Happy St. Patrick’s Day! As someone with part-Irish blood running through her veins, I’m celebrating the day by thanking God I’m not in middle school and going to get pinched should I forget to wear green today. It’s actually a good excuse to reflect on my two trips to Ireland, one in 2008 and another in 2012.

That first trip was disastrous. Eleven girls from my study-abroad program travelled across the Irish Sea for a weekend of soaking up the culture and some debauchery in Dublin. (Sadly more of the latter.) It was frustrating trying to navigate a brand-new city with eleven different opinions (see above) and I’ve never travelled with a group that big since. But now six years removed, I’m glad we bought those cheap RyanAir flights. Full of old buildings, bridges, and a mighty river, the areas of the city we saw were more gray than green. There was a chill in the air, and we clung to our scarfs and wore raincoats all weekend.

Our big group boarded a train to Cork, and though I’m a self-professed city girl, I have a weakness for seeing the greenery and countryside via train. You get a true sense for a place when you can peek into hidden backyards and farmland as they go whizzing by. We then took a bus to Blarney and much to the delight of all our bucket lists, the old man on tourist duty helped us precariously lean backwards to kiss the Blarney Stone.

No tourist can leave Dublin without the requisite trip to the Guinness Storehouse. But I didn’t drink beer back then. I didn’t like the taste. So when our group made it to the end of the tour at The Gravity Bar, I slid my free pint down the bar to a more-than-willing friend and just enjoyed the sweeping views of the city.

Fast-foward four years when my best friend Josalyn and I celebrated our joint milestone birthdays with a trip to England and Ireland. Not only did I finish the whole pint of Guinness this time but I could taste the coffee and caramel flavors.

If left to my own devices when planning a trip, I would end up at only buzzy restaurants, cool coffee shops, and dive bars. Oh, and a cupcakery. Duh. But thank goodness for Joss because she planned the hell out of our historical and cultural excursions and we crossed the country to visit Galway and the Cliffs of Moher.

What can I say that hasn’t already been said about the greenest landscape I’ve ever seen? Riding along on a bumpy tour bus, we saw swaths of land so lush and different in altiltude, a cell phone photo like mine would never do it justice or pick up the nuances in color. The ancient cliffs were incredible and we witnessed the jagged dark coastline right between rainstorms as the sun popped out for a second and the wind picked up.