Just got back from Galway a few hours ago, and I loved it. Stephanie, Rachel, Katie and I were pretty much nomads, wandering throughout the countryside, loving almost every minute.
We started in Dublin, leaving town on the train at 11:10am, getting into Galway at 2:30 (can you imagine being able to cross an entire country in a little over 3 hours... That would get me to Portland at home!
Once in Galway we wandered through what seemed to be the central part of town (Shop St. I think it was) which led us to the water front and I saw the Atlantic Ocean for the first time in person (!!!) and it was beautiful. We hopped on a 6:00 bus from Galway to Doolin in County Clare (pop. 200) and spent the night in a tiny little hostel called "Paddy and Josephine's Doolin Hostel." How awesome is that? By the way, everyone here is named Paddy, it's wonderful :-) We were all hungry, so we meandered down to the local pub call Gus O'Connor's Pub and had incredible fish and chips and enjoyed some real live Irish pub music. There was a guitar, banjo, penny whistle, accordion and a few other instruments, and almost the entire pub knew the words to the songs they were singing. THAT is the Ireland I wanted to find!
The next morning we woke up at 7am to the mooing of cows on the hill behind us, outside our window. We rushed to get dressed (not showered, because, silly us, we didn't bring towels...) and got to the bus to get to the Cliffs of Moher before all the tourists got there. At first we all seemed slightly disappointed. They were pretty, but there was a wall going along the length of them so you couldn't look down. Then we decided to not follow any rules and we hopped the wall, walked to the edge and easily could have stayed there forever. It was completely indescribable, to the point of saying that you have to go there sometime in your life before the tourists. The minute you put your head over the edge it's like your whole world changes; things are not only literally upside down, but the whole idea that you are on the last piece of land until you reach the US and all that you have to do is take one wrong step and your swimming with the fishies just blows my mind. We took these pictures that don't do anything justice, but they are pretty cool.
We left and headed back to Doolin for some amazing soup at O'Connor's Pub then caught a ferry to the smallest island in the Aran Islands called Inishmere, or Inis Oirr, depending on the map you look at and sat on the beach while trying to dry ourselves off after a very rough, VERY wet boat crossing. We only succeeded in getting sand stuck to the wet parts of our jeans...
From Inishmere we caught another ferry to the biggest Island, Inis Mor and after another very rough, but not as wet, crossing, we docked and got pretty much caught in bad weather. We were bombarded by a man in a red taxi-tour-van who we paid €10 each for a tour of the entire island. It turned out to be cool, and sort of worth it, but we still felt like the best part of the day was spent on the Cliffs and on the first island. However, from the first stop on our tour, we saw a really cool 3,000 year old fortress that was on this huge cliff. Seriously, the Cliffs of Moher were incredible but the cliffs here were breathtaking. They were concave and we could stand on the very tip of a rock and look down and see absolutely nothing but turquoise water. The wind was so strong that you could throw a chunk (yes I said chunk) of sod in the air at the cliff and it would fly backwards almost 30 meters away. It's a new game. "Harry Potter Eat Your Heart Out" is what the guys kept saying... (?)
From the island we took another ferry back to the "main land" and then a bus to Galway. We met the huge group at a pub, then went to the B&B to shower and get ready for our trip back home. Rachel and I stayed up writing everything down that we did during the weekend and it took up 4 pages in my journal... Crazy.
Now we're home. And it feels great.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
So Far...
So. I'm in Dublin!
I've been here a week and a half, and it couldn't be better. The kids are nice, the city is beautiful, and the classes are fun but long.
I can't really catch up on everything that's happened in the past week and a half (that would be a freakishly long post)
How about the roommates first, eh?
Katie Ventimeglia (I think that's how you spell it) is the one I'm sharing a room with. She loves being outdoors and is always the first person to say "It's not that far, let's just walk!" but it almost always is far but we almost always do it anyway :-) She loves listening to classical music and jazz and my non-drinking friend. We end up sticking together when a group of us go out.
Rachel Roderman is one of the girls sleeping down the hall who is amazing. She and I have ended up hanging out more one on one. We seem to have a lot in common (besides our coast, she's a New Yorker-ish... Although thank GOD she doesn't like the Yankees. We would have had problems...). Shealso loves Eddie Izzard. How much better does THAT get? It's nice to have someone who seems to share interests with you and share things and stories from home. It makes me miss home less...
Stephanie Jordan is the roommate that I know the least, although hopefully that changes because she seems wonderful. She was born in London, lives in France and her father is from Columbia. Yeah. She speaks 3 languages fluently and I'm jealous.
So those are my roommates, and I got incredibly lucky!
I can catch you up on the past couple days:
Friday:
Scavenger Hunt day. Rachel and Katie and I went to IES for our follow-up orientation where we signed up for the field trip to London. €220 for a trip to London. While that wasn't unexpected, it still hurts. Rachel and I are staying a few days longer because Dublin has a Bank Holiday on the 29th and we were scheduled to come back on the 27th. Why not? I'm going to hopefully be able to stay somewhere near Sandy (or with her, I haven't asked yet) because I miss her. ANYway, there was a scavenger hunt after the orientation set up by IES. That sent us competely around the city to places that we never would have seen had we not done the hunt, but still, lots of walking :-) We found this really cool place called Moore Street which is apparently an important place in Ireland history (1916 Easter Rising) and it now has all these cool little veggie/fruit and flower stands every day of the week. Here's how far we walked. The different colors represent the different stages of the walk. Just kidding. The picture isn't uploading... It will be on Facebook for anyone who wants/cares to see it.
