The Luck of the Irish #HogsAbroad

I’m typing my next riveting entry as I’m on a 4 hour bus to Copenhagen from Aarhus. Every time we have to take a flight somewhere we have to bus or train to Copenhagen first because flights are so much cheaper than flying from Aarhus. A one way bus ticket only costs 50 Krones which is about $7. Its really affordable just a little inconvenient when all you want to do is to get your trip started. This is my third bus to and from Copenhagen in a week so I am getting to know this journey very well.

I spent the last couple of days in Dublin, Ireland, a place I had only ever dreamed of visiting.  We found super cheap flights and were like “why not!?” and went for 3 nights. The first full day in Dublin we saw all the sights in the city. We visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, Trinity College, The Spire, and many other churches and castle looking things that I have no idea what they were called but they were very pretty. We toured the Guinness brewery and saw how they pour their perfect pints. That night we had a traditional Irish dinner at a local pub called O’Niells and it was SO GOOD. The Irish know how to do it right. We went on a pub crawl that night with a bunch of other backpackers staying at the surrounding hostels. We got to meet tons of cool travelers from all over the world.

St. Patrick's Cathedral (you can thank him for your favorite upcoming holiday)

The Spire (looks like a giant toothpick in the sky to me but idk)

Trinity College Dublin (kind of looks like Arkansas, right?)

You can’t go to Dublin and not go to the Guinness brewery

The next day, we booked a tour using Wild Rover Tours to take us to the complete opposite coast of the country to see the famous Cliffs of Moher. After getting maybe 45 minutes of sleep, we hopped on an extremely early bus and headed to the cliffs. I had seen photos before but I was completely in awe when got off the bus. The photos don’t even do the view justice.

We were able to spend a little over 2 hours at the cliffs and luckily no one was blown over the edge :) We drove along the Wild Atlantic Way for a few hours, which is beautiful coastline stretching for miles along the west coast of Ireland. We stopped for lunch in Galway, which was a really nice city on the water. The best part, though, was for lunch we had burritos that literally rivaled Chipotle. I have been having serious withdrawals since I’ve been in Europe and this place was exactly like it, down to the lime seasoned chips. Honestly Chipotle should be concerned someone is copying them exactly but I was unaffected. That guac thoooooo. So good.

Ireland was incredible and if you haven’t been I HIGHLY recommend going. The people are so nice and helpful and want you to have a good time in their country. Everywhere we went was getting ready for St. Patrick's day and let me tell you, Dublin goes all out.  We were there a week before the actual holiday and people were already decked out in shamrocks and beads. I can’t even imagine how insane the city is going to be on the 17th.

After getting distracted a few times and getting past a few technical difficulties, I now only have 3 hours left on this bus!! Yay! We are flying to Milan tonight- the first stop on our spring break adventure. I fit 12 days worth of clothes in a carry-on. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.
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Read more from Lauren at https://laurenindenmarkblog.wordpress.com/
To find out more about the Walton college exchange program in Aarhus, visit http://studyabroad.uark.edu/exchange/wcobaarhus/