Howth the Hell Did this Hat Get Here

I will keep this shorter than my first entry (kinda), which is fitting since it was a bit more of a low key day. It started with my first run in Europe, a 6am, 6.5mi fartlek run around the squared outside of the city park of St. Stephen's Green (it turns out this park doesn't open until 7am :/). Upon return to he hostel, I was ready to "conquer the day" and tried as hard as I could to get Ruth to do the same. Unfortunately this was not in the cards with how hard we went last night. Thankfully, I was able to rise Sleeping Beauty for some breakfast in the hostel kitchen. She would thank me later because she got some good toast with butter and a nice conversation with a loft-raging Aussie, who told her all about the benefits of studying abroad in Australia as a college student. Of course, she passed out after this, giving me some time to type up my first blog entry. 

We officially started our day when we met the brother/sister combo from Indiana we met last night, Pat (not Matt I soon realized) and Jessie Muehr, at the DART train station near the River Liffey. We almost missed them due to a miscommunication from no wifi communication but gladly we saw them in time to jump on the train to the fishing community Howth. A short 20min ride and we were on a peninsula with all the small village charm on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. We got some advice from another nice Irish couple to hike up into the hills behind a hotel up the street from he main drag. We were so glad we did this since we got a muddy but picturesque hike and a funny story. Ruth, in her typical fearless leader fashion, lead the way up the hills overlooking the city and came upon a dry and mint condition Leprechaun hat! The funny part of this was how dry it was despite the consistent rain throughout the day, suggesting it was dropped just before we came upon it...we did not see another soul the rest of the hike. We just unanimously decided that a leprechaun had dropped it and that he was now watching Ruth, waiting for the minute to trip her up and snatch it away. Each time Ruth tripped on a branch or slipped, the running joke was that the "Leprechaun made her do it". We finally arrived at a great lookout over the town but were dismayed to see how foggy it was, limiting the scenic view. Regardless, we trekked down and explored the roof fish & chips places before settling on the warm little pub directly below the train stop. This was an excellent choice as we munched on delicious local fish & chips washed down by some Irish coffee around a warm fireplace. Ruth elected for the just dessert approach with a rich brownie while she chatted it up with an Irish family living in Australia. Some funny quotes came from this exchange:
Irish guy to Ruth with new hat: "we don't do hiking, we do Guinness", "that is not your best look, you look fuckin' ridiculous!"

Full anrd warm, we headed back to Dublin by train

The evening was much more relaxed than the night before even though we ended up being treated for FREE to the hostel pub crawl.  This was in place of a comedy show that we could not for the life of us find but I'm not complaining because free beer is indeed free beer! The highlight of this second go-round of the crawl was the live music at the second two pubs, which Ruth and Jessie really enjoyed through dancing, singing, and giving the band members a good ole American hard time. However, the last few pubs were far more dead than the last few nights so we just decided to Irish our time together over a cheese pizza near our hostels. This was a great way to cap a nice night and allowed us time to gather advice from Pat and Jessie as they finished their similar trip to our own. They were great buddies and we will definitely stay in touch with them!