I must make a point to say that prior to us traveling to Ireland, we had “no plan”. I mean, we had a general idea of what we wanted to see, and we wanted to stay in castle hotels Galway, Ireland as we’d heard some amazing things about the kind of experiences you can have there, but we didn’t know how we would get there, what routes to take or even what days to see what. And it turned out to be on of my most memorable travel experiences to date! We literally showed up with no plan and ended up covering over 1,200 miles of Ireland. We planned our entire trip of recommendations from those of YOU who emailed, commented under my “I’m going to Ireland” blog post, from the locals who would point us in certain directions and from the owners of the Bed and Breakfest’s that we stayed in each night. I brought back so many memories and I feel so blessed to have gone on this amazing trip…. AND I just can’t WAIT to show and tell you all about it………

Our flight landed in Dublin, we used the dublin airport bus to get into the city. The plan was to spend the first night in the city, get rested up and head out in the morning to get our rental car. AND after almost 24 hours of straight travel, we were all zombies so we slept for a several hours and with what daylight we had left after we woke up, we went out to explore with wide eyes, trying to take in all of the culture there was to offer right in front of us and with each corner we turned, a smiling face! We didn’t spend an extremely a lot of time in Dublin because we wanted to see the countryside, so we walked around for around 2-3 hours.

First up….dinner! Our first meal in Ireland! We ended up at this little pub in the middle of the city and coincidentally we got there about 10 minutes before the “dinner menu”…so our waiter (who was freaking awesome and he had a cool mohawk) let us order off of the lunch menu which meant that it was a cheaper price…not bad for a first impression-right!? We ordered an “open faced sandwich” which for me included feta cheese and a dressing. Naturally, we figured it would include some sort of “meat”…you know sandwich-meat they go hand in hand. Well we were wrong, it was basically a salad on a piece of bread. We sat and laughed…and laughed….until our bellies hurt. Lesson #1: do not order another sandwich for fear of not having meat! hahah! Lession #2 was that we very early learned that their pace of life in Ireland is very different from ours in the States. It’s much more relaxed and go with the flow so sitting down to a meal would end up taking 2-3 hours of your time-from ordering to getting your bill! We took this into consideration for the rest of the trip when stopping for lunch. With the limited amount of day light we had to work with (it got dark around 5pm) and some of the Castles, etc. closing around that time, we often skipped lunch and ate on the road until we got to our next destination. We would stop at the local grocery store for cold cuts so that we could continue to get to our next location. BUT we made up for it at dinner. Once we were in the town we’d be sleeping in that night, we’d go onto on the town and meet the locals, they’d tell us the best places to stop and joke about us being from the States…..but back to day one!

After dinner we walked around Grafton Street trying to explore the little nooks and crannies of the city stopping along the way in several of the Pubs for a pint or two. You know how in the movies they show you the stereo-typical Irish Pub with that one drunk guy in the corner hitting on all the ladies, the men sitting at the bar singing along to a few tunes and everyone is just so chipper and friendly…..yeah…well that is not a stereo-type!! It’s what we found in almost all the Pubs we stopped at. We laughed…I mean BELLY LAUGHED with the locals as we enjoyed our Pint….my favorite Bulmer’s, the Irish Cider/Beer (thanks to Nicole’s recommendation). It wasn’t uncommon to see a young boy sitting at the bar with his dad (not drinking of course). My only disappointment was that I was hoping for some traditional Irish music to be playing in the Pub’s but instead what we often found was that they were jamming to American tunes…..at which we could and DID sing along! I guess all my listening to the “popular Irish Pub music” station on Pandora was all for nothing! hahaha!

Because there was a 5 hour time difference from home, we often Skyped with my Parents and Mallory while we were away…or at least when we could find free Wifi. We found out several weeks prior to going to the trip that we wouldn’t be able to use our cell phones EXCEPT for the internet while we were there, so we made plans to SKYPE home when we could. The first night in Dublin we ended up finding a hot spot in the middle of a street in the city. I remember very vividly that cars would pull up and stop at the red light near where we were sitting and look at us as to say “Why the heck are your talking to your computer screen?”. At one point I stood up with the lab top to show my mom the street in which we were sitting/calling from. As the camera swung around towards the street and the car could see we were on video, they all waved! LOL

One thing I can honestly say is that we did not even once, run into anyone that was nothing but cheerful, friendly, helpful and so incredibly kind! is something I think we in the States are sometimes lacking! As they say, “when Irish eyes are smiling, they steel your hear away!”.

Next up, Day 2: Guinness Factory, our first time driving on the “wrong side” of the road, and our night in Avaco. 🙂

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