The fact that we are alive after the flight over to Dublin is amazing. This was the worst flight I have ever been on. Not only were we flying with a cheap airline but the winds and rain when leaving Leeds to Dublin were such that our plane felt like it was on a bloody trampoline the whole way! To make matters worse, the plane was filled with rowdy, drunk boys laughing and yelling "we are going to die" and girls shrieking loudly at every slight bit of turbulence.

So to say I was relieved at arriving safely is an understatement. Unfortunately our troubles didn't stop there and upon arriving at our so called 'hostel' which was unnamed and seemed to be some person's house with beds crammed into every room, we were told that they had over booked. The fact that we understood this was something as the guy we were dealing with could not speak English and kept on walking away from us when we were talking to him. Anyway after a few phone calls, we found ourselves a new hostel right in the centre of Dublin. After a gruelling trip to find the new hostel in the freezing cold weather we were thrilled that this new place actually had a reception, an Irish desk man and beds to sleep in! We then wasted no time in finding ourselves somewhere to eat and subsequently stayed there for the next few hours eating and discovering the 'joys' of Guinness.

After being woken by a 50 year old crazy man standing at the end of our beds singing "good morning sleeping beauties" (who had the night before been running around our dorm room in his underwear) we decided to get out and discover the city. In true tourist style we bought tickets for one of those sight-seeing buses which take you around the main attractions of the city. Even though I was wearing every single item of clothing I had brought with me, I could not handle the freezing cold on the open topped bus. We decided then to get off at the Guinness Brewery Storehouse which is a museum dedicated to explaining and demonstrating the process in which Guinness is made. To our delight there was a free testing room as well as a complimentary pint which we struggled to drink on the top level with a 360 degree view overlooking Dublin. We continued along the bus tour and got off to visit Trinity College, one of the oldest universities in the world. Jess and Ali then went to look at the Book of Kells a book of gospels written over 1000 years ago.

After a bad night's sleep the night before (partially due to fear of crazy man) we went home and had a rest before we hit the town. We had all read that around 40% of the population of Ireland was under 25 so we were pretty keen to see what they get up to on a Saturday night. Due to recommendations from books and people we walked to Temple Bar - the place to go out in Dublin. Every single pub was packed with people and much to our surprise the average age in every pub would have been around 35, in fact I don't think we saw anyone our age all night! We finally found Cafe-en-Seine, a 3 story bar with a slight French twist to it. While we were definitely the youngest ones there by at least 15 years, we had a lot of fun watching everyone else get it on, and boy do they get in to it! We were continuously being pushed around by overly dramatic dancers and being hit on by strange Spanish and balding men. We finished the night as you would anywhere in the world, at McDonalds where we ordered obscene amounts of food and got scolded for laughing by people sitting next us.

The next day we decided to get out of Dublin and we caught a train to a fishing town called Howth. The plan was to climb this mountain we had heard about, however torrential rains and gusty winds made this impossible, so we settled for watching the storm inside a cosy pub getting warm in front of a fire. After many hot drinks with Baileys and plenty of food inside of us, we decided to at least walk to the end of the point where the lighthouse stood. It really was very pretty, all the fishing boats were in the bay and the storm provided a dramatic backdrop.

After this it was time to head back to Leeds which I was very much dreading due to the first plane experience, however apart from an interesting wind affected landing, we arrived safe and sound. Overall a great weekend!