how was ireland?

a difficult question to answer, but easily put, incredible. the countryside is majestic- so lush and green with historic ruins, farm plots separated by rock walls, livestock and very narrow winding country roads. in reference to the city life, dublin is a decently sized city, but not overwhelmingly large and really could be “toured” within a day or two. dublin has its own unique character, with pubs and cafés on every block, divided by the river liffey. it isn’t a “beautiful” and “romantic” city like i hear paris is, but is clean, with impressive parks and modern buildings mixed in with historic ones. for an outline of the trip: i went with my friend ashley desforge who i met in granada, she’s wonderful- has similar interests and loves to be adventurous. we landed in dublin on a thursday night (april 26th) and leisurely made our way to our homestay at a friend of jack’s (my sister-in-law) place. we figured out the public transport system and immediately discovered how amiable the irish are. we had the address to siobhain’s (jack’s friend) in raheny, just outside of dublin, and narrowed down our search by constantly asking for directions. ashley and i not only had a place to stay, but were treated to a splendid dinner in the city the first night we were there. we didn’t eat until like 10pm so it was hard to find somewhere open. the irish have a more similar eating and going out schedule to the US which was kind of refreshing to find. ashley and i contemplated whether we should travel north or south of dublin the next day, but we ended up staying in dublin because we weren’t sure if we would have the opportunity later on. we walked all around the city and saw buildings like the customs house, the post office (which was incredible! it’s comparable to the capital building in the states), trinity college which houses the book of kells, st. patrick’s cathedral and the dublin castle. we hit up the hot spots like temple bar, grafton street and went to st. stephen’s green. i was so impressed by the parks- it would be nice if all countries modeled their parks after those of the irish - very expansive with ancient trees, flowers, large ponds and so peaceful... we left for galway that night, which is on the west side of ireland and when arriving, had a short glimpse of the nightlife. we were planning to go to the cliffs of moher on saturday night after touring galway, but found out there was only one bus that leaves in the morning … we wanted to see galway that day so we looked into renting a car, but we weren’t old enough… we stressed a bit about how we’d get to the cliffs, but thought we would figure it out later. we passed through the town touring some of the cathedrals and stopped at the saturday market- tasted some irish specialties, listened and watched some irish music and dance. we relaxed around the coastline for a bit and figured the only way to the cliffs was to hitchhike. so after talking to locals and figuring how to go about it, we did it. hitchhiking was one of the best parts of the trip- going to the cliffs, we received rides from 2 irish college boys, a belgian chef and 3 italian boys who where checking out ireland for the week. the cliffs were pretty spectacular. the weather was perfect the whole time we were in ireland, sunny with blue skies. therefore from the cliffs, we had an impressive view of the coastline. the only crappy part was being covered with bugs, ashley didn’t have too many problems, but for some reason i always attract them. whenever i run, i also always get bugs in my eyes. eh, just my luck. our hostel for that night claimed on it’s website to be “on the cliffs” but in actuality was 15 km away in lisdoonvarna. we hitched a ride with an irish family from dublin and were stuck in the back of a station wagon behind their 3 or 4 kids. the dad humored us with his great sense of humor. we simply gave him the address and he took us to the doorstep of our hostel even though we had passed the town they were staying in. the hostel had just made the change from being a hotel and so turned out to be really nice. ironically, the night we chose to go out was in a town with a population of 1,000- but it turned out to be SO fun. we went to the “boomin” irish pub, listened to live irish music and met some locals. the boys were much more polite and not nearly as forward as some of the spanish are, ah finally. we left the next morning, hitchhiking back to galway with an irish farmer, a tea shop owner, an older woman and a marine biologist and then took the bus back to dublin. we had a nice warm home cooked meal with family friends of ashley’s, the hyltons, who have been living in dublin for 2 years. monday, we went south of dublin to glendalough to see ancient ruins and hike around 2 lakes- and again it was an absolutely beautiful day. on our way back to dublin, we stopped in greystones, a beach town and walked the beach while the sun was setting. we had an hour long dart ride back to dublin and we just sat there listening to music and thinking about how blessed we were for how well our trip had gone. the next morning siobhain took us to the airport and we passed out for the plane ride back. least to say, i think i’ll be visiting ireland again, maybe ashley might even live there :) i hope to keep in touch with someone i met in lisdoonvarna, siobhain and the hyltons. i can see why the irish are proud of their heritage- they have a beautiful country and wonderful people.