Thanksgiving!

On Tuesday November 24th I only had my 3 hour archeology class.  In it we watched the movie "The wind that shakes the barley."  It was a really good film.  It was about the uprisings occuring in Ireland just before the political state of Northern Ireland was created.  It focuses on two brother who join and participate in the IRA and their struggles.  Then when the Anglo-Irish Treaty is signed, and Northern Ireland is created, the two brothers end up on opposite sides of a new political fight.  One of the brothers believes that it is all that can be asked for at the time and that it is time for peace, while the other believes that the whole island should be liberated and will keeping fighting for it.  The film does a great job depicting how, after this separation of Northern Ireland, and pinned brothers against brothers and friends against friends.  We had learned about this in history class, but it never really clicked as to why they were on opposite sides until watching this movie.  I highly recommend watching it.  Another great movie that we watched was in Theology class on Monday.  It was called Evelyn and starred Pierce Brosnan as a father who loses his three children to the government when his wife runs off.  Basically, the main plot line is changing the family law so that he can reclaim his kids without his wife's signature.

After class on Tuesday I took the bus into Galway for grocery and souvenir shopping.

Wednesday we had our family meeting as usual and I did homework all day.  Again, JP opened the pub for us that night.  That night was fun because there was a lot of family and friends that were visiting for Thanksgiving.  A total of 4 family members and 2 friends.  So we all had a great time mingling and meeting them.

Thursday=Thanksgiving!!!  This was a very long day.  First of all, we had class that morning...sucky.  It was only an hour and a half and we actually had a decent discussion, so I guess it wasn't too painful.  The only thing that sucked was that we didn't have our big meal for lunch like we usually do at home...so we were just waiting all day...it was a little torture.  Anyway, after class we decided that we had to have the traditional game of football.  So we walked all the way down to the pitch to play...much to our surprise we couldn't play on it.  They were actually filming a movie there...go figure.  So we walked all the way back to the PLH and ended up just playing in the parking lot.  We had to be careful because the parking is gravel and there were puddles in some places.  Only one person almost wiped out--so I'd call it a success.  I was very proud to be the first girl picked :)  

After the game we all showered and got prettied up for dinner.  At 5 we had to present our documentaries that we made for our senior seminar class.  It was fun to walk around and see what everyone else had made.  I just made a boring powerpoint that actually had quotes from my blog in it to describe my journey.  There were some really cool, creative projects however.  Nicole V made a cartoon of everyone on the trip and wrote a little kid's book about her adventures here and how she has grown on it.  Khris had a video of the landscape while driving that was accompanied by music---it was really cool because it actually gave the look/feel of Ireland.  One kid even used all the pint glasses that he stole to map out his travels.  After our presentations we had a hot port reception.  It's basically just hot wine--I didn't think it was too special.  Again, we all just got to mingle so it was nice.  Our visitors included Matt's parents, Ross's mom and brother, 2 of Jimmy's friends, a friend of Mallory and Katie, and 4 people from Jenna's family.  We also had 2 other profs (Gerard=lit and Mary=theo), our bus driver, a past student, Rory, and of course the Foyles.  

During the hot port reception we took a ton of pictures since we were all looking nice.  We even got a picture of our whole group, so that was nice.  After all of this, Geraldine's daughters and two of their friends put on a little concert for us.  First they played recorders, then two of them played the accordion, and then one of them played the violin.  They were all so cute and so talented!!  We were amazed at their abilities--feeling like we should know how to do more things.  After their music they even did a traditional Irish dance for us!  Overall it was just adorable.  Then Katarina--Jane Marie's daughter--came out and we gave her her present.  It was her birthday that night.  

Finally we all sat down for dinner and prepared ourselves for the meal.  It was delicious!!  First course was salad and a roll, then was the main dish, followed by dessert.  The main dish had turkey, ham, broccoli, a parsnip thing, and 3 different types of potatoes.  So good!  Then for dessert there was pumpkin pie with ice cream and baked alaska.  I had the baked alaska.  So like I said, the meal was amazing--they did a great job at making it a traditional meal...but then again they've had 25 years to practice!  We found out that we are the 25th group to come and study here.  That means that Jane Marie, Geraldine, and John Paul were all still kids when the program started coming here.  Makes you think..  

After dinner everyone rushed to the computer lab/classroom to Skype with all their loved ones back at home.  Dinner went a little long, so I was late for my Skype date...sorry guys.  Anyway, I got to chat with and see my dad's side of the family--so that was great!  I even got to talk to my grandma.  The kids were very excited about the whole thing--eager to show me a lot of stuff with the camera.  Let's just say I got a little nauseous with them moving the camera so much.  But it was great to see everyone, so that made missing Thanksgiving at home a lot better.  After Skyping, JP opened the fancy pub for us.  Julie, our director, even hung out with us there the whole rest of the night.  So, again, it was nice to mingle with everyone and their families/friends.  JP even kept the ballroom open for us and one of the guys on my trip taught me how to swing dance.  So overall great night!

Hamburg

So I got to the bus station in Galway at 1am Friday morning.  My scheduled bus wasn't until 2:15 but the people working there let me get on the 1:30 bus instead.  So..I got to the airport at 4:30am...  My flight wasn't scheduled to leave until 10:30.  So I had 6 hours to kill, no big deal.  I found a place to sit and I read one of the books for my seminar class.  How I was able to stay awake I have no idea.  Anyway, that got me through the first 3.5 hours.  Then I went to check in, go through security, and find my gate.  As I was walking through the airport, there was definitely plenty of people having pints at 8am...only in Ireland.  

I got into Lubeck airport on time and easily found my friend Tim who I was visiting.  I knew Tim from high school, and we've kept in contact over the years, he sometimes visits America during the summer.  The first thing we did was walk around the actual town of Lubeck.  I got to see what was left of the wall that surrounded the city (the city is also surrounded by rivers, so it's like completely closed in).  The front gates of the wall are still standing.  I got to see some pretty cool buildings that had survived WWII.  I also got to try marzipan...which is delicious!  It's very rich and reminds me of cookie dough.  We also sat in a coffee shop and just got to chat and catch up.  Then we drove back to his house just outside of the city of Hamburg.  His house was really pretty and his parents were super nice!  Granted his dad didn't speak any english, and his mom only knew some.  I took about an hour nap and then we had dinner.  For dinner it was him, his parents, three of his friends, and me.  We had meat fondue which was amazing!  I highly recommend it.  So it was a nice dinner full of conversation...that was about 90% in German...  His friends knew a good amount of English, but of course they were more comfortable speaking German.  It was actually really interesting to sit there and observe them speaking German.  After dinner we hung out with his friends for a while and then went to bed at like 2am.

The next morning I got up around 10am and we had breakfast with his parents.  I've got to say that Germans definitely eat slower than Americans...  It's basically slow paced eating, a lot of chatting, and not eating a ton.  I guess we do it a little bit different.  We sit down, eat a lot, chat a bit, and then we're done.  They make eating a social activity instead of a physical one.  Anyway, I digress.  Tim took me to downtown Hamburg and we spent the whole day walking around and exploring the town.  The first thing that we did was walk along the lake that is in front of the city.  It was gorgeous, and got to see a couple of sites.  There were a ton of people practicing crew and we went by the US embassy.  Then we went to the actual downtown and strolled along the streets.  The mall was decked out for Christmas already and there was a Christmas market being set up in front of the town hall.   We took a tour of the town hall, a bonus that it was in English!  I got to learn about the German government system, and Tim even told me a few things that the tour guide had left out.  Like the fact that the senators think they are just amazing and are better than other rulers.  When greeting people to the town hall they will be at the top of the stairs, even when the British Queen came and visited.  Also, the building survived WWII.  Britain tried to bomb it but the bomb that landed never detonated.  Due to other violence, however, the windows had been shattered and part of the tower destroyed.  Also, there is a statue there that had been melted by the heat--and they just kept it.   Also, a lot of the wallpaper was actually leather--weird.  None of the fireplaces have been used and are just for show.  

After town hall we continued on our journey through the city.  The next thing we came upon was the Saint Nikolai Memorial.  It is for the victims of war and persecution 1933-1945.  The church had been destroyed in 1943 during the firestorm "Operation Gomorrha."  The memorial was built in 1987.  There was also a sculpture depicting the tragedy of the concentration camps, the base of which uses actual bricks from the Neuengamme concentration camp in Hamburg.  

The next stop on our journey was the harbor area.  The Hamburg is in the top ten of the largest harbors in Europe.  The entire history of the city is pretty much based around the harbor.  So we just walked around the entire area and some other neighborhoods by it.  (We obviously didn't go to the actual machinery part of the harbor)  We even walked by a huge fair going on in the middle of the city.  Then we went to the St. Michaelis Church.  It is the largest, most famous church in Hamburg.  The inside was gorgeous and the view from the top of the tower was amazing.  It was a little foggy when we were up there, but it was still beautiful.  There was a great view of the city, that was actually even bigger than I thought.  

