Ireland beauty

"We're all fed such false messages about success in life, made to believe it's a point of arrival. We expect that once we get there, the long story of the life we just lived will be infused with meaning. But while we're waiting our voices dry up. They forget how to ask, they forget how to listen, they forget how to tell." Off the Map

Euros!

Greetings! Here I am looking at this screen with less of something and more of something else. I lost 6 inches of hair today, but over the weekend I gained an unforgettable appreciation for...sheep. Over the weekend I was fortunate enough to spend my time in the lovely country of IRELAND! YAY! It was amazing, to sum it up in one word.

Someone figured out that we were traveling my coach or ferry for about 40hrs throughout the entire weekend. That's a lot for 4 days...

The sunrise at breakfast

We arrived in Ireland on the ferry very early in the morning. We ate a crappy (disguised as fancy) breakfast at a hotel before the sun even rose, then made our way to Blarney Castle. This was by far my favorite castle (and I have seen MANY at this point!). It was a combination of things that made it so great: I once watched a “Samantha Brown goes to Europe” episode about it and really wanted to go, it was super run down and natural instead of the re-constructed castles that don’t even feel old but rather fake, you could wander pretty much anywhere you wanted (secret rooms, passages, tiny little spiral staircases), there was an AMAZING view at the top and we weren’t held in or anything by a barrier, I got to kiss the stone (which is rumored to be peed on every night by the employees…no bother to me! It was fantastic. AND there were paths in the forests surrounding the castle, and caves and EEK it was just really genuine. After the castle we headed back on the coach to Killarney. Our hotel was called the Failte in and it was super cute and had a great location. I really liked Killarney, one of my favorite cities we stayed in. It was just super cute and more local than most touristy towns are. I wish I could have met more locals though…

At the Blarney Castle

Up at the top in the middle (you can see a little hole of light) is where you bend over backwards to kiss the stone. Photo of myself kissing the stone is currently in the works;)

I am forever now at the Blarney Castle

First Irish Guiness Our hotel in Killarney

The next morning we left at 9am for the Ring of Kerry. It was wonderful, and my favorite part of the entire trip! Thanks to Wikipedia: The Ring of Kerry is a tourist trail in County Kerry, south-western Ireland. The route covers the 170 km circular road. It was very beautiful. AND we saw a rainbow in Ireland! YEAH!!! That makes the trip worth it right there...we also had to wait for a stampede of WILD sheep to cross the road. Basically it was a lot of scenic views and country/ocean side. SO cool, and very hard to describe in words. Let's just say, in the movies, they don't lie-it really is that green and luscious. Random: but my favorite part of the country were the stone walls. They LOVE their stone walls. They're everywhere, beside the roads, separating property, separating buildings. Wonderful. SO after the Ring, we spent another night in Killarney, and actually ended up at the Grand pub again for some little Irish dancers. Three girls danced traditional dances right in the middle of the pub, and it was adorable!
One of the stops on the Ring of Kerry was in Bogg Village. There we saw a museum all about Pete farms. Petelands cover 16.2% of the land mass of ireland. Pete is a mixture of water and plants, that basically accumulate for thousands of years and are dug up and harvested in Ireland. They used to use it to build houses and still use it for fires. The above picture is a pile of pete. The fire that was burning with pete smelled just as great as wood, amazing! And it basically just looks like mud.
Also in Bogg Village, we stopped at the Red Fox in which is known for it's amazing Irish Coffees. Made of whiskey, coffee and cream, this little drink is like pure heaven. MMMM so good. We all had one, even though the morning was still in the air (I had two because a friend didn't like it!).
Next, we stopped at Dingle Bay to take pictures etc. It was very pretty and we were excited to see the coast.
Next was Waterville, a favorite destination of Charlie Chaplin...but even more great for photo shoots:)

One of the many spectacular views from the coach window.


Next we stopped at Ladies View, which is known because Queen Victoria visted in 1861, and liked it so much that it was named after her.

Our last stop was at the National park, which was very green and had a pretty waterfall.

On Saturday we left at 8:30am for Dublin. We arrived at 2pm. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with the city. It was just like any other city (and it was diiirrrrty), plus a HUGE guiness brewery. I mean, that place put our Northfield Malt-o-meal to SHAME! The tour was a titch boring for me, but I took some pics for the old pops of mine:) It was also Valentines day, so that was mildly depressing for us SINGLE LADIES. Around 7 we headed to Temple Bay which is the touristy pub/club section of Dublin. I really enjoyed this part of the city, it was very cute and lively and clean. We ate at a Italian restaurant (my first real meal-guilt free!). I was planning on just going back to the hotel bar to spend the night, but temple bar just sucked me in, and a friend and I ended up there late hours of the night (despite our 5:00am wake up goal for the next morning). We ended up at a pub with live music again, and great drinks-paid for by locals-woop woop!
I bought bread and peanut butter, and ate that for just about every meal so I didn't have to pay for food...I'm cheap, what can I say:)



There wasn't much to take pictures of in Dublin, but across the street was Christ Church, where this one is taken.
Could this sign be any more graphic? It made me giggle...

