Dublin Days 1 and 2 (Gala Night)

We arrived in Dublin on Tuesday, August 7th around 1pm and this is how it went down:

Checked into the hotel

Went walking all over the place

Found a bar

Took too many Irish Car Bombs

Went back to the hotel to get ready for a welcome reception

They bused us to the Guinness Storehouse

We had the whole place to ourselves with a band on every level and traditional irish food stations everywhere.  

Okay here are the pictures:

This is the place we spent most of our time.  We had some friends come meet up with us.  

We happened upon the table right in the front next to the guy playing guitar. 

Of course we bought him a drink in true southern form and he played us a carolina song! 

That's Kevin delivering him his Guinness. 

The Irish Car Bombs go down much easier in Dublin!

We walked back to the hotel with our friends about an hour before we were to be downstairs for the event that night.  By the way, we WALKED SOOOOO much this whole trip.  And we barely slept.  I thought for sure it'd be so enjoyable to sleep with no monitor and because I hadn't slept in three months.  Nope, we enjoyed every bit of our trip instead haha!

There it is - Guinness!

We walked through all 5 levels of how it's made!

The Guinness people seemed nervous with so many people eating and drinking all over the place.  Evidently it was their biggest event they've had there by far and the place is pristine and spotless!  

It was a super fun night!

Wednesday morning we knew we had a big day ahead.  We found a cute cafe for breakfast and waited out about 10 minutes of rain while we planned our next thing we wanted to do.  

Best frapp I've ever had.  And I don't really drink coffee but this thing was delish!

We ended up walking around everywhere checking out tons of places!

We bought a bunch of artwork from this guy!

Christ Church

Literally the most insane thing happened.  When we flew over from CLT to Dublin, we sat next to this cool guy Bryce.  He's in school at Ole Miss and this was the first time he had been on a plane by himself!  His mom was so worried!  We chatted it up and became friends.  Well we moved on to Scotland and he stayed in Dublin for his study abroad program.  So now, we were back in Dublin walking around and we saw him right in the street coming out of a restaurant with his buddies.  UNREAL!  Now we follow each other on Instagram, naturally! 

We stopped for some fish and chips at a cool pub.  This is where I talked to Molly Anne's new teacher for the first time haha!

We walked back to the hotel and got ready for the Gala!  

They bussed us over to 3 Arena which is THE place to watch a musical performance in Dublin.  

Largest seated dinner ever in Ireland is what the CEO told us!  CRAZY!  I have never seen so many wait staff people!

Our friends Alison and Chris who live in Atlanta!

Christina Aguilera performed!  My favorite part was when she brought her children out on stage!  It was precious!  She said she had never done that before but it made me feel like she was a normal person like us!

Her show was great. All of her dancers were amazing!

We went back and changed after the show and then went back out.  Pizza was necessary about 1:30am!

We met this sweet girl Orla on the street and had the best time chatting with her!  

Okay that was a lot!  We only had one more full day in Dublin then we came home!  I'll recap that soon!  Thank you for reading along!