Walking around Hugo’s office, I started using the yelp app to find a restaurant. Chez Max came up as close by. We walked in and saw croissants, muffins and coffee and were extremely confused. As we walked out, I saw 2 men in suits walking downstairs to the basement. Ah ha! Here it is! And then we found the best French restaurant in Dublin! The end .
The pubs in Dublin are everywhere. If I sat here and wrote how many we have seen, walked in to, you would be shocked. So I will just give you a brief overview.
Temple Bar- The Timesquare of Dublin. It’s overflowing with people from 7pm-10pm nearly everynight. Walk into any pub and you can scope out the scene. Some pubs will have the old authentic irish music and others will have techno. It completely depends. Also, make note that sometimes the prices of drinks go up at night. For example, your 6 euro pint becomes 8 Euros past 10pm. Just because. So beware. It’s a fun spot but not so fun to wake up broke! (Check out the Hairy Lemon! It was our First Pub in Dublin we went to!)
Pubs close by to our short term let are: The Bleeding Horse (Check out the McGargles Brew!) and Whelans. Both are low keys, old style pubs with a friendly vibe. Whelans is known for it’s music. Lots of various bands come through on weekends. The Bleeding Horse actually just opened up a creative section in the Pub with people’s artwork. There was a private gallery viewing last evening.
For the record, Ireland is super progressive when it comes to politics and equal rights. With that said, I was shocked to not be able to find women’s shaving cream.. ANYWHERE. I asked at a few places and the women looked at me like “we just use shower gel? You mean there is such a thing!?”
Holy business idea. Gillette- get your products ready! There’s about to be a revolution!
Hugo will be the first one to tell you, Courtney cannot cross the street. It’s been 3 weeks and I am still having a bit of difficulty figuring out what side to look at first. My fast paced NYC self wants to cross the street long before I am actually able to do so. Hugo seriously worries about Courtney and doesn’t like when she goes out on her own because she is dangerous. lol.
On our first day, #1 we were exhausted, #2 everything seems so far as you’re just getting acquainted with the city. We mainly explored around Portobello and found the canal with swans on it. We also had to do some grocery shopping, settling in, etc. It was a good first day though.
We left 7pm on Wednesday evening and after much ado about nothing, took off an hour late thanks to some sort of Air Marshall test (will elaborate about that some other time). We barely slept and arrived in Dublin at 7am on Thursday morning. Coming from New Jersey’s snow and ice and lack of color, it was so exciting to see green grass!! Although it rains here, it’s not nearly as bad as what we were coming from. I’ll take the rain any day compared to snow! Once we checked into our short term “let” we took a nap. Upon waking, the door rang and the sweetest old Irish man was at the door with a gorgeous basket of flowers. Thank you Michel Family! It truly was a sweet gesture for our arrival.
Leaving Hoboken was a surreal experience. From the moment we decided to pursue Ireland, it was a whirl wind. It was packing, selling, moving, getting quotes, researching, non-stop for 2 months.
-Here is a picture of what we actually brought on the plane. Our clothes for approx. 5 weeks. Quite possibly the toughest pack of our careers. We both thought we packed a great diverse set of clothes, well here we are in week 3 in Dublin and not sure what we packed or why. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our things as these clothes are not cutting it. It’s starting to become Spring and we have heavy sweaters and boots. Not a good look!
You wouldn’t think Ke$ha would come into the equation while looking for an apartment, but alas, she does! Instead of advertising for hardwood floors, they are called timber floors here. Everytime we were in an apartment and the agent was pointing out the timber, I couldn’t help but think….
It’s going down… I’m yellin timber….. you better move… you better dance… 🙂
Love LOVE LOVE this word: Tener! Another commonly used phrase is the Fiver. It’s so nice to just roll the word off the tongue. Commonly used here is British word, Quid AKA Bucks. Instead of in the States, where you would say “do you have 10 bucks?” Here you would say “do you have ten quid?” However, if you’re lucky enough and in a taxi that rounds down as they commonly do, you may get to experience the use of the Tener or Fiver. It’s beautiful and I look forward to using it more often and possibly bringing it back to the States to use.
Courtney and Hugo's Adventures Abroad 