Dublin--Home of what I decided are the friendliest people!

Brooke and I went to Dublin the other weekend, and I could definitely live in Dublin! Our flight left at 6 in the morning so we woke up at 2 am to catch the bus to Pisa airport, meaning that we only got a couple of hours of sleep. I decided that this whole traveling business requires people that can run on little to no sleep. So this is my practice. This trip everything went according to plan; the flight left on time, we arrived on time, we didn't get lost. We probably didn't get lost because we took a taxi to our hostel. We stayed in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, which as you might guess from the name is a really large night life and pub area. It was amazing. Dublin probably has the most traditional culture I have seen yet in Europe. I walked down the street and could see old Irish dancers, and hear traditional Irish music, green, orange and shamrocks were everywhere! I loved it. The Irish people are so proud of their heritage and their history. Which I learned quite a bit about their history while I was there, it is very interesting. But back to the friendliest people thing, our taxi driver immediately starts talking our ear off (something I noticed is a trend with people) he is asking us where we are from where we have been, telling us old Irish stories, good places to go to, places not worth the trip, and along with the history of it all. We get to our hostel and they tell us directions to places, answers around 5 questions for us. Then we head off to the Bus station to get tickets to a couple Bus tours. The first was the Coastal and Castle tour which we took as soon as we got there at 10 am. We went through the city, learning quite a bit about U2, like where they went to school, some of the original pubs they played, etc. Then we arrived at the Malahide Castle, which was quite pretty. On the way back we went along the coast and learned a little bit about their history with Britain and the Napoleon thing. We then grabbed some lunch at a local pub, which was filled with tons of people wearing yellow and blue and screaming and drinking in preparation for the rugby game that night, it was only noon by the way. This was closer to American culture than I was used to, drinking midday before a big game, sounds a lot like tailgating to me. :) We grabbed an Irish coffee, which after one drink quickly learned was not the same as Bailey's coffee. Irish coffee used whiskey instead, and it quickly welcomed us into the Irish culture. We then went back to the hostel got our rooms, where we quickly learned we were rooming with two guys for the weekend. It turned out okay. We took a little cat nap and headed out for dinner and beer at a local pub, where we were treated to some traditional Irish music. After dinner we dropped by another pub, had a cider beer (which is amazing by the way) and watched the rugby game. We didn't know it was rugby until Sunday when we made a friend that enlightened us.
The next day we went to the Jameson Distillery, where I became a certified whiskey taster, then we went to the Kilmainham jail, where we learned a lot more about Ireland's history. It was really interesting though. Then we went to the Guinness factory and had a tour. We then went to dinner and took a Ghost bus tour. This tour was quite entertaining. First the old ghost stories and haunted areas of Dublin were fun, but we made some friend with a large group of Irish women on the tour. They were have a great time and all of them had mix drinks with them, in what seems to be true Irish style. At one of the stops I got creeped out and I think it may really be haunted, because our guide had is own recent incidents with the place and it used to be an old church that has had a lot of random fires associated with it since the burning of a priest. But the altar is where most of the things seemed to start and when I tried to take a photo of the altar my camera would take the photo, but then it wouldn't save, no pictures had been used on my card, and then I changed my camera settings and it took the picture finally after three tries. Then when we got back on the bus I went to look at the photos and all my photos were gone! I checked my card slot and my card had been ejected, I put it back in and luckily my pictures were still there. Then the next day when my card ran out of memory, I went to delete photos that didn't turn out well and the three pictures I had tried to take of the altar that wouldn't take were there on my camera nearly all black in the order I tried to take them. Now tell me that isn't a little creepy.
The next day we went to Dublina, a Viking museum and learned all about Viking Dublin, quite entertaining. After that we went in search of lunch and came across this coat and arms store which I wanted to stop in because my surname is originally English yet I saw it on a rack of things that said Traditional Irish names. So I found out I was right and my surname is English, yet they moved to Ireland some 400 years ago or something. Besides that we made friends with the owner, John. We talked to him for about a half hour and learned that he feels Irish people truly live up to all their stereotypes and that some stereotypes they have about Americans are that we hate the French(funny because Americans think the French hate us, where did all the hate come from? I liked them) that we are arrogant because we think we won World War II, and I forget the others or even if he mentioned others. He then told us some pubs to go to for lunch and we just asked if just wanted to come along, so he did. Unfortunately all the places he recommended were closed so he just went back and opened his shop while Brooke and I had lunch. We then stopped in at a local pub, grabbed a beer before we left. We were chatting at the bar when this old man came in and began talking to us. We ended up chatting with him about the most random things for the next couple hours and drinking beers(Irish cider of course.) Before we knew it, it was 4 pm and we had to leave for the airport, so we bid a farewell to our new friend and went on our way home to Italy.
After visiting Ireland I decided I definitely wanted to go back. It is much more similar to American culture than Italy is of course, but yet so vastly different. I have really never met friendlier people as a whole as I did in Ireland, and just the atmosphere of the town was enticing. I don't really know how to describe it, but I would definitely recommend going to Ireland.