Otter Abroad: The Luck of the Irish, Part I

I have seen it in pictures and awed at it in movies but nothing compares to the real thing. My weekend spent in Ireland was one of the craziest of my life! The grass is greener, the beer is better and the accents are way hotter than you could ever imagine! Accompanying the main crew (me, Kate B, Kate R, Jess and Lena) were Lena’s good friend Whitney and Kate R’s friend Shelley.

We kicked off our journey in Galway where we stayed with Kate B’s friend Siobhan. This girl was a saint for letting 7 girls crash at her house! On the first night, we walked through town and stopped at a local pub for some traditional Irish cuisine, greasy, beer battered, delicious chicken fingers and chips. After dinner we went back to Siobhan’s to begin getting ready for the long night to come. I forgot to mention, Siobhan has multiple (not sure exactly how many) male Irish roommates. True to Irish form, the boys were ready to party when we got home. We had a couple drinks…and then a few more before heading out to the club.

The club was ridiculously crowded, but that didn’t stop us, we danced for hours until the house lights came up. Pouring ourselves into bed or in my case, floor, at 4:30 a.m. did not make for pretty faces the following morning. We had to wake up at 7 a.m. after a few short hours of shuteye to catch a bus and tour of the coast. Plenty of water and a blueberry muffin later we were good as new and ready to see the sights! We saw lush green rolling hills, the Cliffs of Moher and numerous castles.

We arrived back at Siobhan’s house around 6 p.m., exhausted and ready to pass out. What were we thinking? Ireland doesn’t sleep, especially on a Friday night!

Of course, her roommates we’re ready to get crazy and that they did. They had a house party that night and it was insane. We tried to keep our eyes open; I even got all dolled up, but we fell asleep by midnight.

Our alarms sounded at 8 a.m. after an unsettling night’s sleep because of the rumbling of the loud music and beer bottles smashing. 

As tired as we were, we knew the show must go on so, we dragged ourselves to the bus stop and set off for Dublin for another adventure.