Dublin

Hello (:

This post has been a long time coming, I was supposed to write it last week, but I ended up doing some over time and had a busy weekend going to The Deep and not doing much else. Without further ado, here's the lowdown on the trip I took over to Dublin with my two pals.

We booked this trip back in December after my friend found it on Groupon. I'd never used Groupon before, so I had no idea what to expect. In total it cost around £94 each and that included return flights and two nights in the hotel. We snapped it up pretty quickly and I kind of put it on the back burner, feeling a bit more enthusiastic about going to Amsterdam, as I've visited Dublin before.

Part of the deal was we had to fly from Birmingham, which wouldn't have been first, second or third choice of airport for us, as it's quite a trek. We set off super early, and my friend drove us there and back, opting to leave the car at the Airparks car park. This was a good idea, as we knew her car would be secure, as well as all the bits and bobs we left there. It was fairly cheap as well, and it includes a bus transfer to and from the terminal.

The flight was pretty uneventful, we flew with Ryanair, and I was expecting a lot more hassle than what we actually got. I've not had the best previous experiences with Ryanair! When we arrived in Dublin, we got a taxi to our hotel. We were staying at the Regency Hotel, which was a midpoint between Dublin centre and the airport. The hotel itself was a lot nicer than any of us were expecting, especially after reading some questionable TripAdvisor reviews.

It was early afternoon when we arrived, so we set about getting a taxi into town to buy some needed toiletries - we'd been told we could only take hand luggage, but ended up having our bags checked which was a tad annoying - and had a general look around. We ate at Eddie Rocket's, which is a 1950's style diner, and all the food comes in red baskets and the staff are dressed like extras from Grease. The food was amazing and we left feeling very full, but very happy.

Because of our flight times, we only really had one proper night we could use, so we decided from the moment we booked that we'd be going on a night out on the Saturday. Because we'd gotten so many taxis everywhere, we spoke to all the drivers and got a lot of opinions on where to go and which bars and clubs would be the best for us.

We were dropped off at Temple Bar, which is the big tourist hot spot. A lot of the pubs and bars have live music and it's very folk-y, and not really our thing at all. Back in 2012, I'd already been in the actual Temple Bar pub with my parents and sister and hadn't enjoyed it much back then. We avoided that and headed to Buskers instead, which played a lot more chart music and cheesy pop (still, not really my thing, but Desperadoes were 4 euros). It was a really lively atmosphere, but not the place to go if you want a more authentic Irish experience, as it was full of tourists. The club beneath Buskers, Alchemy, was pretty good too and we finished the night off in there. I've got to say, drinks are pretty expensive in Dublin. My friend had a double Archers and lemonade and it cost her just short of 14 euros.

On Sunday, we decided to take advantage of our hotel's facilities and headed to the pool. I was super hungover and was determined not to enjoy any moment of it, but was quite surprised. There's a rule in Dublin that in public pools, you have to wear a swimming cap. Which, as someone who goes swimming quite regularly, absolutely confused the hell out of me. A taxi driver had informed us, it was due to hygiene reasons. We sat in the jacuzzi for a while, before me and my friend managed a few lengths in the pool before it got really busy.

That afternoon, we headed across town to the Guinness Storehouse. It was interesting, but it was so busy. I'd recommend booking tickets, you get like 10% off if you book online and you get to skip the ridiculous long queue. Because it was so busy, it was difficult to properly take your time and look and read each piece of information. It also meant the queues to learn to pull the perfect pint and the cafe were really long, so we decided not to wait and press forwards. The whole Storehouse wasn't what I was expecting, I hoped it'd be a bit more interactive than it was. Good for beer enthusiasts though, as there are a few interesting facts along the way.

The main exciting point of the Storehouse was going to the Gravity bar at the very top, the walls are made out of windows and it overlooks Dublin centre and the view was incredible. It was such a clear day and you could see for miles. I can only imagine it looks even more incredible at night. You also get a free drink in the bar, Guiness or a soft drink.

We had a walk up to Grafton Street to look around the shops and I got a picture with Phil Lynott's statue to show my dad. As everything started to close, we headed up to Temple Bar to get something to eat, opting for an old favourite, TGI Friday's. We ate Jack Daniels chicken and drank cocktails, before stopping for a 5 euro cocktail in Buskers. It was a really chilled out evening, and the perfect way to end our trip before the 3AM wake up call on Monday morning.

I love Dublin. It's one of those places, like Amsterdam that I feel sort of drawn to. I feel like I could genuinely live there one day, if the New York dream never happens, who knows what will be the back up? I'd recommend Dublin to everyone, but if you have as little time as we did, definitely plan in advance what you're going to do. We knew we wanted to have a night out and my pals wanted to go to the Guinness Storehouse. There's plenty of other options too, of course.

Have you ever been to Dublin? What did you do there?

Amsterdam

Hello (:

Blogging has been very sporadic as of late. Between trapping a nerve in my neck and shoulder and then getting a virus that lead to conjunctivitis, March has been pretty unproductive and I've spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself! All that changed last weekend, as on Mother's Day, myself, my sister and parents took a little trip over to Amsterdam for a couple of days.

