Adventures Abroad: Sea of Green

It is amazing how easy it is to travel from Ely. Andrea found a great deal to leave from our local train station and 8 hrs of train and ferry travel we arrive in Dublin, Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. This is something that we both really wanted to do, and figured that we needed to take advantage of the opportunity. Our travels were going very smoothly until about halfway through, our train did not arrive at its scheduled time. Apparently there was an obstruction on the tracks and it was going to be 40 minutes late. This got us a little worried since we only had about 50 minutes of layover at the ferry terminal and after talking with the ferry company, they made it sound like we had to make it on that ferry or we would be out of luck. We arrived 4 minutes too late! Needless to say we were stressed. Fortunately there was another ferry leaving four hours later on another carrier. The train company switched our tickets for us and we had to wait. The ferry terminal is in a small town called Holyhead. It is situated on the seaside and really doesn’t have much to offer. Regardless, we decided to load up our bags, and venture out looking for something to fill our time. All they offered was a small market, some pubs and cafes. We sat on a bench outside of a cool church for a while and enjoyed the views. Our butts quickly got cold from the stone bench, so we decided to go back to the terminal and wait out the rest of our time.

Outside the Terminal in Holyhead

We had a very entertaining time in the ferry terminal. There were these two college aged girls, who were travel around Europe separately that decided to sit together and have a conversation. They must have become close friends quick because their conversation involved things casual acquaintances usually do not talk about. It was conversation usually reserved for the pages of Cosmopolitan magazine. I will spare you the details, but we had a pretty good idea about what they did and didn’t like about their past boyfriends, especially in the anatomy department. We weren’t eavesdropping; they were in the middle of the lobby, talking loud enough for everybody to hear. How American! On that note, they weren’t the only American’s traveling with us. The train and ferry were packed with them. I guess I got a little annoyed because we wanted to go to Dublin to enjoy an Irish St. Patrick’s day, and all we were seeing were Americans. Oh well, I guess we were being a little selfish.

Downtown Dublin

The only nice thing about being delayed for our ferry trip was that we were rebooked on the catamaran ferry. Our three and a half hour trip was only two hours! We quickly went through customs and boarded a bus into downtown Dublin. After a short walk, I expertly navigated us to our hotel. Upon walking into the lobby we were impressed. It was a very whimsical theme. I felt like I was walking into the pages of Alice in Wonderland. The first thing we saw were three, huge, tall back over sized chairs. All the furniture was oversized and ornate. After a quick check-in, we hurriedly made it to our room to drop off our bags and head out for dinner. Since we arrived two hours later than planned, we were very hungry and ready for some Irish cheer.

The "Alice in Wonderland" Chairs

The hotel was located across the street from Trinity College and about 2 blocks from the major restaurant and pub district called Temple Bar. We had heard from some friends that there was a restaurant in Temple Bar called Boxty’s that had amazing food. They weren’t lying. They serve an interesting Irish dish called a boxty. It is essentially a large potato pancake used to make an Irish burrito. Andrea had one filled with lamb, potato, carrots, and onion, and I had corned beef and cabbage. Very interesting dish but delicious. After we finished our dinner and a few pints, it was after 10 pm and we were exhausted. We decided to take a short walking tour around the area then to retire for the evening. We had a few long days ahead of us.

Beer Tasting at Guinness

The next day we woke up, rested and ready for a full day. The big plans were to take the Guinness tour, meet up with a friend that was in town, and then go to a show of Irish folk music and dancing. We walked about two miles to get to the Guinness Storehouse for the factory tour. Andrea had been there before and said the tour was a lot of fun. We arrived at the Storehouse and joined the crowd for the tour. The building is incredible. The central part of the building is designed as a seven story pint glass and is an impressive sight. We did the tour, taking photos along the way. The unfortunate thing is that, you don’t get to see any of the real brewing process. It is all audio visual representations of what actually goes on in the factory. Half way through the tour, I was able to partake in a lesson on how to pour a perfect pint of Guinness. The tour ended on the seventh floor, in a room that is all glass with a 360 degree view of Dublin. It was a beautiful day and we had an amazing unobstructed view of the city. We also got another pint to enjoy with the view. We left the brewery after having two full pints, small tasters along the tour, finding Guinness St. Patrick’s day shirts, and other various souvenirs. Overall, we had a lot of fun and would recommend it to anyone. Even though Andrea had done the tour before, there had been a few changes and she enjoyed herself.

