Erin Go Bragh: Beautiful Wicklow, the Best of Friends, and Good Craic

Dia dhuit!

Sorry that it has taken me so long to blog again as my life here in Dublin has gotten even crazier (if possible)! These past three weeks have flown by incredibly fast and I love it here more each and every day.

Last Monday I started classes at Dublin Business School. Although signing up for classes was a long and tedious process, I eventually figured it all out! I'm taking Marketing, Finance, Abnormal Psychology and Business Math. So far all my professors seem to be helpful and the students are young, but friendly.

This past Thursday Amanda came to visit! On Friday morning, we headed out early for a tour with Wild Wicklow Tours. Our tour guide, Stephen, greeted us in the morning by pouring Jameson into our coffee cups. When he said "There's 7 more of these," we all laughed and thought he was kidding. No, he wasn't kidding. We started the tour by driving around Dublin and hearing the history of the North and the South side of the city before heading out to Kiliney Beach in search of Bono. We stopped by the water at the Forty Foot and took our first shot of Jameson of the day. The Jameson was all that warmed us because the air was cold, and the water even colder! A bunch of swimmers had just gotten out of the ice cold water and were offering up their bathing suits for us to swim! If it was this cold now, I can only imagine how frigid it will be when we go swimming there in a few weeks.

After boarding the bus again, we were off to the Wicklow mountains. As we winded through the narrow streets we encountered many vehicles, to all of which my tour guide would gesture to back up. If they didn't budge, Stephen would start waving a bottle of whiskey back and forth as if he were on an airport runway. As Stephen said, he never lost a battle and everyone backed up. Typically, Stephen would offer them a shot of Jameson once they backed up their car. The drivers happily took the shot behind the wheel and continued on their way. One man backed up the side of a steep cliff so impressively that Stephen gave him an entire bottle of whiskey. It was absolutely hysterical. When we weren't crippled with laughter at our tour guide, we were looking out over the magical hills and fields of Wicklow. We drove through Enniskerry, took photos on a cliff overlooking an enormous lake, sat on the bridge shown in P.S. I Love You, and coasted past the wedding scene from Brave Heart. Later that afternoon, we stopped for lunch in a small village in the hills, called Tara. For lunch we headed to the local pub and I tried my first beef and Guinness stew. I was in heaven.

After much excitement and many, many pictures, we headed back to Dublin (seven bottles of whiskey later, he wasn't kidding). After a full day of exploring the lush country side I was very reluctant to go back to the city. But ironically enough, as we pulled into town, Stephen gave us his top three pub recommendations and (Dad, you'll appreciate this) he said O'Donoghues is his favorite pub in Dublin. We'll be headed there next week for some live music.

Saturday morning we all got up bright and early to head towards Malahide to see the beautiful castle and quaint seaside town located there. Unfortunately, the castle was closed for renovations but we had a great time walking around the gardens in the sunshine and eating lunch in a local pub. Saturday night, Sara arrived. It was absolutely surreal having two of my oldest friends with me in Ireland! We had such a great night together and I am so lucky that I got to see them both. Sara left today, and as sad as it was to say goodbye, I get to see both my friends again in less than a month when I head to London for the Patriots game!

On our tour the other day, our tour guide said, "Happy days, better nights." I loved it so much that it stuck with me. Both the days and nights here have been incredible thus far and I am so lucky I got to share a few great ones with my oldest friends! This weekend my program is headed west to Galway so stay tuned!