Family Vacation

These past 2 weeks I have had a steady stream of visitors and it's been so fun showing people around the country! On Friday, the 21st, my family arrived to spend a little over a week traveling Ireland. I met them at the airport pretty early in the morning and we were off on our adventure soon after that. We rented a beautiful Toyota corolla which barely fit all of our luggage and bodies. Nerves were running high as we pulled out from the airport with our Garmin shouting directions about traffic circles and me reminding my dad to stay on the left hand side of the road. Eventually we made our way out of busy Dublin on the M50 divided highway (that's a big deal around here) and we headed down south to County Wicklow. I planned on us driving through

the Wicklow Mountain National Park and then stopping at Glendalough, an ancient monastery, where we visited on our IES orientation. In true Ireland style it was raining when we arrived at our destination, but we braved it and walked around the ruins, cemeteries, churches, and roundtowers and then also headed down to the lower lake. After a while we had enough of the rain and decided to take a break and get some lunch before we continued driving to Kilkenny for the night. Lunch was tasty and we were on our way across the National Park looking at mountains and various other interesting vistas.

Kilkenny turned out to be a larger city than I first thought it would be and we had a pretty good time there. Everyone was tired from jetlag and traveling so we called it an early night and then planned on doing some touring downtown in the morning after a full Irish breakfast. That morning we ate a ton at breakfast and then went around downtown. There was Kilkenny Castle which was quite impressive, but unfortunately our timing was off for taking a tour and we had to pass. After looking around the huge grounds for a while we just walked around the city center looking at cute pubs and shops.

We then made our way back to the car and started on the nervous journey to Killarney. Our Garmin, which ended up being a life saver and a curse all at the same time, decided to take us on some rather sketchy roads and there was some definite panic in the car more than once. The backroads were pretty much just one lane dirt roads that were curvy and very dangerous. Progress was slow, but eventually after multiple hours of travel we successful and safely made it to Killarney National Park. This was one sight that I really wanted to see on our vacation and it proved to be absolutely beautiful! I would strongly recommend the National Park to anyone who enjoys hiking, because the trails around the mountains and lakes were fantastic. We pretty much stayed close to the travel center and looked at the gardens:

the Muckross House:

and took one hike to a Torc Waterfall: The grounds were impressive and we all really enjoyed the stop.

Later that night we headed into the city center and chose a random pub to eat dinner in. By chance it turned out to be the self proclaimed 'most famous pub in all of Ireland.' I'm not sure how true the title is, but we did like the Danny Mann pub a lot. First of all, the fish and chips were to die for and secondly, the live music was great. The Molly Malone's were playing that night and they are a trad band from Cork. We loved their music and ended up staying a while as we enjoyed Guinness and Bulmers. The next morning we woke up and went to church for Easter in a Cathedral in the city center. It turned out to be a beautiful church and after the mass we headed out for the Ring of Kerry. If you aren't familiar with the Ring of Kerry, it is a famous drive along the lower peninsula in County Kerry. Luckily, we did the tour on Easter Sunday and the tour busses must have had the day off, because we didn't see a single coach bus the entire time which made the thin roads a bit more bearable. Along the way we stopped at seaside towns, beaches, and lookout points.

My favorite part of the Ring of Kerry was our split second decision to take a ferry to Valentia Island. The ferry that took us to the island held about 12 cars and the Island turned out to be nearly deserted.

We drove around the Ring of Valentia and stopped at the top at Fogher Cliffs, which was like a mini Cliffs of Moher, with absolutely no one else there. The views from the top of Valentia Island were fantastic and it was a great addition to the Ring of Kerry.

On our way back to Killarney we stopped in many small towns and saw a beach where numerous people were surfing...which was crazy. The Ring ended up taking us about 6 hours and it was a great tour.