After the church we found a coffee shop and just rested for a bit.  Then we went and toured some restored historic houses of the city to see what an average house was like back in the day.  Then we headed back to Tim's house for dinner.  That night we had a traditional German meal cooked by his mom...and it was delicious!  It was basically beef and pork with brown sauce (like gravy), some weird vegetables, and these really good potato ball things.  I forgot what they are called, some really German name, but I guess it's half cooked potatoes and half raw potatoes mashed together or something like that.  Anyway, it was delicious.  Then later we had a homemade Black Forest cake.  Also delicious!  It had like three layers of chocolate cake, a layer of cherries, and some whipped cream.  I couldn't believe it was homemade it was so pretty.  Then after dinner Tim took me out for a night on the town in Hamburg and it was a lot of fun.

The next morning we got up at 8:30, had breakfast, said goodbye to his mom, and then went to the immigration museum.  It was a pretty cool museum, but I was a little disappointed.  It was mostly in German, however, so I have to take that into consideration.  Even still, it was cool to see.  After the museum Tim dropped me off at the airport for my flight home.  I made it back to the PLH around 9pm that night, took a shower, and crashed.  It was a long weekend and I was pretty sleep deprived...probably still am.  I'm really glad that I went to Germany, and I hope to return there in the future--to visit Berlin and explore the south, where my ancestors came from.  Going through customs when leaving Germany, the security officer noticed my German name and asked about my relatives and if I knew German.  

Today (Monday the 23rd) I had 6 hours of class and after uploading pictures, updating this blog, and other random tasks I am about ready for bed!  Like I said, I'm still a little sleep deprived--so I'll probably go to bed early.  Today is my dad's birthday and I sent him a mass amount of emails.  So, here it is again dad, Happy Birthday!! :)

Oh!  Tonight I also found out who my prom date is.  Our study abroad group is having an Irish prom on December 2nd at JP's pub.  (I guess we were just bored of the normal pub night)  So the guys on our trip drew the girls' names out of a hat to see who their date was.  Most of the guys have two dates, and I think only one has one date.  Then the guys have to come up with cute ways to ask their dates to prom.  My date asked me to prom through a love letter.  It was absolutely adorable, so how could say no to that?

Another Catch Up

Saturday November 14th:  I did homework and hung out during the day.  That night we had a group activity doing the most American thing we could think of in Ireland....bowling.  Ok, so we didn't sit down and brainstorm the most American thing, it just happened that way.  BUT--bowling was awesome!!  We had like 5 or 6 lanes to ourselves and it was...cosmic bowling :)  WE had a great time just hanging out with everyone and getting pitchers of beer.  Even our directors were drinking with us.  It was an overall great time and I'm glad that we went. 

Sunday morning I went into Galway to get groceries and also sat and talked at a coffee shop with a roommate.  Then when we got back, we all did a ton of homework.

Monday was again 6 hours of classes.  That night, however, there was a meteor shower and about 18 of us went down to the ocean at 1am to see it.  The shower was awesome, as well as being with everyone hanging out on the ocean.  The boys tried to start a bonfire for us--but Ireland proved to be too windy.  But it was an overall great night.

Tuesday:  4.5 hours of class.  Then homework and hanging out.

Wednesday we had family meeting as usual, and then that night we had a dessert potluck.  After dinner every cottage brought a yummy dessert to the classroom and we all shared.  It was, of course, delicious and it was nice having lots of yummy treats.  After dessert, and during I guess, we watched the Ireland vs. France soccer game.  They were playing in order to get to the World Cup.  Unfortunately, and with some questionability, Ireland did not make it to the World Cup.  After the game we all hung out in the hotel pub with JP, his fiance, and our directors.  It was good craic as usual.

Thursday morning my cottage mates left to go to Paris for the weekend.  I traveled to Germany this weekend and didn't leave until very early Friday morning.  So, Thursday I slept, packed, and got things organized.  That evening cottage 6 had some people over for some after dinner conversation--that was nice.  Then after that I took the program bus into Galway for the evening.  There was about 8 of us from the program and one guy that had done the program 3 years ago.  He actually moved out to Ireland recently and is trying to live out here.  He knows a guy on our trip, so he came out and hung out with us.  The night was fun, we mainly just sat at a pub and conversed, pretty chill.  The 7 other people called and took a cab back to the hotel around midnight.  I stayed in town because I had a bus to catch to Dublin airport at 2am...  John stayed with me, because he lives in Galway, and we sat and chatted at Supermac's for a while.  At 1am I headed to catch my bus...

Catching up...

It's been a while..oops.  Anyway, here's a brief description of everything I've been up to from after Northern Ireland, up until now.  

Monday the 2nd I had 6 hours of classes, did some homework, and then watched a movie with some people of the group.

Tuesday I had 4.5 hours of class and then went into Galway for some groceries and hanging out time.

Wednesday I had the weekly family meeting with everyone and then worked on some homework.  That night all 30 of us got together and had a combined potluck in the classroom.  It was amazing!  Everyone did a great job making their meals and it was great having a really good meal again.  Every cottage made a main dish as well as a dessert.  Cottage 1 brought pasta salad and carrot cake.  Cottage 2 brought homemade soup and jello.  Cottage 3 made mini pizzas and peach cobbler.  Cottage 4 made a rice, chicken, and veggie casserole and homemade reese peanut butter cups (amazing!!).  Cottage 5 made fried rice and crepes.  Cottage 6 made soda bread, mac and cheese, and fudge.  Jackie's mom was also visiting that night and participated in the potluck--she brought some chicken.  Basically, when we were done we were full to the max!  Then that night JP opened the pub again for us (becoming a weekly occurance).  It was awesome, Jackie's mom came with us, and she had a ton of fun--didn't mind hanging out with college students.  She even stayed to witness Piano Man.

Thursday was pretty uneventful, I don't even remember what I did, probably went to seminar.

Friday night was really fun!  Our whole group went to the Galway United Soccer Game.  They played Cork and ended up tying--a little unsatisfying.  The fans for Cork were going crazy, they cheered the entire time and at the beginning of the game they had these sweet ground fireworks going on right by the field.  You know, the kind of thing that would get you arrested for or something in the US.  But yeah, it was crazy fun.  

Saturday I chained myself to homework and wrote a paper--so pretty uneventful.  Except, that night I went to the ocean to do some stargazing and I saw a moonbow!  (rainbow at night)  Only in Ireland...

Sunday morning I went into Galway with the group to get groceries and hang out in a coffee shop.  That day the Spiddal Gaelic football team had played in a championship and so they were partying in Spiddal that night.  So a bunch of us went down to Spiddal to hang out and have some good craic.  We hung out with some people that had made friends with my roommates.

Monday the 9th I had 6 hours of class.  That night was a pretty lazy night, homework and stuff like that.  Later in the night some of us took a break and started playing cards.  Then we found out that there was some sort of book club going on in the hotel and that the pub was open.  JP said that we could go to the pub and hang out since there was a live band there and no one else really.  So we went and the 5 of us played cards in there, listening to the live band.  Molly even did one of her Irish dances which was awesome.  Then some of the people from the book club came in and hung out.  We overheard some conversations in Gaelic, and then a guy stood up and started to sing a song in Gaelic for everyone.  It was really good and amazing to hear.  Then another guy stood up and sang a Gaelic song too.  We felt really lucky to witness and be a part of this true culture.  It definitely wasn't a touristy thing.  Just to see how alive their culture is in this part of Ireland was really inspiring.

Tuesday I had 4.5 hours of class.  Halfway through archeology our prof told us we would be taking a walk into Spiddal to point out some cool stuff.  So we walked into town and had a nice chat, just being able to talk about random Irish things--it was really nice.  When we got into Spiddal we first stopped at the Tesco to get some ice cream. :)  Then it started raining on us..sad..but hey that's Ireland.  And if I have to be stuck in the rain, at least I had ice cream.  Anyway, when the rain lightened up we went to the church in Spiddal and talked about that for a bit and then headed back to the PLH.  The walk went fast and I chatted with Shannon the whole time--good bonding.

Wednesday the 11th I had family meeting and then for dinner we had a chili feed.  (I did not participate, but I went and hung out with everyone)  Each cottage made some chili and brought it and everyone sampled a few of them. We also had a bunch of parents attending this potluck.  Pat's parents were here as well as Thomas's parents and Mollie's cousin was here.  So, to say the least it was a party, and everyone got very full once again.  Afterwords we hung out in the pub with JP--had a PJ themed night and took a group pic.

Thursday we had senior seminar class with Julie and then the rest of the day was free.  Half of our group went to Cork for the night so that they could visit Blarney castle and kiss the Blarney stone.  I used Thursday, Friday, and Saturday to work on homework and such.  Thursday night the people who were still here went into Galway for the evening.  It was good craic and we met up with some friends that we had previously met.

Friday was uneventful besides doing homework all day.

 

To be continued...

