Dublin, Ireland

Hey guys - we made it to Dublin safely, and so far we can already tell we're going to love the city.  We're heading out explore for now, but we're going to be home on Monday so we'll see everyone soon!  I hope everyone is having fun at home!

~ Mike

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Getting to Dublin was definitely an adventure.  To save money we woke up and took a train from Amsterdam to Brussels, and then a bus from Brussels to the airport so we could fly to Dublin.  We arrived in Dublin somewhat late, so after we got there we checked in to our hostel and went straight to bed. 

The next morning we woke up to a rainy Dublin, 

and began exploring.  We decided to first go to the Guinness Brewery, which was a great decision.  We got to see how Guinness was made, the history of the beer, and then taste Guinness at the top of the Brewery.  We

discovered that it is true that Guinness tastes better in Dublin than it does anywhere else.  

After the brewery we checked out the Temple Bar and Trinity College.  Trinity College was gorgeous, and had the most green grass I think I've ever seen in my life.  Unfortunately, Dublin had hurricane-force winds while we were there, and we had to dodge trash cans and bicycles that were being blown across the lawn.  

After exploring we got some coffee and went back to the hostel before meeting up with one of my Theta Chi brothers studying in Dublin, Tavis.  

Tavis took us to a great pub for dinner where we watched some rugby for a bit before heading out to a few clubs.  He brought us to some awesome places with live bands, great DJs, and amazing 

atmospheres.  I highly suggest Eamonn Doran if you like live music and a great place to party.  We ended up staying out pretty late before heading a couple blocks back to our hostel to sleep for the night.

We woke up the next day to a sunny morning in Dublin and went out exploring again.  We went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was a beautiful church.  It had some amazing history in it with beautiful architecture, but the fact that it cost us some money to get into made us a little less

 excited to be there.  After walking around for a while enjoying the city, we decided to go to an exhibit that we had come across the day before called Dublinia.  The exhibit chronicled the

 history of Dublin in a 4-floor museum.  The museum taught us almost everything there was to know about the history of Dublin, but it ended in an interesting way - we lost Alex.  We had gotten ahead of him in the museum and he tried to catch up.  Unfortunately, he passed by us and couldn't find us anywhere.  After searching for us, he went back to the hostel.  He sat there for a long time while we looked for him.  After probably 45 minutes of searching, we decided to go back to the hostel as well and found Alex sitting there.  In the end, we were pretty proud that we never lost each other until the final day of the trip.

We went out for one final dinner together before the trip ended.  We had a few beers, talked for a while, and went to bed early so we could make our 9 am flight back to Newark the next morning.  

See more of my pictures from Dublin here.