Apparently I can't get enough of Dublin.

It has been quite a lovely, rain filled weekend here on the Emerald Isle. Colleen's friend Jamie came to visit us this week and so we took it upon ourselves to show her what we though was the best things about Ireland.. O'Connells, The Milk Market and Dublin! First off, I looked out my window and saw my first rain bow here! I was pretty excited about that,especially since it only lasted for about 60 seconds. 

  

On Saturday we took Jamie to the open market in town called the Milk Market. There I saw this gorgeous display of olives, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and everything that I find holy. I thought the display was so beautiful, I had to take a picture. The woman behind the counter wasn't too happy about this as you can see her running out of the way in the brown shirt. Oh well, ya got nice olives. What can I say?

  

 We also went to this candy shop in Limerick city, just expecting a typical candy store. But when we walked in it felt like we had stepped right into a Harry Potter movie! The display and set up was so interesting! I got myself a tutti frutti candy cane naturally, we spent way more time than we should have in this little shop. Later that night we took Jamie to the one and only, O'Connells. She tried one of our Gunniess, (not a fan) and decided on Bulmers instead. We had a great night full of great craic (that's the word they use here for fun, pronounced like crack). That was a funny sight the first time someone here asked me what I do for craic.

 

The next morning we woke up and took a bus to Dublin for the next two days. We started off at the Guinness factory which was so interesting! It was a self guided tour, and you walked all through the display while they talk you through exactly how Guinness is made and the history of how it started.

Probably my favorite section of the factory though was the Advertising section. It was a whole area that described the history of Guinness Advertising, and what they used to use to promote Guinness. One thing I found really interesting was that they said doctors used to prescribe Guinness to nursing women to help them fight postpartum depression and for other medical reasons. They truly would believe that "Guinness is good for you" and that's where the slogan came from. See mom? I may not be taking my vitamins but I'm drinking Guinness to stay healthy!

After that we wandered around Dublin, in hopes of finding St. Patrick's Cathedral. Luckily, we did. This is the outside of the cathedral. 

Everything inside was absolutely gorgeous!! The stained glass blew my mind. I thought of you, Aunt Linda and I took this picture for you to show you the work because I knew you would appreciate it!

Later that night we thought we would take Jamie into the Temple Bar area just to show her what the Dublin night life is like. It poured rain the entire time and this was a funny picture of us leaving a pub and trying to get a cab. 

 

  We went to The Auld Dubliner again, (the same place Melissa and John went on their trip) and listened to the live music. My favorite Irish song is "Galway Girl" so I was hoping the guy would sing it so I could video tape it. Luckily he did!!

We stayed at a very low budget hostel that night (7 euro per night) so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. We were in an eight person room so we were sharing with people we did not know. There were two girls there from Missouri, one woman from Spain, and a person who we never saw. I went there with every intention on showering that night but when I realized there was only just one huge public bathroom, with tiny solitary confinement type showers, I realized the rain would keep the smell away. That was quite the experience, but in the end it really didn't bother me. If I had to stay there more than a few nights though, I don't think I would have been so relaxed.

The next day we took Jamie to walk around Grafton Street (one of the main shopping, tourist streets in Dublin) and St. Stephen's Green Park. We went into the Disney store and I saw this display! I thought it was perfect for me so I just had to take a picture.

 

These are some pictures from St. Stephen's Green Park. The pictures look quite lovely, but surprisingly what you can't tell is that is was POURING. It rained from the second we stepped off the bus into Dublin, to the second we got back onto campus.

 No joke, when I say it rained, it really rained. I heard that they got a month's worth of rain in just that weekend!

And then on Tuesday night, a pretty popular band at UL called Hermitage Green was performing at one of the pubs on campus. The pub was really cute, we had never been there. It's called the Scholar's Club so I didn't feel so bad about going to a pub with that kind of name on a Tuesday night. This is Ana, Colleen, Jamie and I there just having the craic.

Also, yesterday I had a meeting for a group project for my Advertising class. The entire class had to go to this four hour seminar where we would get our groups for the project given to us, brain storm ideas, blah blah. Doesn't sound like much fun does it? Well it turned out being such a good time! We were told we were going to be given Irish brands and have to develop some sort of Advertisement for them, using the skills we have learned in class. My group was given Murphy's Irish Stout. Well my group consisted of two Irish boys, a girl from Bulgaria, and myself. None of us had ever tried it, all the boys could say was that it's supposedly like Guinness and that no one drinks it. Well we took the first half of the seminar to research more about the brand, develop ideas of what we could do for an ad, and so on. When we were given a 15 minute break, one of the boys in my group suggests we run to Stables (one of the pubs on campus) and grab a pint of it so we can know what we're talking about. At first this idea sounded crazy to me, run there in the middle of a workshop? He's just giving us time to pee! But then I thought about it and realized that actually wasn't a bad idea. So we ran there, got our pints, discussed how it was different and what about it we could use to make it sound appealing, and ran back. We ended up being about 15 minutes late but when we explained to the teacher what we were doing, he actually liked that we did that. Where else could you drink in the middle of class and get a pat on the back for it?!


This weekend Colleen, Ana and I are taking Jamie to Galway and the Aran Islands. We booked a Bed and Breakfast because it was roughly the same price as a hostel so I'm pretty excited about that! Can't wait to see it!