Apparently I can't get enough of Dublin.

It has been quite a lovely, rain filled weekend here on the Emerald Isle. Colleen's friend Jamie came to visit us this week and so we took it upon ourselves to show her what we though was the best things about Ireland.. O'Connells, The Milk Market and Dublin! First off, I looked out my window and saw my first rain bow here! I was pretty excited about that,especially since it only lasted for about 60 seconds. 

  

On Saturday we took Jamie to the open market in town called the Milk Market. There I saw this gorgeous display of olives, cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and everything that I find holy. I thought the display was so beautiful, I had to take a picture. The woman behind the counter wasn't too happy about this as you can see her running out of the way in the brown shirt. Oh well, ya got nice olives. What can I say?

  

 We also went to this candy shop in Limerick city, just expecting a typical candy store. But when we walked in it felt like we had stepped right into a Harry Potter movie! The display and set up was so interesting! I got myself a tutti frutti candy cane naturally, we spent way more time than we should have in this little shop. Later that night we took Jamie to the one and only, O'Connells. She tried one of our Gunniess, (not a fan) and decided on Bulmers instead. We had a great night full of great craic (that's the word they use here for fun, pronounced like crack). That was a funny sight the first time someone here asked me what I do for craic.

 

The next morning we woke up and took a bus to Dublin for the next two days. We started off at the Guinness factory which was so interesting! It was a self guided tour, and you walked all through the display while they talk you through exactly how Guinness is made and the history of how it started.

Probably my favorite section of the factory though was the Advertising section. It was a whole area that described the history of Guinness Advertising, and what they used to use to promote Guinness. One thing I found really interesting was that they said doctors used to prescribe Guinness to nursing women to help them fight postpartum depression and for other medical reasons. They truly would believe that "Guinness is good for you" and that's where the slogan came from. See mom? I may not be taking my vitamins but I'm drinking Guinness to stay healthy!

After that we wandered around Dublin, in hopes of finding St. Patrick's Cathedral. Luckily, we did. This is the outside of the cathedral. 

Everything inside was absolutely gorgeous!! The stained glass blew my mind. I thought of you, Aunt Linda and I took this picture for you to show you the work because I knew you would appreciate it!

Later that night we thought we would take Jamie into the Temple Bar area just to show her what the Dublin night life is like. It poured rain the entire time and this was a funny picture of us leaving a pub and trying to get a cab. 

 

  We went to The Auld Dubliner again, (the same place Melissa and John went on their trip) and listened to the live music. My favorite Irish song is "Galway Girl" so I was hoping the guy would sing it so I could video tape it. Luckily he did!!

We stayed at a very low budget hostel that night (7 euro per night) so we knew what we were getting ourselves into. We were in an eight person room so we were sharing with people we did not know. There were two girls there from Missouri, one woman from Spain, and a person who we never saw. I went there with every intention on showering that night but when I realized there was only just one huge public bathroom, with tiny solitary confinement type showers, I realized the rain would keep the smell away. That was quite the experience, but in the end it really didn't bother me. If I had to stay there more than a few nights though, I don't think I would have been so relaxed.

The next day we took Jamie to walk around Grafton Street (one of the main shopping, tourist streets in Dublin) and St. Stephen's Green Park. We went into the Disney store and I saw this display! I thought it was perfect for me so I just had to take a picture.

 

These are some pictures from St. Stephen's Green Park. The pictures look quite lovely, but surprisingly what you can't tell is that is was POURING. It rained from the second we stepped off the bus into Dublin, to the second we got back onto campus.

 No joke, when I say it rained, it really rained. I heard that they got a month's worth of rain in just that weekend!

And then on Tuesday night, a pretty popular band at UL called Hermitage Green was performing at one of the pubs on campus. The pub was really cute, we had never been there. It's called the Scholar's Club so I didn't feel so bad about going to a pub with that kind of name on a Tuesday night. This is Ana, Colleen, Jamie and I there just having the craic.

Also, yesterday I had a meeting for a group project for my Advertising class. The entire class had to go to this four hour seminar where we would get our groups for the project given to us, brain storm ideas, blah blah. Doesn't sound like much fun does it? Well it turned out being such a good time! We were told we were going to be given Irish brands and have to develop some sort of Advertisement for them, using the skills we have learned in class. My group was given Murphy's Irish Stout. Well my group consisted of two Irish boys, a girl from Bulgaria, and myself. None of us had ever tried it, all the boys could say was that it's supposedly like Guinness and that no one drinks it. Well we took the first half of the seminar to research more about the brand, develop ideas of what we could do for an ad, and so on. When we were given a 15 minute break, one of the boys in my group suggests we run to Stables (one of the pubs on campus) and grab a pint of it so we can know what we're talking about. At first this idea sounded crazy to me, run there in the middle of a workshop? He's just giving us time to pee! But then I thought about it and realized that actually wasn't a bad idea. So we ran there, got our pints, discussed how it was different and what about it we could use to make it sound appealing, and ran back. We ended up being about 15 minutes late but when we explained to the teacher what we were doing, he actually liked that we did that. Where else could you drink in the middle of class and get a pat on the back for it?!


This weekend Colleen, Ana and I are taking Jamie to Galway and the Aran Islands. We booked a Bed and Breakfast because it was roughly the same price as a hostel so I'm pretty excited about that! Can't wait to see it!

