Dublin, Doolin and Devin

March 22-28 1:00 p.m.

Sorry everyone for the delay on blogs!! I know I haven't updated anyone on galway or st. paddys, but i journaled it so I promise I remember!! I know many people are anxious to hear how my week went this week due to a special someone coming and visiting, so I figured I would update everyone!! Monday morning I woke up extremely excited at 5:30 in order to get ready and catch a bus to the airport to meet Devin who was due to arrive at 8:00. I checked his flight and it said it was going to land at 7:30, I almost had a heart attack. He did not know that I was going to meet him there so I had given him instructions on what bus to get on and where to get off ect. ect. and I knew that he would be on a mission to get on that bus right when he got there and I wasn't due to arrive at the airport until 8:00. Oh wow...but anyway I waited for him and when I saw him come through the doors I went to go run after him. Well...there were many tall skinny dark haired men on his flight so I had a bit of a problem trying to locate him..finally I saw him walking through the doors towards the buses so I took off in a sprint after him. I was out of breath after getting him...but the hug he gave me made up for it. During the bus ride to my apartment he was in awe at the surroundings..the way I was at the beginning of the trip.
He was a sleepy boy by the time we got back to the apartment due to not sleeping at all the 9 hour plane ride here, but after a short rest he was ready to go. My roomates were walking back from class when we left to go to the Guinness Factory so he got to meet them which was really nice...I'm sure they all already feel like they know each other from how much I talk about everyone to everyone else!
The Guinness Factory was really neat!! It was 6 levels going up in a cylindar shape. Each level had a different part of the guinness story behind it. One level was the history behind guinness..we saw the lease that Arthur Guinness signed for 9,000 years for 45 Great British Pounds a year..insane!! The next few levels were ingredients and how Guinness is made and one level was advertising. The best level by far though was the very top, the gravity bar. It is a 360 degree view of Dublin which is breath taking.
After the Guinness Factory we walked around Phoenix Park, a huge huge huge park where the President of Ireland lives. The swans and ducks are out now and the weather was beautiful. We stayed there until dark and then came back, ate supper, and went to sleep.
Tuesday we got up decently early in order to do some sightseeing before I had class! I showed him the Dublin Castle, in order to save some money, I just gave him a tour of the outside from what I remembered. After the castle we went back into the Chester Beatty Library. After reading my blog on its religion exhibits Devin became really interested and wanted to check it out. So we did..and I loved it just as much the second time as the first time, I even caught some details that I did not realize before, such as different aspects to Islam.
We walked around a little bit after that, i pointed out different parts of the city, some historical, and some that were just important to me. I have discovered that I'm not that great of a tour guide but thats ok! I brought him to my favorite coffee shop, the Bald Barista where we split a sandwich and had our mochas before heading off to class. The original plan was that Devin was going to go find Ireland's soccer stadium while I was in class..but it was quite the walk away so he decided to come to class with me. It was Abnormal Psychology and I think it might have swayed him to become a psychologist now...haha just kidding. After class we went souvenier shopping, then for a walk in St. Stephen's Green Park where there were more beautiful swans and ducks. We sat in the park awhile and just chatted which was really nice. By this point we were hungry so we went to the Purty Kitchen which is supposed to have good Irish food but their kitchen was not working so they were not serving food. So we ended up having wood oven pizza at this cute little place that I didn't know existed...it was wonderful! After the pizza we tried going back to St. Stephens Green to walk it off, but it was closed up, so we just walked around Graffton Street a bit then headed back home..we had an early morning the next morning!
The next morning we had scheduled to take a tour of Wicklow and Glendalough in the mountains. So at 8:30 we treked over to O'Connell street to meet the van that was scheduled to take us. We had a really cool informative tour guide which was awesome! A few more people joined us. There was even a family from Arizona, they were fun! The tour guide kept making reference to me since I had told him I had been there since January. Everytime he brought up a pub he would ask who had been there..I raised my hand for all of them...so now everyone probably thought that I was an alcoholic on there but thats ok..In reality I had either had food or went to listen to music at all of them, but people will think what they will think! So much happened on the tour I know I wn't be able to describe it all...but everywhere was absolutely amazing. Glendalough was beautiful..it had an extremely old christian cemetary and tower where monks used to hide and vikings used to kill them. The ruins of an old monastary was there and he walked us trhough, really bringing the story alive for us. In the backdrop were beautiful mountains and trees and flowers...the pictures are beautiful but do no justice to the beauty of Glendalough. From there we went up to lunch in a nearby town then headed further up into the mountains. He stopped the car every now and then to let us get out and take in the beauty around us. Fields of soon to be blooming heather were everywhere, and bogs with bog cotton surrounded us. I even stood on the bridge/street where P.S. I love you was filmed!!!! pretty much famous now :) We saw a mansion where Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods had rented out before..it was originally a wedding gift from a member of Arthur Guinness's family to his new bride. It was beautiful, set along a lake....we saw waterfalls and every natural beauty you could imagine. A lot of sheep as well...we even had to stop the van for them a few times to let them go across.
