Ireland

Well, it was refreshing to go to a country where everything was in English, for starters. This weekend was in Ireland. Mike, Jim, and I flew out Friday at 11, getting into Dublin a little bit before one since we gained an hour. We went to our hostel and dropped our stuff off, then went around the corner to the oldest pub in Ireland, which was founded in 1157. That is not a typo. 1157 AD. So that was pretty cool; we had our first glasses of Guinness and some fish and chips, and we were happy campers. Then we walked to St. James street to the Guinness Storehouse at St. James Gate. That was pretty cool to see, and it's pretty awesome to be able to say I had a pint of Guinness where they make it! From there, we headed back to the hostel to relax a little. It was Mike's birthday, so we decided to do the hostel pub crawl in celebration. We met some British and Australian guys who were having a bachelor party for their friend, who I soon learned was a fellow Tottenham Hotspur fan, and we hung out with them all night. We introduced them to the game of beer pong, which they had never seen before. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them, then headed back to the hostel after the crawl. Jim and I woke up at 6:00 to get to the Dublin tourist center for a day of travels. We took a bus with MacCoule tours to their family farm, followed by the Cliffs of Moher, followed by Galway City. The farm was great, and we did a little hike up a mountain on the farm, then had some homemade cakes and Irish coffee, then we took the bus to the Cliffs, which were the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and then took the bus to Galway City, where Jim and I got some shepherd's pie and a pint, which was the perfect end to the day. We got home around 9PM, then met up with Mike, who had gone on a hiking tour. We then went in search of some pubs to just relax, and hung out at one all night and played the game from Inglorious Bastards where you pick a character for the person next to you and they have to guess who it is. That was fun, then we slept in the next day. We got some cheap breakfast around noon, then walked around, settled in a pub to watch the first half of Newcastle v. Liverpool, then just wandered around until we saw Ryan's pub, and we had to stop in for a pint in my honor. Then we went back to the hostel and hung out for a bit, then went to another relaxing pub until midnight and just sat around talking to an old, drunk, Irish man named John. He was quite a character. We went to bed, and woke up at 4:30AM to catch our 6:30 flight, and then we flew back. I had class today, and then finished editing my ten page history paper. Busy day, but glad to be done. I'm starring in a film that the kids in the film class are making, so the last two hours has been filming parts of that. I am tired!  Bed time. Have a great week. Arrivederci.