Follow Me Up to Carlow

Took the earliest bus - 7:15am - to Carlow this morning. The bus driver was anxious to get out of town before the roads were closed off by the Queen's visit. With everything being closed, this could possibly be one of the worst times to visit Dublin. Such a bummer. The bus took a different route than normal to avoid traffic and ended up taking us through the towns of Naas, Kilcullen and Castledermot.

Once in Carlow, one of the first places I wanted to go was the bakery Kaley and I used to frequent on our way to class. Sadly found its been replaced by a cafe. Defeated, we continued on to Carlow College and the cathedral. We stopped at the tourist shop to find it is completely different as well. Seem to be more of an Irish tourism shop and no longer had any Carlow specific gift items for sale. 

After walking around these areas we headed to Carlow Castle and the beautiful park right on the outskirts of town. We sat along the river for awhile watching a flock of swans and then climbed up a hill to get a better view of the far off rolling hills. After a long resting break on the hill we walked around a part of the city I had never been to before, passing a few beautiful churches. We slowly made our way back into the heart of town where we grabbed some food at Reddy's, a restaurant I remember stopping at with Ryan and Stephanie the first week we were in Carlow. Afterwards we finally made it over to Skraggs Alley where I discovered Bulmers now comes in light as well as a berry and pear flavor. We split a large berry Bulmers and chatted to the bartender about our travels. So surreal being back, but Skraggs just wasn't the same in the early afternoon without the girls.

My lack of sleep caught up to me and no matter how hard I tried, I could not stay awake for the ride back to Dublin. Once back we stopped off for a quick break at the hostel and then headed down the road to O Shea's hotel for real Irish food and the futbol game going on in Dublin - Porto vs. Brago. Porto ended up winning 1 to 0. I ordered an Irish Stew and a pint of Kopparberg mixed fruit and a Carlsburg. Adam ordered a Guinness pie and steak and a pint of Bulmers and Stella. Expecting an actual piece of steak and pie, we were a bit surprised when Adams food came out! After the game, we stayed around a bit to listen to more live Irish music. After supper we went for a walk around Temple Bar and then back to the hostel where we met a couple of girls from NC who gave us tips for Florence.
Didn't think it was going to be this hard to visit for just a few days. I'm not looking forward to leaving Dublin. Already this trip is going way too fast! 


Here are some more pictures of the things we did today:

Skraggs Alley

Carlow College

In the park

River Barrow