Embracing My Inner Irish Lassie

This truly has been a dream come true. Just from arriving on the plane to sleeping in my new dorm room, it has been everything I have ever wanted. Let me start from the beginning though. I got to Ireland on August 31 around 4:30 in the morning and from that day on it has been endless adventures, and the adventures included a lost suitcase in the airport, but luckily it was found. As stated in my first blog, I had the amazing opportunity of being able to have my mom come with me and "drop me off" here in Ireland. Since I wasn't starting classes for a few days after I arrived in Ireland, my mom and I treated it like a vacation and we went on multiple different adventures. Just within the first day mom and I got to our rental car, drove to my new school, which is University College Dublin, and we got to explore the campus. We checked me into my dorm and then went to go check in at my mom's hotel. From then on we continued our adventure.

We continued on our first day by exploring downtown Dublin. The first place we went to was a pub called Searson's to get some food. After that we walked to St. Stephen's Green and got to experience the beautiful ponds throughout the park. We ended up on Grafton Street towards the end of the day, but finally made our way back to our hotel. We went to this pub around the hotel called Crowe's pub and it had the best mushroom soup I have ever eaten in my entire life.

Saturday was an entirely new day full of adventures for mom and I. We knew I needed some stuff for my dorm so we picked up my roommate Haley and made our way to the local mall to buy everything. After the mall, we dropped Haley back off at the dorm and mom and I decided to go to a service at a near by church. We went to St. Mary's Church on Haddington Road. This church was one of the most beautiful churches I have ever seen. It had huge ceilings and had stained glass windows everywhere. After the service we went to another pub near the hotel and got dinner. Sunday now was a more fun filled day and it was a day I will forever remember. Mom and I decided to go to the Guinness factory while she was still here so that's exactly what we did. We made our way throughout the entire factory, seeing how Guinness is made, we made it into the tasting room with professionals teaching us the correct way to drink a Guinness as well as making our way to the top floor with a 360 view of the entire city of Dublin. Once we were leaving we wanted to explore more of Dublin so we got a horse drawn carriage to bring us to Grafton Street which was probably the highlight of my day. We then accidentally walked into Trinity College, but we were able to see the old library that was there, but then we ended up leaving and making our way to eat lunch at Temple Bar, which was super cool to see. To end our day we went to the Collin's Barracks which was super cool to see everything about Michael Collins and the IRA in person rather than on a movie screen.

Monday, Haley tagged along with Mom and I and we decided to do a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher. We all wanted to see the back roads so that's the way we took, which inevitably took us 5 and a half hours to get there, but it was a cool way to go either way. We made it there and loved the views. We stayed there for a good amount of time, to then stop for dinner on the way back and get back at a reasonable time. I ended up staying the night in my dorm that night and Haley and I went out with our other roommate Nicole, which coincidently all three of us have become really good friends. We went to our campus' bar which I found very odd at first because there are never any bars on campus back in the US, but thinking about it, everyone that goes to college here are all drinking age. Tuesday was a fun day because it was mom's last night here in Dublin. We first did a self guided tour of campus, then got ready, walked to Grafton Street and continued on our night. We ended up doing a mini pub crawl which was a lot of fun. Our first pub was called the Wellington then we got dinner at Chamber's. Our next pub was Trinity bar, next was The Quay and our last pub was Bruskers, but for the last bar, we opted out of alcohol and we gorged on a warm dark chocolate brownie and cheesecake. We walked around the cobble stone streets at night and with the weather and the entire atmosphere, I was so glad my mom was the person I was experiencing it with. Wednesday came knocking and that is when mom had to leave. We had breakfast and mom dropped me back off at my dorm. It was bittersweet, but I was excited to be on my own on this adventure.

Now that I was on my own, Haley, Nicole and I decided we wanted to go explore that upcoming weekend, as well as during the week. We went out to a club one of the days to meet new people, we went to Grafton Street Friday and shopped around a bit and we ended up booking a train for a day trip to Cork with two of Nicole's friends, named Maddie and Carolyn for that Saturday. We all wanted to go to Blarney Castle and kiss the stone as well as exploring downtown Cork and that is exactly what we did. I was able to walk around the castle, see the rooms inside and kiss the stone, without falling backwards even though it felt like it. Downtown Cork was pretty cool as well, but the highlight of the trip was Blarney Castle.

