The luck of the Irish!

One of the things I love most about being in Europe is the fact that everything is so darn close!! This past weekend two girlfriends and I went to Dublin, Ireland for four days, and it was pretty much the luckiest trip ever. There were so many little coincidences that had us convinced that we must have the luck of the Irish on our side! Here is a list of our all our lucky experiences:

To start off, it was supposed to be a pretty wet weekend, but somehow we lucked out and had GORGEOUS weather almost the entire time. And it seemed that every time it did start to rain, it was right when we were heading into a museum or a bus or something, and it would stop by the time we came back out!

We wanted to do a day tour that would take us out of the city and we had planned it for Saturday, but when we went to book it on Friday morning, they guy at the tourist office told us it was full. HOWEVER, he then proceeded to let us know that Friday's tour would be departing just down the street in about 10 minutes, so we were able to catch that one, and it was a fantastic day!

After coming back from the day trip at 4:30 we hustled to Trinity College to try to see the Book of Kells which closed at 5:00. As we ran in, the guy at the ticket counter just looked at us and said "Well, it is almost closed, so just go ahead, you don't have much time!" Thanks to him we got to save 8 euro each and still see the unbelievable artwork of the ancient Irish monks.

On the second night at our hostel we had the entire 14-bed dorm room to ourselves... it was so great to not have to share! =)

On Saturday after getting a tiny bit lost but 'luckily' ending up on the exact street we wanted to be on to visit the 200 year old Kilmainham Gaol, we headed to Dublinia, which is a fun interactive museum that covers the history of the city. We were sitting outside eating our lunch when this huge group of Spanish tourists shows up. Of course, we start chatting with them and discover that they were a student group from a small town near Granada, and the leader of the group looked at us and said "Well, you are students... and you are living in Granada... and you speak Spanish... so you should just come in with our group!" So we did and got to take advantage of the group discount! Yet another 2 euro saved! =)

We were extremely surprised at the fact that we found ourselves surrounded by Spanish speakers all weekend. It seems that practically half of Spain decided to take a vacation in Dublin that weekend, but luckily for us, we speak Spanish! =) There were some funny encounters with Spaniards where that definitely came in handy, for example we were eating dinner at a pub on Saturday when two Spanish guys came in and sat at the table next to us. It was about 10pm at that point, which is dinnertime in Spain. However, in Ireland it is unheard of to eat so late, so the waitress was trying to explain to them that the kitchen was closed and all that was available was fries. Of course, the Spaniards couldn't understand the concept that the kitchen would close at 10 pm ("But it is SO early! It is only 10!"), and the language barrier wasn't helping, so we stepped in and acted as translators, plus we explained to the Spaniards that 10 pm is certainly not dinnertime in Ireland!

However, probably the luckiest part of the entire weekend was actually when we were returning to Spain. We flew into a town about and hour away from Granada and had to catch the bus back, but we had found a slight problem. Our flight was supposed to land at 9:10 pm, and the last bus to Granada was at 10 pm, which didn't give us much time to get from the airport into the city! Especially considering our only means of transportation was either the train (which left the station near the airport at 9:19... not enough time for us to catch it!) or a taxi (which was PRICEY and not a guarantee either). Well, we just kept our fingers crossed, and our plane ended up landing almost 1/2 hour early, so we booked it to the train station, made it on the 9:19 train, and ran to the bus station just in time to hop on our bus! AND I even ended up being the only person on the bus without someone sitting next to me, so I got to stretch out and take a nap! =)

In addition to all that great stuff that I've already mentioned, we got to see Christchurch Cathedral, a cool Georgian house called Number 29, went to the Guinness Storehouse and learned how the famous brew is concocted (plus got a complimentary pint!), we lounged in the various beautiful parks in the city like St. Stephen's Green and soaked up the sun, ate deep-fried Mars bars (heart attack on a plate, but SO delicious!), visited the Hill of Tara (the seat of the ancient Celtic High Kings from which you can see 75% of the island) and Newgrange (an extremely impressive neolithic burial mound that is even older than the pyramids and Stonehenge!) and we even got to go see the musical The Producers on Saturday night (we just happened to be wandering past the theatre and saw that they had 15 euro tickets available and thought we'd ask if there were any left... there were!). It was really a magnificent weekend overall!