The next day we woke up early and before weleft for Galway we stopped at Ross Castle near Killarney National Park. The castle was also pretty impressive and reminded me of a mini Blarney Castle. We looked around the grounds and also missed the tour and would have to wait for a long time to get the next one. I guess castle touring was not working for us on this trip. After finishing at the castle, we decided to take the coastal route to Galway which was a bit longer and had another ferry ride across the mouth of the River Shannon (more like the ocean though). We spent the day driving across the base of the Dingle Peninsula and across County Clare. The ferry ended up taking about 20 minutes and was a pretty unique experience. As we made our way closer to Galway we drove through the Burren and I had another chance to see the Cliffs of Moher. I was hoping that this time the weather would be better and maybe the sun would be shining, but I was let down. As soon as we arrived a huge cloud bank blew in and at times the Cliffs weren't even visible. My dad and I hiked up to the lookout tower and got stuck in some rain with no shelter to be found except the door way to the tower that was closed. We waited out the rain and then made our way back to the visitor's center where we enjoyed some hot chocolate and ice cream. Eventually the clouds cleared enough to actually see the Cliffs and we continued to make our way back up to Galway. We checked into the Galway Bay Hotel, which turned out to be a great location to stay. It was right by the promenade and had a great view of Galway Bay. Unfortunately, the hotel ran out of pillows and those of you who know my mom and sister know what a tragedy that must have been. Luckily, there was some creative use of fleece sweaters, towels, and coats and we survived the night. The next morning I had to leave quite early on a train to get back to Dublin for class. I left around 9 o'clock and my family went on a tour of Connemara, which made me pretty jealous. They said is was fantastic and they were able to see Kylemore Abbey, now a international girls boarding school, enter into a gaeltacht, and see some beautiful parts of County Galway.

We spent one night apart as they continued to tour Galway and I attended classes. On Wednesday night, I met up with the fam at the Harcourt Hotel, which was just south of St. Stephen's Green, and we went out to dinner. The next day I had film and culture class while they toured Dublin. I had them go to St. Stephen's Green, Dublin Castle, Grafton Street, Trinity College, and the National Museum. It turned out to be the only day where they didn't get rained on and seriously one of the nicest days I have seen here in Ireland. Later that night we ate a great dinner at the Barge Pub near my IES center and then headed down to Dundrum to meet some of my roommates and see my apartment which turned out to be a full night. The next day we toured Kilmainham Gaol, which turned out to be interesting and historically educational, but depressing as expected. In Kilmainham Gaol the members of the 1916 were all held and executed one by one and this action by the British eventually led to the Civil War of 1921 and the freedom of the Republic of Ireland. Many of the prisoners were executed under harsh and tragic circumstances like one man who married his sweetheart in the jail the night before his execution. After learning about this history we headed over to the much more lighthearted atmosphere of the Guinness Storehouse. We ended up finding some seats in the Gravity Bar and enjoyed some Guinness up there while looking at the great view of Dublin. After this tour my mom had done too much walking and it had started to rain so we took a taxi back to the hotel and rested until dinner. We then ate dinner at a great Irish Pub at the top of Grafton Street called O’Neil’s that also had some great fish and chips and Irish atmosphere.

Here we called it a night and the vacation had come to an end. Sadly, I had to say goodbye to the family early Saturday morning and head back to Dundrum alone. Luckily, I didn't get too depressed because I had a visit from my friends, Zeke and Katrina, to look forward to in a mere 5 hours. I'll tackle our weekend together in a later post, because this one was epically long. Cheers!

St. Patrick's Day

It appears that I have gotten a bit behind in my blog...I'm sure all of you were just sitting on edge waiting for my next entry so I'm sorry I kept you in suspense. I thought today I'd fill everyone in on St. Patrick's Day in Dublin and show you how the holiday is really celebrated! First of all, I'd like to complain that the weather on St. Patrick's Day weekend was not even close to ideal and that it prevented me from finding the motivation to leave my apartment more than once. March is turning out to be rainier than February and that is really disappointing...

So we'll start out on Sunday, the eve of St. Patrick's Day. During the day I took a trip to the city center by myself and just spent hours walking around and people watching. It was pretty amusing because all the tourist were wearing ridiculous costumes and were usually pretty drunk. The part I liked the most about the city center walk was Grafton Street. The street is usually really busy with shoppers and street performers, but for St. Patrick's Day the street performers went all out. I saw a professional string quartet, really good trad performers, tons of fake statue people, and then some really random balloon and clown acts. It took me such a long time to walk down the street because I kept stopping and watching all the great performers! Later that night I went out to the city center with my roommates and some friends and celebrated with a bunch of tourists and some locals. We ended up going to the Porterhouse Bar in Temple Bar and it was packed. I'm pretty sure any pub I walked by all weekend was full no matter what time of the day it was so I was expecting some huge crowds at night. Porterhouse turned out to be pretty lively and I really enjoyed myself. There was a live band playing and tons of fun decorations which really put us in the St. Patty's mood. After a late night out on Sunday I woke up relatively early the next day to start my real St. Patrick's Day festivities.

