My morning started off early at 6 AM as we had a flight to catch. Despite feeling gross, I didn’t bother showering because I wanted more time to sleep. I pretty much rolled out of bed, packed all my stuff up and headed out. The hostel serves free breakfast, but unfortunately we were up to early for that.
We checked out and headed to the nearest bus stop. The bus ride to the airport was about 25 minutes and not terrible. Before we knew it, we were at the airport and got through security fairly quickly. Oddly enough, they stamped my passport leaving the country which I was grateful for. So far in my European experience, I had only gotten a stamp in Munich on my way to France.
While waiting for our flight, I found a McDonalds and had a McMuffin and coffee. McDonalds is similar in Europe, but much more expensive which is annoying.
Later it was time to board our flight, which was on RyanAir heading to Dublin.
Here’s a selfie of me boarding the plane
Most budget airlines make you go outside to board the plane interestingly enough.
The plane ride was a little over an hour and I spent that time watching an episode of Black Mirror. We soon were in Dublin, and now an hour behind with the time zone change.
We had to wait in a pretty long immigration line, but I watched the last 20 minutes of my Netflix episode and time passed quickly. On top of that, I got another passport stamp.
While getting onto our bus outside, we immediately noticed how much warmer it was. Each city we’ve gone to has been warmer than the last, which proved to be a great strategy for booking trips.
The bus ended up being a euro more than planned and needed exact change. We all frantically sorted through of bags looking for coins and by some stroke of luck, we all had just enough.
The bus ride was about an hour and I used this time to write my blog for the day before. Looking out the window, it was hard not to notice how green everything in Ireland was. I guess some stereotypes are true.
Once in Dublin, we hopped off the bus and headed to our hostel. To our surprise, the hostel was right next to the famous Temple Bar. Talk about convenience.
We couldn’t check in until 3, so we left our luggage there and headed off into the city. Our first stop was a nice supermarket, where I got a breakfast sandwich made at their deli for a cheap €3.50. We ate our lunches there and made plans for the day.
We decided to check out the Guinness Storehouse tour. I had heard many great things about the tour and knew we had to check it out.
We had about a 20 minute walk where we got to see more of the city.
Here’s are some pictures of churches and other things we saw.
Soon we had reached the giant gates of the Guinness store house.
The gates
The tour was pretty pricey for €20, but it came with a free pint so it was justified.
The tour was self guided but really cool. There was ton of very interesting displays and setups that told you everything about the beer making process, history of the brand, advertising and everything else you could imagine. There was also a taste testing section where we learned to correctly taste Guinness.
Here’s some other pictures from the tour
At the end, we all decided to cash in oh free pint voucher at the 360 degree view bar on the sixth floor. It was super high up and gave a great view of Dublin.
I don’t know if it was being in Dublin or the just the Guinness storehouse, but my pint tasted especially good. I have a newfound appreciation for Guinness.
My pint
Group photo of the boys and their beers
After the tour, we headed back to the hostel. On the way there, we stopped in a supermarket to buy supplies for tonight’s dinner. We wanted an authentic Irish meal, so we were making burritos. The beef was from Ireland so that counts for something.
The meal was cheap and came out to about $3 a person. We also bought a bottle of Irish whiskey for later that night.
At the hostel, we grabbed our bags and moved into our 6 person room. We were hoping we would have the room to ourselves, but we noticed women’s clothing on one of the beds. We didn’t mind, but I seems pretty odd for the hostel organizer to put our a group of five loud dudes with one girl. It was whatever.
We all went up to the kitchen to cook our dinner. I was in charge of cooking the beef with Nick.
Here’s a photo of the beef and our meal.
It was very filling and pretty good. Sebastien also ate a spoonful of cayenne pepper which was really funny. After cleaning up, we went back to our room where I took a shower.
We started pregaming for the bar and all drank some whiskey and cokes while listening to music. Halfway through, the mysterious women came to the room. She didn’t say anything and immediately went to the corner and just stared into the wall. She also placed a sandwich on her sheets without a plate. She stood in this corner mumbling to herself for the 30 minute. Safe to say we were really creeped out. We kept on continuing to drink, but made an effort to be quieter and lowered the music. She was still in the corner when we left.
We finally headed out for the bar, hoping this weird voodoo women wouldn’t curse any of our stuff.
Our first destination was the Temple Bar. We knew it was some what of a tourist trap, so we didn’t plan on buying any drinks there.
They had some cool live music and it was super packed.
Here’s a picture of the bar
Afterwards we headed to a bar called Whelans that my friend who studied in Dublin. Unfortunately the bar was pretty empty, but it was Wednesday night.
We walked down the street and found another bar with a nice atmosphere. We ordered some drinks and went to the heated beer garden. Of course I got another pint of Guinness.
We hung out there for a while and had a pretty good time.
Later we were all pretty tired and headed back to the hostel. When we got back, the creepy girl was in the shower. When she got out (fully dressed), she just stood in front of the ladder to her bunk bed mumbling. It was really weird.
I grabbed my holy water and crucifix, and hid under the covers.
Thankfully, I passed out very quickly.
Foreign Tourist with No Grasp of the Local Language 
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