My mum decided that we would go across on the ferry, which is an eleven hour over night trip. We drove up to Hull to the ferry port and everything was so simple. Prior to this, I'd never been on a ferry before, I've always flown whenever I've been abroad so this was a whole new experience. There isn't the rigorous security checks that are present in airports and there's no luggage allowance (definitely a good thing with the amount my sister packed!).

The ferry journey itself was pretty uneventful. There was a buffet style restaurant, which wasn't overly appealing or tasty, and the bar and entertainment left much to the imagination. What was supposed to be a smooth crossing was super bumpy as well! It's difficult to sleep in a bed that feels like it's constantly moving around. The strawberry woo woos definitely made everything that bit more hilarious though.

I wasn't sure what to expect from Amsterdam. I'd had a look at a few travel blogs before we went and had a vague idea of things we could do. There's plenty of museums, some about the most random things (Museum of Bags and Purses, anyone?) Obviously Amsterdam is well known for the Red Light District and the coffee shops and cafes where smoking weed is legal, but I felt there was a lot more to it than just that.

On Monday, we docked in Rotterdam around 8AM and we hopped onto a coach to transfer us to Amsterdam. This took around an hour and a half, and I wouldn't recommend to anyone who is travel sick/wary of being on coaches for a long time. The roads are quite bumpy and it's very twisty/turn-y. The coach transfer stops outside the train station in central Amsterdam, and fortunately we'd driven past our hotel so we knew what direction to drag our suitcases in.

We stayed at the Prins Hendrik hotel, which was on the edge of the Red Light District and within walking distance of absolutely everything. It was probably the weirdest place I've ever stayed. The hotel itself is split into a few buildings, all very tall and narrow. We had two rooms in the same building, one on the first floor and one on the fourth. The stairs between each floor were so steep and narrow, the first time we went up was terrifying. My sister and I had the room on the fourth floor and mastered a way of walking down the steps without breaking our necks.

On Monday, we followed the advice of our very helpful and friendly hotel receptionist and went to the Amsterdam Dungeons. As someone who is scared of everything, I wasn't overly keen on doing this. We did have a long walk around the canals before we made our way to the Dungeons. I've never been to any Dungeons, ever. I won't even go in the downstairs dungeons bit in the Castle Museum in York. So being scared half to death wasn't my idea of fun.

Without spoiling it too much, the actors do a good job of messing with your heads by splitting up groups and picking on a single person over and over again. Both of my parents got picked on on separate occasions, but fortunately by that point I wasn't having such a nervy b anymore and managed to have a chuckle. It was very dark a lot of the time and there were a lot of flashing lights. If you are a very, very nervous person, I wouldn't recommend it. I'm not super nervy, but being thrown into darkness and having my senses messed with doesn't sit well with me. There is a mind melting hall of mirrors which was utterly confusing and frustrating, and the final room and story in particular was extremely spooky with a fair few jumps. Despite that, when we got out, I was saying I enjoyed it.

There's a lot to see when you walk around, we stumbled across the statue of Remembrant whilst seeking out the Hard Rock Cafe for Monday night's festivities. The buildings themselves in Amsterdam are incredible, everything is so tall and narrow and some even look crooked. It's so easy to get lost, as we did on more than one occasion, due to the canals all looking the same. There seems to be a cheese shop on every corner and the amount of bikes was insane. Bikes appeared to have right of way absolutely everywhere, and bikers will ring their bells at you if you're in the way. They even seemed to have higher priority than cars on the roads.

On Monday night, after trying and failing to find the Hard Rock Cafe on foot, we jumped into a taxi and headed there for tea. None of us had been to a Hard Rock since we went to Florida in 2007, so this was a nice treat. It might defeat the object a bit, heading to a chain rather than going somewhere more traditional, but it was still incredible. The food was big in portion and tasted amazing. I had the Big Cheeseburger, which was covered in thick slices of cheddar cheese. I wish I'd taken a picture, but was far too keen to actually eat it. For dessert, we shared a brownie sundae and once you got past the mountain of cream and ice cream, the brownie itself was so tasty, very rich and sticky.

After eating, we got a taxi back to the Red Light District and had a wander down a few of the alleyways. Fortunately, we didn't see anything too risque (not ideal when your with your parents!) before settling in a bar for a couple of drinks.

On Tuesday, we had to check out of our rooms in the morning. We jumped on the tram and headed for the Rijksmuseum. It was really busy, so we ended up not going into the museum itself. Even more so because our receptionist had told us you could spend the whole day in there, it was so big. Instead, we had  trek around the grounds and found the I Amsterdam statue.

Tuesday was spent having a good old nosey around, we had a peek in a few shops and ate lunch outside in Dam Square. In the late afternoon, we had a wander closer to the hotel, taking in the Red Light District in daylight and a walk through China Town. In true St Patrick's Day style, we opted to have a final drink in an Irish pub that was blasting Flogging Molly with plenty of four leaf clovers and Guinness top hats decorating the bar.

I enjoyed Amsterdam so, so much. Everywhere we went everyone was so polite, friendly and happy to help. There's a lot of culture and history and I only wish we'd had more time to do and see a lot more. If that's not an incentive to return, then I don't know what is! I wouldn't recommend the ferry though, as cheap as it is, it's not for those more susceptible to travel sickness.

Have you ever been to Amsterdam? What did you do there?

Until next time!