Northern Ireland

On October 29th (Thursday) we departed the PLH at 8am to start our journey to Northern Ireland.  It was a 4 hour bus ride to Derry, the destination for our first night.  We got there late...as usual.  Our first activity was an amazing lunch at a local restaurant.  It was amazing to actually have a decent meal for once.  It even included dessert!  It pretty much made up for the 4 hour bus ride that we had just endured.  Once we were done with our meal we met up with Martin who was to give us a walking tour of the city of Derry (or Londonderry, whichever you prefer).  It began by walking the still intact walls around Derry.  We got a great explanation of the history of the wall and of Derry itself.  Until about 15 years ago, no one was able to walk on the walls, but it is now open to the public.  (A sign of their change and growth)  I'm not going to explain the whole history of Northern Ireland but basically England came into Ireland, took over, and after a war they decided to give it all back except for 6 of the Northern counties which now make up Northern Ireland and is still part of the U.K. today.  Derry was no exception from this influence, it was renamed Londonderry by England and they are still trying to legally change it back to Derry.  So anyway, we got a insight of the town and their troubles.  After we had completed walking along the wall we descended to the Bogside which was the Catholic side of the wall.  In this neighborhood was where Bloody Sunday occurred and 14 people were killed during a civil rights march.  Now there are several murals at home in this neighborhood to commemorate this event, including a memorial statue to the 14 dead.  

The next day we went to the museum in Derry about Bloody Sunday.  The guy who runs it is actually the brother of one of the people killed on Bloody Sunday.  He told us all about his brother and it was really hard to hear.  The museum was very interesting and a very good learning tool for Northern Ireland and their troubles.  After the museum we packed up and headed out on our next activity.  Our next stopped just so happened to be the Old Bushmill Distillery.  Planned excursion to a whiskey distillery?  Alright.  We had the best tour guide ever!  He actually made me wish that I liked drinking whiskey.  The tour was also better than the Guinness one hands down.  So note that.  After our tour we were able to have a free whiskey drink.  I chose the Hot Toddy...hoping that it would hide the whiskey a little bit.  It was better but I'm still no whiskey drinker.  After our tour our next stop was at Giants C

auseway.  It's basically just another beautiful landscape...what's new :P  The myth is that the giants of Ireland and Scotland wanted to fight so they built a road between the two and then one ran away, causing the path to break away.  It is made up of millions of hexagonal shaped stones.  The real version?  Volcanoes.  It's basically a big jungle gym and you better not fall off!  When we went it was raining...go figure..and so it was a little scary.  When we were thoroughly wet and cranky and departed to our hostel in Belfast.  

Saturday morning in Belfast we went on a bus tour of the city.  This was really interesting, and again we got to learn all about the history of the city and Northern Ireland.  Some of the stops of the tour was where the Titanic was built, Stormont Parliament, and a ton of murals.  The tour lasted about 3ish hours and then we had the rest of the day to ourselves.  The murals were absolutely the most interesting thing about Northern Ireland.  You could definitely tell what kind of neighborhood it was by the murals depicted.  Everything there is just so out in the open, I was actually expecting for them to be pretty closed lipped about it.  But I guess this is why they have made such great change.  Although they still have a ways to go.  There was a corner, I think called "Freedom Corner," where there were murals but they were world murals instead.  They depicted crises and issues throughout the world.  So that was also really cool to see and apparently those change every now and again.  So after our tour ended most of us went to St. George's Market near downtown.  There was a lot of good food and some other shopping.  We all had a good lunch there (including crepes!) and then roamed around downtown on our own.  The city hall was unique because right next to it was a ferris wheel.  Random?  But hey, it helped us navigate ourselves around town, so I guess there's a purpose.  One thing that we noticed about Belfast was that it looked incredibly like London.  The ferris wheel (the London Eye), statues of Queen Victoria everywhere, style of buildings, a huge clock tower (Big Ben).  So the presence of England was obvious in Belfast.  Derry didn't give that impression hardly at all.  It just seemed like a cute little city (excluding all of the history and murals, downtown was pretty picturesque).  A hassle that we ran into in Northern Ireland was having to change money to pounds...not fun.  But a lot of things were actually cheaper in Northern Ireland than the Republic of Ireland which was weird.  Oh, another thing that was mentioned on our tour was how a citizen of Northern Ireland could have either an Irish passport or a British passport or both.  Talk about an identity crisis!  

Halloween in Belfast was very interesting.  We all threw some costumes together at the last minute and walked around town.  Some of the costumes that we saw were pretty intense.  And everyone who was out had a costume on.  Apparently one of the biggest Halloween celebrations in the world is in Derry.  Too bad we missed out on that.  But Belfast was very fun and we met a lot of interesting characters.  I was even proposed to by a Irishman...  Sunday morning we departed Belfast and started our journey back to Galway.  After 4 hours of driving we reached Strokestown House and Famine Museum.  The house belonged to a landlord back in the day and we learned about the tenant/landlord relationship and what life was like for the landlord.  After the tour of the house we went through the Famine Museum.  It was cool because it contained documents between the tenant and landlord that showed their relationship at that time.  At this point of our excursion, however, I had about no attention span left and so did not learn a whole lot here.  I feel bad because it is a huge part of Irish history.  But what can you do?  Anyway, when we were done we drove another 2ish hours back to the PLH.

I had a great time in Northern Ireland and feel very privileged that I was able to visit and learn more about it.  We had several people tell us that they love when people come and visit and learn about them.  It means that they no longer consider Northern Ireland a dangerous place with bombs flying everywhere.  They feel that they are making great strides in change and are happy to see it.  I now have a new understanding of Northern Ireland.  Before coming to Ireland, really the only thing I heard about it was the Troubles.  Now I know that there is much more to it then crazy people just throwing bombs around.  I hope that everyone can learn more about it and take a good look and what's going on there.  

Paris

We arrived in Paris at 9am local time on the EuroStar train.  The ride went really fast...we definitely slept the entire trip.  When we arrived we had a big wake up call.  French did not help.  We needed to change money and figure out which train we needed to take to get to our hostel.  All of the French aside, we made it quite easily to our hostel.  After booking it online, they had sent us an email which included specific directions from the metro.  Seriously by the end of our trip we had mastered the metro system.  Anyway, we made it to the hostel, sent an email to our parents, and then began exploring the city.  We started out by walking to the Seine River.  We walked along the river to Notre Dame.  Notre Dame is gorgeous!  We took our time walking in it and then as we were in there they had mass.  So we sat down and stayed for the whole mass...even though we had no idea what they were saying.  So that was a really cool experience.  Another thing that we saw this day was the Bastille.  It was pretty cool, but nothing amazing.  After all of this we went back to the hostel, napped, made dinner, and just laid low.  The "kitchen" of this hostel was ridiculous...it was basically a dungeon.  

The next morning (Wednesday) we got up, enjoyed our free breakfast (which consisted of a roll, croissant, and juice), and started out on our very busy day.  We began the day by going to the Louvre...knowing that there would probably be a huge line to get in.  We spent a good couple of hours wandering around and being amazed at all of the art.  It definitely kicked the National Gallery of London's ass.  My favorite was the sculptures there.  We got to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the pyramid sculpture, the 3 graces, Aphrodite, etc.  After we had been thoroughly overwhelmed by art we walked down the Champs-Elysees.  At the end of it was the Arc de Triomphe.  The view from it was gorgeous.  Our next stop was the Eiffel Tower!  When we got there we went up to the second floor...so not the very top...but it was still amazing.  Took about a million pictures of it.  I couldn't find anyone to kiss under it--like my boss told me to.  Oh well, next time.  Then that night we decided to go out for dinner in Paris.  We went to a place right by our hostel and it was nice to just sit, relax, and have some good food.  It was also cool to be able to observe more of French culture there.  One thing we noticed...people making out everywhere!  Seriously at about every place we went you could find a couple making out.  I guess that's why they say Paris is so romantic.  

Thursday--Nicole and I slept in while the other two girls went to Versailles.  They said that it was amazing to see--but sleep sounded really good to me that day.  So we slept until 11, got up and got some eclairs from the bakery nearby, and then took another nap until the girls got back.  What a life!  When the girls got back we went to some famous cemetery in Paris.  Our big goal of going there was to find the grave of Oscar Wilde.  The cemetery was huge and we had a little difficulty in navigation but eventually we found it.  There were a ton of kiss marks on it (showing their appreciation) and Catherine was brave enough to kiss it as well.  We made it out of the cemetery and then headed over to Sacre Coeur.  It was beautiful and in a very interesting part of town.  There were shops and people everywhere.  We would have stayed and looked around but the girls that went to Versailles were exhausted.  So we headed back to the hostel, got some yummy pastries, and took a nap.  That night we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower at dark.  On the hour there is a huge light show on the Tower that is absolutely amazing!  Anyone who goes to Paris needs to experience this!  I took plenty of pics and videos that I can show when I get back to the States.  Basically, it was the perfect way to end our trip to Paris.  I will never forget it.

