Ireland Trip - Day 1

I am so excited to share my trip around Ireland with y'all! Since there was so much to see and do, I am splitting up my posts about the trip by day...there will be seven in all. While we were on our trip, I wrote about each day in a travel journal so that I wouldn't forget anything. Therefore, all of these posts are being copied directly from my journal which was written in the midst of our travels. I hope you enjoy reading all about my trip! Here we go...

March 17th - Dublin, Ireland

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Our overnight flight arrived in Dublin on Saturday morning. After making our way through customs and grabbing a quick breakfast in the airport, we made our way to the city centre of Dublin via taxi. Luckily, we were able to check into our hotel early because the St. Patrick's Day festivities were already in full swing.

Jared and I were overwhelmed with excitement that day for two reasons: #1 - St. Patrick's Day is our favorite holiday to celebrate together because it also happens to be the anniversary of the day that we met. #2 - I, like so many other people, have a bucket list. And one of the items on my bucket list is to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Ireland. Needless to say, I couldn't wait for this special event!

Jared and I were even lucky enough to have our own personal tour guide for the occasion. One of Jared's co-workers is a originally from Dublin and his brother, Ian, still lives in the city. Ian offered to be our guide for the day and we were thrilled to experience St. Patrick's Day as a "local".

The first stop on our journey was the St. Patrick's Festival parade. The streets were a sea of green. Everyone, local and foreign, was looking festive for the celebration. Over 600,000 people were present in Dublin that day for the festival. About 10 minutes into the parade, it started raining. Goodbye straight hair. Boo. Since it was raining, we decided that this would be a good time to duck into a pub for a pint. Thus, was my first experience was Guinness. Fun fact: Guinness in Ireland tastes completely different than Guinness in America. So if you have had a Guinness in America and didn't like it, trust me, it is so much better in Ireland. At first, I was put off by the color because the beer is literally black. However, I was shocked to discover that I actually liked it.

The rain stopped after about 15 minutes, which is apparently typical in Ireland. We ventured back outside to watch some of the parade. The floats in the parade were pretty weird, not gonna lie. It literally looked like a bunch of drunk people got together and tried to make the craziest thing they could imagine. There were also street performers and marching bands from America all throughout the parade. I was especially surprised to see that the parade had absolutely nothing to do with St. Patrick or your typical St. Paddy's Day regalia. I was expecting to see dancing leprechauns and shamrocks, but it was more "artsy" instead.

After the parade, we walked through the city to Grafton Street. This area of town is full of good shopping, restaurants and pubs. There are around 1,000 pubs total in the city of Dublin. We sat at an outdoor table and enjoyed a pint at one of the nearby pubs. This proved to be an excellent front row seat to all the action of drunken debauchery. Within 10 minutes, we saw 3 different drunkards arrested and hauled off by the "garda". These people were not going peacefully either, which made their arrest particularly entertaining for us bystanders. The Irish definitely lived up to their reputation on St. Patrick's Day, and I loved every minute.

Not only was March 17 a National holiday in Ireland, but it was also the day of a very important sporting event. At 5pm that day, Ireland played England in rugby. Important side note: when it comes to rugby, the Irish hate/loathe/despise the English. Ian took us to a pub where the locals go to watch the rugby matches and it was quite an experience. The pub was absolutely packed and these fans are real serious about their rugby. Ian explained how to game worked as we watched, and by halftime I was actually understanding the sport. Rugby is a sort of mixture between soccer and American football. However, it is a lot more physical and fast-paced than American football. Even though Ireland ended up losing the match, we had a blast watching the game with the local crowd.

After the rugby match, we grabbed some dinner and headed back to the hotel to call it a night. Between the jet lag and only getting a few hours of sleep on the plane in the last two days, we desperately needed to go to bed early. I'm sure that the rest of Dublin was partying late into the night celebrating their Patron Saint, Patrick. It was the perfect way to celebrate our special anniversary, plus, I finally got to check it off of my bucket list!