Woke up same time as yesterday and went down to breakfast a bit earlier. Better seat this time. Same bus seats as yesterday, it was rainy and cool this morning. We stopped in the Doagh (?) Valley where a group of 300 villagers died in a storm coming home from seeking famine assistance. It was absolutely beautiful there. I was really glad we had a good misty day.
We had about a 2 hour drive to Galway from there, but we really didn't sleep. It was just too beautiful; it was like something out of a dream. I slept a little bit as we were getting closer to the town. When I woke up we were in Galway. It was the CUTEST little Irish town! We took a walking tour, then breaked for lunch (delicious sandwiches). At that point we only had about 30 minutes left to walk around and it started raining. We all went back to the bus together, then Dakota, Sarah Smith and I grabbed our stuff and said goodbye to everyone and Martin and made our way up to the hostel. The people there were super nice and the place was surprisingly nice for a hostel. We went to the station to get our bus tickets sorted out for the next day, then went back to shop street and split up. I enjoyed being able to souvenir shop on my own for a few hours and took lots of pictures of the cute town.
-Cut off here; gotta shower, finish packing, and sleep for Paris tomorrow. Night xoxo
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
Day 11: Adventuring!
Gosh, it's getting hard to remember details 5 days later!
We woke up around 8:00 and went down to seated breakfast which I loved. I had Rice Crispies, awesome Irish milk, and, of course, tea!
Load up on the bus at 9 and make the short drive to Croagh Patrick, St. Patrick's pilgrimage site which is still massively popular. It was beautiful, reminded me of Colorado a lot, and took loads of pictures. I wish we had taken a group shot though. I really wished I had brought my hiking boots at this point.
We walked back down and took a look at the National Famine Memorial at the base before loading up again and heading out to Achill Island. It was chilly, but as soon as I stepped off the bus I was blindsided by the beauty of it and took tons and tons of pictures, but I wish I'd taken more with other people instead of just the landscape.
Last stop was a village abandoned in the famine. It was super eerie, at this point we were getting pretty wet but I didn't mind. This is how Ireland is meant to be! It was such a beautiful place and I was so grateful to be there. My favorite stop of the day was lunch; at this point we were all pretty wet and tired and it was bonding, we ate really good sandwiches and soup and bread and just sat for an hour and I drank a ton of water.
We started making our way back to Westport now. Foster and I were in the back row and the bus went over some bumpy road often which started out as fun, but one particularly large bumped knocked us so hard out of our seats that we hit our heads rather hard on the ceiling. We wore our seatbelts from then on and were very paranoid about bumps (it hurt a lot)!
We got back to Westport in the afternoon but we were all so tired and wet that we all went to our rooms. I took a short nap (I wish I had taken a bath) and ended up talking to Emily for nearly 2 hours about everything! At that point, we went back down to dinner (just as good as the night before!).
After dinner, we all went out to this huge, 3 story, beautifully designed bar and listened to some live music. We found Martin and he joined us for quite a bit. At 12 the band was done and the place was gearing up for late night dancing, so I went home to bed. Such comfy beds! I miss it there.
We woke up around 8:00 and went down to seated breakfast which I loved. I had Rice Crispies, awesome Irish milk, and, of course, tea!
Load up on the bus at 9 and make the short drive to Croagh Patrick, St. Patrick's pilgrimage site which is still massively popular. It was beautiful, reminded me of Colorado a lot, and took loads of pictures. I wish we had taken a group shot though. I really wished I had brought my hiking boots at this point.
We walked back down and took a look at the National Famine Memorial at the base before loading up again and heading out to Achill Island. It was chilly, but as soon as I stepped off the bus I was blindsided by the beauty of it and took tons and tons of pictures, but I wish I'd taken more with other people instead of just the landscape.
Last stop was a village abandoned in the famine. It was super eerie, at this point we were getting pretty wet but I didn't mind. This is how Ireland is meant to be! It was such a beautiful place and I was so grateful to be there. My favorite stop of the day was lunch; at this point we were all pretty wet and tired and it was bonding, we ate really good sandwiches and soup and bread and just sat for an hour and I drank a ton of water.
We started making our way back to Westport now. Foster and I were in the back row and the bus went over some bumpy road often which started out as fun, but one particularly large bumped knocked us so hard out of our seats that we hit our heads rather hard on the ceiling. We wore our seatbelts from then on and were very paranoid about bumps (it hurt a lot)!
