Singing cockles and mussels alive alive-o!

Ireland was awesome! It was great to see dad and I loved Dublin! I didn't realize how much smaller the population in Dublin (1 million) is than London (15 million) but there was still so much to do.

My plane ride there was interesting. I met some Brazilian boys who became very interested in me once I spoke in my American accent. They asked if they could sit by me on the plane and were fascinated in learning how we say things in the US and were complimenting me the whole trip saying that I was the American dream because of my blonde hair and blue eyes. It was rather flattering but also very interesting.

I landed in Dublin at about 10:30 pm. Dad came to get me and we jetted off to the hotel. It was so good to see him because it had been a long time since i had seen or talked to him. We got up early in the morning and had an Irish breakfast and then set out on the Dublin tour bus. We went to Dublin Castle, Trinity College, Kilmainham Goal (jail) and we saw many churches and other sites, like Molly Malone. We took a walk down O'Connell street and Grafton St. which were awesome! The street entertainment was fabulous and someone was playing music every couple yards. We saw some beautiful churches and got to hear some amazing Irish accents. We ate lunch on the top of a pub and I got the best fish chowder i think i have ever had! We ended the day with a few pubs in Temple Bar. The pub scene in Dublin is so fun. They have live music in most of them as well as beer gardens. I thought that was soo cool! We went to the Temple Bar and then the Arlington Hotel and watched some Irish dancing.

After getting woken up a few times in the night from drunk people leaving the clubs we started out site seeing again. We figured we could use our tickets for the bus tour for 24 hours we ended up using it all day the next day..haha they never checked our tickets. We went to the Christ Church Cathedral and the Guinness Factory (sooo cool!) We got to go to the Gravity Bar which is at the top of the Guinness that looks out over the entire city and we had our complimentary Guinness. Guinness is everywhere in Dublin. They advertise it like crazy! Its about as common to see a Guinness ad as it is to see a colored door (which i loved by the way). Later on we decided to go to the the ocean so we headed out to Bray on the train. It was beautiful and so much fun. I loved getting to see the ocean after being in the city so much.

Dad bought me a Claddagh ring..and the man who sold it to us said if you where this out of Ireland it means you will come back some day. So guess what I did? :) Someday I'll be back! I love it!