We left really early on Friday morning to take a taxi to the airport. There, we boarded our flight and an hour and a half later we were in Ireland, Dublin to be exact. We decided to take a weekend trip to Ireland with four of our flatmates. We took the bus from the airport to our airbnb. The airbnb was very small but it worked for the two nights we were there. Right across from our apartment were two apartments with garnet and gold doors, we thought this was fitting so we took a picture with the doors. Go Noles! We were all super tired from our flight but we had no time to waste so we decided to go exploring right away.

We decided to walk around the city and find a place to eat. It was only 10:30am but we had been up since 3:30am so we were hungry for lunch. Turns out, places don’t open until 11:30 or 12 for lunch so we made a pit stop at McDonalds. After having some fries we headed out exploring. Dublin was a cute city and kind of reminded us a little of London. However, there were more pubs and they were way cuter! We also found this giant pole in the middle of the road that we later found out was called the Spire. It was a really cool sculpture but we are all still confused why it was there in the middle of the street. After exploring the city we found a pub called the old mill and decided to eat there. The food was incredible and the place was so cute. After lunch we headed to a little market. It was a super cute market with a little cupcake stand. Sammie and I decided to get two mini cupcakes to share and they were delicious! After the market we popped into a few shops that included vintage shops, candy shops, and souvenir shops. We had a tour booked for 4pm at the Guinness Storehouse so we made our way over there. We took some pictures at the front gate and headed in. It was a self guided tour. The storehouse was used as the brewery in the past but now is just a tourist site. A really cool fact we learned was that it was shaped as a pint of beer. We were told that it is the largest “pint” in the world and would take about 14 million regular pints to fill it. This seems like a lot of beer but Guinness can produce that in about 4 days!! On our tour we learned about the whole process of making Guinness from start to finish. It was amazing. We got to try mini glasses of Guinness, we got to taste test a beer called Hop House and watch our waiters do an Irish dance to a Kanye West song, and we got to pour our own glass of Guinness. It was really cool to learn how to pour the beer behind the bar, a lot more goes into than you think! After we poured our glass, and got a certificate that verifies us as legit Guinness bartenders, we headed to the zero gravity bar to enjoy the beer. The view was beautiful and the beer was very nice! Sydney really enjoyed the Guinness but Sam is more of a light beer kind of girl. After we finished our beers we headed to the gift shop to buy some t-shirts. We ended our night with some more McDonald’s (hey, what can I say, it’s cheap and tasty). We all passed out once we made it back to the flat because we were exhausted and had an early morning again on Saturday.

Saturday we woke up at 5am to meet for a tour that started at 6:45am. The tour took us to many locations such as Kilmacduah, the Cliffs of Moher, and Galway. Thankfully our first stop wasn’t for 2 hours so we all took a cat nap. Our first stop was very exciting. It was a gas station where we picked up food for both breakfast and lunch. After that stop we went back to sleep because our next stop was still an hour or so away. The next stop was at Kilmachuah which was an old monastery from the 7th century. It was very cool to see! After that we drove a few more hours (for reference we drove all the way from the East coast clear over to the opposite side on the west coast) we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher. The view was breathtaking! It looked like a fake computer desktop photograph. It was beautiful. We took many photos there but the pictures really do not capture the beauty. We found a grassy patch to sit on and we were able to stick our head over the edge to see the water below (sorry mom and dad). It was really cool but very freaky. Unfortunately we could not spend all day there so we headed back to the bus for our last stop of the day. We made it to the town of Galway just before dinner. We only had an hour and fifteen minutes there so we were a bit rushed. We walked around a little market for a bit and we also went to a traditional Claddagh Jewellers store. We all bought Claddagh rings which have a unique meaning (there is a picture below). The hands represent friendship, the heart represents love, and the crown represents loyalty. Your relationship status is shown by which finger it is on and which direction the ring is facing. I have looked into these rings before, among other Celtic traditions, and have wanted one for a long time. I was very happy to get one from an actual shop in Ireland. We didn’t have much time left so we stopped at a place called Supermac’s for takeout. Supermac’s is Irelands version of McDonalds. We had a chicken sandwich and it was amazing! On the drive home we found out the women sitting behind us graduated from FSU (as did her husband and two daughters). It is such a small world! We had a nice time chatting with her and also sleeping on the way home. When we finally made it home (after a 14 hour day) we decided, since it was our last night, to go to a pub. We decided to only go for one drink each but we had so much fun one drink turned into two and two drinks turned into us stopping at a karaoke bar. We sang Somebody to Love by Queen and in my head we sounded great but watching the video back the next morning showed otherwise. We had fun nonetheless. After butchering a Queen song we headed home to pack and sleep because we had to catch our flight really early Sunday morning.

The trip to Ireland flew by so fast and we were hardly there for 48 hours but we had a great time. Ireland is beautiful and the people are so nice! It is a place that I would want to go again and spend some more time there. I really want to go back for another Guinness beer because they don’t taste the same outside of Ireland and it was the best beer I had! Until next time Ireland! -SYD & SAM

Garnet and gold doors!