Brave Goes Abroad: Week 17.0: Irish Adventures

Just yesterday I got back to London from spending a couple days in Ireland, making up for the trip I missed last month. As you may know, this trip involved a brief visit to the southern coast of Ireland followed by some days in Dublin. Where to begin?

My time in Kinsale, Ireland, was made special by friends of mine from Greenwich who recommended the town and set me up with their local friend, Mike. Mike, having some days off from work, was happy to show me around the town, which came as a relief since I was traveling solo and had no idea where to start. On Monday, he collected me from the Cork airport, showed me around the city, and answered the thousands of questions I had about the Irish. On our drive from Cork to Kinsale, Mike walked me through nearly 10 Irish accents and I'm embarrassed to say that it took me a moment to clue back in after he'd wrapped up the impersonations and was just speaking as himself. It's not easy developing an ear for accents, which is why I will now cut the cabbies in Barcelona some slack for thinking I was British.

Between Monday and Tuesday, Mike showed me the best of the town. One of my favorite parts was our drive out to the Old Head of Kinsale, which in the past 20 years has become a golf course. Although the course is not open to the public, the view of the cliffs just outside the course and the rolling landscape that surrounds it are still quite amazing. Bless Mike's heart for being so patient with me as I attempted (and failed) to take a ribbon picture... the wind just wouldn't allow it.

While in Kinsale, I also enjoyed the time I spent on my own. The bed and breakfast recommended to me was simply adorable and I loved every second of having a full-sized bed to myself. On Tuesday morning, I redeemed my complimentary breakfast voucher at the café next door, where I realized that people were referring to me as "the girl staying in B+B". Kinsale is a small, small town and I'm sure it isn't every day that a girl from the US, traveling alone is standing out on the street corner attempting to take pictures with a pink ribbon. But hi, it's nice to meet you... my name is actually Liz!

After breakfast and coffee, I took a walk up to an area called Compass Hill, which boasts incredible views of the harbor. During this walk, the skies opened up and gave my poor little travel-sized umbrella a beating so I ran back into town to see if Mike wanted to grab lunch. He did, indeed, want lunch and so we wrapped up my second and final day in Kinsale by grabbing food and touring the old forts. Mike was also kind enough to drive me back into the city to catch the train to Dublin, but with stupid traffic I came quite close to missing it. When I jumped on and the doors closed behind me, I was quite happy to find onboard wifi and a vacant seat next to me.

Once in Dublin, I was met at the train station by my friend Aidan, who I met years and years ago in Cádiz, Spain. When he first opened his mouth I thought oh gosh, he's way more Irish than I had remembered. And we shared a good laugh later that night when he admitted that he had thought the same thing about my voice... not the way he had remembered it. Anyhow, we seemed to pick back up where we'd left off five years ago and I am so thankful to have had time to catch up with him, his sister, and one of the other friends I made on my Cádiz trip in 2010.

Between Tuesday night and Thursday, Aidan showed me around central Dublin, hitting some of the major attractions, while also finding time to take me out to a nearby beach town. We both enjoyed touring the Guinness Storehouse where I became the Master Brewer's Honorary Apprentice and Aidan stuck his entire head in barley fumes (a story for another time). Earlier that day, we had told friends we'd be free after touring Guinness, which we figured would take us around an hour. Turns out we spent closer to three hours at St. James's Gate Brewery, which concluded with free pints in the Gravity Bar atop the storehouse... a bar with AMAZING views of the city.

I know that down the road one of my favorite memories from this past week in Dublin will be the laughs I shared with my friends as we compared common words and sayings from our respective cultures. You should have seen the enjoyment they got out of a game we played where they would write down traditional Irish names and I would slaughter the pronunciation, time after time. Why don't you try and pronounce Siobhan, Saoirse, Tagh, Aoife, and Yvonne. Not easy, huh? Buzzfeed knows what I mean.

I really could go on about my trip to Ireland for hours but my time abroad is now limited to just days! I'm off to adventure around London some more and will write next week from home. Until then...