Our first sunrise in Ireland brought in a full day’s worth of activities, the details of which were spelled out in, you guessed it, the schedule, which became known to our group as “the day sheet.”

At 8:15, we all made our way downstairs to the bus, or “the coach”, where we met our driver for the week, Rob, nicknamed “The Scottish Stallion” for his Scottish heritage and overall incredible demeanor. He greeted us with a friendly smile and a few, thickly accented words we could only pretend to understand that early, welcoming us onto what would become somewhat of a home to us for the next 7 days.

Once we were all loaded, Tim took a seat beside Rob and switched on the coach’s microphone to inform us of a few key points, the first of which was that we would start each morning with our “day song.” It would act as a hybrid between a wake up call and a pump up song, gearing us up for the day ahead. And since we were in Ireland, our day song was, appropriately, full of Irish pride, as well as written and performed by Irish band, The Script.

Each morning would start like this, Tim explained, the conclusion of the song acting somewhat as his introduction to stand up and personally welcome us to the day, go over the day sheet, and undoubtedly crack a few jokes.

First on the day’s agenda was Kilkenny where, should we choose, we could take a bike tour around the city. And even though I’m about as confident on a bike as a cat is on a skateboard, both me and my sister opted in, figuring when in Kilkenny.

In the end, I couldn’t have been more thrilled with our decision. Our bike tour guide—who, yes, I’ve also forgotten the name of, so why not call him Dave—was incredibly lovely. Not only was he passionate about his city and the history found in and around its streets, he also happened to be completely adorable in the reminds-me-of-my-grandpa kind of way and I couldn’t get enough of him. Not to mention, the city was absolutely gorgeous.

After the bike ride, we had an hour or so before we had to be back on the coach, so me, Natalee, and Sophie, our new friend from Sydney, took a walk down the main street until we found a farmer’s market. From there we would all grab a panini, thus igniting an addiction, as every day after this Natalee and I sought out paninis for lunch no matter where we were. I don’t know what it was (the bread) but there was something about an Irish panini (the bread) that just stole our hearts on the first day, making nothing else sound as good for lunch. I wish I would have written down the name of the booth we grabbed them from so I could give them some much deserved promo. But alas, I had no pen and an empty stomach, making it nearly impossible to bank anything to memory except the taste of the bread, so we’ll just call them “Dave’s Panini’s.” Look them up if you’re ever in Kilkenny.

Once we were back on the coach, we headed to the excursion Natalee had arguably looked forward to the most before arriving: The Jameson Distillery. Being an avid whiskey drinker herself, especially Jameson, she was over the moon when she discovered the distillery tour was offered as part of the trip. In fact, if you ask her, she’d probably tell you it was what ultimately made her click “book.” So you can imagine as we walked through the double doors to find this she was pretty excited:

The tour, while I won’t and can’t go into detail on what it involved, solely because I think it would turn this into a research paper, was incredibly interesting, informative, and ultimately left me wondering: who the hell figured this out? But at the end, when they handed us our free drinks—a cocktail comprised of Jameson and ginger ale which I highly recommend!—I quickly put the question out of my mind. Because no matter how that whiskey got in my glass, I was happy to have it and cheersing errrbody, past and present, who helped get it there.

From the distillery we made our way to our hotel in Cork, where we made a quick change into dinner clothes before hopping back on the coach for a ride in to town.

On the schedule for dinner that night: Clancy’s.

On the menu for dinner that night: vegetable soup, chicken, mashed potatoes,  veggies, and for dessert, apple pie.

After dinner, we walked over to the Thomond Bar where I fell in love…with Orchard Thieves, a European cider, which instantly became my go-to drink for the remainder of the trip. I grabbed a pint and took a seat at a table with some new friends, who instantly became closer friends as we spent a solid 30 minutes exchanging pictures of our dogs. We chatted and “awwwed” and tried not to give in on how badly we missed our furry friends, then we made our way over to the bar where we listened to some more live music—probably from a guy named Dave—and eventually walked ourselves home, feeling buzzed and excited and more Irish by the minute.

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Read Day 3 here.