Uno, dos, tres...catorce

Where to start?


I'll get the boring stuff out of the way ... my classes are going really well, I have really great professors, and its definitely going to be a great semester academically.


Back to what you want to read about:


Last week ended as usual, after class on Thursday...gotta love not having Friday classes. Thursday night we had practice, and immediately after headed to the famous Irish House Party which is at the Landsowne Hotel here in Dublin. You can check out the link if you are interested, but basically it was a night of Irish music and dancing, they even made me get up and dance...This was another one of those outings the Quinn School of Business paid for, and organized for us. Hey, if it's free, why not?! (That's been one of my mottos on this trip so far. Others include: "You only live once.", "When in Dublin...", & "There's only so much to see at a castle..."). 

UCD Softball night out @ Messrs

We left the event slightly early, because we were meeting our softball team for FREE food (cue my motto) at Messrs Maguire, a pub we frequent quite often. We stayed here for a while and listened to the live music, and met a lot of other people on the team. It was a lot of fun, and we got to eat chicken wings, "chips", sausages, and fried mushrooms...which were not fried broccoli as I unfortunately learned... Anyway, afterward we went to this bar called Q, where it was 80's night, so that was interesting..




Friday we went to the National History Museum for my Irish History class, and it was pretty interesting, although some parts of it were not put together well and just were not that exciting. We also made a stop at Dublin's 1st Milkshake Bar, which was really good, I mean, you can't go wrong with ice cream. Friday night was also when we decided that we wanted to take a weekend trip to Galway the following day. So we did. I had my first hostel experience at Sleep Zone Hostel, and I have to say it was a very good first experience, aside from two of our roommates not speaking the least bit of English. We made our way into town, where we ate at Taaffees Pub, which is exactly the atmosphere you think of when you think of Irish pubs. (If you ever go there, try a Bap! I recommend the bbq chicken). 


After lunch, we walked around and explored Galway...  (And I helped an elderly woman cross the street, if I was still in Boy Scouts I'd probably get a badge for that...)

Hangin' out in Galway watching Unstable perform..

It is a really cool and scenic place, and the nightlife was a lot of fun too! We went to a few different places that night, and ended up at The Kings Head where we saw Unstable perform, which is a cover band from Ireland, and they were really good! I was sad for a few minutes when they played a cover of "Chelsea Dagger" by the Fratelli's and I was the only one that knew there were more words than the chorus, I really could have used my sister to sing along with me! They covered a lot of different bands, one of them of course being U2 because they are Irish, and that's also the reason for the name of this blog entry. 


The next day we did the normal tourist thing to do in Galway, get on a bus and head towards the Cliffs of Moher, and see all the sights along the way. (We did this through Galway Tour Company ... they are awesome!) A few castles, (the reason for my third motto), lots of country side, and some really cool sights. We even stopped at Ballyalban Fairy Fort, which is supposed to be a hiding place for fairies and leprechauns... this is also where I took a tumble:

Hope you enjoyed that one, I'm still in pain from it. We also stopped at Dunguaire Castle and Kinvara, and made our way down to the village of Doolin, where we ate lunch at O'Connor's. After that, it was off to the Cliffs of Moher...

Don't ask, we just like to pretend we are Karate Kids...

The Cliffs were amazing to see, they reminded me of the Grand Canyon, but at the same time it was very different! I realize I can't post all of my pictures on my blog, the posts would be even longer than they already are, so bookmark my photobucket page! --> Brian's Photo Album

We also decided along the trip to pose for pictures as if we were in a band...not sure why. Regardless, when we are famous, you will have seen the pictures from when we first started:
















I'm sure you are wondering how long this post is going to go on, so let me reassure you I'm almost done! We ended our tour by seeing the sunset over Galway Bay, which was awesome. 

I'm pretty proud of my photography skills on this one...

Long story short, it was another awesome weekend in Ireland. Check back soon, next weekend I'm headed to Cork with a lot of other international students, and it's sure to be a good time.

Until then....

Slainte!