The next morning we got up at 4:30, took the metro at 5:30, took a shuttle to the airport at 6:15, departed on our flight at 9:30, arrived in Dublin and took a bus to Galway at 11:30, and then took a cab to the PLH.  We got back to the cottages around 4:30pm.  That was 13 hours of traveling!! (Including the time difference)  The metro was interesting because at 5:30 people are just leaving the bars and wanting to take the metro home to crash.  We ran into a group of teenagers who were just wasted...very classy.  The Beauvais airport was ridiculous.  It's the tiniest airport ever and it took at least an hour to get through security.  Basically, if you want to make your flight you absolutely have to be there two hours prior just to check in and make it through security.  But yeah, that was my adventure to England and France.  Overall everything went extremely well.  We didn't have any bad fortune with transportation which was amazing!  We got to hear about all of those stories from other people on our Ireland trip.  So we feel very lucky--must have been that 4 leaf clover that I found. :)

London

So on October 16th I left for fall break to go to London.  My travel companions for the week were three other girls on my study abroad trip in Ireland.  We flew into London-Gatwick and had to take the metro system to get to where we were going to stay.  We stayed with the aunt of another girl that is on our Ireland trip.  We made it to her house around 6pm and were welcomed in.  We had left our cottages at 6:30 that morning and were absolutely exhausted.  We met her aunt, got a tour of the house, and then chatted and ate some cheese and grapes.  Their family was absolutely amazing during our stay there--the nicest people ever!  Every morning we were able to help ourselves to breakfast and then were free to explore the city.  Also, they had a cocker spaniel!  It definitely made me miss mine at home.  

Anyway, Saturday morning we got up pretty early and began our adventure around London.  We became masters of the tube, getting the hang of it easily.  We started off by taking the tube to Leicester Square.  Basically on Saturday we just roamed around aimlessly through the city, and it was really fun!  There was so much to see and we just wanted a basic introduction of it the first day.  So we started off walking towards the river.  Along the way we stopped at the Portrait Museum and then the National Gallery of London.  Both were amazing to see and I'm glad that we went through them.  We definitely got 'art-ed' out though.  The Gallery was in Trafalgar Square which is a really cool place.  It just has a couple huge fountains and some sculptures and statues.  You can also see Big Ben from there.  So then we continued on our path to the river.  There was actually a demonstration about Sri Lanka going on that day.  There were hundreds of people walking the street along the river with posters and a bullhorn.  It was cool to see.  Then we crossed a bridge and walked along the other side of the river.  There were a ton of street performers there and that was a lot of fun.  We actually got to see a break-dancing show there which of course included Michael Jackson.  (We saw another one in Paris and they played Michael Jackson too.)  This was where in the London Eye is also...which is huge.  So when we were done wandering around the city center we took the tube to Camden Town.  On the weekends there is a huge market atmosphere in Camden.  You can take the tube there, but since it is so crazy busy you have to get back on the tube at a different station.  So we wandered around there and the girls bought some clothes and some fruit.  The businesses there also have crazy signs and outsides of their buildings.  One of those things where you just have to see it.  We also stopped in Cyber Dog which is a crazy place!!  Basically a rave in store form.  After we had thoroughly exhausted our energy we headed back to Jackie's aunt's house.  (It was a little bit of an adventure trying to find a tube station to get back to..haha)  

Sunday morning we got up early again, ate breakfast, and departed on some more adventures through London.  We decided to do a "hop-on hop-off" bus tour of the city.  You could go to any site/monument that you wanted, get off and check it out, and then catch another bus and enjoy your journey.  For our first time in London, I thought this was a really good idea.  We got to see all the main attractions that we wanted and had easy transportation between them.  The tour also included a boat tour--which we did at night and was gorgeous.  Another thing it included was a walking tour of Jack the Ripper.  Of the many things that we saw on the bus tour here are some that I can remember:  Trafalgar Square, Big Ben, the aquarium, London Eye, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, St. Paul's Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, (Oliver Cromwell statue...boo!), Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, and Piccadilly Circus.  Some of these we just saw from the bus and some we actually stopped at and looked around.  We roamed around Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and St. Paul's Cathedral.  The rest we didn't have time to explore more of.  At Buckingham Palace we missed the changing of the guards but it was still really cool to see it...obviously.  At St. Paul's Cathedral I lit a candle for my grandpa.  Later we went to the Tower of London (just saw the outside) and from there we went on the Jack the Ripper tour.  This walking tour led us through the streets of East London.  Included was some places that some of the bodies were found, the building that the women had lived, and event he pub that the women would go to pick up tricks.  It was a really interesting tour and I'm really happy that we got to do it.  We also walked by a huge market that was going on in.  Basically as a side effect we got to see more of the culture of London.  When we made it back to the Tower after the walking tour we boarded the boat and got our tour.  We got to see buildings and the London Eye lit up at night--gorgeous.  Again, after this long day we just headed back and crashed.  

Monday we did some more random exploring throughout the city.  We began the day by checking out the famous Harrods department store.  We got a donut from there and headed to check out Hyde Park.  We walked around Hyde Park for 4 hours I believe...  The park is gorgeous and there is a ton to do and see.  There was a lake in the middle of it that definitely gave the Minnesota feel.  On our adventure through the park we saw the Peter Pan statue, Princess Diana's Memorial, Kensington Palace, Prince Albert's Memorial, a bunch of random other statues, etc.  Then we got sick of walking and decided to find our way out of the park and get some lunch.  I got some McDonalds...country #2.  :)  After lunch we got a better look at the Marble Arch where apparently people were hanged back in the day.  Then we went down some boulevard with a bunch of stores and just took in the people and the culture.  On that one street we passed by 4 H&M's...it was a little ridiculous.  After all of this walking we went back to the aunt's house and had an amazing family dinner with our hosts.  It definitely made us feel at home, and that was a nice thing to have.  Hopefully it will help us to continue in Ireland without getting terribly homesick.  I am SO appreciative of their hospitality and wish that there was someway that we could repay them.  Anyway, we tried to go to bed early that night (like we hadn't the whole time..) because we had a 5:30am train to catch the next morning.

We got up at 4am and began our new adventure to Paris.  Our cab driver was interesting to say the least.  After hearing that we were Americans he ranted on about how George W. Bush wasn't that bad and he did the right thing for the war in Iraq.  We just nodded along and waited until we arrived at the train station.  We met a lot of interesting people in London.  It was really interesting to hear their views on Ireland...subtly of course.  Someone was trying to show us a place on the map, they opened up and it was backwards and they said "Oh, just like the Irish."  Another time we were talking with a local and had explained that we were studying abroad in Ireland and they asked if we had been "banished" there.  I wish we could have sat down with some people though and asked more questions about it.  But I guess it wasn't really a planned excursion for us..haha.  Anyway, that's about all for London.  Next stop:  Paris.

See ya later Ireland

So, I'm getting ready to leave on my trip over ten day break.  I figured that I would get one more blog in before because I won't again until next week when I get back. Today we took a day trip over the the Cliffs of Moher also known as the "Cliffs of Insanity."  We left our cottages at 8:30 this morning and actually got to the Cliffs a little before noon.  They are pretty much just on the other side of Galway Bay from us.  The down side of our visit today...it was foggy.  It was difficult to actually make out the cliffs...let alone take any pictures.  There are also railings alongside the cliff so that you don't actually get too close.  Rocks fall from the cliff everyday and people die from falling off every year.  Stupid people will defy the barrier in order to get a cool picture.  Anyway, of what I did see, it was pretty amazing.  I got a few foggy pictures and I hope that one of them turns out decent.  We had the same bus driver that we had last time which was awesome.  He was telling all these random facts about where we were driving through.  Including that the land we were on used to be at the bottom of the ocean floor and that is why it is so rocky.  He also challenged the guys on our trip to sing for us.  He said that in Ireland you are a wimp if you don't sing--even if you can't sing.  Well after a few minutes one of the guys stepped up and sang us a song.  Then two other guys stepped up--not liking being called a wimp I guess.  Anyway, after this everyone on the bus started singing random songs at the same time and you couldn't get us to shut up.  So, be careful what you wish for I guess.  But it was a lot of fun and it made the ride go a little faster.  Also, on the way back we stopped at some random castle and Michael, the driver, told us about it and the history.  He even threw in a few reenactments.  Basically, he is awesome.  Oh, also on the way to the Cliffs we stopped at a Portal Tomb.  There are four kinds of tombs from the Neolithic period in Ireland.  They are Passage (like Newgrange), Portal, Wedge, and Court.  See, I'm actually learning something in archeology.  But yeah, it was cool to see another thing that we talked about in class.  That is what I love about studying here, you actually see most of what we are talking about.  In the States you could never see everything that you learn about in our history.  

Side note*  Today I found a four leaf clover!!  At the Cliffs of Moher there was a patch of clovers growing and I saw a couple people looking through them, looking for the 4 leaf clover.  So I decided I would try it...and it actually happened!  Let's see if I can get it back to the States so that I will always have the Luck of the Irish. :)

That's all for now, I need to go pack...  Ok, imagine this:  7 night trip and only bring a backpack to travel with.  Yeah, this will be interesting.  Wish me luck!  Talk to you in a week.

