June 16^th, 2012

Day 27: Bray (Co. Wicklow) & Dublin, Ireland

This morning, I woke up a bit before Daragh had to leave (to physical therapy) and had breakfast downstairs with his mom! We chatted for a bit and then his dad came in from gardening when it started to rain and I got to meet him as well.

I got ready and packed up all of my stuff and once Daragh was home from his appoingment, we hopped in the car and were off! We drove out from Bray towards Dun Laoghaire/Dalkey (I think), pulled off the side of the road near a DART station and walked down a paved path towards the water. It was gorgeous out at this stage!

  

Dalkey Island!

We made it all the way out to Dun Laoghaire, got out of the car and walked around a bit. We went to a place called the Forty Foot. It’s a outcropping of rocks that’s semi-developed for swimmers. Pretty cool area, and really old!

We kept driving around the local area, past Daragh’s school, along the water, stopped in at his work, etc. I’m really not 100% positive what direction we were going or where we were at any given time, but all of the sites were absolutely gorgeous!

It was a typical day  of Irish weather though- wherever we were was nice weather for about 10 minutes and then immediately turned to rain. It wasn’t bad rain though, so it was tolerable!

We ended up back in Bray along the waterfront where we went for a bit of a walk. It stayed nice out for most of that time until the clouds rolled in again. Dun Laoghaire was spiting us though- as soon as we had left and were across to Bray, it was gorgeous sunshine in the exact spot we had been minutes before and we could see it perfectly from our lookout in Bray!

Sailboats off the coast of the Forty Foot!

Along the oceanfront in Bray

Along the ocean walk

See that shining spot of gold in the right hand side of the photo? That's Dun Laohaire.. where 20 minutes prior we were getting rained on.

After our gallivanting was over, we went back to Daragh’s house for some dinner! His mother put together a lovely meal of chile and rice (with guacamole on the side!) for the family. Soon after that, I packed up all of my stuff and got dropped off at the DART station to head back to Dublin for the night.

I took the DART into Dublin, met up with Stephen, and had a nice relaxing night hanging out with him! I’m in the process of packing my backpack for the next month (yikes) and it’s pretty stressful! Tomorrow begins my 5 weeks of nonstop travel and living out of a backpack. Here we gooooooooo! Next stop: Edinburgh, Scotland.

Favorite part of the day: spending the day getting to know Daragh’s area/town! I had a ton of fun and saw so so much! Plus, its always great to spend time with an old friend J