IRELAND~!!!!!

OKAYYY!! I am BACK! The past couple days I had an illness that almost sent me to the hospital… but I am fine now, so sorry for the wait! Here we go! Another country!!! IRELAND December 27^th-29^th! 

But wait, traveling with Katherine is never an “easy” task so lets start off in the Manchester airport, still got the neon green bag, that is clearly overweight and NOT carry-on size for Ryanair… Katherine gets away with it again, but as I board the plane with my bag, which Kate was convinced that their was a midget or a small child in this bag because it was so heavy… oops! Hhaha! I put my bag in the over head compartment and sit down and do a little stir the butter, if you will, another flight down that I got away with this HUGE bag, suddenly over the intercom I hear that we have to de-board the plane, I immediately stand up and say NO! hahah! I refused! I finally got on this flight and now I have to get off?? oh forgot to tell you guys that the flight from Manchester to Dublin was delayed for 2 hours… and now I’ll continue.  I refuse to get off this plane after waiting 2 hours and slyly getting my bag on another Nazi Ryanair flight!  Then they continued to tell the passengers that we could leave our stuff on the plane but we had to get off, CRAP! So we all de-board this flight get on a shuttle and go back to the waiting room where we wait for 2 MORE hours… yes, I am not kidding! I read—twilight (eclipse) we finally get called to a gate after the flight attendants tell us that they had to call an engineer to make sure that the plane was ok.  GREAT! Back on the shuttle to get to the plane… while driving to the plane the shuttle lady almost takes off the WING.. I’m not kidding and I scream because we were that close, yes, I squealed! And before getting off the shuttle the crew tells us we have to grab our bags OFF the plane so that they can go through security again. At this point its like 11:30 at night, and I just begin to laugh… and of course I’m the only one! Kate chuckles but she was pissed.  But my thought process was, “ok I’m in England on my way to Ireland and I know that Ryanair SUCKS, but things could always be worse.”  Then I remembered about my bag.. ooo… trying to pull my bag out of the overhead compartment was a story in itself, but I will share when I get home.  I almost took out the stewardess… good times!

             Then we get back on the shuttle and everyone is PISSED, and I of course still have a smile.  They literally make a circle in next to plane and then pull up to the plane again, and tell us to get off and board the plane, ok this made me mad! I didn’t just lug my heavy bag off this plane to play ring around the rosie next to the plane… what the HELL was that?? Board the plane and the flight was a total of 55 minutes for a 4 and a half hour delay of my life! But we arrived in IRELAND!  We get to our hostel at 2:30 at night… because we had to take a coach into the city center and I met this super NICE guy that spoke Italian, Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese and could write in ALL the languages. He was telling me all the good places to go and the places not to go… very helpful! We arrived in the central station and searched for our hostel for 30 minutes because we had to walk… we were ten feet from it, and were stopped by 3 drunk British guys and kept telling us to go out, and they were CUTE! And their accents helped, and at this point I looked like a haggered beast and needed a bed and ASAP! I told them I was tired and we both needed sleep, so they continue to talk and say, “oh ok that’s too bad, we’ll come back with you then, you girls seem like a good time.” I looked at Kate and looked at them and said, “ya ok bye bye!” and walked away… look like a good time? What the hell did that even mean, and why do I always run into hot guys when I look haggered, ahhh! The exhaustion was killing me. Hit the pillow and out like a light!

            The next morning we met up with our Korean friends Young and Minji (she also goes to Torino as well) and its just them two.  So yet again, 3 Koreans and a white girl! Woot woot! We walked around and went into this store called Pennys and its like a forever 21 but CHEAPER! Ahhh I was going absolutely crazy! Picking up everything and then putting it back, “no room in the suitcase, must remove from fingers…ahh!” We went to one of the biggest parks in Europe which was BEAUTIFUL! It was overcast but I got some amazing shots! We all drew out Torino on the grass with the thin layer of ice, and I took a picture, it was so beautiful! After walking through that we walked to the Guinness Factory! Hahahha! Yes! Toured that for like 3 hours! And learned about how it was made and its distributed all over the world, it was cool! Ohh I just have to say as I am writing this the young Dubliners came on my itunes…irish, gotta love it! Sorry back to Guinness! Haha!  After we were done with the factory we got to pour our own pint of Guinness and it was rad! We got a certificate for the “perfect pour” because with Guinness it has to be poured at a certain angle AND needs to sit before its “topped off” if only I could remember Italian like I remember the stories I am telling you! Ah make life so much easier!  Anyway, I got tipsy off one pint… not eating will do that to you, and I also learned that Guinness is one of the lowest calorie beers… its black, interesting! But true! Then we went to the top level which is actually a bar, and you can buy another pint and stare at the view of Ireland, the top level of the factory is the tallest building in Dublin… beer!  That night we went pub hopping! Hahah yes! You all were waiting for it!  We went to this one pub with LIVE music and played all the BEST songs oldies, the Beatles, Rod Stewart, Rolling Stones, ahh the most amazing music and I knew all the songs! GO CALI! And the Koreans were drunk! They were dancing and laughing! I was in love with the base player… so cute, and IRISH!  We were out that night until 2am… walking around and pub hopping.  One of the pubs we ran into a group of Italians, I ran away, and talked to this group of British men, I was happy J!  Young came over to me and told me that one of the Italians wanted to talk to me, so I excused myself and walked over to the Italians, the one that liked me was from planet of the apes, and was 5 feet tall…”check please!”

            Back at the hostel we finally met our roommates, they were all women who had previously studied abroad in Dublin years back and are all back for a reunion! There were five of them and they were from all over the world… Berlin, Austria, Southern Holland, Northern Holland, and one of the other girls was from another part of Germany. They were all SO cool!  Our last night in Dublin we ordered pizza in the room and talked and LAUGHED till like 2am I was SO much fun! They were all sooooo funny! One of them couldn’t get over that I was from the OC and I met Lauren Conrad and all that jazz.  Ya I know I am a pretty big deal! Hahaha! The next morning we had to say our goodbyes which was really sad because Kate and I had so much fun with these girls.  I went over to the Trinity College School to go and check out their library because it supposedly looks like the library from Harry Potter with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, but of course it was closed for the week because of the New Years.  So 2 of the girls and I went to Starbucks and got a coffee and talked about life and home and what they were doing for New Years. It was a nice morning. Then we had to say goodbye to Dublin and catch a train to Belfast.  Goodbyes are always hard, but when you meet nice people you will never forget them…

…. Belfast to NEW YEARS!!! Here we gooooo!!!