kilkenny: lets never come here again

it has taken me almost a week to recover from the strange and crazy adventure i had in kilkenny, ireland. though we were only there for twenty five hours total, it was packed full with disgusting hostels, strange encounters with the locals, and plenty of laughs to follow us all the way back to dublin. kilkenny is about two hours southeast of dublin city and lonely planet described the city as 'a dream'. a little less than a dream, we thought, but it did provide us with many a story that only those that went can really understand. we really had no idea what we were getting into..

we had to pack eleven students, yes eleven, into a hostel room that was probably only meant to house six people. the room was a mess ( i will spare you the details..) and some of us even ended up sleeping on couch cushions. we then ventured to the town to find some pub food because by the time we finished negotiating a better price for the room, our stomachs were empty. we got ripped off again by our waiter who charged us way more than we ordered (much like the hostel). at this point, we are all a little fed up and extremely confused about this town that was seemingly trying to steal from us ha.

kilkenny castle is beautiful from the outside and stands on a hill overlooking the small city itself. but the 13th century castle was filled inside with a modern art exhibit displaying photos and movies of new york and london. not exactly what we were looking for inside a medieval castle: beautiful on the outside, unexpectedly strange on the inside. after that, we returned to our less than sanitary hostel to play some games and laugh about everything that we had just witnessed. we spent the evening roaming the small town and ended up at kyteler's inn, the mideval tavern that was established in 1324. the pub was originally owned by a witch, which explains the halloween witch hat that randomly found a place on everyones head throughout the night.

all in all, i think everyone had a pretty great time in kilkenny. would i go back?! we decided that our experience in kilkenny could, and should, never be replicated again. the countryside was beautiful and when you have eleven students traveling around, you are definitely due for some crazy adventures. this post definitely does not paint a completely accurate picture of how interesting our experience really was in kilkenny.. but, you kinda had to be there..