That night Rachel and I were wandering around freezing and hungry, so we went to Captain America's for a salad and some warmth.
Saturday:
Our new roommate, Stephanie, arrived on Saturday. She came in and was instantly filling the room with laughter, noise and an incredible accent. I'm glad she's here! The dynamic between my original two roommates and I is nice. But Stephanie throws in this whole different vibe and it's a lot of fun. Once she arrived we all walked into St. Stephen's Green, split up then soaked in a little sun and warmth before we got cold and walked into Butler's for some incredible hot chocolate (no expensive habits, no expensive habits).
Sunday:
We went (as an IES group) to Kilmainham Gaol, or one of THE most important places in Ireland because of the 1916 Easter Rising. It was fasinating, gruesome, and AWESOME. I'm going to try and get around more (that might be a lie).
Today:
School for 10am-6:15pm, dinner out because we didn't have time to go home before seeing an INCREDIBLY BAD, EXTREMELY POOR PRODUCTION of Trojan Women in this amazing space in Temple Bar. The show was absolutely terrible, the acting was garbage, you couldn't understand what was being said some of the time, and the dialogue was trash. It was a Greek play rewritten by some man who thought that throwing curse words into a classic makes it better. Anyway, I'm home and we're watching South Park (uh... yeah, South Park) and I'm going to bed because we have school at 9am, leave at 8:15, get up at 7. Yuck.
Goodnight/Bon Nuit!
I've been here a week and a half, and it couldn't be better. The kids are nice, the city is beautiful, and the classes are fun but long.
I can't really catch up on everything that's happened in the past week and a half (that would be a freakishly long post)
How about the roommates first, eh?
Katie Ventimeglia (I think that's how you spell it) is the one I'm sharing a room with. She loves being outdoors and is always the first person to say "It's not that far, let's just walk!" but it almost always is far but we almost always do it anyway :-) She loves listening to classical music and jazz and my non-drinking friend. We end up sticking together when a group of us go out.
Rachel Roderman is one of the girls sleeping down the hall who is amazing. She and I have ended up hanging out more one on one. We seem to have a lot in common (besides our coast, she's a New Yorker-ish... Although thank GOD she doesn't like the Yankees. We would have had problems...). Shealso loves Eddie Izzard. How much better does THAT get? It's nice to have someone who seems to share interests with you and share things and stories from home. It makes me miss home less...
Stephanie Jordan is the roommate that I know the least, although hopefully that changes because she seems wonderful. She was born in London, lives in France and her father is from Columbia. Yeah. She speaks 3 languages fluently and I'm jealous.
So those are my roommates, and I got incredibly lucky!
I can catch you up on the past couple days:
Friday:
Scavenger Hunt day. Rachel and Katie and I went to IES for our follow-up orientation where we signed up for the field trip to London. €220 for a trip to London. While that wasn't unexpected, it still hurts. Rachel and I are staying a few days longer because Dublin has a Bank Holiday on the 29th and we were scheduled to come back on the 27th. Why not? I'm going to hopefully be able to stay somewhere near Sandy (or with her, I haven't asked yet) because I miss her. ANYway, there was a scavenger hunt after the orientation set up by IES. That sent us competely around the city to places that we never would have seen had we not done the hunt, but still, lots of walking :-) We found this really cool place called Moore Street which is apparently an important place in Ireland history (1916 Easter Rising) and it now has all these cool little veggie/fruit and flower stands every day of the week. Here's how far we walked. The different colors represent the different stages of the walk. Just kidding. The picture isn't uploading... It will be on Facebook for anyone who wants/cares to see it.
That night Rachel and I were wandering around freezing and hungry, so we went to Captain America's for a salad and some warmth.
Saturday:
Our new roommate, Stephanie, arrived on Saturday. She came in and was instantly filling the room with laughter, noise and an incredible accent. I'm glad she's here! The dynamic between my original two roommates and I is nice. But Stephanie throws in this whole different vibe and it's a lot of fun. Once she arrived we all walked into St. Stephen's Green, split up then soaked in a little sun and warmth before we got cold and walked into Butler's for some incredible hot chocolate (no expensive habits, no expensive habits).
Sunday:
We went (as an IES group) to Kilmainham Gaol, or one of THE most important places in Ireland because of the 1916 Easter Rising. It was fasinating, gruesome, and AWESOME. I'm going to try and get around more (that might be a lie).
Today:
School for 10am-6:15pm, dinner out because we didn't have time to go home before seeing an INCREDIBLY BAD, EXTREMELY POOR PRODUCTION of Trojan Women in this amazing space in Temple Bar. The show was absolutely terrible, the acting was garbage, you couldn't understand what was being said some of the time, and the dialogue was trash. It was a Greek play rewritten by some man who thought that throwing curse words into a classic makes it better. Anyway, I'm home and we're watching South Park (uh... yeah, South Park) and I'm going to bed because we have school at 9am, leave at 8:15, get up at 7. Yuck.
Goodnight/Bon Nuit!
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