On February 5-7, the girls and I went to Dublin for the weekend. All of us were really excited for this trip. We planned a Guinness tour, Jameson Tour, a walking tour, and a pub crawl. To say got a taste of Ireland is an understatement. On the way there, our plane was delayed and we arrived in Dublin later than expected. We rushed to our hotel and then rushed to the Guinness Storehouse for our tour. It was rainy and everyone was stressed out because our tickets for the Guinness tour were set for that day. We made it on time! Once we got to the Guinness Storehouse, we did a self-guided tour and at the end we were able to pour our own glass of Guinness. I didn't know if I would actually like the beer, but I was very excited to pour it. Our guide was very talkative and nice. He asked us where we were from and he said that he actually lived in Holland, Michigan for a few years. I poured my glass of Guinness and we took photos with our Guinness certificates. Next, we went to the gift shop where I bought a few presents for myself and my family. We were still drinking our pints as we were shopping and no one seemed to care. As we were leaving the storehouse, we realised there wasn't anywhere to put the glasses. Naturally, we put them into our gift bags and carried on outside (free souvenir?). By the time we got to the hotel, Kelsey and I were starving. Being the light weights that we are, we went to the bar at the hotel and ordered a cheesecake and a massive bowl of mashed potatoes to split. Less than a half hour later, we were leaving the hotel once again to meet up with our friend Brenna from Saint Mary's. She is studying abroad in Maynooth, Ireland for the semester and we planned on meeting her at the pub crawl. We arrived at the first bar and the director of the program (who looked like Jesus) immediately gave us 4 euro for 2 pints coupons. We went inside and chatted with other people in the pub crawl. I met a girl from Australia who studied for a semester in Manchester, England and two boys from Virginia Tech who were studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. Overall, the pub crawl was quite the experience. We went to about 5 bars and each of them were completely different. Most of them had live music and dancing, but the crowds differed. Eventually we decided it was time to head back to the hotel because we had a big day ahead of us!

On Saturday, we woke up and got ready for our Sandemans walking tour. This is the same tour guide company that we used in Munich, Germany. Before the tour, we stopped at a really cute cafe and got breakfast. I'm in love with the breakfast here. During the tour, we saw the Dublin Castle, the Cathedral, Trinity College and much more! We walked down one of the streets that was filmed in the movie P.S. I Love You. and we also visited the pub where U2 was born. After the walking tour, we ate lunch and explored the city on our own for a bit. In the afternoon, we headed to the Jameson Distillery. We ended up going to the wrong Distillery, let's just say my friend Katie had no idea what she was doing when she bought our tickets. But it all worked out. We had to wait for an hour or so, but that gave us enough time to buy souvenirs and drink Irish Coffee. This was the first time all of us could relax and enjoy ourselves. We befriended the bartender and he let us go behind the bar and took a photo of us. We did so much in such a short amount of time and the day was catching up with us. The tour was short and sweet. We ended up trying a lot of Whiskey (more than I needed). And at the end they gave us whiskey and ginger ale cocktails which were amazing.

After the Jameson tour, we took a cabbie to dinner. The concierge at the hotel recommended a restaurant not too far away. We got in the cab and he took off in the opposite direction of our hotel. I was pretty confused, but went with it because to be honest my judgment was clouded and I trusted my soberer friends. However, when we arrived at this restaurant, I realised I was right. We ended up at some bar that only served people 21 and over and to make it even worse they didn't serve food. We had to take another cab back to the restaurant that our first cab driver didn't know of. By the time we got there, we were famished. I ordered traditional Irish stew and it was delicious. They served our stew with beer bread as well. I didn't taste any beer, but it was good! After this, we headed back into the Temple Bar District and began bar hopping. The first bar we went to was absolutely packed. There was a live band, dancing, and lots of chanting and singing. This weekend happened to be a big rugby weekend. Ireland was playing Wales and it was a massive deal. The bars were packed with guys and not to mention old men, all of which were too drunk for their own good. We finally found a bar that we liked and within minutes we met some new friends. Unfortunately, these guys weren't Irish, but Welsh will do! They were from Cardiff, Wales and came to Dublin for the weekend to see the rugby game. We talked for some time before a live band went on stage. Every song was either Johnny Cash, U2, or some song you think you've heard, but barely know the words to. Of course, everyone else in the bar knew the songs as they were belligerently screaming the lyrics. One of the guys I met, Nate, kept singing the songs to me, thinking I would catch on... But I didn't. Before I knew it, it was way too late and it was time to say goodbye. We headed back to our hotel and crashed. I still keep in touch with Nate and I think were trying to meet again when we go to London next week!