Dubh-Linn

Ok...it's been awhile...  I think I left off with coming home from our Kerry excursion.  Monday and Tuesday of last week I just had classes, so again nothing exciting to tell about.  Tuesday night, however, was very exciting.  The Twins played that night to get to the playoffs.  I'm pretty sure that the game started at 10pm our time.  We hooked up a laptop to the projector in the classroom so that we could all watch.  If you know the Twins, then you know that it was an exciting game that just kept going...  Well, I was among the group that stayed up until 3am our time to watch the end of the game.  It was crazy!  By the time it finally ended there were about 8 of us left still watching.  I didn't have class the next day, unlike some of the other people there.  Anyway, it was so much fun being able to watch the game from Ireland and having them actually win.  The next night they played again against the Yankees and JP opened up the hotel pub for us so that we could all watch it in there and didnt have to sit in the classroom.  The game started later and a bunch of us stayed up the previous night, so we went to bed before the game ended.  But yeah, it was fun.

Thursday morning we left early to begin our excursion to Dublin!  We left PLH at 8am and got to our first stop of Clonmacnoise around 11am.  Clonmacnoise is a huge, old monastery that was founded in the 6th century.  It was founded by Saint Ciaran and was able to flourish because it was on the Shannon River.  It was a great place to explore around, with several churches, high crosses, and cemeteries.  There is a visitors center there and they actually had to move the three main high crosses inside because acid rain has been eroding them.  So in their original places they have copies of the crosses so you can get the general idea of what the place looked like.  The actually crosses themselves still look pretty well and are awesome to see.  A reason that I loved visiting this place was because we had learned about it in my archeology class.  My professor is really good at describing cool places for us to go at our destinations.  Our class before our excursion she listed several places to go see in Dublin while we were there.  Then, during our free day on Saturday, we were able to know what places were interesting to us.  Anyway.  We left Clonmacnoise and continued on to Dublin.  Our bus driver for this trip was awesome!  He has worked with our program for a couple of years and is actually a National Tour Guide of Ireland...so he knows his stuff.  So when we actually got into the city of Dublin he quick gave us a tour of the city.  He pointed out places that we would probably want to go so that we could find them easily.  And parents, he also told us the places to stay away from, so no worries.  Then he said, "I'm not your dad, but just don't go there."  The first thing that we toured was the huge park in Dublin--I'm spacing on the name of it, sorry.  Apparently it is the largest enclosed park in the world--over 7 miles of wall.  Think of it as a bigger version of Central Park in NY.  On our drive through it we passed the house of the President of Ireland and also the house of our US Ambassador.  Then we stopped at the place where Pope John Paul II visited and had gathered over a million people.  He visited Ireland 30 years ago and this was one of his stops on the tour.  A huge cross was built for the ceremony and still stands there today.  Check out my picture of it on facebook.  Anyway, in front of the cross (or behind it, however you look at it) is just a huge open space of grass.  We all stood there and imagined literally a million people standing there and cheering.  Anyway, after we were done here we were dropped off at our hostel and had the night free.

Friday morning we got up early and headed out to see the Newgrange passage tomb.  First of all, this tomb is huge!  Second of all, it was built around 5,000 years ago, making it older than the pyramids in Egypt...no big deal.  The white rocks on the outside were actually carried from the ocean in order to be used in the building.  And although it is a huge structure, there were only about 3 people buried there.  Must have been pretty important people..  Also, it makes me feel pretty lazy with my life.  The fact that this structure is still standing and being admired 5,000 years later is amazing.  Another amazing thing about it is that the passage is perfectly lined up with the earth so that on the Winter Solstice, the sun's rays come straight through the passage and light up the tomb within.  This occurs when the sun is first rising for the day.  I guess that this was supposed to signify the end of the shortest day of the year and the beginning of more light.  Basically, these people were very optimistic and ritualistic.  You can put your name in a lottery to be chosen to come and witness this feat on the Winter Solstice every year.  Apparently last year's lottery had around 33,000 names in it.  So it is a huge deal.  When you are actually in the tomb they shut off all the lights and then simulate the light coming in by using a flashlight.  Needless to say, it was pretty cool.  This is another sight that I learned about in archeology and thus I was even more excited for.  

After we left Newgrange, we made a brief stop at the Hill of Tara.  This was an ancient city place in Ireland that consists of several hills.  Gaelic Kings would meet here and have important meetings/celebrations.  It was the political and spiritual capital at the time of the Celts.  And you know what, it was actually raining when we went there!  *side note--we have still had gorgeous weather here in Ireland.  It has only actually rained a couple of times, other than that it will just mist a little bit and then be over or be partly cloudy*  We didn't stay very long because of the rain, but of what I did see...there wasn't that much to see.  It's more of a feeling of being at a place that was this significant during this time period.  We headed back to the actually city of Dublin and had some more free time.  The bus driver dropped some of us off at an art gallery, some at the hostel, and some at the Guinness factory for a tour.  I chose to go on the Guinness tour.  It was cool to see everything in there...I definitely felt like I was in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  As you go through you keep moving up to higher floors of the building and you end up at the "Gravity Bar" at the very top that has glass windows all around and that give an amazing view of the city of Dublin.  At the very top everyone who takes the tour, if they are of age, gets a free pint of Guinness.  We all got ours and just hung out at the top enjoying the view.  

On Saturday we were given a free day to do whatever we wanted in Dublin.  Some of us started at the Book of Kells at Trinity College.  For those of you who are familiar with the St. John's Bible at my school, think of the Book of Kells as a much older and cooler version of that.  It was a book made in the 9th century at a monastery and contains the four gospels.  If you want to know more about it, just Google it.  So after we saw this we decided to go to the National Museum of Archeology.  There they had a "bog body" display.  Bogs are found all over Ireland and have a special acidity level.  Basically, it is really good and preserving things.  So, when they found bodies that were dumped in bogs, they bodies were pretty preserved.  It was like finding a mummy.  So there were about 4 or 5 of these bodies on display at the museum.  It was really cool because they gave a description of how they died and what their life must have been like from what they found.  Again, just google it for more information.  We took a break for lunch and then took a tour of Dublin Castle.  Later that night we all got dressed up and went to a play.  It was...interesting.  I'll leave it at that.  

Sunday morning our only stop before coming home was at Kilmainham Gaol (Jail).  Again, Google it because this post is very long and I've run out of energy..haha.  But it was really cool to see and I guess has been used for a music video for U2.  The reason it is so important is because the leaders of the revolution were executed here in 1916.  After our visit here we came back to the cottages and unpacked and got our lives back in order.  I love going on excursions, but it is also nice to come back to something familiar.  Then I had two big nights of homework Sunday and Monday night.  

Sorry this post was so long and so overdue.  I leave on Friday to go on my ten day break trip.  I'm going to London for 4 nights, taking the train to Paris, and staying there for 3 nights.  I probably won't blog about that until I get back so I'm sure that will be another series of long posts when I get back.  

Co. Kerry Excursion

So Sunday-Wednesday were not very exciting.  Classes and homework pretty much sucked up my life.  We left Thursday morning for our excursion around Co. Kerry.  The journey began with a three hour bus ride to Kilmar (sp?) where we would take a 20 minute ferry to avoid a couple hours of drive time.  The reason that it took three hours to get to the ferry was because we left at 8am when everyone is trying to get to school or work...  So I got a good nap in for those three hours.  The ferry was cool, some of the girls were so excited that the bus was actually going on the ferry.  Anyway, so after the ferry we drove along the Dingle peninsula.  It was absolutely gorgeous.  Our bus stopped at a lookout point on a cliff to take pictures.  I am bummed because my camera batteries were dead so I missed out on pictures here but I will steal some from everyone else.  Again, there was a little path where people could look, and we decided to make our own path and venture farther down the cliff...  I guess we are just a crazy bunch of Americans.  We got a lot of good pictures...including a couple of Matt the Viking scaling the Irish cliffs..haha.  After we all made it back to the bus safely we continued on our journey.  We made another stop at the Gallarus Oratory where there was a small church made without any mortar and with a corbel roof.  There are hardly any of these left in Ireland because since its made without mortar its hard to be preserved.  We snapped some pictures, the guys running it said that I would be back in ten years, and then we departed once again.  Next stop was in the town of Portmagee where we stayed the next two nights.  That night we took it easy, I just watched a movie and went to bed.  

On Friday we had a full-day photography workshop.  Basically our faculty director had some friends living in/visiting the area and they were Norwegian photographers.  In the morning we had a basic rundown of photography stuff, after lunch we went and took some pictures, and then in the afternoon they went through some of our pictures and critiqued them.  Yeah...I am not photography savy. I didn't really like the workshop because none of us had nice cameras to use, so what was the point?  Anyway, after that was over we went back to the hostel and made dinner.  Then we ventured into the town of Portmagee (not much of a town) to hang out at the pub.  It was a great night, all 30 of us were there (including our director and assistant director).  We pretty much took over the pub and we didn't really care because it was such a small town.  They had set dancing going on that night too.  Several older couples did a sort of square dancing type thing.  It was actually cool because another girl in my group grabbed me and we tried it out with them.  I got to dance with some of the older guys and they were all very nice.  I also got the chance to talk with a couple from London, and they were also very nice.  Oh, and we requested the Wild Rover song and we sang and danced to that!  So yeah, overall a good night.

