Feeling Irish!

This past week was a plethora of celebrations. Last Thursday, I celebrated turning two decades old. Then when the weekend came, I celebrated St. Patrick’s Day properly in Ireland.

Thursday morning I woke up and made myself a nice birthday breakfast to start my day and went through cards and presents I had received from friends and family back home. Little did I realize that the love I felt from back home at that time would be reciprocated throughout the entire day by the people in my home at Chester. After lunch, Andrew, Brian, and I went into town and saw the movie “The Woman in Black”. Those of you that know me well enough would know that I hate scary movies. I don’t like to pay to get scared nor do I find the thrill of being scared enjoyable. So the only reason I walked into that movie was because I didn’t know it was suppose to be scary. Andrew and Brian claimed it wasn’t as bad as I made it out to be but let’s just say that I was happy no one else was in the theatre so I could move around and talk through the movie. After dinner, I came back to my house to find a cake and ice cream on the table and friends to share it with. I was also given multiple cards and gifts throughout the day by my friends which was completely unexpected. To finish of my birthday, a group of nine of us went to a pub for a few hours. I still can’t get over how blessed I felt having friends and family giving me well wishes throughout the world. Being away from home on my birthday cemented in my head the love that this world has to offer.

Friday night rolled around and as John came into my room we decided to take a look at our bus tickets for Dublin. My jaw dropped when we noticed that I had put down the wrong return date for the bus. I tried to call and change the date but the Sunday night buses were already booked full. So that presented us with another day in Ireland – which isn’t too bad of a consequence! Courtney, John, and I boarded our bus around 11pm Friday night and arrived into Dublin around 6:30am. As much as I wanted our bus to swim, we had to load a ferry to get across the water.

We waited for a couple hours to ensure a front row view for the parade. The parade was unlike any I have ever seen. It was a mix of modern things in very old styles. I can’t really describe it but simply put, the costumes were the best part of the parade. Afterwards we roamed the streets all day, hitting pubs and taking in all the greenery (people watching). In the evening we sat in a pub that had live Irish music in the “Temple Bar” area of Dublin. Hostels were booked months in advanced so we had planned to sleep in a park or pull an all-nighter. When the time came, the weather wasn’t looking promising so for the most part we pulled an all-nighter, staying in a McDonald’s for over three hours between 1am and 4:30. The next morning we went to mass then walked through the Guinness Storehouse. We got to our hostel in the late afternoon and crashed for 4 hours before making dinner and taking it easy that night. 

St. Patrick's Day Parade Dublin

Live Irish music in a pub in Dublin

With our extra day in Dublin we decided to go Belfast, Northern Ireland. None of us knew much about the city so I can’t report any noteworthy places we hit. Belfast was even more Americanized than Dublin in my opinion. Nonetheless we saw the future home of a Titanic museum and ate Ireland’s largest pizza – 24 inches in Belfast! 

Belfast City Hall

A bus took us back to Dublin then we trekked back to Chester and arrived at 3am today. Lots of things to do this week before I start Easter break travelling!