Dublin Day 2 photos

Dublin Day 2

Woke up relatively early and lazed about the hotel for a bit.  Once we headed out we walked along the river into town and headed for the Bakehouse for brunch. I've been there a couple of times with Gem but K has never been. K got the potato farls topped with fried eggs and bacon and I got what they call beans on toast on the menu but is actually so much more. The food arrived and mine is 2 thick slices of cheese and toast topped with a mix of fried red onions, mushrooms and spring onions with a separate pot of beans and wee thing of home made salsa. I gave K my mushrooms and she slipped me a rasher of bacon and then we devoured it - delicious! I also had a jam jar of fresh apple juice and K had some proper loose-leaf Irish tea.

After our delicious brunch we went a walk over the river into Temple Bar and strolled along enjoying it while it was quiet for once. Our first stop was my favourite shop in Dublin, Gutters book shop. It is named after the Oscar Wilde quote "we're all in the gutters but some of us are looking up at the stars" - this was my class quote for the 6th year yearbook fact fans.

Afterwards we walked over to Dublin Castle and had a stroll in the delightful gardens.  There are pig statues all over Dublin just now, all differently decorated for charity and we saw a few of them in the gardens too.

We walked about a few more shops including the lovely shopping centre Powercourt but our next stop of note was the pop up tayto shop. It is basically like the irn bru shop with all the tayto merch you could imagine and the added bonus of crisp sandwiches. We both got salt and vinegar, the were €2 a sandwich and €1 of that goes to charity.

We took our sandwiches down to St Stephens Green for an al fresco lunch. The Green is lovely,  we had a wee stroll about enjoying the many statues including a Henry Moore statue of Yeats.

We went to a pub called Pmacs that yelp told me about for a while after that, it was ace, the type of place I could imagine all my friends hanging out in of a Sunday. Lots of wee knooks,  excellent beers and loads of games.

Before dinner we went our usual trip to Hard Rock for John and Lorna but they didn't have John's shot glass this time.  For dinner we went to Smokin' Bones which is a bbq joint recommend by yelp. It was good but not wonderful. I had pulled pork with mac cheese and chips and k had brisket with chips and slaw.

We went a final potter about and then hopped on the bus to the airport.   Everything went smoothly and we're now in a taxi home from the airport.

Until our next adventure...

Dublin photos day 1

Toerzy and Kirsty take on Dublin

Dublin for the country 2 country festival this weekend . Packing was a casual affair cos it's just one night and we pack light. K's mum gave us a lift to the airport and was shocked at how tiny our bags were.

We had a chill at the airport, went to Eat for lunch, sat about etc. Our plane was delayed so we knew we'd probably miss the first act, Kip Moore. Then, just as we finally boarded the plane, I realised I didn't pack the tickets. Fuck. I asked K if she did but she didn't so we were on a plane to Dublin without our tickets to the show. I'm a total idiot.

We arrived in Dublin in super quick time. K had been looking forward to a pepsi max but just as both trollies got to us (we were bang in the middle of the plane, in the exit aisle) they both retreated and the pilot announced we were starting to land. K was bealing! As soon as we got through security I phoned ticketmaster and they said we could pick up new copies of our tickets at the venue, result!

We got the bus to to hotel and got a lovely room on the 5th floor overlooking the Liffey. We barely looked at our room before running back out to head the venue. It was 535 at this stage so we knew Kip Moore had just started his set. Our hotel is a 15 min walk along the river from the venue so we powered along with the crowds. We got our tickets (hurrah!) and we were in!

Our seats were amazing and we even managed to see some of Kip Moore's set, including my two favourite songs by him. The next act was Bradley Gilbert who was brilliant and pretty rocking! We loved his show but then he ruined it by going on about how much he loves guns and how he'd be happy to shoot someone.

Near the end of his set a very drunk couple came in and sat next to me, they spoke the whole time and the giant lanky guy invaded my leg space. We headed to the merch stand between acts and K got a sweet C2C tshirt in her standard v neck style.

Next was Jason Aldean, we've loved him ever since we heard him on the radio when we were doing Route 66. He didn't disappoint, the set was epic with loads of pyrotechnics and all of our favourite songs. The dicks next to me continued to talk loudly through the whole thing. He finished with our very very favourite of his songs, She's Country, and K and I sang our hearts out and did our glee faces.

Lady Antebellum closed the show and they were phenomenal, the crowd were singing their hearts out through the whole set. At one point Charles walked through the crowd and came up to our area,  security were losing their shit but it all worked out well and the crowd was loving it.  Then they did a cover of islands in the stream which everyone loved and sang along with. They had a big ticker tape finale which was awesome and it was a wonderful end to a wonderful night.

We walked along the river back to the hotel and it was lovely to see it all lit up by night. It was nearly midnight when we got back to the hotel so we just chilled then went to sleep, we've got an exciting day ahead of us today.