I found this little sign on a very random side street in Dublin, right before we got lost...:)

I took this photo because I love how you can see each layer of paint and wall that it has ever been. It's so neat to see how much history can be in just one little building...it drives me crazy-I just want to know what each layer was for...

I can't even describe how wonderful it smelled outside the brewery...all I know is it didn't smell like beer...it smelled like a bakery...and muffins.

Sunday we left, ready to head back. Our lunch stop was in a village called Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndropwllllantysiliogogogoch. Yeah. No joke. The longest name in the United Kingdom. I say, congrats on your very unnecessary accomplishment! We got back to the Manor just in time for diner! It was a wonderful little weekend, and it is decided that one day I will live in Ireland (perhaps that will just be a visit).


Sleeping on the ferry home


OH, like I mentioned, today I chopped 6 inches of my hair! It was so exciting! I had it planned for later this week (after I found time to buy a scissors), but I got impatient and our Student Affair director ended up doing it for me...with her desk scissors:) It was very spur the moment and exciting. It doesn't feel as different as I thought it would, I guess I have just been preparing mentally for a long time now. It is, however, a bit puffy:) But that's something I will get used to.


Sometimes I still can't believe that I am studying abroad, OR living in England. I want so bad to live and breath every moment. But sometimes it's so hard not to think about how nice it will be to go home and reunite everyone. I never expected this whole experience to be so exhausting! I feel like I just got back from a trip, and here I am leaving again in a matter of days. I want to take advantage of every minute, so sometimes I find it hard to get sleep. Right now I am finally relaxing and just watching a movie in the lounge with some other people. I have been craving this for so long, so it's nice to finally make it happen. I appreciate being here so much, I wish more than anything that I could live every moment with my eyes WIDE open, and that every single moment I could be reminded where I am and how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. My favorite thing in the States is smiling at strangers, and I have learned that it truly is a universal language, for it sparks the same type of reactions of both confusion and small joy. Life's a treat. I like it lots:)

I hope all is well once again, and I send love, hugs and kisses to you all from across the pond!

Thanks for being in my life, and I appreciate all of you more than can be measured!

Journaling is one of the weirdest things, it never ceases to surprise me how fast an entry passes. When I feel like I wrote yesterday, in reality it was a week ago. I don't know if that thought just made sense, but my point is that I wish I wrote on this blog more:)

I feel like I have so many things to think about here, and so many things to be thankful for, sometimes it stresses me out-trying to cover them all! Life is so great, and I'm really enjoying myself. The time is already going so fast, it is blowing my mind.

Last weekend was probably one of my favorites so far. On Thursday night I had volleyball practice, which no matter what mood I'm in always perks me up. I don't know what it is? I typically make a complete fool of myself (not that I object, I have the most fun with potentially embarassing scenerios). After volleyball, we went to the bistro ( I won a free beer for hitting the target, yehaw!) and then had a dance party after that. On Saturday I went to York, England; famous for the York Minster Cathedral, one of the two largest Gothic cathedrals in Northern Europe. It was really beautiful on the outside, and the inside...however it was 8 pounds to get inside ($15 about), so being the cheap students we are, a few of us decided not to go in. Which was a ridiculously dumb idea, since that's what we were there to see! But, no time for regrets, and we still had a brilliant time just wandering around the city. We wanted to walk around the York wall, which basically just surrounds the city, but that was closed due to weather (damn snow!). We did get to see the Clifford's Tower, which was built by William the Conqueror (but we didn't pay to go in there either...oops!). We ended up at a pub for a pint and some rugby, which was very nice. We came back to Harlaxton for dinner, and around 9 went to hit the town! We went to our favorite Grantham pub, the Goose, which is known to be cheap. It's still pricey, but we find boys to buy our drinks, and it's fine for us:) Grantham is apparently rumored to be a dodgy-hole-in-the-wall-crap-ass night life scene, but we still have fun! The pubs close between midnight and one, so we usually have to find a dance club to go to after. We ended up at Coco, which was fun. Another thing, the Grantham-ites can recognize us as American students quite easily (which is so crazy to us...but I believe them), so they tend to either give us crap, or give us deals to get in their club, play great music like 'Jesses girl" at the clubs, OH and they expect a tip for cab rides, because apparently we tip really high, and english don't tip at all! How's that! I don't tip. HA.

This week was our first British Studies exam, which I didn't study much for-but I think it went OK. Other then that, nothing too exciting is happening...except that I'm leaving for IRELAND in ONE STINKING HOUR! I'm very excited, to put it mildly. We will be taking the ferry there, I don't know how that will go over, but I will be sure to write all about it when I come back on Sunday! Thanks for reading, and take care!