Guinness Stache

It was just past noon when we finished the tour. We were a little buzzed from the Guinness and ready for lunch. We walked the streets and stumbled upon a cool little Italian place for lunch. I had pizza and Andrea had a chicken dish. We were starting to get impressed with the food in Dublin. We were seeing variety everywhere we went, and everything looked and smelled amazing. We had a couple of hours before we met our friend Lincoln at the train station so we decided to head back to Temple Bar area to check out what was going there. The area was packed. Everybody was already in the St. Patrick’s Day mood. People were dressed in green and wearing funny hats. We stumbled upon a boutique hotel called the Morgan, that served martinis in their bar. Andrea had to check it out. She started with a lemon drop, that for some reason they made creamy, and followed it by a chocolate raspberry martini. This one was her favorite. We enjoyed our drinks; I had Guinness and another local beer, and had fun doing some people watching.

Enjoying a Cosmo

We met Lincoln at the train station and ventured off for some more Irish cheer! Our reservations for dinner were at 7:30 pm and it was only 5 pm so we had to find something to fill our time. Since Lincoln was leaving on Wednesday and wouldn’t be able to enjoy St. Paddy’s day in Dublin, we decided to do a little pub crawl through Temple Bar prior to dinner. We had a lot of fun! Every pub had Irish music playing, most with live bands. The atmosphere, even though crowded, was fun and everybody was in a good mood. After visiting three different pubs, we ventured over to the Knightsbridge bar for our dinner and show. The dinner was pretty good but the entertainment was fantastic. A band of three guys played traditional Irish music while we ate. After they played, five dancers took the stage for traditional Irish dancing. If you’ve seen Riverdance, imagine that, but smaller. We had a decent dinner, great entertainment, and a ton of fun. We finally called it a night around midnight and made it back to our hotel.

Irish Dancing

Prior to going to bed, we stopped by the front desk to find out about the parade. It started at noon, and they recommended that we get there two hours early. We ventured out around nine am the next morning to find a good breakfast and then stake out spots. To our surprise people were already starting to line up and take the prime spots along the route. After breakfast we walked along the parade route and finally found a place where we could be right along the rail and have a good view of the parade. We were excited about having a good spot, just not excited about having to stand in place for two hours waiting for it to start. The two hours were well spent doing people watching. It was really humorous to see all the interesting outfits/costumes. Andrea especially liked the huge group of women wearing pink shirts and stiletto heels there for a charity run.

Waiting for the Parade to Start

The parade was like nothing else we have ever seen. There were a few marching bands, but the rest was made mostly of dance troupes, in really weird, colorful costumes. The floats were all self propelled, and most of them were blasting weird music. We really felt like we were watching something from Alice in Wonderland. It was just weird! Make sure to check out the pictures on our web album because words cannot do it justice.

Some of the Weird Costumes at the Parade

After wading our way through the crowds, we found our way to the Jamison whiskey factory. We thought about doing the tour, but we found out that they didn’t distill any of their whiskey onsite so we just hit the gift shop and poked around a little. To our surprise, the factory was packed with people. Apparently, there is a yearly promotion help by Jamison to bring in radio stations from around the word to broadcast in Dublin on St. Patrick’s day. We saw 102.5 from Seattle, stations from almost every major city in US, as well as some from Brazil, Argentina, and some other countries. It was pretty cool to see.

Post Parade Crowd

After a short break to drop stuff off at our hotel room, we were ready to hit Temple Bar for some St. Paddy’s day celebration. It was absolutely packed! It was hard to walk along the street let alone get into a pub. It was a sea of green everywhere we went. Andrea and I both felt a little out of place because we weren’t decked out in green. All I had was an Irish scarf I bought to fit in better. One of the essential items we had to find while in Dublin was Bailey’s ice cream. We found it in Temple bar, which made Andrea very happy! We made it into a few pubs and had a Guinness or two, but it was time for dinner. We decided to find a Tapas restaurant we saw the day prior. The meal was fantastic! Full and ready for some more fun, we worked our way back towards Temple Bar. The rest of the evening was moving from pub to pub, just enjoying the crowds and having fun. We must be getting old, because we were back at the hotel by midnight, exhausted. I’m glad we did because we had another full day of traveling ahead of us. Stay tuned for the rest of our trip and our visit to Northern Ireland.