We arrived in our last destination by train from Galway... We were so sad to be leaving such a vibrant little place with so much music; however I was looking forward to seeing what Dublin had to offer!
The walk from the train station to the hostel was a little bittersweet... It marked the last time we'd be lost and wandering around a foreign city without a map with our massive packs. After finding our hostel, we dropped our bags and went for lunch because Kiri is a beast when she's hungry. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around and getting a feel for the city of Dublin... We bought our brothers some great souvenirs that we cannot wait to give them.
After dinner, we were just sitting in the common room in our hostel, contemplating heading to bed because we were exhausted when a guy talked us into going out for a little bit, being that it was down to our last weekend abroad. We only stayed out long enough for a couple beverages but managed to join a stag for a bit, watch a World Cup game (and cheer for Ghana!), find a bar that looked like every parents' dream basement plans for after their kids move out, and met a bunch of people from around the world. Pretty solid Saturday night for being so exhausted!
The next day we hit the place we'd seen on Pinterest oh-so-many times; the Trinity College Library. It's 300 years old and is also home to the Book of Kells, which is a really old manuscript that details many parts of Christianity that was written by monks in the 6th century. It was cool... The library was incredible. I felt like I was in Harry Potter or something; we just don't have history like that in Canada!
After that, we wandered down the street towards the museum of natural history because we really didn't have any other plans made yet. We stopped at a Lush where we met the most incredible salespeople ever. We had the intent of going in to buy a bit of hair conditioner because we'd run out, and after explaining that we were going home in a couple days, they loaded us up with a few free samples to get us through the rest of the trip. Kiri really liked this type of perfume but they had run out of everything but their sample of it on the shelf, so they just gave her a big chunk of it for free. We like scoring free stuff. If I was the kind of person who filled out online customer reviews, that business would be getting a solid five stars from me.
So after that, we trekked over the the Museum of Natural History. Now, we are not museum people in the slightest, but it was pretty sweet. It opened back in the 1800s when Darwin's book was published and it was completely full of animals from around the world. We spent about 45 minutes combing through the exhibit... Kiri likes wombats so luckily we found one of those. We found a bunch of animals that were from British Columbia... Kinda cool. I touched a taxidermy-ed giraffe. It was soft.
After that, we hopped back over the hostel and booked some online tickets to the Guinness Storehouse to save a bit of money before making our way over to it. I would HIGHLY recommend checking that place out; it was really really cool. The facility alone is unbelievable... Not to mention how the information is presented. We learned about the process of making the beer, before learning how to properly taste test Guinness (which is best served at exactly 6 degrees Celsius). We also learned that it takes 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint and the six steps involved in pouring it before doing it ourselves... Which left us with a free pint of Guinness! I'm not usually a fan of that particular beer but it tasted quite a bit different to what you get in Canada and we ended up really liking it! It made for a pretty solid ending to the tour.
After that, we came back to our hostel, cooked up some dinner before hitting the laundromat to do one last load of laundry abroad... We really just did the clothes we want to wear home on the plane. And by we I mean Kiri because she loves the smell of fabric softener and refused to wear clothes that didn't smell like it. I must admit its nice to have clothes freshly washed to wear home... Which seems completely crazy to even be thinking about; the past two months have just flown by.
Today we woke up at what felt like the crack of dawn, Kiri put on some Dolly Parton song that she has recently become obsessed with and we got ready to go for a tour of Enniskerry and Wicklow. Now, I've done a lot of research about Ireland in preparation for this trip and I'd never heard of these places but for anyone who is every considering travelling Ireland, please go there. It is astoundingly beautiful.
Kiri and I were the only people on the tour, which made for a great day! It was very personalized and we got to choose where we wanted to go and what we wanted to see. So we started our day at some horse stables where we spent two hours on a trail ride through the beautiful Irish countryside where the movie PS I Love You was filmed. It was really, really amazing and I'm quite glad Kiri talked me into it (I have a fear about animals that can open their mouths wide enough to fit my head in them). The horses were lovely, even Kiri's cranky old one was nice and we had a great time trotting around for those couple hours.
After stopping for lunch, we headed up to where Braveheart was filmed and toured around more of the Enniskerry countryside before heading down to a place called Glendalough where the most gorgeous loch was situated in between two "mountains." I put mountains in quotations because compare to the Rockies, everything just looks like hills over here. It was also home to an old monastery built back in something like 800 AD. The history just constantly blows me away here; I don't think I can quite fathom just how long ago that is.
It was such a beautiful day out again; we are so lucky to have had sunshine every single day of this trip! It was just the absolute perfect way to spend our last day abroad... All that stands between us and reuniting with our loved ones tomorrow is a mountain of clothing and souvenirs that need to be packed away into our backpacks (which are looking smaller and smaller these days) and a few flights that will seem like nothing in comparison to how long it took to get to Ghana.
I think leaving Ireland and this whole adventure is starting to seem very bittersweet. We are looking forward to seeing our families and friends more and more now, knowing that we will be arriving home tomorrow. But at the same time, there are so many things we've yet to do over here on this side of the world... I already know that I have to come back one day, just to do the things we've missed. Travelling is the most addicting habit in the entire world, I think... I am already formulating some plans for another trip (hopefully to South America!) and I haven't even gotten home from this one yet!
To everyone who actually read this blog and all it's posts, we say thank you! We've really liked being able to share our adventures with so many people at home and we cannot wait to see you on the flip side... 36 hours and we are HOME.