Dublin part two

Well this weekend was Hannah and Colleen's birthday weekend (yes, they get a whole weekend), and we decided to spend it in Dublin! We left Friday after class and took a bus into the city and that was about a 4 hour bus ride. Once we arrived in the city we were starving so we decided to grab fast food (since that's the only thing open at that time) and head to our hostel. Little did we know, our friend Ana had accidentally left her purse on the bus that had her entire wallet in it. We called the bus company to try and catch them but they did not handle our situation with the urgency we would have liked.

We stayed at Four Courts Hostel and it was much better than I had anticipated! I expected peeling paint on the wall, rats running across the floor, and a smelly old guy at a desk. The hostel was very hip and decorated for young travelers. There was a mural in the common room with all different American singers, Frank Zappa posters, chalk boards, televisions, and just fun little things all over. We had a private room for the four of us so I felt a little spoiled. There was free breakfast each morning and you had to do your own dishes. I actually thought that was kind of fun!

The next day we got up and went for a walk around the city to check out the main streets like O'Connell St. and Grafton St. They were a lot of fun and had some fun street performers. After we got our fill of shopping we headed to Zulu Tattoo (a pretty famous tattoo parlor in the city) because the girls each wanted to get tattoos. I was very close to getting one but I wasn't 100% committed to it so I figured I would wait. The people at the tattoo parlor were extremely friendly and fit them right in! After they all got inked up, we headed to dinner. We went to a pub and had the typical pub meal and then made our way back to the hostel to get ready to go out. We went to the Temple Bar area and went to a few different pubs and night clubs. When we got to one we heard that "Fat Boy Scoop" would be DJing. Naturally that meant nothing to me but Colleen started freaking out. Apparently he's pretty famous, he is the guys voice who screams words in the Missy Elliot song "Lose Control". I recognized his voice as soon as I heard it so that was pretty fun.

Sunday was spent eating, going from Garda station to Garda station looking for Ana's purse, and watching them film a new Indian movie "Bollywood". We headed home on Sunday and made it back to UL at about 7:30. We went out that night for Colleen's to a local club for UL students and had a lot of fun!


It was a very fun weekend and I'm so thankful to have such great friends to spend these times with! This week and weekend will be devoted to getting ahead on home work and studying so that way I don't get behind once I start traveling. I had my first test last week and got a B-, pretty good for balancing school and traveling the world huh? Okay I'm currently in the library with the intention of writing a paper so I am going to get to it. Cheers!

Another weekend, another bus tour.

 So this weekend Colleen and I decided to take a bus tour to the Ring of Kerry. We left Friday afternoon with our bags in tow and marched through the rain to the bus, not to return to UL until Sunday. We met a group of about 40 UCC (University College Cork) students at the Killarney bus station and had to fight for a seat on an already occupied bus. I was placed within a group of German students who were very friendly and gave me some pointers about my upcoming trip to Berlin.
Once we were on the bus we headed to The Kerry Blog Village Museum to see a replica of what Ireland may have looked like in the 18th century. It was really neat to see the houses and the way things were set up.

 

 After we were done our sightseeing for the day we headed to our hotel, The Ring of Kerry Hotel and got checked in and washed up. We had dinner in the hotel (along with all of our other meals) and then we all headed into the ballroom to listen to a guest speaker talk about owning a farm and just life in general in Kerry. He had a very strong Kerry accent and I found it really hard to understand him. 

Now Kerry is infamous for very foggy weather since it sits right on the water but Saturday we had an absolutely beautiful day!! We spent the day visiting Valentia Island, Geokaun Mountain & Fogher Cliffs, Skellig Experience Center and the Ballinskelligs Beach and Castle. Yes you read that correctly, a mountain. Colleen and I had a good laugh at ourselves as we wheezed our way up the mountain. The view from the top made the whole climb worth it though. Here are some pictures from those places...there is one of a drain and I had to take that picture because that was something that I looked at and thought to myself, "My god, even the drains here are beautiful!"

On Sunday we went on what we were told was going to be a "walking tour". It should have been re named "Walk an hour through a foggy street with no scenic views". We walked through Cahersiveen and saw some really neat stone forts which I found really interesting. The fact that they were from so long ago and they are still standing beautifully just blows my mind. The best part of the walking tour though was our visit that we were told was going to be "A local farmer bringing his sheep down and will be talking to you about them and about being a farmer in Kerry." We met this man on the side of the road with big white van. What was inside the van you ask? Yep, the sheep. It was very bizarre and hilarious at the same time. Then we headed to the house of the Irish political activist Daniel O'Connell who's main accomplishment was his fight for Catholic Emancipation. His house was beautiful, there is one picture of a table that is carved out of one large oak tree and I found it so interesting. He was a pretty neat guy. After that we went to Killarney National Park and saw a gorgeous waterfall, it was the first one I had ever seen! Here are some pictures from Sunday..I also included the video of Colleen and I visiting the Irish beach!

 

 The weekend was interesting, I don't think the tour group I went with was the best choice, but we got to see some really beautiful things! I am about to leave for Dublin for the weekend to celebrate my friends Colleen and Hannah's birthdays!! I'm sure I'll have some fun stories to share from this trip. Cheers!