Sunday morning we woke up and got another traditional Irish breakfast. Beans on toast is my new favourite breakfast food. By midday, rugby fans crowded the streets and bars of Dublin. Everyone wore their team's colours as they paraded around the town. We shopped and snacked around for a little bit before heading back to the hotel to leave. We got a cab to the airport and before I knew it, we were back in Rome.

This weekend was definitely one that I am going to remember. I've never experienced anything like Dublin before. Everyone is your best friend in Ireland. They cherish family, beer, and sports over stressful things like work. I definitely want to try to be more laid back like these people. I will be going back to Ireland someday because I feel like I could've stayed there for weeks and weeks. I want to see the countryside, the cliffs of moher, and the more traditional lifestyles of Ireland.

Here are my photos from Dublin---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Before we knew it, it was 4 o'clock and we had to check into our hotel. Once again, we took the metro. We arrived to our stop which was Harras and a short walk later we had arrived to our hotel. We all passed out for about an hour in the hotel. Although the bed look ridiculously small and awkward, it was probably the warmest and coziest bed I've ever slept in. We ate dinner at some hole in the wall next door because we had no idea where else to go. By now, my friend Katie had contacted her friends Niels and Arne. They are German exchange students that she met at her high school in California. One of them lives in Munich and the other one drove two hours just to spend time with us over the weekend. They came to our hotel in Arne's freakishly small car and drove us back to Niels' flat. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not really sure why we went back to his flat. But it was really cool to meet his flatmates and see how young people live in Germany. This was also the moment when Niels said that we were going to take the metro to his sister's flat for a pre game. And all of us knew that we had forgotten something. We had to walk back to our hotel from the flat to get our dumb little metro ticket that no one ever checks for. We thought it's better safe than sorry and a half hour later, we were on the metro to God knows where.

I had no idea what to expect after meeting these boys. Could they understand me? Where are they taking us? And why do they keep speaking German to one another? I'm almost positive they were talking about us while we were standing right in front of them. But, both of them were very nice and outgoing. They seemed to know what they were doing, so I immediately felt comfortable traveling around with them. When we got to the pre game, all of us were a little apprehensive. But Niel's sister was very welcoming and we ended up staying there from 11 pm to 1 am. They gave us beer, which is way better than any other beer I've been given at a pre-game. I probably didn't appreciate the special German taste as much as I should have, but hey, at least I drank it! They played German music and we played American music. We found out that we know no German music and they know a lot of American music. We ended up played KINGS until we ran out of cards and interest. This was probably one of the most fun pre-games that I've ever been to. I would've been content going home right after this, however Germans like to stay up very late and party. Let's just say when we left that flat, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

A short bus ride later, I found myself in my first ever club. Who knew it would be in Munich, Germany of all place. It turned out to be a little different from how I expected it to be. The DJ was constantly shouting over the music and the majority of the songs were German. Random people kept coming up to us and trying to dance with us. However, Arne and Niels (being the polite guys they are) pulled us out of the awkward situation. Every time someone creepy would come up, one of them immediately grabbed my hands and started dancing with me, only to turn me around so their body was blocking the creeper away. Minus the weird people, it was a good time! We danced until someone decided it was time to go. By now, it was 4 a.m. and all of us realized we had a 10:45 a.m. three hour walking tour in the morning. We said goodbye to our new friends and headed back to our hotel. We slept for about 4 hours that night and then we woke up and headed back into town for the tour.

