it is so hard for me to get excited for Christmas because having missed thanksgiving and still having 50 degree weather here I feel like it is still October! However, I'm sure that once I see the Christmas tree set up in the house and arrive to Cleveland with freezing temperatures it will get me in the Christmas spirit. That is all for now, have a good rest of the weekend and say a wish for me that I somehow fit everything in my suitcase! :)

Love you and miss you all!


Ciao for Now,
Carrie