Leading into my first week of classes, I was really looking forward to the one's I picked. Last minute I ended up switching out my Archaeology class for an Irish for Beginners class which teaches you how to learn Irish as a language. My other classes consist of Introduction to Irish Folklore, Introduction to Celtic Civilization and The Making of Modern Europe. So far all of the classes are super interesting and I am enjoying the material I am learning, which no matter where you are in the world, sometimes that is rare to say. The first week was a very successful and fun week, which by Thursday I ran into a problem with my laptop completely breaking on me, but no worries, I figured it out and I'm back in action.

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Leading away from class talk, this past weekend Nicole, Haley, Carolyn, Nicole's friend Rachel and I took a train to Galway for the entire weekend. We stayed in an Air BnB about 20 minutes outside of town for both Friday and Saturday night and it was very nice. When we first got there Friday, Haley, Nicole and I got to the Air BnB, we put out stuff down and met Carolyn and Rachel in town to get some dinner. We went to this pub called Murty Rabbit's which turned out to be a really good pub. We walked around a lot, but as I said in my previous post, a lot of stores and shops close early so the time that we were walking around downtown Galway, almost everything was closed. We got a taxi back to where we were staying, we hung out for a bit then went to bed. Carolyn and Nicole already had a tour booked to visit the Cliffs of Moher and Rachel was going on a horse back riding adventure so Haley and I decided to take a ferry to one of the Aran Islands. We took a bus probably about 30 to 45 minutes away from our Air BnB and upon arrival I was already in love. Once we got off the bus, I saw these cute Australian Sheppard puppies across the road from us and as Haley and I were walking across the street, these puppies popped out of the fence and immediately came up to me and started licking, biting and jumping on me. I tried shoving them back lightly into their fence and I forced Haley to throw something so we could run away and that's what happened. We sprinted away, which the puppies followed, but after we walked farther away they went back to their home. We then got to the ferry, bought our ticket and made our way to Inishmor which is the biggest of the three Aran Islands.

After the 45 minute ferry ride was over, we got lunch at this restaurant called The Bayview. I had the best seafood chowder I think I've ever eaten at this place and then we made our way on to explore. We were originally planning on renting bikes and biking around the island, but we found a tour guide who persuaded us to take a tour with him and a German couple for 15 euros. He drove us about 25 minutes into the island when he then dropped us off and told us to go walk across these lime stone rocks across fields and to follow red arrows pointing us towards this place called "The Wormhole." He then told us that after we got to the wormhole, to walk farther into the fields and that after about 45 minutes we would reach an area of the island that was on a cliff and it was a ruin of something. After directing us to make it to both of these destinations, he told us it would be about a 25 minute walk back into town and he would pick us up, show us some seals and then bring us back to the ferry. To no exaggeration, that is word for word what we did. Haley and I walked across limestone rocks, which the tour guide said were put there because of the Ice Age, then we made it to the wormhole. The worm was a somewhat in-ground pool on the side of a cliff. It was super cool to see the waves crashing on the inside and outside of it. The tour guide said that locals would jump inside the pool, but from looking at it, it must have been low tide because if someone were to have jumped inside that pool, they wouldn't have been able to get back out because of the height. After the wormhole, we made our way across multiple fields, climbing over dozens of stone rock walls just to reach a street with a 2 minute walk to get to the ruins on top of the cliff. It was weird walking through all the fields with rock walls and uneven limestone to walk over, but I'm glad I did it. It was a different experience I will always associate with my memory of the Aran Islands. The view from the top of the cliff and ruin was so beautiful that it was almost literally breath taking, especially with how strong the wind was. After admiring the view, we met back up with our tour guide, he showed us some seals on the shore line, we went to the Aran Sweater Market, I bought another Irish sweater if that's not a surprise to anyone and we got back on the ferry and made our way back to Galway. A very nice Australian couple gave us a ride back to our Air BnB, then Haley and I met up with Nicole and Carolyn for dinner in the city.

For the rest of the time we were there, we went back to downtown Galway and got dinner at a pub called An Pucan, which was where I tried mussels for the first time and it was delicious. Then Haley wanted to go to this famous pub called O'Connors Pub in Salt Hill, which is a small town next to Galway. It was one of the pubs Ed Sheeran was at in his Galway Girl music video and I took a photo with the violin that was at the pub, that Ed and other's used to play music in the video. It was a super cool and beautiful bar, so I'm glad we went. To end our trip, we went back to our Air BnB, we went to bed and the next morning the woman hosting us drove us back into town so we didn't need to get a taxi. We went to a coffee shop, hung out for a bit, then went to a different coffee shop then got an earlier train so I could figure out my laptop situation. Now here I am a few days later and a few days into the school week trying to catch up on my sleep and get my energy back up. Although I am drained, it was such a fun weekend and so far, this has been an unforgettable experience. Stay tuned for more stories to come!