Back to the Beginning
My wonderful friend Sara and I met at University College Dublin 3 years ago. She was actually the person who opened my eyes to the idea of living abroad, and well, here I am! We went on so many adventures together that summer and have been in love with each other ever since. I've visited her in Denmark and in Illinois for her wedding. But we both wanted to relive our first days together with a reunion here in Ireland. It was a long time coming, and it did not disappoint!
I could hardly contain my excitement as I waited at the airport for Sara. Every that came through the doors had my heart racing! We were FINALLY reunited in the place where it all began.
Our first day in Dublin, we had to go to our fave place, Lemon, for some to die for crepes.
Of course, we had to take a stroll through George's Arcade and have a look through the shops. Sara found a super cute flannel, which ended up PERFECTLY matching Luke on an episode of Gilmore Girls we had on a couple of days later. It was actually crazy how perfect of a match it was.
I took advantage of the fact that there's no Thanksgiving here and everything pumpkin is discounted now. I took home two very cute little white pumpkins!
Our walking, shopping, and catching up was awfully thirsty work, so we stopped in Merchant's Arch off the Ha'Penny for a drink. Or two. And stayed for the live music and good vibes.
The next evening was planned out as our travel night. After a quick pop into a shop for some postcards, we went to catch a bus to Cashel.
We waited for nearly an hour, and the bus finally arrived. Only instead of waiting for the bus in front of it to move on, it all of a sudden pulled back out into traffic and sped off into the sunset! We were left on the sidewalk gaping at each other. With another two hours until the last bus of the day, we did the only rational thing: Get a drink. Across the river we grabbed ourselves some pints at Nancy Hands.
FINALLY, we arrived in Cashel. We did some super quick exploring before the sun set.
After dinner, the majority of our time was spent in Donoghue's, a quaint little pub with friendly staff and live music.
Cashel is a pretty small town. So everyone knew we were visiting since they didn't know us! Which meant we got to meet a lot of people. There was (the other) Alex with the eye injury from his job in carpentry:
This lovely group of girls from various countries working as Au Pairs in Cashel:
And, naturally, the owner of the pub, Patrick:
Our main reason for visiting Cashel was the Rock of Cashel. We were too eager to wait until the morning, so we walked over for a little moonlight peek.
The next morning we were able to get a better look on our way over. There was an old Friary nestled into some modern businesses on the outskirts of the main street.
The Rock towers over the town and is very visible as you walk through the neighbourhoods at its base.
It's surrounded mostly by gorgeous Irish countryside. Lots of rolling green hills and huge, old trees. Add the sound of cows in the distance and you're practically there!
Walking into the Rock of Cashel, there's an indoor section with some recovered artefacts from the site.
The ticket comes with a 45-60 minute tour, which actually ended up being the most informative tour I've had in Ireland. I've done so many touristy things and this one by far gave me the most information, some of which I hadn't even learned before! One thing I found really interesting was the seal (they had a large replica made, below). The members of the choir would shop in town, hand over their cope of the seal, which was stamped on the shops at a later date, and their bills would be paid at a later date. Only the choir members started creating copies for their friends and families to use!
The building had been restored from the ruined original, pictured below. They replicated it as closely as possible, even using timber nails.
The buildings within the site were amazing. It's so unusual to see such a wide variety of different buildings piled on top of each other like that. Cashel means "ring fort", but the original ring fort was actually demolished and these buildings were put up in its place.
There were some very interestingly posed stone carvings. Sara replicated them with perfection.
From the Rock of Cashel, we could see Hore Abbey in the distance, surrounded by cows.
We said our goodbyes to the Rock and headed down to the Abbey.
A freezing downpour drove us back into town, where we did some last minute exploring.
We grabbed some hot drinks in a cute little cafe to warm up, then headed back to Dublin.
It was so unbelievably nice to have her back in Ireland with me. It's crazy how much we've both grown in the past few years and how much experience we've both gained living abroad. Our worlds are certainly a lot smaller than when we met. But some things never change!
Read Sara's story of living in Denmark here.