The next morning we departed Portmagee and ventured around the rest of Kerry.  We went through the Rings of Kerry which was pretty much just some more pretty landscape.  We stopped at the Killarney National Park and played around there for a bit.  Next we went to the Muckross House which was actually really cool.  It was a huge mansion that has been preserved.  The Herbert family lived there and Queen Victoria actually made a visit there.  They were given a 6 year notice of the Queen's arrival.  They made vast adjustments to their house and property for her 2 night stay.  It was really interesting to actually go through the house and see what some people lived like back then.  After the tour of the house we were able to roam around the gardens for a little bit.  The garden was really cool, it definitely felt like the Secret Garden.  There were actually two wedding parties there taking pictures, so that was cool.  Then we try to walk to the waterfall that was nearby but we had to get back to the bus.  So that was a bummer.  We checked into our hostel in the town of Killarney.  Killarney seems like a really cool town, I loved staying there that night.  We were right downtown and it was a bigger town.  If I come back to Ireland I would love to go back there.  After dinner and all that jazz we went out for the evening and mingled with the local life.  There was a group of about 50 students also staying in our hostel from Limerick...they were the kayak club of their school.  They were having a themed night of dress up as your favorite toy as a kid.  Let me tell you that they went all out!  It was great to see all of their costumes.  Two of them made awesome Lego man costumes and one of my cottage-mates stole one of their Lego hands.  

Sunday morning we departed Killarney at 10am.  We stopped in Tralee to visit the Kerry County Museum.  It was actually a really cool museum.  The basement pretty much felt like Disney-world.  It depicted what Tralee was like back in medieval times, full of wax people to freak you out.  They should really open it up for Halloween.  Then the upper level had a bunch of exhibits about the people of that area.  My favorite was definitely taking pictures with the wax people.  You can see them on facebook if you like.  Then after the museum we headed to the ferry, stopped in Galway for groceries, and came back to our cottages.  As soon as we got home we were busy unpacking, making dinner, doing homework, and catching up on email/blogs.  I also booked my trip for our ten day break in two weeks.  I am going to London for 4 nights and Paris for 3.  It should be a lot of fun :)  Then in November I am going to Germany for a weekend to visit a friend.  So, that just about wraps things up for now.  Some of the guys here are having nap time right now so that they can watch the Vikings/Packers game that starts here at 1:30am.  I might try to stay up for that...we'll see.  

Let's Climb Croagh Patrick!

We left Friday morning from the hotel at 8:30am.  This weekend's adventure was to County Mayo.  Mayo is also in the mountainous region of Connemara but has another culture all its own.  Our first stop of the day was at the Ballintubber Abbey.  Another beautiful church!  A few of the guys were teasing that they were going to ask a Galway girl to marry them in the Ballintubber Abbey.  Apparently Pierce Brosnan was married there...  Anyway, the reason this church is so special is because this is where the pilgrimage to Croagh Patrick starts.  Saint Patrick started his journey from this church, walked 22 miles to the mountain, and then climbed it.  Each year when people gather to make this same pilgrimage they start at this church and walk to the mountain.  I got a nice picture of where it starts (will be on facebook).  Most of the church was destroyed by the army of Oliver Cromwell, but even the remains are cool.  The next stop of the day was the Foxford Woolen Mills.  Here we got to actually go through their factory and see blankets being made.  Then we watched a short video about the history of it.  It was actually really cool to see.  The third stop of the day was at the Hennigan's Heritage Center.  Basically it was a museum type thing dedicated to the peasants and rural people of Ireland back in the day.  We started in the house that they guy who runs the Center (Tom) lived during his childhood.  The house was tiny and jam packed with all the necessary items, the family, and the animals.  It was hard to imagine everything and everyone fitting in there.  We were told many stories about what life was like for the poor in Ireland and how they made it day to day.  Tom also gave us his perspective on the great famine.  Basically saying that it really shouldn't be called a "famine" because a famine is a shortage of food.  Apparently there wasn't a shortage of food.  What happened was England took away all of their rights (fishing for example) and food options.  They exported it out of Ireland in order to punish them.  This is why the people of Ireland had to depend on the potato for their bulk of their food, that was all that they had left that they could depend on.  This is also the reason why it was such a disaster when the potatoes were infected with blight.  Anyway, I digress...  We spent that night in the town of Westport at a really nice hostel that we had all to ourselves.  I ended up having a double bed and it was glorious.  That night in Westport they had some kind of culture night where all of the art galleries were open for viewing until like 11pm.  So we decided to culture ourselves and so we went to a gallery where we received a free glass of wine and got to look at and interpret the paintings.  It was a really nice change of pace after being busy all day and just being able to relax.  

We left the hostel this morning (Saturday) at 8:30am.  From here we started our journey to climb Croagh Patrick.  This mountain is the famous one that Saint Patrick himself climbed, fasted for 40 days, and then banished the snakes from Ireland.  Also, on "Reek Sunday" which is the last Sunday in July 15,000 pilgrims climb that mountain every year.  The day before the climb I thought that I would just climb it a little and then head back down, thinking that I would take it easy.  This morning, however, I decided that I would try to scale the whole thing.  When we got off the bus we were told that the average climbs up to the top in 2 hours and climbs back down in an hour and a half.  I took a couple pics of the mountain and then began my journey up.  I made it to the top in an hour and a half!  It was a hard climb but it was totally worth it!  At the top of the mountain it was very misty...everyone looked like they had just stepped out of the shower.  The wind was also incredibly strong.  The group of us met at the top and basked in the fact that we had made it!  It really was a great experience!  At the top we talked to an older couple that had climbed up there.  The man told us that it was his 7th trip up there that year!  Its unbelievable that people hike up there sometimes on a regular basis.  On the way back down I passed by a family that was hiking up and the little girl asked me if it was much farther.  I unfortunately had to tell her that there was still a ways to go.  The scenery coming down was absolutely gorgeous and I paused several times to just enjoy it (and enjoy the fact that I was going down and not up!).  We had other things planned to do that day after the climb but our director saw how tired we were and we pretty much just headed back to our cottages near Spiddal.  Oh!  So the "tradition" is for pilgrims to climb Croagh Patrick barefoot.  I'm amazed to report that 3 of the guys on my trip actually did the entire climb barefoot!!  I think it's just absolutely amazing that they did this.  One of the guys names was even Patrick.  On the way down they did put their shoes back on because it was actually really slippery and quite difficult.  Another thing that we did before we climbed back down the mountain was that we all made a circle and said a prayer.  Again, it was an amazing experience and I'm so glad that I put in the effort and made it to the top!

To Arthur!

Monday and Tuesday I just had classes so there was nothing exciting to blog about.  Wednesday I didn't have any classes so I wrapped up some of my homework for the following week.  We had our "family meeting" for about an hour and then we all took a bus into Galway city.  We received a guided tour of the Galway museum and then we wandered around Galway for about two hours.  When we got back to the cottages we learned that J.P. was going to open the pub again for us.  We spent a little time there just all hanging out and getting to know J.P.  We asked about his wedding coming up in January and he answered all of our stupid questions about Ireland.  I think he got quite a laugh out of it.  

Thursday was a big day.  It was the 250th anniversary of Guinness. We heard that everyone in Ireland was going to raise their glasses up for the founder, Arthur Guinness, at 5:59pm or 17:59 military time which stood for it being founded in 1759.  It was a crazy day.  We all took a bus into Galway around 4 so that we could get a pub and get a pint of Guinness before the big moment.  The pubs were packed and everyone was out celebrating the big day.  Everyone cheers-ed for Arthur about million times before the night was over.  Another added bonus was that Guinness was only 2.50 Euro, which made it easier to actually drink. :P  Our huge group of 28 all split up into groups of about 4 and visited some other pubs around Galway.  Overall it was just a really fun night.  Everyone was out on the streets and meeting new people.  It was a really good opportunity to meet some Irish people and get to know them.  An interesting thing about going to pubs in Ireland is how fast that they will figure out that your American and to what gave it away.  Whenever they figure it out before I've said anything I like to ask how they knew I was American.  And here are some of the answers:  North Face....duh! (although I have none), teeth (yeah, they're actually straight...haha), accent (ya shore you betcha), they way you walk, my hair (apparently I have an 'American' style of brownish gold), and I'm sure that there are others.  Anyway, so it was a really good experience and I'm glad that I got to do this.  I got back to the cottages at midnight and went straight to bed.

