FIRST STOP: IRELAND

when i was little and people would ask me that classic question "if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you go?" i would quickly respond, "ireland!" most little kids would choose disneyland or hawaii.. not this girl! maybe cause its cause i had reddish hair and i was born in march, or maybe deep down inside i just felt like the irish were my people, who knows. fast forward a few years:

DREAMS DO COME TRUE

my 7 year old self would be so proud of me convincing my parents to make a stop in ireland.

okay, and now for my scatter brained travel log:

our flight flew out of vegas friday, had a layover in london, and then went on to dublin, ireland.

let me tell you, the vegas lights at night from a plane are BREATHTAKING.

i didn't have a window seat when we took off, but i leaned over a whole row of people and looked at the lights for as long as they were in sight. did i ever tell you i have a thing for lights? well ya. I'm obsessed with lights. city lights, string lights, sun light... all of it.

anyway.

as soon as we landed in dublin i immediately noticed how green it was. there are as may trees as there are in all of st. george in about one mile of irish countryside. it's so pretty, so lush.

also, i am soooo obsessed with irish accents.  i could marry an irish man and be perfectly happy listening to him talk tome all day. me and anna spent a full hour trying to master a decent irish accent...no success. we just sounded like, well, american tourists trying to pretend like they have an irish accent. lol.

after a night of sleeping off the jet lag, it was sunday already. we found an LDS church (after getting lost about 859 times) and it was one of the coolest experiences i had on the whole trip. i love how the church is the same wherever you go, even ireland.

the youth in the ward there were chill too, we're now bff's.

shoutout to you, viktor, ethan and frida!

after church we went and explored st. patrick's cathedral while a boys choir with 5 year old sopranos serenaded us. the windows in that place are beautiful.

st. patrick is a homie.

we walked around downtown ireland for a while and i still can't get over how cute it is. everything is just so picturesque. there were hundreds of little red brick apartments with vines growing up them with different brightly colored doors.. aka my dream house. (hey mom can i move there after high school??) also i didn't see one asphalt road in downtown dublin, its allll authentic and classy cobblestone.

monday we went out to malahide castle. it made all my medieval princess dreams come true. and the gardens surrounding the castle were beautiful!

love my cute family^^ (photocred: tripod lol)

we rented bikes and rode around the grounds and i just tried to resist all the tourist bugs inside me itching me to take a picture of everything but it was hard cause 

ITS JUST SO DANG PRETTY.

also, while i'm in the caps lock mood.. i have something to say to the american government

AMERICAN PARKS ARE LAAAAME

while we were riding around on our bikes we passed this giant park and the inner children not-so-deep-down inside of us made me and anna immediately turn around to go play.
there were 2 zip lines, a 50 ft spider web thingy, a few slack lines, and a lots of other cool park ride/toys that are too legit to explain. oh oh, and there was this giant slide that made all the other slides i've been on look like tilted straws. it was awesome.

after the castle we went to the irish coast and had the breath knocked out of us by this pretty country, yet again.

the cliffs were rugged, dark and gorgeous. (like my dream man, obviously)

they looked so pretty with the ocean beating up against them and the little red lighthouse it the distance.. it felt like a scene from a movie.

i'd be lying if i said i didn't shed a tear or two as our plane flew away from ireland.

i swear i'll be back, someway, somehow.

i love that little green place.

(you knew it was coming)

IRELAND from Katie Powell on Vimeo.