Miles and Smiles Away: August 1 and 2: Goodbye Texas... Hello Dublin

Saturday morning I said 'see you later' to my family at the airport. After all the tears, laughs, and hugs, my mom and I finally went through security and went to our gate. After our short flight to Chicago, we went to our next airline, British Airways, where we received some awesome news: we were being upgraded to first class! We walked onto to this huge plane, sat down in our seats, and was greeted with complimentary champagne or OJ... or in our case, both! (Never turn down the opportunity to make a mimosa!) We watched a movie, ate dinner, and then slept the rest of the way - it was awesome. Once we landed in London, we had one more flight to go, but we had to go through customs and security. Man oh man, this was the WORST. We stood in line for over an hour! We then had to run through the airport to make it to our next flight... we were the last ones on, but hey, we made it. After an easy one hour flight, we finally arrived to our final stop, Dublin, Ireland. As we were waiting in line for customs (yet, again), we figured we should book a hotel now. We randomly selected one off of the internet, and turns out, it's the oldest hotel in Dublin. It's also where many, many famous people stay when they come here (The Obamas stayed here in 2014). After we settled in, we walked down the street to the nearest pub and got some delicious grub. Mom got fish and chips (of course) and I got a burger -- they were both so delicious. Oh, and we obviously had to wash it down with some Heineken! After lunch, we rested for a few hours and then walked around the city. We ended up down in Temple Bar, which is where a lot of the pubs are. We would go into one, have a beer, and then go to the next one. It didn't matter which pub you went in to, each one was full of energized, loud people, all having a good time. There would be live music in every single place - it was so cool! After three pubs, we decided to call it a night and head back to the hotel.