My plan for St. Patrick's Day morning/early afternoon was to walk from the last LUAS stop (St. Stephen's Green) which is just south of the city center to Croke Park, which is pretty far north of the city center. This walk turned out to be quite the difficult adventure, because crowds around the parade in the city center were absolutely crazy! I barely could see any of the parade as we walked by and people were on roofs, street lamps, and statues attempting to get a glance. From the glimpses I caught the parade seemed pretty amazing- very colorful and surprisingly tropical. As we made our way through the crowds we navigated the windy north Dublin streets and finally arrived at Croke Park. Croke Park is an enormous outdoor stadium that was built by the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) to house club and county games for hurling and Gaelic Football. The stadium just finished 10 years of ongoing construction and is pretty impressive now for a sports league that isn't professional. We showed up for the All Ireland Club Finals in Hurling and Gaelic Football and were really surprised how many people were at the stadium. It turns out that one of the Gaelic Football teams, St. Vincent's, was a Dublin Club team so that brought a lot of fans in. My overall perception of Irish games are that they make American athletes look like complete pansies. Hurling is a game that requires the use of a small softball like ball that's as hard as a rock and hurlies (wooden paddles), It's pretty hard to explain the game without watching a match, but I can tell you that there were plenty injuries and a lot of blood- so it was a great game! The next game we watched was the Gaelic Football game, which I'm not even going to try to explain- check out a clip on u tube or something. After we watched these games we were freezing and tired and we headed back to the apartment.

That night some of my roommates went down to the city center to check out some pubs, I didn't feel up to it so I just stayed in and celebrated a quiet St. Patrick's Day. I know you are very disappointed that I was lame and didn't go out, but my night before is going to count as my Patty's Day experience. It turns out that the city center was absolutely crazy and it wasn't that fun anyway. There were fights breaking out between teenagers (lame), bodily fluids being projected in many directions, and huge crowds of drunken crazies. Sorry to disappoint, but it sounds like the weekend leading up to the actual holiday is way better than the holiday itself. Good to know though if I'm ever back here for the holiday again!

is that the president of dublin?

This weekend Hannah and Kelley came from Copenhagen and Vaxjo to visit me in Dublin! Although the trip was short, we fit a lot of stuff into 2 days! We started out around noon on Friday taking the 16A city bus back from the airport and seeing the beauty that is the northern suburbs of Dublin... We got off the bus on O'Connell Street and started a walking tour of Dublin led by me. We walked down O'Connell and along the Liffey on our way towards Dublin Castle. We passed by the Temple Bar area, the Spire (aka. Stiletto in the Ghetto), and the Ha'Penny Bridge along the way and got a good feeling for what Dublin has to offer in the city center. I had already toured Dublin Castle and thought the tour gave a really good basic history of the Republic of Ireland along with a chance to see the building where major political events take place. By chance we happened to go to Dublin Castle on a day where one of these major events was taking place. Somehow, we managed to elude security unknowingly and walk into the entry way of Dublin Castle only to realize how out of place we were with backpacks and touristy clothes. All around us were people in suits and members of the press and we immediately realized we did not belong. One man with a camera informed us that the Castle was closed for the day for an award ceremony. As we were walking away disappointed he told us to stick around for 15 minutes because the President was due to arrive. Luckily, there were only about 10 other people in the entrance way so we got a great view of the President, Mary McAleese, as she was walking into the Castle. (she's in the light blue suit). We felt pretty special and very well informed as a group of obnoxious American students touring Europe approached us. They were very excited, but had no idea who they had just seen. One girl asked us who that was and I replied by telling her it was the President. "What? the President of Dublin?!?" I waited for her to realize her error....she didn't realize and I said, "no, the President of Ireland..." girl: "wow, that's even better!" Hannah, Kelley, and I laughed pretty hard after this happened especially because this girl then asked us if we were Irish after we had already spoken with American accents. Overall, Dublin Castle was not what we expected, but in a good way. Now I can say I saw the President while I was in Dublin:-)

After spotting the President we walked down Dame St. towards the Irish National Museum. We decided to tour it, because it has really good artifacts from Ireland, the bog bodies, and is a really beautiful building. We spent a while in the National Museum and then walked down to St. Stephen's Green. I had not been to the Green since January and have been saving it for spring so I could see it with flowers. In January, the Green wasn't very pretty because it was just a lot of brown in green and I was a bit disappointed. I was pleasantly surprised to see the change in the green. It was full of people, birds, and flowers which made me realize how far into spring we already are! We walked around looking at the ponds, gardens, and statues. Hannah and Kelley determined that Dublin is ahead on the spring race- and I'm very proud that my city is beating Sweden and Denmark!