Upon returning back into Dublin it was decently late and we were sleepy from traveling all day..so i made some paninis and we went to bed early because we had yet another early morning ahead of us
Thursday morning we got on the 7:00 a.m. bus to Galway. It was a 3.5 hour bus ride..but very worth it..we were meaning to get a connecting bus to Doolin from there. The only buses that leave Galway to Doolin were at 10:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Our bus got in at 10:34 p.m. So we had several hours to kill in rainy Galway. But we had a great time just relaxing in a coffee shop and when it cleared up we hung out in a park. It was a good lazy day. At 6:00 we got on the bus to take to Doolin, thinking it would take a 1/2 hour. WRONG. It was an hour and forty five minute jaunt up curvy mountain roads right next to the ocean. It was beautiful and would have been wonderful besides the point that Devin and I had eaten fries with a very strange sauce on them right before we got on the bus and that caught up with us. I was ok besides stomach pains, but Devin had to lie down on my lap awhile while i put water on his head in order to cool him down...those roads were nasty! We finally arrived in Doolin, the bus driver was sweet enough to drop us off right where we needed to be. We hadn't even been walking a minute when I car came down and a man asked us if we were looking for the Daly House we said yes and he told us to hop in...and he brought us the rest of the 30 second walk back up to the Daly house. As soon as we walked into the door Paul (the man who brought us up) and Susan made us feel so at home. Susan went and made Irish coffees and brought us those and cookies while chatting with us about our trips and our travels. They were so sweet!! It was 8:30 by that point and both of us were still feeling sick so we went to sleep and got up early to have breakfast at 8:00. In the brightness of the beautiful day we could see how beautiful little Doolin actually is. From where we were eating breakfast you could just look out and see a 13th century castle, Doonagore castle. And everywhere you looked, earth's natural beauty was there to behold. Beautiful blue ocean that rose up to meet beautiful green mountains. Horses, cows and sheep dotted everywhere you looked and with every turn of the head new old beautiful historic ruins were there to behold. After eating an amazing breakfast prepared by Susan we went out walking to discover how tiny Doolin really is, a town of two roads really. It was a beautiful beautiful day and the sky was clear. We walked around all day. At noon we went on a tour of the Doolin Cave. A cave that opened up only two years ago. It is 200 feet underground and holds the biggest stalictite in the world! An inch forms every 1,000 years so that baby had been growing a long long long long long time! Thank goodness for the hard hats because we hit our heads on several occassions!! It was very very neat getting to see that. Afterwards we went to McGann's pub to have lunch then set out for the Cliffs of Moher. Paul was kind enough to drive us up and drop us off at the Cliffs. I can't even begin to describe how amazing this place is. The very edge of Ireland that drops 800 feet into the Atlantic Ocean...its beautiful! O'Brien's Tower sits on the edge of the Cliff overlooking the water. Devin and I just stared in awe for awhile. We took a lot of pictures but none of them capture even 1/3 of the beauty. We even saw a couple taking engagement pictures by them, i'm sure those will turn out beautiful!
From the Cliffs it was a 5 mile trek back to Doolin but thats ok, the views on the way back were amazing. Ocean, Doonagore Castle, sheep, cows, people...it was great! When we got back we went to O'Conner's pub and listened to some music. Doolin is where the traditional irish music started! We ate some fish and chips and jammed out for a few hours. You will have to ask Devin about his Irish girlfriends...
The next morning we unfortunately had to leave. We wanted to catch the 12:30 bus only to discover that the 12:30 bus didn't run that day..so we had waited for quite awhile for nothing but thats ok! The next bus wasn't until 1:45 so we went to O'Conner's to try their famous guinness stew....WOW it was AMAZING!! Huge chunks of beef, potatoes, and carrots, in this delicious guinness sauce. If you ever get the chance to try it..DO IT!!
We caught the bus and then were traveling back to Dublin for the next several hours but we had a great time listening to music, looking at scenery, and laughing...when we got back I took him to a pub called Fitzsimons to listen to music. The time change happened that morning so we didn't return home until technically 2:30..we had thought his flight was at noon, but we discovered when we got back that it was at 7:00 a.m. So we didn't get to much time to say goodbye due to having to rush to the airport..but its probably for the best...less time to be sad when we were together. It was an absolutely amazing week and I can't wait to see everyone again!

On the Search for Nessie

March 9, 2010 10:22 a.m.
