Dublin!!! Happy Easter!!!

So I know I haven't posted in awhile and Colleen is about to pass out so I will try to catch up really quickly!! So I arrived in Dublin on the night of the 8th...almost the 9th because my plane didn't land until 11pm. I took a cab to my hostel, grrrr, 23 Euros! So I pretty much checked in and went to bed. The next morning I woke up and decided to wonder around a bit before my friend Katie arrived from Florence. I walked past Dublin Castle, through St Stephan's Green Park, and looped back around to my hostel which is in the trendy Temple Bar neighborhood. After falling down the stairs and pulling out my shoulder :( I met up with Katie and her 8 friends....but we really only hung out with 2 of them and a really nice girl from Long Island that was supposed to be touring Ireland with a friend but he missed his flight...but she got on the plane anyway and so she had the night to spend with us! We ran straight away to the Guinness factory to make it in before it closed. The tour was fun....but not what I thought it would be. I thought we would get to see actual beer making or bottling but it was more a historical look at life of Guinness products and the factory.
So that night we decided to hit the pub right nest to the hostel, "The Temple Bar", which was SO fun! I didn't really find Dublin to be all that exciting until we went to the bar, it was like any other urban city, dirty and full of people hurrying to get where they are going. But the bar was like the Dublin you see in movies, musicians playing a mixture of Irish Folk songs and current music, people drinking pints of Guinness and singing/dancing to the music. It was amazing and really crowded because it was the night before Good Friday and it is illegal to sell alcohol in Ireland on Good Friday. I have like 5 videos of the band singing and the crowd enjoying every minute. After the bar closed we walked outside to find that a street musician was providing music for like 50 people who were just dancing in the street, most of them were really drunk but it was still fun to see! It was a very fun night until later when we returned to our room to find that 3 girls from Atlanta who were also staying in our room had brought home three Croatian men from the bar. They were drinking and smoking (luckily it was off the balcony) until 2 in the morning when Katie kicked them out....she is awesome.
We woke up early in the morning and hopped on a bus for a 4 hour ride to Cork. Cork was very cute but by the time we got there almost everything was closed...Good Friday.....in Ireland....EVERYONE was at mass. The streets were nearly empty, the town felt deserted. It was kinda creepy. So we walked around for like 5 hours and then decided to see a movie. We saw The Boat that Rocked, by the maker of Love Actually, it was so cute and funny. I've never seen it advertised in the States but I'm sure you can see it somewhere. Then we made the trek up the ridiculously steep hill to our hostel to find that our room was little more than a concrete box with 3 bunk beds. On the plus side, our two roommates were from New Zealand and just the nicest people ever!
In the morning we got back on the bus for a 20 minute bus ride to Blarney!! The grounds around the Castle are so beautiful and look exactly like the postcards you see of Ireland. After climbing up 120 steps in a corkscrew (I kinda felt like I was going to fall and die) we finally made it up to the famous Blarney Stone!!! After waiting in line I finally made it up to the stone where they ask you to sit down, lean backward, grab the poles and stretch to kiss the bottom stone, all while staring down at the ground probably 60 feet below you. It was down further than I imagined and I had to stretch really far to kiss it, but I did it!!!
After the stone we went back to Cork on the bus, hiked back up the crazy hill, grabbed our bags and made it down the hill and to the bus with only like 10 minutes to spare. When we arrived back in Dublin, we were very excited to see that our hostel was only a one minute walk from the bus station. After checking in we walked down the street to a cute little french cafe and had Brie sandwiches with french fries. After eating we went next door to The Celt Bar and had a drink each before one of the waiters told us we either had to be drinking or leave....really nice. But for the 20 minutes we were there we enjoyed the lovely Irish Folk Band that played music similar to the first band, a mixture of Irish and modern music.
This morning, Easter Sunday, we went down the street to the first church we came across. The little church happened to be a not so little cathedral that was absolutely stunning on the inside. We got a seat and I headed of to the bathroom only to find that there was not toilet paper...luckily I noticed before I sat down and so I was able to ask an alter boy (who was like 17) where I might find toilet paper. This was no easy task, I watched him run around asking everyone for about 5 minutes before he came back and said "Nobody knows were the toilet paper is but you can use another bathroom...but you will have to walk through a room of priests." To which I replied "I'll wait, thanks." So the service started and I was so excited to find that because it was Easter, the church had a full orchestra and a huge, amazing choir. The music in the service was all from Handel, including The Hallelujah Chorus as the clergy left the alter. It was a great way to spend the morning and it was really nice to be able to worship in a different country and still feel like I was welcome...even though I responded to everything you would in the Lutheran service and was on more than one occasion the only one saying "And also with you" and "He is risen indeed".
This afternoon Katie and her roommates wanted to see a few of the Dublin sites that I had already seen the morning before they got here so I headed off on my own to the little fishing village of Howth. The views were stunning and the smell reminded me of the east coast of the States, it was really nice. On the way back to the train I saw a building on fire and told a local shopkeeper (not really knowing who to call) and he just said "Oh, its just kids, there isn't anything in that building anyway. If you're cold I'm sure they'll let you in. Thanks though." Um, ok.
So I went to the train station and met what I can only imagine is my Dad's long lost brother (who was from Connecticut) who after hearing my American accent started talking to me about the problems in America, the biggest being Illegal Immigration....also home invasions in the north east. Ok dude.