After all this walking around with baggage we were hungry and tired so we walked to the LUAS and took it back to Dundrum. We took a detour to Tesco on the way to my apartment and then made tacos for dinner which were delicious. After eating a lot of food we cracked open some Bulmers and I let them experience the greatness that is Irish Cider. Upon finishing some cider we left for the Cobblestone pub. I had heard that the Cobblestone was a great place for trad music from some Irish musicians I met so I thought we would try to hear some Irish music. The Cobblestone bar was a hike, but it was very traditional and I think it was a good representation of a real Dublin pub. A lot of tourists go straight to the Temple Bar area, which is just overpriced and full of drunken tourists. Dubliners don’t go anywhere near it usually so it really isn’t a good representation of an Irish Pub.

The next day we got a pretty early start and went straight to the city center. The weather was not looking promising when we left Wyckham, but it was only drizzling. As we kept walking the rain kept getting worse until it was finally torrentially down pouring. By the time we got the LUAS stop we were pretty drenched...I guess we got the real Irish experience with some rain. As we got on the packed train towards city center the weather changed quickly and by the time we arrived at city center it was blue skies and sun. Luckily this weather lasted for our walk to the Guinness Storehouse and we were pretty dry by the time we got there. Surprisingly, I had not been to the Guinness Storehouse yet! I had decided to save the tour for when people came to visit, because I knew that was a pretty important sight in Dublin. I wasn't thinking that it was going to be that special, but the Guinness Storehouse ended up being one of our favorite stops.

The storehouse is a self guided tour that goes up 7 levels ending with the Gravity Bar, which is the highest bar in Dublin. The bar has 360 degree windows with great views of the city. Dublin doesn't have many high buildings so this was definitely one of the best views of the city I have ever had. We shared our pints of Guinness and Kelley proved to be a Guinness Champion finishing her pint and the rest of ours when we were full- I was proud! I can say that I didn't dislike the Guinness, but it is so heavy that I need to be hungry before I attempt finishing a pint of the black gold! I think I speak for all of us when I say the Guinness Storehouse is a must if you are in Dublin- it's definitely worth it!

After drinking our pints, we headed over to Connelley Station north of the Liffey and we took the DART (train) down to Dawkey. I had not been to Dawkey, but a friend of mine had said it was a good seaside town with castles and good views. While we were walking around the city the weather again turned to rain, but we persevered and made our way to the coast. Right when we got to a castle on the coast we saw THE best rainbow I've ever seen in my life. The rainbow was so defined and we could see it start over the water on both ends. It was definitely worth all the rain to see this rainbow! We then stopped at an organic food market and bought some amazing pineapple and strawberries for our fruit fondue extravaganza that night! We stayed in on Saturday night and made dinner and a lot of food in general and watched a movie. Unfortunately, Hannah and Kelley had to fly out at 6:45 on Sunday morning so their taxi came at 4:30 AM and our weekend was finished. I think it's safe to say we had a great weekend in Dublin! It was great to have them come visit me and now I'm so excited to visit them after the end of my program in April. I'm sure that Copenhagen, Vienna, and Vaxjo will be just as wonderful as this weekend was!

A Taste of Northern Ireland

This thursday I left for Northern Ireland for our midterm break with my IES program. The trip was great because we got to experience Northern Ireland and that really connected with most of my classes and the other plus was that I didn't have to plan a thing. We stayed in nice hotels, ate good meals, and had a fun time being together on a trip. There were probably about 40 of us on the trip which made it exciting. We left early thursday morning from Connolley Station which is just north of the Liffey in the city center of Dublin. The train ride to Belfast was only 2 hours and the views off the train were beautiful on the coast. As we were riding up it looked like the weather was going to be beautiful- the sun was shining, it wasn't too windy, and it wasn't really cold (but that was to change later...). Upon arriving in Belfast we were met by our IES staff members who were chaperoning the trip and we went straight to lunch at a well known saloon in downtown Belfast. The saloon had very good food and I ate an enormous amount of delicious cod:-) After lunch we had about a half an hour to kill before our cabs picked us up for a black cab tour around the city. We decided to walk down the street and see some sights. I got to see the Europa Hotel, which is the most bombed hotel in all of Ireland, and this was the first reminder of the troubles that occurred.

