So this weekend i went to dublin.

i give the city a B+. it's shitty transportation system and it's lack of things to do other than drink is kind of a setback. it's also insanely expensive. i'm sure if i were irish it would have had more excitement involved. but it just wasn't that cool or pretty. i still liked it and had a great time.

dublin is an interesting city. it's pretty small and most distances are walkable, even if they are a little far. guinness owns the entire city. ironically, i think there's a heineken brewery or office there. guinness flows freely in dublin and it is delicious. the beer i drank at the guinness storehouse was fresh and incredible. it was heaven.

the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport) is the public transportation system. simply put: if i had to deal with that on a regular basis, i would lose my mind. in spite of its name, it is not very rapid. it's an entirely above ground train and it frequently disrupts traffic because it runs across major roads. furthermore, the automatic gates stop the traffic before the train arrives at the station, and then stay down as everyone boards the train. finally the train actually crosses the road. does it make sense? ABSOLUTELY NOT. during off-peak hours, the trains run very infrequently, usually 20 minutes apart. it more closely resembles nj transit than a public transport line through a major city.

thursday night involved the musical pub crawl. two irish musicians took us to a few pubs and played irish music for us. they were awesome. irish music is awesome and anyone who goes to dublin should really do the pub crawl. you won't regret it. the pub crawl ended with a bunch of IC students pretended we could do irish dancing and bouncing around in a circle.
crawl is definitely the key word after 3 pints of guinness and a straight glass of bailey's. and that was only before 10. another pint of guinness and a glass of jameson's followed. i regretted that on friday morning.

on friday we went to a jail where i lost a contact lense. i had to go all the way back to the hotel to get my glasses, which meant wandering around the city with no depth perception. after retrieving my glasses, i arrived at the guinness storehouse, which was kind of like a religious experience. i accidentally got drunk in the afternoon because guinness in dublin is way too strong. however, it was the best, freshest guinness in the world and i loved every second of it. at the end of the tour, you go to the gravity bar which is a bar on top of the storehouse. it's very high up, entirely windows, and gives you an excellent view of dublin.

On friday night, we celebrated barb's 21st birthday. we had delicious italian food and then went to a few pubs and listened to irish music. at some point, bill (our program director) bought me a guinness. bill is awesome. after drinking a guinness, i decided to go outside, where i ran into EMILY MARION AND HER PARENTS. crazy, huh? turns out she's studying in dublin and her parents were in town for her b-day. good times!

on saturday we walked around the seaside. it was seriously amazing and beautiful every step of the way. the walk was intense. my feet are only starting to recover now. we were standing on these cliffs, and it felt like i was standing at the edge of the earth. i was so high up and there was nothing but water in front of me. no picture of mine could do that scene justice.

dublin was a good weekend, but kind of tiring. i also went broke. i didn't buy any groceries until today, and today it was more like a few veggies, noodles, and eggs. as they say in london....

I'M SKINT!

*sharon