Ireland: February 2009

Okay, so I've totally been slacking on keeping this blog up to date, but I'll just fill you in on the past couple weeks now :)

The week after Dublin, we decided, against the warnings of pretty much everyone we talked to, that we would take a day trip to Ardmore, which is a coastal town a couple hours away from Cork. We started the day by walking around a peninsula that looked over the ocean, enjoying the relatively warm weather and the beautiful scenery. It was a gorgeous day, and it felt wonderful to be near the ocean. After our walk, however, we realized we had a good four and a half hours until the bus came back to pick us up from the middle of nowhere. Our plan was to grab a long lunch and linger in the town, but we quickly came to the realization that the entire town shut down for the winter. Apparently, we had missed the grand re-opening of the restaurants and shops by one week, so we not so reluctantly succombed to our only option; spending the afternoon in the only open pub. The frequenters were not to happy with the four American girls giggling and playing cards in front of the fireplace, but...we had fun! It was a day none of us will soon forget.

The weekend after that, we headed off to the Galway area. This was the only trip we've taken that was organized by the school, and although we saved a lot of money doing it this way, I much prefer traveling independently. We left early on Friday morning, and reached the Cliffs of Moher by mid afternoon. They were pretty, but not as extravagent as I had expected. It was nice to see, but I wouldn't go back. After that, we went to the Ailwee caves, which were really interesting. The caves are under a giant rock foundation called the Burren, and used to be the place where bears hibernated in the winter. Inside were waterfalls, both moving and frozen, as well as many other fossils and rock formations. This was one of the reasons I was really glad we went through the school, because we otherwise would never have made it there. Saturday took us to the Aran Islands, which has been my favorite part of Ireland so far. On the island we went to, we were able to climb to the highest point on the island and look over the ocean. It truly was an amazing view, and it felt as if you were standing on top of the world as you stood on the edge of the cliffs and stared at the ocean before you. The island itself was beautiful as well, many of the shops still maintained by the families that owned them, and the people working were very friendly and interested in making conversations with their customers. On our way back to Cork on Sunday, we stopped in Galway city, which was nice. We didn't have a lot of time there, and hopefully I'll have the chance to go back and explore it a little bit more.

Last week, Caitlin and I ventured to Cashel and Cahir, which was a lot of fun. We explored the Rock of Cashel, where St. Patrick practied, and then spent the night in the city. Somehow, we once again found ourselves as the only two patrons of a supposedly popular pub, but it wasn't so bad when the musicians found out we were American and immediately began playing some of Springsteen's greatest hits. The next morning we went to Cahir Castle, which has probably been my favorite castle so far. The grounds were beautiful, and the actual castle was still restored enough so that some of the rooms were furnished and you can still imagine the way the castle would have been set up in medieval times.

This weekend we'll be in London, which I'm pretty excited about. We were originally going to head out to Stonehenge, but we decided against it in favor of exploring the city more in depth. So I'll be back next week with updates and pictures from London!

Here I am in the doorway of some ruins in Ardmore

Just a glimpse of the beautiful weather...not a cloud in the sky!

The cliffs in Armore

A random wishing well...really it's just a well, but we made it into a wishing well :)

Here are the Cliffs of Moher

Inside the Ailwee caves

The Rock of Cashel

One of St. Patrick's crosses

The view from inside looks over another abbey

View from the bottom

At the top of Cahir Castle

Cahir Castle

Okay, so this past weekend I went to Dublin with Caitlin and Lizzy, and we had an amazing time. We got there at the end of Tradfest, which is the weeklong celebration of Irish traditional music, so there were live musicians on the street and in every pub, which was absolutely wonderful. We flew in on Friday morning and were ready to go by noon. We first went to Christ Church Cathedral, which is where Handal first played his Messiah. It was beautiful inside, and in the basement there was an exhibit with all kinds of treasures that had been used in the church for centuries. After that we went to St. Patrick's Cathedral, the church where Jonathon Swift was the dean. The church wasn't as impressive as Christ Church, but there were some interesting exhibits there as well, including Swift's grave. To end our afternoon perfectly, we went to the Guinness Storehouse. It was really interesting to see how they make the beer, and there was also a museum that traced the history of Guinness and showed the various advertising campaigns they've used. And of course, there was a free pint at the end of the tour.

On Saturday we started with the Kilmainham Gaol, which is the prision in which all the rebels of the Easter rising were held and executed. It was a little depressing, but it was also really interesting to see what the conditions were like and stand in the same place where so much Irish history happened. In the afternoon we started at the library on the grounds of Dublin Castle, which was probably my favorite part of the entire weekend. The library holds all kinds of religious manuscripts, including some of the earliest written forms of the gospel and the actual letters Paul wrote to the Corinthians. They wouldn't let us take pictures there, but it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The castle itself was also beautiful. It's used mostly for state functions now, but the rooms still include the relics of when it was a practicing castle. They also took us into the basement of the castle, where you can still see the remains of the medieval foundation and moat that the castle was built on. We then went to the Jameson factory, where I tried whiskey for the first time and surprisingly liked it.

On Sunday we took a bus ride through the city and took pictures of some of the more historical sights in the city. I'm taking a class on Irish history right now, and it was really cool to be able to connect what I'm learning about to the sights I saw in Dublin. After the bus ride, we went to some pubs in the afternoon to listen to some live music before our plane left. It was a really great weekend, and I loved Dublin a lot.