We then returned back to the saloon and 7 cabs came to pick us up and bring us to all the big sights in Belfast. Our first stop was Shankill (the protestant road). In this area there were pro-British, UDA, and UVF murals everywhere on houses. There were also Union Jacks flying and orange was a common color. I really didn't expect it to be so over the top with British support, but i was proven wrong. The murals obviously told the Protestant side of the story and one mural really stuck with all of us. It's a mural with a Protestant sniper and as you walk around the housing development the gun he's holding actually feels like it's following you around. Even though I don't have anything to do with the conflict and can't really choose a side, I still felt a little uneasy being in the Shankill simply because I am Catholic. Other people also felt this way and it just proved to us how far Northern Ireland still needs to go. Next, we headed over to Falls Road to hear the Catholic side of the story. Here we saw murals honoring the hunger strikers of 1981, Sinn Fein headquarters, and political murals. Our tour guides warned us that anti-American murals were going to be commonplace on Falls Road. We definitely didn't take much offense to the murals, because they spoke some truth and we know how anti-Bush all of Ireland and most of Europe is. The Northern Irish really do like Americans in general and actually love Bill Clinton, who helped with the peace agreement. After viewing the political murals we went to the 'peace wall' which is basically like the Berlin Wall. I couldn't belive that the two communities still need such a huge separation between them. We all signed the wall and saw the gates that close after dark to separate the Protestant Shankill from the Catholic Falls Road. All the houses bordering the peace wall have cages around there porches to protect themselves from petrol bombs and other things that are thrown over the wall. This made us all realize that all violence isn't gone, but it is definitely so much less. Luckily the majority of the population supports peace and doesn't support the extremist groups like the Real IRA and loyalist paramilitaries. After finishing our tour of Belfast we got on a bus and took a 2.5 bus ride along the coast up to Portrush.

Portrush is definitely a tourist town that is thriving in the summer, but a little dead during the winter. Despite the fact that the town was a ghost town we still really enjoyed it. We stayed in a Ramada (which felt amazing, because we are all used to hostels and crappy accommodations). That night we were on our own for dinner and just had free time so we ate a local restaurant and then went to one of the few pubs in the area. The pub was dead, but with 40 of us we actually made it quite busy. I think the bartender didn't know what was going on, because his pub was flooded with 20 year olds on a thursday night that was rainy and cold!

The next morning we got up early, ate an Irish breakfast, and then headed off to the Bushmill's Whiskey Distillery. Is there a better way to start the day than some whiskey? The Distillery was pretty cool and it's actually the longest running legal distillery in all of Ireland- I think they were celebrating their 400th this year. I had my first drink of Whiskey in the bar at the end of the tour with some friends and it was overall a delightful tour. After warming up in the bar we took our bus over to the Giant's Causeway. If you aren't familiar, the Giant's Causeway is a rock formation either caused by volcanic activity or a battle between an irish and scottish giant- I'm going with the volcanic activity explanation. As we arrived the weather took a definite turn for the worse and we all bundled up for our walk around the coast. We were sternly warned not to climb too close to the water, because people have been sucked out to sea in bad weather- so as we left we were all a bit worried about the weather. Upon stepping foot outside the term 'windy' was redefined for me. I used to think that windy weather occurred in Minnesota, but apparently I was wrong. The wind actually pushed people over on the rocks, the waves were really huge, and I was too afraid to get close to the edge of anything because it actually could push you over the edge. We had to walk back to the top of the cliffs on a narrow path without a railing- and we were seriously worried we weren't going to all make it up to the top safely. Luckily we made it back to the tourist center all looking windblown, wind burned, and exhausted. Our IES staff members told us that this was by far the worst wind they had experienced in all 14 trips they had taken up North- so we were pretty proud to have lived through it! We then returned back to Portrush and ate dinner at a great restaurant and then went back to the same pub (there was only one choice) and listened to some live music.

Dunluce Castle was our final stop on our trip on Saturday morning. This castle was built hundreds of years ago out on the edge of a cliff. The ruins were pretty amazing and it was hard to believe people actually survived the weather on the edge of the cliff. Actually, we learned of an event in the 1600's where the kitchen actually fell off the side of the cliff into the ocean taking servants along with it. Overall, the castle was worth the stop, but we were all sick of being exposed to the weather at this point so we then went back to Belfast to catch a train to Dublin.

All in all, the trip up North was amazing. None of the trips I have taken so far have related to what I've been learning like this one and I think the history aspect is what I enjoyed the most. It's impossible to imagine the delicate balance of peace in Northern Ireland without going up there and I'm glad I can finally say I saw the peace wall and saw the absolute separation between the two communities. Everywhere we went we asked the locals if they have confidence in Ian Paisley (UUP) and Martin McGuinness (Sinn Fein) sharing power and people said they never saw it coming years ago but now they actually believe peace is possible. It was great to hear the confidence of people up there and talk to Protestants and Catholics firsthand.