Once we got settled in, we headed to the Dublin Zoo, but we got there just in time for it to close. So, as we were walking back we decided to stop and watch a game of cricket. I couple of the players noticed us watching and came over to talk cricket with us. They tried to explain the game to us, but we concluded that it looks cool for a moment, but it's actually a pretty boring game to watch. lol
After that, we found our way to a street called Temple Bar. Supposedly, it has the most bars on one street then in any other place in the world. But, this is Ireland so that may not come to a surprise to most people. Anyway, we ate that this cool Irish pub and we drank Bulmer's....which is an awesome Irish hard cider.
Besides a ton of bars, Temple Bar street has a lot of street performers and just a lot of strange things to see in general.
For our 2nd day in Ireland, Jade and I took a bus tour out into the country to the Wicklow Mountains. It honestly looked just like in the movies. Lots of green, moss and flocks of sheep off in the distance on a hill. We had to leave early in the morning, so please excuse the way I look.
Two French boys were on our trip. They were sitting at the edge of this cliff and I snapped a pic.
Our main stop was at the ruins of this 13th century monastery at the foot of the Wicklow mountains. Some of the buildings were still intact, others just the foundation remained. There was also a graveyard here with beautiful Celtic crosses as the headstones.
Once our bus stopped here, our driver told us we had about 2 hours to wander around before we had to leave. So, I took the opportunity to walk the trails up the mountain in order to get a few great shots.
This photo was quite a feat for me, since I was by myself, the wind was blowing 100 miles per hour, I was learning on the spot how to use the timer on my new camera and it was so bright I really could not see what I was taking a picture of. Somehow, I managed this shot.
Last pic before I had to head back to the bus.
Now, if you notice, in the center of the photo is the monastery and tower that I had pictures of earlier. Well, at the time of this picture, I had exactly 30 minutes to get from where I was taking the picture on the mountain, back to that monastery. In my head, I was sure that I could make it back in time. However, as I literally began to sprint back down the trails, I knew I was in danger of being late for the bus. To make matters worse, I was running in flip-flops. Just as I was almost back to where I had to be, with about 5 minutes to spare, my flip-flop slipped on the wet mud and I went down hard on my left knee. I got up, checked myself out, and kept running like an idiot. My leg and flip-flops were dirty from slipping in the mud, so I quickly ran over to this spring that was there to rinse off. That's when I noticed that my pants were oddly way wetter when I had originally thought when I first fell. I started to rinse off my feet, shoes and legs when I noticed that my shorts weren't wet from mud or water, but from blood. I pulled up my shorts to look at my knee and I had really cut open my knee and there was blood on me, my shorts, and my coat. I rinsed off the best I could and kept running to get back to the bus. Just as I was reaching the restrooms, I ran into Jade and she says, "Hurry up! You're late and the bus is getting ready to leave!". I quickly ran to the bathroom, grab some tissues and try to rinse off my leg some more and then run back to the bus. Of course, I was the last one on. I sat next to Jade and turned my body towards her to try and hide my bloody mess from the other people on the bus. The first thing out of my mouth was, "Don't freak out". Luckily, I had some wetnaps in my day bag, so I grabbed those and used them to clean up as much of the mess as possible. When we got back to Dublin, we went back to our hostel so I could fix my knee. Jade noticed that the front desk had a first aid kit, so we asked for some bandaides from that. When we got up to our room, I literally went right into the tub to strip off my clothes and rinse them out the best that I could. The cut on my knee wasn't big, but it was kind of deep and I suppose I should have gotten a stitch, but I didn't. After making myself decent, Jade and I ran to a pharmacy and got some more bandaids and disinfectant. It's been almost a month now, and I still have a scab on my knee and it still hurts. But, it was worth it to get those great pictures! :)
Once we got cleaned up from our day in Wicklow, we went out for the evening to celebrate the 4th of July in Dublin. Funny things was, the bars there were celebrating the 4th too.....but since this is Ireland, I suppose they will make up any excuse to drink. Anyway, this bar we ended up at was giving out cowboy hats in honor of the American holiday. It seems that everywhere we go in Europe, the people here associate cowboy hats with America. It's super funny.
The next day, Jade and I ran around the city of Dublin hitting all the big tourist destinations. They have this bus called the Hop on Hop off. Actually, a lot of cities over here have a similar bus system. You can buy a ticket for the day and you just ride the bus around town. At each stop you can get off, tour the area, go back to the same stop, get back on the bus and ride to the next tourist stop. It's a great way to get around town fast and it's cheap too.
Using the Hop on Hop Off, we travelled to the Dublin Zoo, Trinity College, St. Patrick's Cathedral, Guinness, and the Jameson Distillery.
The next morning, we had to be at the airport bright and early. To save on luggage costs, Jade and I shared one big suitcase and we each had a carry-on. Because we bought so much stuff in Ireland, our bags were jammed packed. When we got to the airport to check-in, we found out that our bag was over 25 kilos (55 lbs). The lady checking us in was being really nice, but she said that we had to take some weight out in order to check our bag. We took out some clothes and other random things to stuff into our carry-on, but we just couldn't make the weight. We had packed a 6-pack of the Irish hard cider, Bulmers, into our luggage and we knew that we were just going to have to sacrifice the beer to get our luggage on board. So, we ripped open our suitcase and pulled out the 6 bottles of Bulmers. Even with that taken out, we were just a little over, but close enough to get our luggage on board. The girl checking us in looked at us and asked if there was any way that we could take more items out of our bag so we could put the Bulmers back in. It was like a huge crime against humanity that this beer was going to go to waste. Even people in line behind us were sad that we couldn't take it with us. We told her that it was ok and she could just have the bottles of beer. Otherwise, if we didn't make the weight, it was going to cost us an extra 100 Euros for the suitcase. She then said to us, "I can't let you go home without this beer, just grab 2 bottles and put them back in your suitcase and I'll let the bag go through". I couldn't believe how nice she was! So, we shoved 2 bottles back into our suitcase and made our way to the plane for our flight home to Prague.