Connemara Excursion

We left early Friday morning on our very first overnight excursion.  Our destination was the mountainous Connemara region.  It's only about an hour and a half away from our "home."  Our first stop was a place called Mamead (I believe that I spelled it right.  The bus parked there and we were sent on a hiking journey that overall lasted about 2 hours.  We followed a "path" up into the mountains.  The "path" was really just a bunch of rocks placed into the ground to help you get footing on the way up.  It was nothing like a smooth paved sidewalk.  So we reached the end of the path where a little chapel in the mountain was.  It was only about a third of the way up the mountain I would guess.  It was pretty cool to see, but we didn't really know much about the actual chapel itself.  So being such an adventurous group that we are, we decided to deviate from the path.  We continued to climb the mountain while the other tourists by the chapel decided to head back down.  I got about 3/4 the way up the mountain and decided that was enough.  The view was breath-taking and everyone in the group found their own little rock or sitting area where you could just enjoy the surroundings.  It was definitely the best part of my day.  So then we had try and find a way down the mountain.  We couldn't remember the exact path that we took but we could see the rocky path that would lead us back to our bus.  We ventured on through the mountains on the bus.  We took a short cut which definitely was interesting.  We ran into a herd of sheep, a group of cows, and a very small rickety bridge (but we made it over!).  On the way to our next destination we saw what Alan (our bus driver) called a Leprechaun Hotel.  We stopped in Leenane for lunch and a tour of their sheep and wool museum.  After we refueled we headed on to Clifden where we would stay the night.  After showering and eating we went to a poetry reading by the famous Irish poet Seamus Heaney.  We are actually reading some of his poems here in Ireland for our Seminar class.  It was a really cool experience.  I had never been to a poetry reading before so I wasn't really sure what to expect.  He seemed really down to earth and eager to meet people.  After this we had the evening free and we roamed around the town of Clifden.  The girls that I went with decided on a pub and had tea and hot chocolate.  It was a really relaxed pub with some traditional live music.  There was a guy playing the accordion who apparently was a really famous accordion player (who would have thought).  So that was our very long day.

The next morning we woke up and some of us went to the Connemara National Park about 15 minutes away.  There we climbed Diamond Mountain and took in the breath-taking sights.  Again, pictures will be (or already are) on facebook.  Since we climbed a mountain the previous day, I was content on just going up half way and then chilling on a rock.  It was a really peaceful place.  After we climbed back down the mountain we headed to Aughnanure Castle.  I thought this castle was really interesting.  It wasn't the stereotypical castle that you see in movies or fairy-tales or anything.  But I think this was good because I got to learn about the practical uses that castles had at this time in Ireland.  Apparently they put in a lot of things that were just supposed to scare their enemies and they didn't really work.  For example, one of the windows where they kept their weapons was shaped for a cannon and the enemy would recognize this.  The reality however is that they never did have a cannon and even if they did it was the wrong height for one.  I don't remember how old the castle is by I do remember that it was the home of the O'Flahertys who were chieftains at the time.  After the castle, we made the trek back to the cottages and it felt good to be home.

(Sorry how late this post is...we are kept pretty busy)

Just a normal day in Ireland..

Darn, I got a little behind again on my blogging.  So on Wednesday I didn't have any classes, but I did have a one hour "family meeting" with everyone in my study abroad group.  After this meeting we got on a bus to go into Galway city.  When we got there we first went to the Galway museum and had a look around.  One thing that stuck out for me there was how personal everything was to the people there.  It really gave a good look at who the Gaelic people were in that area and what their culture really is.  At one part of the museum there were a bunch of photographs in a row that was of the front of an apartment or house and in front of that were the people who actually lived there.  It just shows how community-based their culture is.  After the museum we headed over the NUIG which is the National University of Ireland-Galway.  Our program director had set up a panel of professors and graduate students that would talk about the culture of Ireland with us.  It actually turned out to be a really good panel.  They were open and honest about their culture and would answer any of our questions.  It was cool at parts when they would talk about their friendliness and such and that would could compare that to our "Minnesota Nice."  When the panel was over we spent the rest of our evening in Galway.  The group that I split up with went to the King's Head pub.  It turned out to be a lot of fun.  They had live music start around 10pm and we got to meet some locals there and talk with them.  

On Thursday I only had Senior Seminar in the morning and the rest of the day was free.  And how did I spend this time?  By reading on the rocks by the ocean...duh.  It was a gorgeous sunny day (which supposedly is really rare here...but we still have yet to see rain!).  I also got to see a boat coming into the Galway bay when I was out there.  Later that night we talked to J.P. who is one of the owners of the Park Lodge Hotel and he decided that he would open the hotel pub for us so that we could all hang out and also get to know J.P.  It was a blast!  All 28 of us went and just had a great time.  J.P. is a really cool guy and it was so much fun to hang out with him.  (I got a picture with him)  One of the guys in our group brought their laptop and hooked it up to some speakers so that we could have a dance party.  Some of the songs included Shout, Sweet Home Alabama, Lean on Me, and Piano Man.  Overall, it was a great time.  We took so many pictures that night (including a few "roomie" pics).  It was probably the most fun night I've had here thus far.  The next morning we departed on our excursion to Connemara, but I will tell you about that next time.  So stay tuned. :P

First Days of Classes

Yesterday I finally started my classes!  Here is my schedule each week.  We have our study abroad seminar with our program director for an hour and a half at 9 on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The other three classes meet only once a week and are 3 hour long lectures.  On Mondays I have History of Ireland from 10-1 and Contemporary Irish Catholicism from 2-5.  Then I also have Gaelic Archeology on Tuesdays from 11-2.  The three hour lectures weren't bad this first week.  We get a 10 minutes break in the middle of each class, so that helps to break it up.  Also, when we were told that they did straight lecture it scared me.  But I think they do a good job of interacting with us and talking with us rather than at us.  So hopefully that will continue.  All of the professors are very nice and don't seem to "droll" yet.  Haha.  Another pleasant surprise from them was that I can actually understand them.  I was so worried that they would have thick accents that I wouldn't be able to understand.  I'm not sure if I'm just getting used to hearing the accent, or if theirs really isn't bad.  Also I noticed that they are more inclined to spell out words of places or what have you when they are talking.  It may just be because they know we are Americans and we don't know anything....just kidding...but seriously.  All three of my professors have been teaching this study abroad group for at least 5 years.  So it is nice that they pretty much know what to expect from us and how things are supposed to go.  My catholicism teacher has been doing it for like 12 years, but she still seems eager to change things up and adapted to this year's group.  The first day she asked us if there were any topics that we wanted to make sure to cover.  So it sounds like she will be willing to adapt to our needs.  My archeology professor was giving us advice on traveling and places to go and modes of transportation to use.  So overall, it was a good first week of classes.  (Alright, so I have another hour and a half on Thursday still)  It's going to be really interesting this semester and I think that I'm going to love these classes.  

Anyway, that's about all that has happened in the past few days.  Yes, I finally caught up! :)  Now I'm going to go on facebook and finish uploading some pics for everyone to see.  These will be able to explain what I've seen/experienced much better than I'm able to one here.  In seminar today we found out that we have to do like a documentary project about our travels and experiences here and I will probably use this blog as a tool to help me do that. 

Coole Park

We got to sleep in on Sunday for the first time!  We loaded up in the bus around 2 to head to Coole Park which was at least an hour and 15 minutes away.  Right now there is some construction going on in Galway on a major road, bringing it down to only one side of it, so it gets pretty annoying always getting stuck there for a few minutes before we can pass.  Also, in Ireland you run into really random traffic on small country roads.  For those of you from CG, it would be like having stopped traffic on Keats Rd.  For those of you in St. Joe it would be like having stopped traffic on Minnesota St. I'm not sure that Ireland has any big highways like we do in the U.S.  One of our professors said that they are trying to make one from the north down to Dublin but it would pass right by Tara and ruin some archeological sites that haven't been completely researched yet.  

So, before we went to Coole Park we made a quick stop to see the castle of William B. Yeats.  He was a really famous poet in Ireland.  Here we met up with the professor that would be teaching our Literature class.  He took us around the castle and explaining the historical occurrences here as well as the aesthetics of the building.  After his explanation, he then read a poem written by Yeats himself about his castle home.  It was really cool to connect things together like that and actually see what he is talking about.  Next we went on to Coole Park.  This is where Lady Gregory had lived (she was close friends with William Yeats).  The acreage that is left of the park is only a sliver of what the family had when the land was first bought.  The house of Lady Gregory no longer stands, but the foundation is still there covered with grass. Again, Gerard explained the history and then connected that with a poem that Yeats had written about the house.  The next spot on our walk through the Park was at the Autograph Tree.  We went into the huge walled garden that was still there and if anyone has seen "The Secret Garden" that's kind of what it looked/felt like.  So on the tree are the carved in signatures of famous literary people in Ireland.  Some of the names included Lady Gregory, William Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, a countess, and a guy from NY who had been crucial in getting Yeats's poems popular in America.  

