Week 8: The Final Days

My brother, my dad, and a close friend were visiting me this weekend. They arrived early Friday morning. We had breakfast at a local cafe, then we went back to UCD to show the dorm and get their stuff situated. We were on the move again, because we had a 2:20 tee time at the Royal Dublin Golf Links. The course was extremely challenging and windy, but we still had a great time playing a true links-style golf course for the first time. After the round, we enjoyed a nice complimentary dinner with a view of the golf course and the ocean in the background. We all went to sleep early tonight because they were extremely jet-lagged and hadn’t slept in over thirty hours.

On Saturday, we headed into downtown Dublin for some lunch at a cool French place. After lunch, we headed to Trinity because we had a self-guided tour of the Book of Kells. One of our hometown friends goes to Trinity, so it was cool to see his dorm and walk around campus. The Book of Kells experience was a little disappointing, but it was still cool to see the book and the old library. After this, we spent the rest of the day exploring Dublin going to pubs and getting some good food.

Sunday morning, we headed down south to Dalkey. One of our hometown friends grew up in Dalkey, and they owned a famous pub called Finnegan’s. We went there for lunch and got some nice seafood chowder. We had some time to kill before the match, so we hiked up this old quarry hill, which had some spectacular views of Dublin and Howth. We spent some time relaxing before heading to another pub in Dalkey to watch the Gaelic football final. This was my first time watching a Gaelic football game. We talked to some locals in the pub, and they said this was the Irish Superbowl and they helped explain some of the rules. After the game, we headed back to downtown Dublin to have some fun. The town was full of life after the game, and we found a sports bar to hang out at the rest of the night.

We were going golfing again on Monday. We got to The Jameson links an hour early to get a solid warmup in. We had a great round of golf right on the ocean. The weather was perfect and the course was in amazing condition. After golf, we had some lunch and then went back to the hotel. We spent the rest of the night chilling in the hotel lobby.