We got back to Westport in the afternoon but we were all so tired and wet that we all went to our rooms. I took a short nap (I wish I had taken a bath) and ended up talking to Emily for nearly 2 hours about everything! At that point, we went back down to dinner (just as good as the night before!).
After dinner, we all went out to this huge, 3 story, beautifully designed bar and listened to some live music. We found Martin and he joined us for quite a bit. At 12 the band was done and the place was gearing up for late night dancing, so I went home to bed. Such comfy beds! I miss it there.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Day 10: Depart for Westport!
We woke up early, grabbed a bite to eat, and gathered to board the bus. It was larger enough (and there were few enough of us) that we could all have a double seat to ourselves. It was a very nice dark grey bus. I sat on the right side halfway back across from Laura and Sarah, who whipped out a tortilla and used her water bottle as a neck pillow haha.
I slept most on this stretch of the journey, until Martin came over the intercom to announce we were almost at Strokeston House, a beautiful old manor home of the landed Protestant Anglo-Irish Mahon family. We had a very informative, interesting, and concise tour detailing the family's time and customs while there, noted by the entirely original and complete selection of decor and personal items, generally pointing to the family's wealth and position in society. The owner of the home engaged in a poorly oversaw emigration scheme during the famine to clear the starving Catholic Irish off his land who could not pay their rent. As a consequence, almost all of them suffered and perished on the journey, leading to his assassination by the enraged Irish community.
From there we popped in to the Spar to buy lunch (I got potato salad... irony) and then some more driving until a completely preserved country house in Co. Mayo. It was really cute and small (even for the size of such large Irish Catholic families), with a strong emphasis on self sufficiency. The tour was followed by light snacks (cookies) and tea in the lodge before piling on to the bus again to head for Westport. Martin kept joking that he was leaving us on the side of the road and we had to make our own way to Westport as a "cultural challenge".
We finally arrived in Westport around 5 and checked in to the hotel. We were rooming 2 to a room, thankfully I was paired with Emily. The place was *very* nice and it was nice to be there all together as a class. Our rooms were extremely nice as well (felt kinda like a modern version of the Stanely) with very nice bathrooms. I loved it, and didn't want to come back! We had a little time to kill before dinner, so I walked the town with Dakota, Margaux, and Sara McBurney. We came back for our 3 course dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 (and got the wrong end of the table...). I had vegetable soup, requested a vegetarian stir fry, and then a sampler of desserts which were amazing and really made me feel like we were on an extravagent vacation with the family.
That night after dinner we found a very crowded pub named Molly Malloy's and listened to Irish music for a while before heading home to catch some sleep. I didn't know how the shower worked, so I almost flooded the whole bathroom. The beds were very comfy though, and when I finally did fall asleep, I slept like a log.
I slept most on this stretch of the journey, until Martin came over the intercom to announce we were almost at Strokeston House, a beautiful old manor home of the landed Protestant Anglo-Irish Mahon family. We had a very informative, interesting, and concise tour detailing the family's time and customs while there, noted by the entirely original and complete selection of decor and personal items, generally pointing to the family's wealth and position in society. The owner of the home engaged in a poorly oversaw emigration scheme during the famine to clear the starving Catholic Irish off his land who could not pay their rent. As a consequence, almost all of them suffered and perished on the journey, leading to his assassination by the enraged Irish community.
From there we popped in to the Spar to buy lunch (I got potato salad... irony) and then some more driving until a completely preserved country house in Co. Mayo. It was really cute and small (even for the size of such large Irish Catholic families), with a strong emphasis on self sufficiency. The tour was followed by light snacks (cookies) and tea in the lodge before piling on to the bus again to head for Westport. Martin kept joking that he was leaving us on the side of the road and we had to make our own way to Westport as a "cultural challenge".
We finally arrived in Westport around 5 and checked in to the hotel. We were rooming 2 to a room, thankfully I was paired with Emily. The place was *very* nice and it was nice to be there all together as a class. Our rooms were extremely nice as well (felt kinda like a modern version of the Stanely) with very nice bathrooms. I loved it, and didn't want to come back! We had a little time to kill before dinner, so I walked the town with Dakota, Margaux, and Sara McBurney. We came back for our 3 course dinner in the hotel dining room at 7 (and got the wrong end of the table...). I had vegetable soup, requested a vegetarian stir fry, and then a sampler of desserts which were amazing and really made me feel like we were on an extravagent vacation with the family.
