Stephens Adventures: Ireland

Me and my buddy Dominic had been discussing potential cities to meet up in ever since he had visited Malmö and Copenhagen. We eventually decided that a trip to Dublin would be fun, so we bought tickets, and decided that his buddy Denis would be joining us. I booked us into the same hostel that I had stayed in previously, when I had been in Dublin a few years ago, and we were good to go!

I really love Dublin and just Ireland in general, the people are really friendly, the pubs are really good, and the beer is pretty cheap (especially compared with Scandinavia). We all met up at the airport, because coincidentally all of our flights came in within about 15 min of each other. After heading to town, we were immediately helped out by a nice guy who realized that we needed a point in the right direction, and helped us find our way. After a quick check in at the hostel, we headed out for a few lovely pints of Guinness and to discuss our plans for the weekend.

We decided that we would do the usual free city tour, a pub crawl (me and Dominic had previously done the CPH pub crawl), a tour of the Guinness Storehouse, and a tour of the Jameson distillery, then we would finish up the weekend by watching Canada win gold in Olympic Men's hockey. (I know we didn't know the outcome yet but I was sure!)

The city tour was really great and we only got a couple of really light rains, for about 10 min each, which I'm always told to expect when in Dublin. The city tour goes to a pub for lunch afterwards, and if you go I highly recommend going and getting a plate of food, it is 10 euros really well spent!

The pub crawl featured lots of pubs with really good live bands and we thoroughly enjoyed it. The next day was a bit of a recovery day so we took a walk down along the river to the Jameson distillery and did the tour before going across the river to the Guinness Storehouse. The Storehouse features an amazing view of Dublin from their top floor where you can enjoy a pint of lovely Guinness. While I was there some very nice Australian girl decided to give me her Guinness, and so I enjoyed two! After all this we headed out, and decided that we would go to our favorite of the pubs from the pub crawl, wait for the pub crawlers and then join them for the last bar. We had a chat with the barman, and he agreed that he would put the gold medal match on the TV's for us the next day.

The next day we were all heading home, so we packed our bags, headed to the bar that had agreed to show the gold medal game, and sat down to an Irish breakfast and a bit of hockey. Dominic and Denis had to head out in the middle of the game for their flight, but I managed to catch our rather glorious win in an amazing pub in downtown Dublin before running for my bus, and then my flight home.

Some pictures from around Dublin: