What Rain?

Having lived in London for over 2 years now, putting pins in our map and planning our next adventure, we have continuously put off traveling to Ireland for one main reason - weather, and finding the best time of year to risk the Irish rain. Well, two weeks ago, we did it - we finally went to Ireland, on a 4-day trip, equipped with our big sturdy umbrellas, our raincoats, and our boots...and somehow (I still can't believe it!), experienced only about 30 minutes of rain during our entire long weekend! So, to set the stage...Ireland in early March - sunny with mostly blue skies, a chilly wind and an occasional quick shower - opened our large umbrellas once, for about five minutes. It was absolutely incredible...like I said, I still can't believe the luck we had!

We arrived in Dublin on a Thursday evening, had a lovely dinner in the Temple Bar area of Dublin, and awoke Friday morning with very different plans for the day in Dublin...

Having coordinated with my former professor and boss at the University of San Diego (USD), I spent Friday with students and staff members from USD's Marital & Family Therapy Program (MFT) at a one-day conference at University College Dublin, where we collaborated with clinical psychology students from Dublin during three professional seminars about various topics related to the counseling/therapy profession. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet current students in the program at USD (making me quite nostalgic for the USD job I left behind when we moved to London!), and to reconnect professionally with topics relevant to my field. Following the conference, Bryan and I wandered around Dublin's city center, which is really a young, energetic, slightly off-beat and edgy university town, enjoyed a sunset over the Ha'Penny Bridge, and later joined up with the staff members from USD for dinner and drinks, which was a lovely, low-key catch-up and brilliant end to my day in Dublin! -B

At the Ha'Penny Bridge, Dublin

After kissing my beautiful fiance goodbye for the day, I threw my backpack on and headed out to discover what Dublin had to offer, on a surprisingly beautiful day. My first stop was to the Guinness Brewery, which was quite impressive. It was a 5-story tour, including a great historical account of how Guinness was discovered, the brewing process explaining its rich color and unique taste (hint: roasted barley and lots of hops), the fact that they source all of their ingredients locally and employ a large percentage of Dublin, and then concluded not only with a complimentary tasting lesson of a quarter-pint, but a fresh full pint as well in their sky bar (taking the official 119 seconds to pour), with a 360 degree view of the entire city. While I enjoyed my pint, I made friends with a local Dubliner and his mate from Brazil, and we compared European beers to US beers - sidenote...while the famous US light beers were an afterthought, they did surprisingly think US microbrews beat many European beers.
I bid them farewell and headed to my next stop....the Jameson Distillery. However, I was starved since it was almost 2pm at this point...not realising I had spent almost 3 hours at the Brewery (well done Guinness marketing). The Distillery was by guided tour only, and I had about an hour until the next one, so I enjoyed a nice lunch in their cafe - irish soda bread topped with fresh crab and lox, accompanied by a glass of their house red wine...deeelish. I finished just in time for the tour to begin and was chosen as 1 of 8 people, out of about 30, to partake in the whiskey tasting at the end of the tour. To be honest, the tour was a bit disappointing. It was only about 30 mins long and not very informative, though I did learn that Jameson is distilled 3 times compared to twice for most Scotch, and just once for many Bourbons. The tasting made up for the poor tour however, where I was able to compare Jameson to Johnny Walker (much smokier) to Jack Daniels (much sweeter). Sure enough, I made some more friends, but this time they were from Northern California...small world. By then it was time to meet up with Brandina, so I bought her some Jameson-infused chocolate and headed back to our hotel. - B


After our day in Dublin, we set off (together!) on Saturday morning via coach for Galway, having been told by a number of people that a real trip to Ireland requires getting outside of Dublin, to experience the countryside and the sea. We spent the entire weekend in Galway, where we stumbled upon a fantastic seaside cafe, boasting only locally-grown and sustainable food (we enjoyed it so much we had both lunch and dinner there one day - and yes they did recognise us), enjoyed the medieval layout of the small town, perused the local markets, and listened to traditional Irish pub music in the evening. On Sunday, we joined a bus tour bound for the Cliffs of Moher, stopping along the way for a hike in the Burren mountains at a local Irish family farm, having lunch in a small fishing village, and again, literally enjoying the most amazing Irish landscapes with sun and blue skies. It really was phenomenal. Sensing a theme here? I know, like I said, I still can't get over the weather we had! Interestingly enough, we did experience about 10 minutes of a sleet/snow storm whilst on the bus to the Cliffs, but by the time we arrived, all signs of winter had passed.

On the farm, set in the Burren mountains

At the Cliffs of Moher

Heading home, via the coastal route

The bus tour finished with a coastal drive back to Galway, where we rounded out the weekend back at our lovely little B&B...on a street seemingly designed just for us :).

-B&B

"May you live all the days of your life". - Jonathan Swift, Irish satirist and poet