A few hours after I landed in Amsterdam, Cole and I didn’t waste any time and jetted off on our first European adventure to Dublin! Cole found an incredible deal on RyanAir for 20 Euros each way and we couldn’t pass it up.

Friday night, we discovered a traditional Irish bar in town called the Blarney Inn, which we highly recommend. It had a great atmosphere, music and delicious food. After dinner, we checked out a few bars on Dawson Street, including Sam’s, which was busy with Rugby fans and locals dressed up in costumes for Halloween.

We woke up Saturday and spent the morning exploring one of the main shopping streets, Grafton. After brunch at a cute cafe, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Guinness Storehouse. While we didn’t anticipate spending so many hours there, we were entranced by the Irish music, dancing (and maybe a few too many beers). We had so much fun checking out the various floors (all 7 of them) and it was truly a cultural experience unlike most breweries. The Guinness Storehouse included an explanation of how they make, pour, even how to drink the infamous beer (yes there is a special way).

We eventually decided to leave the Storehouse to explore the rest of Dublin before it was dark. We rented bikes through Dublinbikes and saw the city on two wheels – biked along the river, checked out Trinity College and saw some more of the shopping streets.

We hit up a local pub to watch the Rugby World Cup Final and cheered on New Zealand as they beat Australia. After the rugby game, we headed to the only bar in the country that shows American College Football and despite their big Halloween party, they were still showing 1 game, Georgia vs. Florida 🙂 Unfortunately, we realized quickly the game wasn’t going to go in our favor so we decided to leave the bar at half-time and see a bit more of Dublin. We wandered around town a bit and eventually decided it was a nice night to walked back to our beautiful hotel in Ballsbridge (right outside of Dublin City Center).

We had a great time in Dublin – Cole’s ready to move there next 😉 – and we can’t wait to go back for some more Guinness beer!