PA meets Ireland
Belfast Week 6
To pick up where we left off, I sent Sarah and Alicia off to the airport and excitedly walked to the bus stop to pick up Sarah and Liv. Since the bus systems are somewhat confusing abroad, I texted Liv and Sarah the exact bus company and stop to get off at. I receive a slightly stressed text saying that they have gotten on the wrong bus but, not to worry they think they're on the right one now. As the time ticks by I see no sign of Sar Woz or Liv. The bus I think they should be on pulls up but nobody gets off, hmm peculiar. I start walking at a quick pace down to the second stop that's within sight. I hear people yelling "Hannah! Hannah Glasheen!" and when I turn around I see the SAB across the road with suitcases in hand very excited and maybe a bit unready for the adventure ahead of us haha. They might have already had some issues, but THEY HAVE MADE IT! EUROPE ROUND 2?!
The PA girls are exhausted but manage to power through the exhaustion. After showers and lunch in the Temple Bar District, we head to Trinity College and take a self-guided tour of the Long room and Book of Kells. Though the girls were tired, I tried to keep them moving so that they could try to adjust to the time difference a bit quicker.
After the tour, we headed to Gogartey's for some much needed drinks. If you're in Dublin definitely hit Gogartey's, live music, cute décor and overall a really great vibe! Sarah and Liv were feeling very festive in their first Irish Pub, so ordered Irish Coffees. In Sarah's exhausted state she reaches over to point at something and accidentally knocks all the medal drink shakers off the bar which results in a very loud clunking. We get a few looks but we can't be flustered by much because if you haven't already heard.... we are in Ireland! However, if this is any indication of how the trip is going to go...GOD HELP US! The girls get their Irish Coffees but didn't realize how strong they were going to be. I believe Sarah's direct quote was, "ya know, it really hits you right in the glands!" LOL welcome to Ireland girls!!
In dire need of a nap we head back to the hotel where the mighty travelers take a nap and Caroline and I head off to do some work. We rally the crowd for dinner at The Mercantile There was an extremely long wait at The Mercantile so Sarah and I tried to find another place that was offering dinner and happened to stumble upon Trinity Bar and we are so very happy we did. After our yummy dinner we headed across the street for drinks at this little pub. Squeezing past the crowd we find a table right next to the lads trip. I'm not sure if I've explained what a lads trip is in my previous blogs, so I'll do it again. Basically, a lads trip is a group of men, sometimes a bachelor party, sometimes not, who are just there chilling with the boys not looking for anything besides fun with their friends. It is the funniest and most wholesome thing to watch. This lads trip, in particular, was a good time. They had brought life size Jenga to the bar and let me tell you it was quite the heated match. There were periodic breaks taken to chug their drink, have a mini dance battle and obviously to sing the lyrics to the song the band was playing. At one point, one of the lads won Jenga so literally tore/ripped her shirt off...yes, a wild crowd to say the least.
The night progressed and we met a friend from the lads trip. He introduced himself to us and for some reason couldn't get my name right for the life of him. At one point he said, "is it Henna....like that tattoo." No sir, its Hannah HAHA!
Caroline's friends from HC who are studying in Cork join us. After some conversation, we find out Caroline's friend is from PA and knows people who go to SVC....what a small world! As the night goes on we begin to dance and somehow, I was pulled into a square dancing session with the lads trip. Linking arms and singing various Irish songs, omg what a night. Liv brings out her inner college girl and hops up on the chair to start dancing but gets a bit of a stern look from one of the bar tenders so hops right off...good try though Liv.
At about 1am we make the executive decision to go to Gogartey's, which we have ABSOLUTELY no business going to, but were in DUBLIN so here we come! On the way to the bar we walk through Temple Bar and take the obvious tourist pics outside. While taking our pics a trumpet player walks over, hops in the pic and starts playing a tune, which proceeds to us having a dance party in the middle of the Temple Bar district! Yup, we've made some memories.
After the Gogartey's adventure, girls you know what I'm talking about, we decide to head back to bed and wake up early for the Guinness Storehouse tour. Needless to say, we are not feeling to hot but we push through and manage to make it through the tour which was very cool!
Dublin, you were good to us but Belfast, here we come!!!!
Monday morning, I had class all day but in the middle of class received a panicked text from Liv saying something along the lines of: "this thing keeps going off an we don't know why! What is it?!" with a picture of my fire alarm. WHAT IS WITH IRELAND AND FIRE ALARMS???
After a full day I was rushing home from class and a meeting to pick Sarah and Liv up to go on our surprise tour, but Sarah was "not ready". In my stressed out state I hoofed it up the stairs to find Sarah and Liv cooking a steak dinner for us! OMG, do I have the cutest friends or what?! They might be cute as ever but cooking is not there thing... Sar Woz set off the fire alarm in my building and had to have the receptionist run up 6 flights of stairs to see if we were okay! HA! Only kidding about the bad chef part, dinner was fabulous. I had planned a surprise tour, which included biking around the city center on a massive bike while drinking and blasting music, but unfortunately there were not enough people who signed up so it was cancelled luckily this meant we didn't have to rush eating our yummy dinner!
Instead of the tour, we headed off to Fibber Magees for live music which was honestly so much fun! We made friends with one older lady who brought us out to the dance floor, even though nobody was dancing. The four of us began dancing to the TRAD music; we might've look foolish but we were having a ball. We slowly make friends with a bunch of people and get them to dance with us, before we knew it the dance floor was poppin'! After some time goes by, the fiddle player says he has a Greek woman who would like to teach the dance floor how to Greek dance and to please clear the floor. Somehow, I am selected as the single partner to be taught how to Greek dance. Pretty sure I didn't get any step right but it was fun! It's getting late so we decide to send it back to my apartment.
On our walk back, we stumble upon a pizza place that I swear I've never seen before...must be divine intervention because we really could use this pizza! We order our food and meet the star actors who are performing Macbeth in the Grand Opera House. Hilarious because Sarah and I think we know a bunch about Shakespeare, but we don't and probably made fools out of ourselves.
Sarah and Liv head to Giants Causeway in the morning and had an amazing day of adventuring. We recapped over dinner at Maggie Mays and hit the Thirsty Goat to celebrate our final night in Belfast. Unfortunately, our time has come to an end and we head to Dublin Thursday evening and celebrate our last night in our hotel.
Girls, it was a pleasure having you and I think we need to make this an annual thing. Shall we begin planning our next adventure?
Next stop...Switzerland!
Until next time,
PQTH,
HAN