Friday, January 29, 2010

Dublin, Ireland

Let's cut right to the chase:

Dublin is... a city. I don't mean that in a bad way - cities have their fair share of charm and excitement - but there wasn't a "WOW" factor to it for us. I think when we planned the trip, we were hoping for green and countrysides and epic views, and Dublin wasn't that. I was elated to be back in Europe - in a place where tea was an acceptable alternative to coffee, and people drove on the left side of the road, but other than the general feel of being back in Europe, Dublin didn't do a whole lot for us. For one, we didn't meet all that many Irish people in Dublin. There are tons of transplants - so many people from different countries and cultures! Which was great in its own respect, but we were chomping at the bit to get a good feel for the country.

The first thing we did when we got off the plane was have a beer. Well, BF had a beer, I had coffee. It was only 9am, after all, but we were on vacation!

The first Guinness!

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Flying Aer Lingus to Ireland

The first thing I noticed about flying to Ireland last year was that flying to Europe as a 27 year old is much different than flying to Europe as a 20 year old. I was not expecting to be jet lagged - and it took a bigger toll on me than it used to. But it didn't matter too much, because hello, we were going to Europe!



Monday, January 25, 2010

Buying tickets to Ireland, plus our itinerary!

In June of last year, I started to get the travel bug. Bad. It made me obsessively check Travelzoo, and Kayak, and all of my other favorite travel sites. We had considered a trip to Ireland for a while, and when I started seeing air fare rates drop on Aer Lingus, we decided it was high time to do it.

After monitoring AerLingus.com for a few weeks, we found a fantastic deal: Los Angeles to Dublin, round trip, for $482 per person, after taxes. We booked directly through the Aer Lingus website - Los Angeles to Chicago to Dublin, and back.

Then, it was just about figuring out our itinerary. We wanted to get a good taste of Dublin, but we didn't want to spend all of our time there. We wanted to see the country, and decided that renting a car was our best option. My boyfriend wanted to see the North West of the country, I wanted to see as much coast as possible.

Dublin