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.