in dublin’s fair city

To start this post off, I just have to say that I've wanted to go to Ireland for years so I had pretty high expectations for it.  It exceeded all of them.  Seriously, it is the most amazing/gorgeous/incredible place on earth.  If I don't make it back to Ireland again I will probably be really depressed.  We took an early flight, so we left for the Stansted Airport at 3 AM (are you starting to see a pattern?  I am and I don't really love it).  We also flew with RyanAir, which is cheap and their service reflects it.  The plane is basically the equivalent of a public bus with wings and the entire flight they're trying to sell you stuff.  Other than one of us (luckily not me) having to go back into a little room and get strip-searched and interrogated, everything went smoothly.  It was crazy.  I was traumatized for her.  (Did I mention that as we were waiting for her some police officer guys carrying AK-47s walked past us with an Arabic guy in handcuffs?  The airport is hopping at 4 in the morning!)

We landed in Dublin, which is easily the happiest big city I've ever been in.  The bus driver was really helpful, the ticket inspector asked to see our tickets and then proceeded to tell us exactly what to see in Dublin and which bus to catch and where to get off, and it just happened to be Lollipop Day, so a bunch of little boys dressed in green were handing out lollipops (you had to make a donation to cancer research to get one, but it was still cool).  We only stayed in Dublin for a few hours on the first day and then caught a bus out to Glendalough (GLEN-da-lock), which is a national park type thing about an hour and a half outside of Dublin.  It was amazing.  The scenery was incredible and we got to see old ruins, a church and cemetery, a lake, and of course, sheep.   It was the most beautiful walk I've ever been on. We got to see a few deer and some ducks and about a billion and a half frogs.  Apparently it's baby froggy season because every pond contained more frog eggs than water, but it was kind of cool to see.

We stayed in a little B&B in a town about 20 minutes away from Glendalough.  The town's name is Laragh (la-RAH), and it's a really quaint little village where everyone knows each other and Friday nights everyone hangs out in the pub, Lynham's.  The owners were named John and Deidre and they were great.  They even gave us a ride up to the pub for dinner so we wouldn't have to walk, then gave us a "torch" (flashlight) for the walk down because the streets aren't lit at night.  I tried venison sausage and mashed potatoes (bangers and mash) and it was great.

The next morning, we ate a traditional Irish breakfast, including Black and White Pudding.  Google that if you don't know what it is, but I will tell you that it's in the blood sausage family.  Annie and I took a bus to Dublin while the other girls stayed in Glendalough.  I really love the country, but my first impression of Dublin was really good and I wanted to get to see it.  Even though it was really crowded because there was an Italy vs. Ireland rugby match that afternoon, the atmosphere was so happy.  Seriously, NO ONE in this city is EVER rude.  That threw me for a loop because I'm used to London, where generally everyone is rude. We got to see Trinity College, which houses The Book of Kells.  We've been learning about it in my history class, so it was great to actually see it.  It's basically a book of illuminated manuscripts by Irish monks containing the Gospels.  All the illustrations and writing are so intricate and beautiful.  Just google it because they don't allow you to take pictures.  After we saw Trinity, we saw Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, a Leprechaun Museum (we had to while we were in Ireland), and several churches.  Just a fun fact: Ireland is still very proud of its "fairie tales."  A tree growing by itself in the middle of a field is often thought to be a "fairy tree."  In 1999, one of the counties in Ireland tried to put a highway in, and a tree widely believed to be a "fairy tree" would be cut down in order to build it.  People threw such a fit and attracted such negative press that the highway plans had to be changed and it was actually built around the tree.

When people asked what my name was and I said Kaylee they'd get really excited because apparently Kaylee is an Irish name, so that was funny.  And I know I've already mentioned it about 25 times, but Irish people are so friendly.  They're honestly the greatest people I've ever met.  Everywhere we went, people were willing to say hello or give advice on what to see or directions or help out in any way they could.  Even vendors we talked to remembered us when they saw us later in the day and they came over to say hi.  I was so sad to leave.  We got back to the Stansted Airport and got in the wrong line to come back through immigration (apparently Ireland isn't an international flight, it's a domestic flight).  The lady at the desk acted like it was the biggest annoyance in the world, even though it was the middle of the night and there wasn't anyone else in line, and said, "Didn't you see the sign?"  Umm . . . obviously we didn't see the sign.  But at least we knew we were back in London.