Cork, Glendalough and SCOTLAND!

It's been SO long since I've written.  I am a shameful excuse for a blogger.  However, this next post is going to be so chock full of pictures and experiences that all will be forgiven soon enough.

I've had some of the most incredible experiences in my life during study abroad, and I have been taking time each day to focus on just how lucky and thankful I am to be experiencing such an amazing summer.  I'm learning new things from my classes, from the people here, from the native Irish, and from myself, and I'm loving every minute of my Irish experience.

I have ONLY 5 more days left of my program, which is the most unbelievable thing to me.  I don't think I've ever been away from home for a full two months at a time, and the fact that the first time I did was in another country is pretty crazy.  I'm getting to the point in my program where I'm so sad that it's ending, but I can't wait to get home.  It's a great place to be.  I love it here, but I hate to say it, I really do love America.  I can't wait to get back to that North Carolina sunshine, move into my beautiful new house with the sweetest girls in Chapel Hill and start a new year feeling totally fresh and brand new.

Cork

We were supposed to go down to Cork with the whole program, but because enough people didn't sign up, we had to round up a group of our own and head down South on a train ourselves.  Cork was a pretty weird place.  I'm still not quite too sure how I felt about it.  I would say, for sure, that the people down south aren't as friendly as they are in Dublin, and there were a few characters that I wasn't the happiest to meet.  However, during the day time, we had a great time in one of the nicest days Ireland must have ever seen.  We headed to the Blarney Castle, which is the main attraction in Cork.  It's pretty easy to see why.

The Blarney castle was the weirdest place, very dirty and claustrophobic (hate to complain) but it holds something unique to Ireland: The Blarney Stone.  Legend has it, that anyone who kisses the stone will be given "the gift of gab," which is basically eloquence, wit and flattery.  SO, I'm picturing this huge bolder in a field that you're supposed to kiss.  When we get to the castle and are informed that the stone is on the top floor, I'm picturing a seriously beautiful and shimmering stone.  Turns out the Blarney stone is basically built into the wall underneath the top floor of the castle.  So the only way you can kiss it is to lay on your back and arch back until you reach the stone, give it a kiss and getcha some eloquence.  Not at ALL what I was picturing, but it was really fun and we all gave it a kiss or two, and it was a great time.


Cork night life... let's be honest, kind of sucked.  We were turned away from almost everywhere because we weren't 21 or 23.  It was the most frustrating thing.  Where did they think we were, America or something?  Anyway, the one bouncer told us we weren't in Ireland in anymore, we were in Cork. Wierd... But anyway.  The second night we did actually end up getting into the "hottest club in Cork," called Havannas.  Ari and I played "dare" to make the might more interesting.  Perfect.

Glendalough

Glendalough was a day trip that we took with our program, lead by Mary, by far the cutest woman to ever walk the earth.  We took a bus with a bus driver who must have lost his mind somewhere, so it was a little bumpy and we all felt a little sick by the time we got off.  But we got there around 3 and took about an hour long walking tour of the tiny city.  It held tons of remains from an old monestary town, and the biggest structure was a tall stone tower.  It was really beautiful there, but we hadn't seen anything yettt. 

What Glendalough actually translates to is: Land of Two Lakes.  The lakes were some of the most incredible sights I've ever seen.  They were sparkling and cool, and we got there at the perfect time to see the sun shining at an angle from behind the mountains.  We had a great time playing in the field by the lake and a few people actually went in the water.  It was so beautiful and amazing, and we all had a great time walking around and admiring all there was to be seen.

Scotland

Most of you who know me know that I love having plans and making schedules and going places knowing exactly what to do at the destination.  Well in Scotland I literally had to leave all of that behind.

The name of the trip was Scotland 2k12: No luggage. No hostel. No regrets.

We woke up at 7 and took a taxi to the airport, checked in went to security and we were in the air on our way to Scotland at 9.  When we arrived, we took a 50 minute train ride into Glascow, the nearest city to where we landed.  We went to the bus station to figure everything out and then went to a restaurant to have lunch. At 1:30 we were on a bus to Edinborough, which we quickly realized is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

We always seem to have the most amazing luck with weather.  It usually sucks over here, but on the days when we're going to be out an about seeing the sites and being active, the sun always finds a way to shine.  We rode the bus through a huge rain storm, but as soon as we got off to walk around it was beautiful and sunny of most of the rest of the day.

Now when I say no luggage, I mean we literally were all carrying only tiny satchels, no sweaters, no change of clothes, we were going 24 hours with just what was on our backs.

We went to a street called the Royal Mile, started down at the bottom and ended at the top at the castle. All along the road there were street performers, magicians, escape artists, to which we stopped, watched and took our time.  We got some hot chocolate and moseyed up the hill until we reached the castle.  It was too expensive to go inside, but we walked around and looked at the views and it was incredible.

Next we went to a mexican restaurant and had cocktails.  We used the bathroom there as our make-shift hostel for the evening.  I put in my contacts, we did our make-up and hair and came out fresh and ready to go.  It was raining now, so we would run from place to place until the rain stopped.  We went into a great pub called the Royal Mile and the people behind the bar were great.  They told me to try a traditional Scottish dish, and they wanted me to try it so badly they gave me a discount.  I tried them and they were amazing.  They were like little breaded meatballs.  Still don't know what exactly they were, but hey, name of the trip is no regrets, and they were great.


