Dublin is very different than I had imagined. Photos that I had seen led me to believe it was this smallish, quaint town - instead, it is a large, bustling city. We were only able to explore a small part of it, and I definitely want to come back to see the rest.
That said, I liked it very much. It has a youthfulness and diversity that must come from the university students, but it is still filled with tons of traditional pubs as you would expect, which have people in them at all hours of the day and night.
We only had a few hours, so we explored the Temple Bar area - which was full of people exploring the shops and sitting outside at the coffee houses and pubs.
We had dinner at the Purty Kitchen, a gastropub just outside the mayhem of Temple Bar. I ate a steamed pot of mussels, seasoned with chiles and coriander, which was bigger than my head. Lovely with a slice of their housemade multigrain bread, and of course, a frothy pint of Guinness. Delicious!
