hola DUBLIN.

240 hours in Ireland <3

Ireland has become my second home over the past few years. I fly out twice a year to see my boyfriend and his family. This time I flew out for his friend’s wedding and we decided to take a small holiday and explore Dublin.

My boyfriend lives in Northern Ireland in a town called Ardboe, which is two hours away from Dublin. I love driving through the country roads and seeing acres and acres of green land with sheep and cows grazing. It’s absolutely beautiful and a great escape from the city life. The days leading up to the wedding were spent relaxing and enjoying time with him and his wonderful family.

Day of the wedding I had an appointment to get my hair done. I recently cut 7 inches off my hair, so I’m still learning how to style it. I did a simple french twist at my boyfriend’s mom’s stylist for only 10 pounds!

Irish weddings are always fun and similar to American weddings the only difference I noticed is that Irish women who attend as guests really go all out by getting their hair/makeup done and are wearing beautiful dresses. So if you’re planning on attending a wedding in Ireland, bring your A game ladies!  The reception was at the Ballymascanlon Hotel, a beautiful victorian yet modern hotel with vines growing along the walls. I felt like I was in a fairy tail. Drinking rosé coolers and dancing with my boo was the perfect way to kick off the weekend.

Saturday we woke up thinking we had nothing to do and we could lay in bed all day… until my boyfriend remembered he had a charity event in Belfast! We made it in time and I got to see him scale down a hotel building. The day turned into an eventful day filled with shopping and eating. Belfast is my favorite when it comes to shopping. Victoria’s Square has so many shops from Topshop to New Look. We ate at Nando’s, the best chicken wings I’ve ever had with amazing sauces!!

Sunday was game day & that’s all I’m allowed to write lol

Monday we woke up early and headed to Dublin. As much as I fly into DUB I’ve only been once around the city, it was the very first time I ever went to Ireland and it was only for the day. This time we got a hotel and did a bar crawl. We stayed at a historic hotel called Wynns. Wynn’s Hotel was built in 1845, bombed during 1916 and rebuilt in 1921 . It was in the heart of Dublin and everything was walking distance. The temple bar was close by and so were all the clothing stores. The hotel reminded me of what the rooms looked like in the Titanic, glam vintage. Our room was so cute with one full bed and one twin, and a fire place.

After settling we walked around looking for somewhere to have lunch. We walked into a small place called Cafe Nero and OMG they have the best chicken sandwiches! The place served a lot of healthy options from teas to smoothies to yummy food. After lunch we came across Rolling Donuts, this was on our check list to check out. Basically, crazy donuts with amazing flavors!

With our bellies full we walked around some more to see where we could go for the night. We walked towards Temple Bar and we noticed that the streets were pretty busy for a Monday. Then we started to hear live music coming from different bars. We walked into this vintage looking candy store, and the employee was telling us that Mondays are just as busy, if not busier than Friday Saturday and Sunday. Most people start to drink around 2 pm and are stumbling all over the street by 6pm. We thought, this was our kind of party ;D  We walked around some more before heading to the hotel to change.

We freshened up quick and on the way to Temple Bar made a list of bar we wanted to check out before the night was over. We got good seats at Temple Bar near the live band area. The music was fun and mostly all Irish songs with some American classics. We were having so much fun we didn’t want to leave but we also wanted to see what the other bars were like. We went to three other ones, they were all just as fun but we ended up going to Temple Bar towards the end of the night. With pit stops in between at a curry chip place <3 Guinness and curry cheese chips = HEAVEN

The rest of the night consisted of drink more and more Guinness and singing songs. By the end of it we ended the night at some Mexican food place ordering nachos, that were spicy AF. I love chili but these were crazy spicy.

The next morning we ate breakfast in the hotel, classic Irish fry/hangover cure 😉

We spent our last day walking around Dublin and ending our day at The Rolling Donut.

The remainder of the days consisted of just hanging out, introducing his family to CHORIZO BURRITOS and watching Stranger Things. As much as I enjoy being out and about exploring with my boyfriend, I love hanging out at his house with leggings, fluffy socks and a sweatshirt sitting on their big comfy sofa. Watching Stranger Things, I was surprised I liked it so much. Im not a big sci-fi fan but I really enjoyed the first season. It reminds me of a modern version of The Goonies (if you haven’t seen The Goonies, you’re not living). So when my boyfriend comes to visit me in San Francisco, he loves when I make chorizo breakfast burritos. We decided to share the wealth and bless his family with chorizo burritos. They were a bit hesitant and thought we were trying to kill them lol but after the first bite, they LOVED it!

On a random day we decided to take a mini road trip to the infamous rope bridge. I’ve been wanting to check it out for years now but the weather was always bad on the days we planned on going. I was so happy that this spontaneous day the weather was perfect. we first stopped at The Dark Hedges where scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed.

Its started to get a bit windy so we decided to hit the road and head for the rope bridge before they closed it for safety reasons. We were planning for it to be chilly and a nice SHORT walk… It was HOT and a LONG walking trail to the bridge. My boyfriend apparently knows everything, so i trusted him when he said it was going to be chilly.. *eye roll* besides not having the right shoes or cooler clothes, the hike was beautiful. The water was a rich blue and so clear! The walk to the bridge wasn’t as bad a the walk back. Theres a lot of stairs going down, which means a lot of stairs going up on the return.

The bridge is not as scary as I thought it was going to be. The bridge was secured with layers of netting and a bunch of ropes. Once you cross you walk up one last hill and you’ve arrived to a beautiful looking out point. Next time we want to have a picnic, because by the time we reached the top we were starving.

We cooled off for a few minutes, taking the view in, then headed back. The stairs were going back up were ridiculous. Out of breath, sun burnt and hungry we finally made it to the car and drove to the nearest small town. The first restaurant we found was also apart of a hotel. This must have been where the cast or crew of Game of Thrones stayed in when filming because in a small room costumes, swords and maps were on display.

This day trip was a prefect way to end this visit. It’s never easy leaving and saying “see you later” but this is the home stretch and we only have 2 or 3 more trip to plan until it’s FINALLY a one way ticket.

<3