september and everything after: "wow, dublin."

i think it was on about the second day, as kristin and i walked along grafton street (one of the main shopping/pub streets there) that i said this. i knew dublin would be a great experience, since kris and i come from a pretty irish family, and we absolutely love the UK in general, but i had NO idea how charmed i would be by this city. the trip began really smoothly, with a great plane ride and a super easy and cheap commute to our hotel (which was in an incredible location in temple bar area), and now that i think of it, i dont think we hit a single bump throughout the trip. we jumped right into the local flow of things, heading immediately to trinity college, just up the block from us, and watching a college football match (pic below) with some of the local students. we met some people who told us a few of the hot spots for local college kids around the area, two of which we went to that night.

the days following were filled to maximum capacity with both live contemporary irish pop music and traditional irish jig music. the river was in the center of everything, so that we were forced to cross and appreciate it numerous times a day. there were a ton of local cafes and coffee shops. our favorite was a seeming hole in the wall, panem
, that had delicious coffee and belgian waffles that we ate while overlooking the river. kristin and i fell in love with a pub call Quays Pub, which had live music thursday through sunday from about 2pm to 2am. every single guy (it was mostly guys with acoustic guitars playing some irish pop classics like u2, van morrison, etc) was so talented. and yes, i did get asked by one of the musicians to sing with him, and i did so (i never thought i'd do anything like that, but it was actually incredibly fun--i sang u2: "one.").

we ventured to the financial district--or what we found out was a lack thereof--one night to see if we could mingle with some corporate locals, but it turns out that dublin's financial center pales in comparison to london's and manhattan's. oh well, i guess dublin can't have it all. we wound up returning to the temple bar area, which we could basically count on every night to be filled with locals, good food, and good music.

probably what i loved most about the weekend was the fact that we combined uber-touristy things (dublin castle, guinness storehouse, grafton street shopping, james joyce landmarks) with some awesome mingling with the locals. i'm proud of us for taking the initiative to really immerse ourself into the irish culture, which we found out mostly consisted of drinking and music. this weekend made me realize how awesome it is going to be to travel on the weekends here. next trip is prague during the last weekend in february to visit my friend from nyu studying there! kristin won't be my travel buddy, so it wont be AS epic as it was, but i can't wait to see prague. i'm attaching some pics below!