Dublin the Countries I've Visited in Europe

Julie Miranto
October 17, 2016

That pun just never gets old for me to be honest.

Last weekend my friends and I travelled to Dublin for three days and it may have been my favorite trip so far.

First of all being in an English speaking was incredibly refreshing (my Spanish skills probably did decrease a bit tho if I'm being honest with myself). I loved being able to actually fully understand and communicate with people for the first time in two months. You would probably think that the lack of language barrier made it easier to prevent getting lost or confused....you'd be wrong, I was still as embarrassing as ever.

We got to Dublin Thurday night and got extremely lost trying to find our Airbnb (not unusual at all) and since it was pretty late we decided to just go to a local market and buy frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets, and Pringles for dinner (super healthy I know). The next day our other friends from Gettysburg (who are studying in England) arrived and we went on a tour of the Guinness Storehouse.

Update: I love Guinness. I actually thought I would hate it because I'm not much of a beer person and Guinness always seemed to be like the beer of all beers yaknow? But I actually did enjoy it a lot. It was also really cool to learn about how the make and distribute the beer. They take an immense amount of time to ensure quality in their product and to me that's super important. We spent about two hours walking through the storehouse (and a copious amount of money on souvineers) but it was well worth it. We honestly probably could've stayed longer had it not been so crowded.

After the tour we decided to head farther into the center of Dublin to do some shopping. We ended up getting shawarma from "the best place in Dublin" according to our taxi driver (Arabic food while in Dublin? ....obviously). This actually was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten. I can't even describe how good it was. (This could also be because I was very hungry at the time but probably not). After eating and walking around for a bit (and buying some macaroons and Lush products....) we went back to our apartment and waiting for our other Gettysburg friend to arrive (this one is studying in Denmark). That night we decided to go out and experience the famous Irish pub life and had so much fun, shoutout to all the live music because that really made the whole experience more fun.

The next day we had tickets for a bus tour to see the Cliffs of Moher. OH MY GOD, they were the most amzing and beautiful things I've ever seen. The fact that such an awesome landscape can just be created naturally is crazy to me. I would've just sat there and looked out for hours if I could've. (Although I was slightly afraid of the edge, aparently it's a 9 second drop to the bottom, that's a lot of time to think about how stupid you are for falling off). I also found out that scenes from the sixth Harry Potter movie were filmed there *cure crazy Harry Potter fan reaction*

That night we went to a pub called Murray's so we could finally get some traditional Irish food. I got the lamb shepard's pies, delicious as I'm sure you can imagine. Dinner included a show with traidtional Irish music and dancing so that was clearly the icing on the cake.

The next morning we woke up at 3 AM in order to get to the airport in time for our flight.....yeah, it was no fun.

And now I'm back in regular old Salamanca. It is kind of nice to be back in my own bed but I will miss Ireland a lot.

Stay tuned for updates from my next trip! (hint: it's Barcelona)

Much love from Spain,

Julie

Julie Miranto

<p>I&rsquo;m a 20 year old student attending Gettysburg College where I study English with a focus on writing and Spanish. I come from a big, close-knit Italian family, am in love with reading and writing, and am always open to new experiences. I hope to be as creative as possible in everything I do and can&#39;t wait to find influence from my semester in Salamanca!</p>

Home University:
Gettysburg College
Major:
English
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