So... Hi! Last weekend, we decided to head over to Dublin, Ireland!!! At first, we wanted to go to Germany for Oktoberfest except flights and accommodation was too expensive :( but I am super glad we made the decision to go to Dublin! Not only did we have a chance to explore Ireland through advice from locals, or shop to my heart's content, but I got to be reunited with my one true love, Tim Hortons ♥_♥ OH, and I finally got to speak English and feel normal haha
06/10/2012 :: First and foremost, we arrived at the airport at a normal time and that in itself is an accomplishment. This was the first time I have gotten to the airport at a normal time, and not 4 or 5am.. So I was a very happy camper :)! Might I also add that it took me 30 minutes to pack the night before (finally becoming a professional packer?!) and I had so much room in my backpack that I brought a whole box of cookies just for kicks.
I just love airport window shots.. I swear I can make an album with just bad quality pictures from my iTouch of the sky...hahah. Anyways, once arriving in Dublin, the airport quickly reminded me of Pearson (and my homesickness strikes again). We got a taxi to get back to the hotel, and I was SO not used to having the driver and passenger side switched around!! Vivian sat in the front, and I kept thinking she was driving haha it was just weird! During the taxi ride, I was looking outside and everything reminded me of Canada! The little stores and streets reminded me of downtown Toronto or Uptown Kitchner! It was just weird, but it also felt good.
After we arrived at the hotel, we quickly went out to start our exploring. We passed by Trinity College, walked along Grafton Street, ate at KC Peaches (AMAZING!), and then went to shop at Pennys (Uhm.. Best store ever.).
Two things I will take time to elaborate about: KC Peaches and my bffl, Pennys.
KC Peaches - Our Irish friend that we met at ISC Paris, Rebecca (I'm putting her in here because I'm going to mention her again later in the post), recommended us to visit this restaurant, and I am beyond glad we listened to her! The set up reminded me of Fresh Choice in California (another wave of nostalgia), where you had a salad bar, a desserts and coffee section, a hot foods section, and then a place for you to sit down. The way it works is that you get charged based on NOT how heavy your plate is, but you get charged on the size of the plate that you choose. So being the starving, frugal typical Karen, I got a medium plate and piled it on hardcore hahah I could have put more but I felt bad! They had such great home-y comfort food! I loved it!! If you ever go to Dublin, you must go try it out!!
Pennys - UHM if you think you know the best store to shop for cheap nice clothes, you are 500% wrong. After being in Pennys for 5 minutes, I was so overwhelmed (and trust me when I say this, it is difficult for me to get overwhelmed in stores). The best way to describe how the store looked like: racks and racks of clothes with unbelievable price tags. Time flew by as we spent our time looking at every single rack of clothing, that we stayed there until they announced that the store would close in 15 minutes. Because of that, we weren't allowed to go to the fitting room so I had to put down all the shirts I wanted to buy. In the end, I bought 2 boots (that fit perfectly!!!!) and 1 pair of the most comfortable slippies. SUPER happy :)
After a successful shopping trip, we walked back home in time for dinner at
Leo Burdock, supposedly the best fish and chips in town (they even had a huge list on their wall of all the celebrities that have visited them)! And.. They were indeed so good. The portions were insaneee though, as you can see in my pictures below. In the end, it got kind of soggy because I didn't eat fast enough, but overall.. Definitely a must try :)
After dinner, we decided to go check out the Temple Bar area (in our knits hehe). We went to
Temple Bar...in Temple Bar. Haha, it's a typical tourist bar so we met a lot of people from other countries (even a guy that went to ISC Paris 6 years ago!!) and I also rediscovered my favorite beer that I had in Ibiza :) and like Vivian said... Free drinks are the best drinks ;)
We also went to
Hogan's, which was a bar on the main floor and a club in the basement.