The tour was very interesting and free (the most important part). We learned about the Glockenspiel and at 11:00 am the Glockenspiel clock rang. Our tour guide said it was one of the top five most overrated tourist attractions in the world. But we watched the clock anyway. The cool thing about this clock is that there are moving figures that dance around on the clock tower and they tell an old German tale (sorry I've forgotten the story). From then on, we wandered throughout the city. I picked up some fun facts like when someone turns eighteen in Munich, the town hall sends them a letter inviting them to a massive party. Our tour guide said that all the kids get completely smashed at this party, but we asked Niels and Arne and they said it was more of a political gathering. We went back to the Habrauhaus and our tour guide told us that the "best beer" in town was actually at the beer hall down the street. I also got to see a street that Germans would take to avoid saluting Hitler's monument. This is when I realized that I was walking through history. Hitler started his Nazi movement in Munich and I was in silently freaking out. We could see bullet holes in the old buildings and the remains of plaques that were put up during the Holocaust.

After the tour, we ate a delicious little lunch. I got these cute brats with sauerkraut and mustard (it actually tasted a lot like the kind my mom makes).After lunch, the girls and I went for a wintery walk through the English Gardens. Since it's winter, we didn't see any surfers in the river. On the bright side, it started to warm up and we got to take some cute photos in the snow. We went to Starbucks to warm up from our walk and then we realized the boys had been trying to get a hold of us. Oops. They met us at Starbucks and we left shortly after to grab a bite for dinner. Niels' said he knew this really popular Turkish place, so I was quite excited because I've never tried it before. We went to the metro station and thats when the tragedy happened. The metro came and we all got on... Or so we thought. It just so happened that the doors closed before Kelsey and Arne could get on. It was like it all happened in slow motion: I locked eyes with Kelsey and I before I knew it, I was zooming away on the metro. Arne was the one that didn't live in Munich and he also didn't know where we were going. So naturally, I was freaking out. Niels was laughing hysterically saying it would be no big deal and called Arne to tell him where to get off. Within minutes we were reunited with them. Did I forget to mention that Arne's phone was at 2%. Our journey continued to the "famous" Turkish restaurant.
This is what we saw:

We all died laughing as Niels just looked at the restaurant in disbelief. The poor kid was starving. So, we set of in search of another restaurant that was actually opened. Arne said he wanted a "cozy" restaurant and I think we did pretty well here. Niels said it was traditional Bavarian which is the German state that we were in. The entire menu was in German which meant they had to translate it for us. They made us try this German drink that is a mix of apple juice and sparkling water. I ended up getting a salad with chicken, cucumbers, peppers, and some other stuff. There were even potatoes in it! After finishing my meal, I passed it to Arne because he was a bottomless pit and ate everyone's leftovers. We sat and talked for about two hours after eating. It was probably one of my favorite memories I will have of Germany. We talked about our majors, our futures, and the places we want to travel to. It was overwhelming. We had so much in common, yet we grew up with completely different lives. We all share the same passion for traveling and learning, but always carry the burden of deciding what we want to do for our career and what our path is. It was nice to have people interested in where I am going in my life. They were both very attractive as well which just made me even more flustered. Don't worry, I don't think they noticed.

After dinner, we hopped back on the metro and made our way back to the hotel. We talked outside the hotel for a few minutes, dreading the goodbyes. It was such a good weekend and I didn't want it to end yet. But we were exhausted and they had to study for finals. So, we hugged goodbye and I was surprised to hear Niels say that he would come and visit us in Rome while we're still here. The next morning, we went to the bakery across the street from our hotel for breakfast and then to St. Peter's Cathedral for mass. But we missed mass, so we prayed and sat in silence for a while. I couldn't stop staring at the beautiful art in the church. After mass, we walked around town one last time and eventually we got back on the metro to the airport. Our flight got delayed because there was a snowstorm, so we arrived in Rome around 6:00 p.m. Once we got home, the first thing we did was go out for pizza. Both the boys texted us and said that they're both coming Rome sometime soon, which is very exciting!!! I know this is a really long rambling post, but I had such a good weekend and it was honestly nothing I expected. I hope my next weekend trips are as good as this one, because all four of us can agree this was one of our best decisions.

Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far!!

Pictures from Munich------------------------------------------

Airplane Selfie

A very very old lady took this for us in the English Gardens. Well done!!

Our hotel gave us this cookie and we thought we could eat. It turned out to be nasty and when we asked Niels and Arne they said that those cookies are only for show and you aren't suppose to eat them. LOL Whoops..

Arne stole my camera at dinner

Already missing our German friends!!