On the way back to the hotel we finally stopped at a grocery place to get food.  This was a little stressful because it was our first trip.  I'm sure that we will get the hang of it soon.  We've been having family dinners most nights, so we have to shop and plan things out together.  I'm happy to say though that I got some peanut butter! :)  I tried the Nutella that they have here, but I will always love actual peanut butter.  If you've never had Nutella, it's more like eating chocolate frosting.  Another thing that I've tried over here is the hard cider.  It's actually pretty good, although I might be one of the few who actually likes it...  

Aran Islands

I'm about two days behind in blogging, but I'm sure that I will catch up soon because I just have classes the next couple of days, so I'll have more time to catch up, and won't be doing anything as exciting.  So on Saturday our group headed out to see the Aran Islands.  It was about a half an hour bus ride followed by about a 45-60 minute ferry ride out to the Islands.  We went to the big island which is called Inishmore.  When we got there our director let us loose and just told us to be back to take the ferry at 4.  So we had about 4ish hours to wander around this island that is supposedly 9 miles wide.  You could either walk, bike, get a buggy with horse, or get in a tour van.  The girls that I went with decided to walk.  I hate biking uphills so that was the main reason for me.  Anyway, so we started out on our journey.  We decided to go to the old lighthouse on the island.  We walked there in about an hour or so and it was a really pretty walk.  The road was right along the coast so we saw a bunch of fields, cliffs, beaches, and houses.  There are actually a lot more people that live on the island than I would have thought.  There were some Bed & Breakfasts there too that were the cutest houses ever.  By the way, like every other house in the Galway house seems like its a B&B.  So we finally made it to the lighthouse and we immediately bust out our cameras to capture it.  You can actually go up in it and get a great view of the entire island and ocean.  After we thoroughly explored the lighthouse and its surroundings we started the walk back to the port.  One thing that I love about Ireland is that when you are going to a certain destination, there are probably several things on the way that are really cool and that you'll want to go explore and take pictures of.  Hence I took like 130 pictures in 4 days.  When we got back to the port we had an hour or so to relax before we had to get on the ferry.  The Aran Islands are famous for their wool sweaters, so we went into the sweater store.  I ended up getting a really cute knit side purse.  So yeah, then we just hung out until the ferry came.  On the way back to the mainland, just about all 28 of us fell asleep on the boat...and there are pictures.

When we got back to the cottages we all showered and got ready because it was one of my cottage-mates birthdays so we needed to celebrate.  We went into Spiddal for a little bit, but the pubs were crowded with a bachelorette party and some live music.  So we hung out on the beach there for a while, just hanging out looking at the stars.  The stars are absolutely gorgeous out here, and I'm going to miss them at home.  So then a couple of us made the walk back to the cottages and made some friends with some kids who were playing "Pokemon" in the parking lot.  (It consisted of them throwing a ball tied to a string and trying to get it stuck in the powerlines...I don't know).  There was a wedding reception going on in the hotel and that's why the boys were out there.  They were really funny to talk to.  We talked about Dunkin Donuts (they were like obsessed with that for some reason), Obama (apparently he's Irish), "the Mexican problem" in the US, and Family Guy.  It was really interesting to hear what they thought about America.  Anyway, then they invited the three of us that were talking to them to go into the wedding reception.  How often do you get invited to do that?  So we went to the hotel and crashed the reception.  It was definitely the most fun wedding reception that I've ever been to!  First of all the music that they played was about half American and half Irish.  Those of us who were in my program pretty much dominated the dance floor.  We danced to songs ranging from Poker Face and Thriller to Galway Girl and other Irish songs.  The wedding party was out on the dance floor with us and we all just intermingled.  A couple of the girls taught some of the older Irish men how to dance to Thriller...haha.  It was just a great time that is hard to explain unless you experienced something like it.  Towards the end, the bride and groom did like a traditional Irish dance in the middle of the dance floor while everyone was around them cheering them on and chanting.  It was just really cool to see them tie in their heritage and culture into this celebration.  This was a great day and night in Ireland.

Side note:  I've noticed for the most part that the people from Northern Ireland have thicker accents than those I've met in the Galway area so far.  The people at the wedding were from Donegal and were severely hard to understand...they were also pretty drunk though so that might have played a factor.

First Days of Ireland

Well, I finally made it into Ireland Thursday with a local time of 10am.  We made it through customs easily, being granted permission to stay for until mid December.  When we got out of customs we found some classmates that had gotten into the Shannon airport a couple hours before us.  Then we waited until 12:30 for another group to arrive.  Our program director and assistant director picked us up in a bus and we started on our adventures.  The drive was about an hour and a half to our hotel, and as tired as I was from traveling, I could not fall asleep with all the sights to be seen.  We made a quick stop in Galway to pick up two other girls on our trip.  

The cottages are even cuter than the pictures that they showed us.  We brought all of our stuff in, picked rooms, and tried to unpack.  The closet that I share is tiny...so good thing I didn't bring a lot of clothes.  I'm about one of the only people who brought only one checked bag, but I'm confident to say that I definitely didn't overpack.  After we put some stuff away we had a group dinner that Geraldine made for us.  Of course it was meat, potatoes, and vegetables...and it was really good!  After dinner we started to explore our surroundings, first by taking the path to the ocean.  It was a rocky coastline and we had a lot of fun walking on the rocks trying to get to the water.  When we got back to the hotel we all quick got onto the internet to let our parents and everyone know that we made it here safe.  Later that night, some of us decided to venture into Spiddal to see what we were getting ourselves into.  The walk one-way is about half and hour...roughly 2 miles.  (oh, btw, I finally saw the mini horse that I heard so much about, it is adorable)  We went into our first pub in Ireland and ordered some Guinness.  The local crowd consisted of some friends talking at the bar and a bigger group of guys playing a round of poker.  The walk back...was a little scary.  Granted it was at like 9 or 9:30 because we were after-all jet-lagged.  We are hoping that it will be better later at night.  The path is pretty narrow and the cars drive insanely fast.  Anyway, we survived.

The next morning we got up and Geraldine had breakfast all ready for us.  (I wish she cooked all of our meals!)  After we ate, we met Jane Marie and she kinda explained how things were going to work.  Then we departed on our journey to Salthill and Galway.  We stopped in Salthill for about an hour and we just walked around the beach, climbed on rocks, the usual.  Then we ventured around the city of Galway for about 3 hours.  We split up into little groups and went our own ways.  My group went and explored two of the churches that we saw.  The second of which was the prettiest church I've ever seen!  Overall, the stain glass that I have seen in Ireland is absolutely amazing.  I have plenty of pictures, and will probably share them.  After the churches we went and saw the Spanish arches, which were on a really fast moving river.  People were just sitting along this river chatting with friend, eating lunch, and taking a nap.  It was really cool to see people just gathering at a public place like this.  Again, I have a lot of pictures and will post them on facebook.  For lunch I really wanted to try Supermac which is pretty much the Irish version of McDonalds...but they also have the real McDonalds there so don't get that confused.  I probably did some other cool things in Galway that have already slipped my mind because these past few days have just been so busy!  

So far the weather has been amazing!  I was ready for and expecting rainy-gloomy days, and it has been sunny our entire stay thus far.  Today we went to the Aran islands, but I will write about that tomorrow.  I hope all is well back at home, and I hope to hear from people.  

The journey begins...

Alright, I figured that I will probably tell my stories several times for people, so I might as well write them all down.  This will also help me remember everything. :)  So, whoever wants to read this, go for it.  

Traveling started on Wednesday the 9th.  I met up with Nicole and Catherine, my traveling buddies, at the Lindbergh terminal around 11am.  We hugged our parents goodbye, some crying more than others (mom...), and started our journey.  So, here's the deal...  We had scheduled a 1pm flight from MSP to Milwaukee, about a two hour layover to leave from there at 4:10pm, and then finally leave for Shannon, Ireland at 10pm from NYC.  The first flight went easy and quick.  Our Milwaukee flight was delayed about a half an hour, and then it took forever to actually park at the gate and get off the plane.  In New York we actually had to change from LaGuardia to the JFK airport...we learned our lesson about that.  When it came down to it, we had an hour and a half to claim our luggage, get in a taxi to JFK, check-in, and make our flight.  Needless to say we were stressing out a little bit...  When we had claimed our bags and actually got loaded into a taxi it was 8:45.  We told the cab driver to get there as fast as he could and he actually made it in 15 minutes...which was awesome!  The first terminal we went to was completely abandoned, so we crossed the street to the next closest terminal.  We run in there with our stuff and ask if we can still check in for our flight at 10.  This was probably at 9:07.  The lady just made a face and said that we were very late and that we wouldn't be able to check our bags for the flight, so she sent us to the ticketing counter to schedule us for the flight the next night...  Our hearts sank and we didn't know what to say.  At the ticketing counter, God blessed us with a miracle.  The lady we got was determined for us to make this flight.  She called a few people and pulled some strings.  She personally escorted our luggage to the right spot, and we hustled through security and right onto our plane. I was still carrying my belt while finding my seat.  As we settled into our seats we couldn't believe that we had actually made this flight and were on our way to Ireland. :)