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07/10/2012 :: Waking up early, we met up with Rebecca's (our Irish friend) best friend, who actually lives in Dublin and goes to Trinity College!! I must admit, I was a little nervous to meet her because this was the first time I had ever met someone that I didn't actually meet.. If that makes sense. But that was for nothing. She was SO nice. She brought us around Dublin, showed us around Trinity College and St. Stephen's Green. We also went to get
Timmies!!! SUPER happy. It cured about 50% of my homesickness :) although it didn't taste exactly the same, but you know what? I'll settle :P
Trinity College was beyond gorgeous. I wish Laurier looked like that!! All the buildings were so pretty and castle-like! If it wasn't a Sunday, I definitely would have pretended to be a student and just attend a lecture for fun haha.
St. Stephen's Green is just a park in the middle of the city. It was like a mini version of Central Park in NYC! The leaves were changing color and all I wanted to do was jump into a pile of leaves. The weather was also really nice, and the pictures we took looked super Thanksgiving-y :)
Of course, we'd have to make a second trip to
Pennys after being so successful the first time around. Below is the picture of my purchases for the 2nd day :) let's just say that we spent 2 hours there. Haha.
After Pennys, we passed by the Temple Bar area to try out the famous
99 ice cream!! It's basically just vanilla soft-serve ice cream with a Flake bar at an acute angle. I didn't particularly like the Flake bar but I loooved the ice cream! Nommy nom nom.
After Sarah had to leave us, we went to the
Guinness Brewery/Storehouse. (Disclaimer: I don't like beer. I don't like Guinness. But I had a fun time! So even if you don't like the alcohol, it's all about the experience!). You can smell the roasted barley (one of the ingredients of Guinness) when you're outside the building. It smelled soo good! So anyway, once you go inside, you buy your ticket blah blah blah and we were lucky there wasn't a line. But that was because we were probably one of the last groups for the day. We start off the tour by checking out the store, while waiting for our "orientation", which was just a woman introducing us to the Storehouse. After that, we started our self-guided tour in the building with the biggest pint-shaped glass in the center. The pint itself can hold 14.3 million pints of Guinness. Insane! Anyways, I honestly do not remember much about the history of the storehouse or whatever, but here are some pictures of inside and what not :)
Besides walking around, we had a midway 'taste testing' of Guinness. I couldn't do it. It was too narrrsty :(
And in addition to that, we were able to go to the Guinness Academy where they teach you how to pour a perfect Guinness pint. I am very proud to have graduated ;)
And last but not least, we had a chance to go to the Gravity Bar, which was a bar at the highest point of Dublin (I think). You could overlook the entire city!! The weather wasn't too nice, but it was still a nice view of the city :)
For dinner, we went to a Greek restaurant called Corfu, like the island! The interior design of the restaurant and the music they played got me super excited to go to Greece!! We had THE best food, which made me even more excited to go to Greece.
After that, we went home to try to pack everything that we bought from Pennys into our bags.. It was such a mission to stuff everything inside but I was super lucky that it all fit!! Vivian, on the other hand, struggled hardcore but kudos to her for making everything work :D
I'd say this trip was one of the most relaxing trips I've been on so far! The only thing that was overwhelming was shopping at Pennys. Oh gosh, just thinking about that store makes me want to go again! Eeeeep!! :)
Tip: if you ever go to Dublin.. PACK LIGHT, so you can buy everything at Pennys. It'll be a decision you will not regret. I promise :)
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I just realized I never posted pictures of how my studio looked like! I don't know if this is a smart idea... But YOLO. (Lol JK I did not just use that phrase.)
Here's my kitchen! It is just two hot plates, a sink, some cupboards, a fridge, and a microwave.. Super ghett0.
If you look at the kitchen picture, and turn slightly to the right, this is what you'd see.
I was thinking about cleaning my room or at least folding my clothes before I took this picture, but ...nah. LOL this is my true self, and you all know that.. So s'all good :P
My Italian style bathroom, where the shower is only separated from the toilet and sink by a shower curtain.. Which causes my bathroom to overflow most of the time haha. I hate it.
And there is my hallway to the front door with my shoes... And yes, those are pink slippers with white hearts :)
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& that is all!! Thanks for reading xoxo
