Exploring Western Ireland

Hello everyone! It appears I am slowly but surely getting worse at writing posts! I promise to get better at it, I am just not a writer. Things here have been going well, I have finished up my early start class and as of today have started the normal semester of classes. 

The early start class finished up with one final field trip to Galway and places in the west of Ireland. It was really cool to see that side of the country, it looks so much different from the stereotypical green fields one would expect to find. The land is rather rocky and has few trees, making it stand out from other areas we visited. The Burren as it is called is very windy and reminded me in some ways of home.

The Burren

We also visited the Cliffs of Moher, or if you've seen "The Princess Bride" you probably know them better as the cliffs of insanity. They are also those crazy cliffs pictured on the movie cover of Harry Potter and the half blood prince, in case you were wondering. The view was amazing!! The cliffs are about 400 feet high and the sun was shining so we all got great pictures, except for the crazy windblown hair.

The Cliffs of Moher

We also traveled to the Aran Islands. the islands are rather small, and covered in little fields that are marked with low stone walls. the land is mainly just limestone that was covered with seaweed and straw to transform it into farm-able land.  On the largest of the three islands is an old stone fort, Dún Aonghasa. The fort uses the steep cliffs to one side as a boundary, so it offers some pretty spectacular views:

Dun Aonghasa

Galway city was fun to see as well, being the music capital of Ireland, however it was much smaller than I was expecting with only one main street.

This past saturday I went on a short day trip with a group of friends to Kinsale. this little town is located right by the sea and had lots of ships floating around. It was fun wandering around and taking pictures. We stumbled upon some pretty unique places too: an old fort and a pretty little beach. The weather was a bit chillier than I would have liked but it never really rained on us which I consider a win for Ireland!

Beach in Kinsale

Today is the first day of classes which I am both nervous and excited for. I feel like a freshman again so lost and confused, and I really hate it! I stand out too, being an american so I think I will be the subject of many jokes, oh well. I tried to dress like a European student today to blend in a bit better, but I've decided that I no longer care and will look very american from here out. Its much more comfortable that way! I am excited to get to know more people in my classes, and get the semester underway. That's all for now!

Dublin and Such

Just got back from a weekend in Dublin! It was so much fun! We left on Thursday for a class field trip, and had a busy day rushing around to see everything. We started in Dublin at the national museum. There were lots of artifacts there and it was cool to see many of the things we had learned about in class. There was also an exhibit on the bog bodies, which were mummified remains found in bogs throughout Ireland. They were a bit creepy but really interesting because they were so old and very well preserved. From the museum, we walked to a quick lunch in a random gaudy restaurant and then walked through viking Dublin, which was just the main areas of Dublin back when the vikings first settled there. We then headed over to Christ church cathedral and spent some time looking around. The church was actually used to film parts of "The Tudors" which I was particularly excited about since I had watched the whole series over the summer. They even had some of the costumes worn by the actors in the basement. Outside the church, we had a quick chance to munch on some delicious candy and sit in the grass to enjoy a rare sunny day as we waited for everyone to finish looking around. From there we went back to the bus and checked in to the hostel which was located in the widely popular temple bar area and to my excitement, right next door to one of the two Urban Outfitters stores that exist in Ireland. We had a decent amount of free time that was spent wandering around temple bar before heading to dinner where we were served ridiculously large proportions. I ordered "BBQ chicken" and ended up receiving a whole chicken, while a friend of mine got a whole pizza. luckily the school was paying! Dinner came with dessert and I ordered the best cheesecake I have ever had in my life. We headed back to the hostel and got ready in our cramped room to go out. We ended up "hosting" everyone gathering to go out in our hostel room because it was the largest area we could go. Somehow we managed to cram a good 20 people into the space. Needless to say the trash can was filled with empty drink bottles from everyone's escapades the next morning. The next day we started at 7am, which was terrible for the people who had stayed out long enough for a hangover. We took the bus for about an hour and stopped at Newgrange, a neolithic (really old) passage tomb. It was really cool to see the tomb, it was so old, yet really well preserved. It was crazy to learn that the ceiling of the tomb had not let in a drop of water since it had been built 5000yrs ago (which is insane especially for Ireland!). We then headed to Trim Castle, a 12th century medieval castle used to film scenes of Braveheart. It was still in decently good condition, and was a fun area to explore. Our tour guide was great and even confessed to playing in the castle when he was a boy, before it became a protected area. After that, the rest of the class left for Cork, but four of us stayed to catch a quick bus back to Dublin. When we got to Dublin we found our hotel and grabbed some dinner. We went to an Irish pub for our food, and I got a bowl of split pea soup which was really delicious. The next day we spent wandering about the Guinness factory, before I headed back to catch a bus to Cork because I had managed to get sick, yay. I spent all of Sunday sleeping which was nice and hopefully I will get better quickly so I can have more adventures to post about!
Sorry for the long post... Cheers!

The First Week-ish

It has been a busy week since my last post. My early start class is well underway and rather enjoyable! I am learning a lot about Irish history and it is cool to know so much about the sites I’ve visited so far. We already went on our first field trip, a day trip to the west of county cork. The bus was scheduled to leave at 9:30 from campus and true to my usual form, I woke up at 9:21 and had to sprint the 15min walk to catch the bus. I made it just before the professor, but never got a chance to grab my morning cup of coffee. We visited four different sites, the first of which was a ring fort.

 There wasn’t much left of the ring fort, it was mainly an empty circular field with some ditches around it, but seeing as ring forts are the most common type of site in Ireland, it was pretty cool. The only thing to really look at though was the ditches. Next we went to a tower house from 1585, and because we were with our professor, we were able to see the tower house from the inside. The third site we visited was a semi-fortified house from 1616 called Coppinger’s court. The building was rather rundown and overgrown to the point where it was past saving but looked spectacular. The building wasn't very safe so we weren't able to explore it as much as others, but we did get to go into a few areas. The last site we saw was Drombeg stone circle. The site looked almost like a mini Stonehenge and was really cool. Plus the site was carbon dated to around 1000 B.C.  which is really, really old.

This coming week, we are taking one of our overnight trips to explore parts of Dublin and Meath. We are going to visit several famous sites and I cannot be more excited!

Yesterday, my roommates and I went to Blarney. The trip was so much fun and quite beautiful! Blarney castle was huge and had a great view from the top! And I kissed the blarney stone, so now I am supposed to have the gift of eloquent speech… we will see about that one.

That’s all for now! Cheers!