Next we went to a bar called "Frankenstein" which was a cool club-ish bar that kind of tacked onto the idea that Frankenstein was born in Scottland.  We had dinner there and watched the olympics.  We cheered for the US during swimming and had a little American pride moment of our own.  Then took a cab to one of the most beautiful places in Scotland.  It was amazing and beautiful and the weather was sunny but getting darker.  It couldn't have been a more amazing view to look at.  I've never seen anything like it before.

The rest of the night was spent at swanky martini bars, clubs and an Italian restaurant at 1 in the morning when we looked like this --->
Pretty tragic.  Next we took 2 busses home at 1:30 and 3 in the morning, got to the airport at 4:30, slept off our hangovers and woke up at 7 to check in for our flight at 7:45.  We were back in our beds at DCU at around 9 or 10 am the next day.  It was the most amazing, impulsive and awesome thing I have ever done.

I'm loving this trip so much and I can't believe it's almost over.  I absolutely adore a lot of the people I've met here, and I'm going to be so sad to leave them at the end of the trip.  The fact that I have less than a week left here is unbelievable (..kind of because it's not true, my dad and sister are coming to travel around with me for a week) but I'll be experiencing everything differently then.  I'll write one more thing before I leave or just after with overall thoughts on the trip.  I can't believe how lucky I am.

They must call it the luck of the Irish because anyone who gets to spend some time in the country, just like meee, is a real lucky lad.

Cheers!

My First Two Excursions!

Northern Ireland

For those of you who don't know, which I totally wouldn't have if my comparative politics class didn't spend an entire unit on, Ireland is actually split into two countries.  I'm staying in Dublin, which is in the Republic of Ireland.  Northern Ireland is part of the UK and a separate country.  There is a lot of dispute on whether Northern Ireland should remain a part of the UK or if Ireland should be one united country.  Apparently it's a VERY controversial question to ask people's opinion on.  We obviously didn't know this when we asked everyone we met in the region.  We stopped after someone told us that over 4,000 people have died by asking that very question. Whoops!  It's really cool, though, how amazingly informed everyone is about their history there.  From taxi drivers to bouncers, everyone seems to know what's going on.

The night life was weird and funny.  However most people were old or gay that we encountered.  Both are fine, just not exactly our scene.  We ended up encountering a bachelor party of men who thought we were hilarious (who wouldn't.... am I right?) But they were really funny and actually really, really intelligent.  They knew almost more about American politics than I did, (proud poli sci major right here). I love talking about the US with foreigners.  It's amazing what parts of it they find peculiar that we don't really think twice about.  They also always harp on talking about women's rights and health care here (can I get an amen).  We learned that the word "devastating" can be a good thing.  We learned this the hard way when he said that our American accents were devastating.  When we looked a little embarrassed, he explained that it's a good thing!  "For example," he said, "black hair and blue eyes is a DEVASTATING combo." I then pointed out that he had black hair and blue eyes to which he replied, "like I said, a devastating combo."

We went to a place called the Belfast castle and went for the most amazing hike.  We've been (knock on wood) incredibly lucky when it comes to weather here in Ireland so far.  There are TONS of cold rainy days, but it doesn't seem like any of the days that we try to be outside hiking and seeing the beautiful parts of Ireland fall on those days.  I'm so thankful for this.  Ireland truly is the most beautiful place I've ever been.  I'm not much of a hiker at home, but the amazing landscape of Ireland makes me WANT to get out there and see things.  I love it.


Galway
Galway was by far the greatest place we've been so far.  We had an amazing tour guide who constantly gave us things to do.  We stayed at really cute and fun hostels and it was a great weekend filled with pub crawls, hiking, and lots and lots of cows.




Please take a moment and LISTEN to the song that was the theme of our trip.  It's called Galway girl, and we all learned the words and sang it on the bus ride there (paired with a little fat man scoop karaoke, let's not forget) and at every bar we went to.  It's about a girl from Galway with black hair and blue eyes, (apparently a devastating combo).










The pub crawls were hilarious, fun, and entertaining.  We took shots of "baby Guinness" which luckily taste NOTHING like the real beer, and are actually delicious.  They were cute lil babies and they started off the pub crawl right (see picture on the right).  We then played a bunch of other games like beer pong, boat race (chugging relay race where you turn your cup upside-down on your head when you're done... so you better've drank the whole thing), and the Guinness challenge where you had to try and drink your Guiness to an exact spot in the glass where the beer and foam meet  on the first try. Very cute and fun.  There were also many other fun opportunities on the pub crawl, please refer to the picture on the left of you would like more details.


The next day we went to the Cliffs of Moher which are considered to be one of the 7 natural wonders of the world.  It was one of the most incredible things I've ever seen.  It was breathtakingly beautiful.  There was also no fence on a lot of the ledges so you were just standing on the edge of a huge cliff with nothing to catch you if you slipped.  Pretty exhilarating. There's not much to say about the cliffs apart from how beautiful they were, but I was so happy to have had the opportunity to go there.  I loved every minute of it.

I love Ireland and I'm so thankful to be here,Cheers,Sophie