That night after dinner we found a very crowded pub named Molly Malloy's and listened to Irish music for a while before heading home to catch some sleep. I didn't know how the shower worked, so I almost flooded the whole bathroom. The beds were very comfy though, and when I finally did fall asleep, I slept like a log.
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
Day 9th: The Day It All Became Real
This morning another perfectly enjoyable class, taking us up to the Act of Union. After class, we went into the city to meet Martin for a tour of the national museum. The bus took a little longer than usual because the traffic had to be diverted due to a fair number of fire trucks, ambulances, and police surrounded by a sizable crowd of people. I first thought it was a possible bomb threat (pretty common in the US to find "suspicious packages" abandoned that the police need to check out). Turns out there was a man on top of the bank building, supposedly preparing to jump.
We left from our meeting place at Trinity to the museum, next to the Parliament building. The museum was very nice, it was good having Martin there to give context to things. I don't know if I've ever been in a museum with artifacts that were as old as that (living in America, it's such a relatively young country), so I was very impressed by the notion that "this object was around way back then. When all that history was being made, there are no people left from that time. But this object was actually *there*". It was pretty cool. I honestly would have liked to stay around a little bit, but everyone was heading off. I decided to go with Margaux, Dakota, and Emily to a pastry shop Dakota saw (even though I didn't really want pastries again) and talked for about an hour. Then we made our way back, even though I would have preferred to stay in the city for just a bit and enjoy the good weather in the park with ice cream.
When we got back I booked my hostel for Galway. It was a hard decision spending that money, but I really wanna see the Cliffs of Moher and I don't want to wait and go on the tour from Dublin with Ben and Natalie and everyone else because you end up spending twice as much time on the bus, even if it is 20 euro cheaper that way, you're wasting a whole day where as if we go from Galway, its about half that time. I was suppose to go to the park to enjoy the weather, but I ended up Skyping/Facebook messaging with Rebecka and then wound up watching a body image video Katie had posted on Sarah Anne's wall maybe a week ago. Long story short, this woman started a positive body image movement and got to see people really changed by it, and it just made me cry.
I became very aware that this- this thing I'm doing right now: going to see the Cliffs of Moher and going to freakin PARIS to see things I never thought I would- are things that were just dreams not so long ago. They were things I barely dared to even hope to ever do because of the mere far fetched-ness and near impossibility of them. And now I'm doing them. That's so special, and makes me really want to enjoy this moment. Everyone tells you to "dream big" and "anything is possible" and "you can make a difference", but we don't really believe that. But we should! There are at least 7 things just since coming to college that I thought I would never accomplish, actually defined as too impossible for me to get my hopes up for. And they happened. That's so crazy that I'm getting to do all the things I always wanted to do but never thought I could. It just opens my eyes and gets me excited about all the possibilities I have in this world, and I feel truly blessed and just want to savor and reap all those possibilities. There's so much amazing stuff out there and I really *can* have it! And I think that's pretty cool.
Watched the US/Belgium game at nuBar. No food, bad seats, cool atmosphere, but came home after 2 hours to pack, shower, and get to sleep early. It's already after midnight and I haven't done any of those things, so there's that :P
We left from our meeting place at Trinity to the museum, next to the Parliament building. The museum was very nice, it was good having Martin there to give context to things. I don't know if I've ever been in a museum with artifacts that were as old as that (living in America, it's such a relatively young country), so I was very impressed by the notion that "this object was around way back then. When all that history was being made, there are no people left from that time. But this object was actually *there*". It was pretty cool. I honestly would have liked to stay around a little bit, but everyone was heading off. I decided to go with Margaux, Dakota, and Emily to a pastry shop Dakota saw (even though I didn't really want pastries again) and talked for about an hour. Then we made our way back, even though I would have preferred to stay in the city for just a bit and enjoy the good weather in the park with ice cream.
When we got back I booked my hostel for Galway. It was a hard decision spending that money, but I really wanna see the Cliffs of Moher and I don't want to wait and go on the tour from Dublin with Ben and Natalie and everyone else because you end up spending twice as much time on the bus, even if it is 20 euro cheaper that way, you're wasting a whole day where as if we go from Galway, its about half that time. I was suppose to go to the park to enjoy the weather, but I ended up Skyping/Facebook messaging with Rebecka and then wound up watching a body image video Katie had posted on Sarah Anne's wall maybe a week ago. Long story short, this woman started a positive body image movement and got to see people really changed by it, and it just made me cry.
