Halloween in Dublin

Background information. Ireland is the birthplace to our beloved candy consuming holiday of Halloween. It was originally a celebration of harvest as well as the beginning of the new season! So any fear of not being able to celebrate this holiday while studying abroad in Ireland can be put aside because it is huge here!

So this year I opted to venture to Dublin, mainly because I thought there was a Halloween parade, but it turns out that there isn't. No worries though, there were plenty of adventures that made up for the internet's lies!

We need to take it back a couple of steps to preparing for this fabulous holiday. So about a week before Halloween we, the 5 of us who went to Dublin, realized that we needed costumes, but could not figure out what 5 girls could be... We, being girls, decided to head out on a shopping spree to find something amazing and amazing we did, we found adult sized onsies and what makes a better Halloween costume than quintuplet babies?!?!?! So it was a must buy, not only was it super cute, it was super warm which worked in our favor when we had to walk around in the rain!!

Sexy Babies! 

                                              

So Saturday came around and we woke up bright and early as usual! I thought that I woke up a little earlier than I really did. It was 7:15 when I started to heat up my pan to cook eggs when my roommate asked what I was doing and I said, "Making breakfast, what are you doing?" She responded, "Okay, but we are leaving in 5 minutes." I took a second look at the clock, threw the pan in the sick, brushed my teeth and took a piece of toast for the road!

Needless to say, I did not make us late, we got onto the bus to make our 4 hour long journey to the lovely city of Dublin! Once we got in the city we took the scenic route, stopping to do a little window shopping and street performer watching before heading to our hostel. 

Our Room- 3-0-3

We finally made it to our hostel, a little before check-in time, so we had to wait, but it was okay, because we had to eat lunch at some point! After a quick bite, we went back and got our key to the room. I had really good vibes about the room since the number was 303, repin' the home zip code, but it turns out that the number carries no luck. We walk down these creepy long hallways, which eventually lead us to the chapel, which we walk through to the back only to discover that our room is in the furthest corn of this hostel-chapel. Just excited to see a bed, we quickly open the door to find an older gentleman, naked (thankfully under his covers, but clearly naked) lying in his bed sleeping. He wakes up, greets us by saying, and I quote, "Hi, this room is haunted." We were like umm, get us out of here, but we stayed anyways, because it is all about the adventure. As we settled in he continued to talk to us while lying there naked about how he is a spiritual healer  and that he would ward off the evil spirits for us. He also said that he had stayed in another hostel where this girl's credit cards were stolen, and although he was the only person in the room when it happened, he knew that it was her really good friend, who obviously was not a really good friend. So we made sure to grab our stuff to leave at the front desk when we left the room.

At the Guinness Factory

Since we were only going to be in Dublin for a day and a half or so, we figured that we better start seeing the town and what better way to do that then visit the Guinness Factory! After figuring out that the bus driver was a jerk and didn't inform us that we missed our stop, we got off and backtracked to the storehouse. I guess it ended up being okay because we got to see a whole different side to the factory. So we finally made it in, paid our 9 euro and headed off on our self-guided tour. It was basically a Guinness museum, which was not what I expected, I expected to see them actually making the Guinness, but in the end, it was actually pretty interesting to see the history and whatnot. It was unfortunate that we got there so late, because we did not have time to actually learn to pour our own Guinness, but no fear we did get a pint at the Galaxy bar which overlooked all of Dublin. If there is anything you must do in Dublin, it is to go here!!

The Bouncer and I with his mustache on!

We then headed back towards our hostel, because everything closes rather early, nothing new to the Irish culture. It was close to dinner time, so we stopped at the pub across from the hostel to have a bite. Although the lady did not understand really anything we asked for, the food was overall satisfying. After finishing, we popped back over to our hostel and thankfully discovered that our old man roommate was not in the room. Just as we all laid down to take a nap, a younger gentleman walked in our room and made us all feel a little bit more at ease. We became completely comfortable when he started talking to us with his Australian accent! He began to tell us about the old naked guy that was staying in our room. Apparently he has lived in the hostel for the past 4 months and basically lives off of the government. We later discovered why... he is just sooo stupid and cannot even back up his weird beliefs...  Anywho, our Aussie roomie told us that he was going to head out with some other American's he had met the night prior to us arriving and that we were welcome to join, so of course we said yes. We did our makeup and hair and headed out. As soon as we got to the pub, the bouncer was like, why are you not dressed up, and we said that we were waiting to Halloween and he said no one will be dressed up since they have to go to work Monday, so we ran back to the hostel (conveniently located across the street), slapped on our onsies and headed back to the pub! 

The man with our onesie on

From here came a fabulous night out on the town! We had our first and only pint of the night across the street from the hostel! There were tons of people dressed up, we were stopped every two seconds to be asked what we were, we got stuck in the pouring rain, we walked to Temple Bar, were called sexy babies, walked back towards our hostel, saw a major 10 minute long cat fight (found chunks of hair in the same area the next day), found a man wearing the same outfit that we were and then called it a night. Although it was not super exciting, it was soo much fun! 

The rest of the trip was just shy of the bullseye. We made it to soo many place, but were just not able to fully experience where we were. We headed out early Sunday morning, starting at St. Patrick's Cathedral, only to get there 15 minutes past visiting hours. We walked to the Dublin castle to discover that you can only take a tour if you pay for it and we could not even find where you would pay. We went to Trinity College and could not find the library, apparently you can trace your genealogy or something there... We were on a mission to find Jen a jacket, failure. I did find a watch and a cute top and plenty of souvenirs!

Overall, I liked Dublin, but was glad to go home to my own room where there was not a creepy naked man sleeping! If you have the chance to go to Dublin, most definitely do go, just allow yourself to have enough time!! 

Lessons learned:

*Just because it says it is a youth hostel, does not mean that it is

*You get what you pay for

*If you can avoid going on a Sunday somewhere and have longer than 2 days to go, take the extra time!

Next I am off to Munich for what else than more adventures, but until then....Slàinte!