Easter in Dublin

Well I must say this Easter was unlike any I have ever experience and it was absolutely wonderful!  Friday afternoon I traveled with 4 other friends to Dublin.  We were a little surprised to learn that every pub and bar in the city were closed due to Good Friday, but we were assured that this meant everyone was EXTRA crazy on Saturday.  So we grabbed some Chinese food then had a pretty low key night.

Saturday morning we were up super early for a full day bus tour of the Irish countryside.  This was such an awesome experience.  The guide was a bubble older Irish man with a robust gut and a little tiny tie but he was very informative and made the day very enjoyable.  We were able to see the bogs, scenes from p.s. i love you and braveheart, monastic ruins, and beautiful countryside.  We stopped for lunch in a quaint little village and were able to enjoy our first Irish meal! (Alright I had Salmon and a beer but still wonderful).  After the tour we explored the city some more on our own and were able to see St. Patty's Cathedral (sooo beautiful), Christ's Church, Henry Street and other Dublinish sights.  The weather was absolutely wonderful and it was such a relaxing day.  That night we hit some Irish bars around the Temple Bar area and were able to see live Irish music and drink plenty on Guinness!

      

Sunday, being the good children that we are, we decided to wake up at 7:00 (yikessss!) to catch the 8:00 service at St. Patty's for Easter; however, apparently we had the times confused and the service wasn't until later.  No problem, we decided it would be a perfect time to head over to the Guinness factory!  Apparently God caught wind of our plan, and on the way over he sent a giant bird to poop on my friend Grant's head! Quite funny, and we still decided to visit the factory.  This is a really cool interactive brewery tour and concludes with a free Guinness at the Gravity bar which overlooks the entire city.  After the brief stint at the beer factory we headed back to Church only to find we had the times wrong again!  Again no problem, we headed to Trinity College and explored the city on our own!  Again it was another beautiful day (pretty rare in Dublin) and we were so excited to see all the Irish locals and happenings of the city.   

Finally we made in back to the cathedral for a 3:15 service.  It was an awesome hymnal service full of beautiful singing by the all men's choir.  Unfortunately there was a slight slip-up on our part.  Several of the boys and men had solos.  Well one of the poor boys was clearly in a rather awkward stage on puberty and sounded like a drunk kermit the frog!  We could barely contain our laughter and had to focus super hard to get through that part of the service!  After this we headed back to the Temple bar area to enjoy the area.  We had another traditional Irish meal then were able to see an adorable, elderly Irish band complete with flutes, guitars and singing.  It was awesome!

Monday morning we walked around a bit then headed back!  I only have 3 days until I leave for Amsterdam so it's a very busy week!

paix

Leah