I became very aware that this- this thing I'm doing right now: going to see the Cliffs of Moher and going to freakin PARIS to see things I never thought I would- are things that were just dreams not so long ago. They were things I barely dared to even hope to ever do because of the mere far fetched-ness and near impossibility of them. And now I'm doing them. That's so special, and makes me really want to enjoy this moment. Everyone tells you to "dream big" and "anything is possible" and "you can make a difference", but we don't really believe that. But we should! There are at least 7 things just since coming to college that I thought I would never accomplish, actually defined as too impossible for me to get my hopes up for. And they happened. That's so crazy that I'm getting to do all the things I always wanted to do but never thought I could. It just opens my eyes and gets me excited about all the possibilities I have in this world, and I feel truly blessed and just want to savor and reap all those possibilities. There's so much amazing stuff out there and I really *can* have it! And I think that's pretty cool.
Watched the US/Belgium game at nuBar. No food, bad seats, cool atmosphere, but came home after 2 hours to pack, shower, and get to sleep early. It's already after midnight and I haven't done any of those things, so there's that :P
Monday, June 30, 2014
Day 8: Howth
Woke up early this morning to go running with Sara Teesdale in the park on campus. Only about 20 minute, maybe a 1 mile run, but it was pretty in the park and it woke me up nicely so I didn't feel as sleepy in class this morning haha. Class was a lot more interesting today, we went over Reformation era events and got a 500 word assignment over any topic in Irish culture we choose.
After class Erin, Sara and I went to Howth with Laura and Sara, Taylor, and Sam, Amy, and Rebecca. Navigating the DART was... a cultural challenge to say the least! But we made it, and the coast was beautiful. We had to take a crazy intense walk to get to the summit, but the views were great.
We made it back down and found a restaurant that served us a generous portion of good food for decently cheap and then took the bus back to city center, then straight back to campus. Good day, now looking forward to a quiet evening at home catching up and eating my half of the chocolate cake Erin and I split! Cheers!
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Day 7: Gaelic Football
Woke up around 10 today and got ready to leave to meet Katy and Blake, Ali and Jonathan's Chi Alpha friends who live here in Dublin. This was my first time taking the bus into the city by myself, and I was a teensy bit nervous. I ended up getting off the bus a lot earlier than I needed to (first stop on O'Connell street, not first stop after O'Connell bridge), but I had my map with me and was able to reason out how far I needed to walk and found Katy no problem. She was so sweet and reminded me of Ali immediately!
We walked to church and she told me that it was the same church where Oscar Wilde was baptized and that John Wesley had once spoke there. They took me to lunch at a nearby hotel after church which was super nice of them. I figured out how to get to Croke Park from there and walked to the stadium (I was pretty proud of myself for not getting lost haha). Found Erin and Sara McBurney and watched the 1 hour Gaelic football game. I liked it a lot, it's like a vamped up version of soccer but you can use your hands like in basketball and the movements are more like American football. Lots of families, everyone in blue, lots of cheering, and Dublin won the game!
Came home, made dinner (avocado sandwhich!) and will be chilling for the rest of the night, catching up with people over Facebook and maybe trying to watch some Irish tv online. Much better day!
We walked to church and she told me that it was the same church where Oscar Wilde was baptized and that John Wesley had once spoke there. They took me to lunch at a nearby hotel after church which was super nice of them. I figured out how to get to Croke Park from there and walked to the stadium (I was pretty proud of myself for not getting lost haha). Found Erin and Sara McBurney and watched the 1 hour Gaelic football game. I liked it a lot, it's like a vamped up version of soccer but you can use your hands like in basketball and the movements are more like American football. Lots of families, everyone in blue, lots of cheering, and Dublin won the game!
Came home, made dinner (avocado sandwhich!) and will be chilling for the rest of the night, catching up with people over Facebook and maybe trying to watch some Irish tv online. Much better day!
Day 6: Chill Day
Well everyone woke up late today because we all stayed out so late the previous night. I walked with Sara McBurney and Erin to Omni to go to Penney's and had much better luck than I had the previous day. Everything was very cheap and there was lots of cute stuff, so I'd say it was a successful shopping trip. Hit Tesco so now I actually have food at home to eat (yay!).
When we got home I found out a bunch of people had gone to Hoath and watched the World Cup at a bar there and had an awesome time, which was kind of a bummer. I wished I had gone with them. Spent the rest of the night in the common room with Taylor, Sara, and Erin and kind of went to bed feeling like I had wasted the day... :/
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