Another successful weekend trip! Thursday morning Kristen O'Connor and I met up with Kristen Granzow at the airport in Dublin to catch our early flight to Glasgow, Scotland. We were worried about Kristen G. because she recently got diagnosed with vertigo, she is ok now but flying with that much dizzyness is not a good idea! She was given motion sickness pills though so all was well. We arrived in Glasgow and immediately sought out to buy a metro ticket to get to the Kelvingrove Museum. It is the 2nd most visited museum in the UK, and it's free so that is an amazing plus! The walk from the metro station was beautiful. It was a huge, but pretty and clean city with a university, and parks with little cafes scattered around. Museums and churches were huge stone buildings. I was struck again by the massiveness of churches and museums in Europe! Upon arrival at the Kelvingrove we walked into a beautiful room that up above housed a HUGE beautiful organ. With a sign that said free concert at 1:30. Kristen G. was quite excited to say the least! We walked around a little bit, then saw a sign for free tours. We met up with a group of 6-7 older ladies that reminded me of the Red Hatters in Monroe. I hope I am like that someday when I am older, traveling around with my friends, making snide, clever comments to the tour guide. They were hysterical but so intelligent. They knew a lot about each painting and each piece our tour guide described. They were all very interested in why we were in Glasgow and why we were studying in Ireland. They were very disappointed that we were just in Glasgow for a few hours because they listed off tons of places we should look into, they informed us that we HAD to come back. When they discovered we were from Iowa, they all looked at each other and chuckled, "Ah, the farmers!" They were quite excited about that. One woman informed me that the Scottish know so much about the U.S. but we know nothing about them. Which I have discovered is true in so many cases with so many different countries, it's quite sad really.
The museum was wonderful, housing many paintings such as Salvador Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross painting, a mummy exhibit which was fascinating (even had mummified head and hands which was really creepy), many Scottish paintings such as the Glasgow boys, and exhibits of all the fossils and things found in Scotland, the biggest turtle, elephant, to crocidiles and fossils of fish from millions of years ago. I wish I could have stayed longer. We listened to a little bit of the organ recital but by that time our backs were starting to kill us from carrying our bags around all day. And our stomaches wanted food, so we found a cafe and had some lunch. We then decided to just walk around in the park instead of going to another museum. We wandered the Kelvingrove park for awhile, playing on some toys, getting attacked by pigeons, and walked through the University area where they were holding their student elections. I guess it is quite the ordeal over there. There were signs EVERYWHERE to vote for people and people walking around in banana outfits, I'm still not quite sure why on that.
Afterwards, we got on a train and headed to Edinburgh where we were to meet up with Amanda Buckingham! When we got there, Amanda was no where to be seen. We were having slight freak outs because we had no idea where we were going and Edinburgh is a huge city. After a half hour of me trying to frantically dial her phone, she ran into the train station. The poor girl had gotten lost and couldn't find her way there so took a taxi. I feel so awful about it! But yay, manda and I were reunited! We took a taxi home, met her roomates, then crashed. The next morning we got up for a full day of sight seeing. We walked the Royal Mile which is the mile long stretch that has the Edinburgh castle on one end and the Palace on the other. They were both pretty neat, we just snapped some pictures. Walking into the city centre of Edinburgh though is fascinating because it is divided into two, the old city and the new city, and the new city is lower than the old city, it is on a hill and the new city goes downhill. Walking around Amanda pointed out her University in which the student center on it is where J.K. Rowling got her idea to model Hogwarts off of. We also saw the Elephant's House, the coffee house where J.K. Rowling wrote the first harry potter! It was SO cool! We went in later that day and had coffee just to say that we had! She also pointed out the Grayfriar's Lounge which is based off the legend of "Scotland's dog," supposibly there was a dog that went with his owner everywhere and waited for him and after his owner died he would just go to the grave everyday and everyday a different person would feed him and take care of him until he died too. So that was pretty neat!
After filling up on coffee and a snack to get energy, the girls and I headed up to climb Arthur's Seat, a dormant volcano. I guess it takes climbing up Arthur's Seat 60 times to make Everest, that is why I now have a lot more respect for mountain climbers. Halfway up the volcano was not that bad, we all just cruised up it and chatted. There is a road and sidewalk that lead halfway up. The rest of the way up there is no trail, it involves climbinb up a steep rocky slope to reach the top. While singing Miley Cyrus's The Climb, we all started up, losing our breath and stopping a few times, we finally reached it! What a sense of accomplishment, and the view was amazing! On one side was the mountains and the other was the ocean, with cute little houses dotting in between. We stayed up there awhile before attempting to head down. We decided to take a different path...bad idea! Going down involved us scotting on our butts and dangling off of rocks with one slip that would send us tosseling down the rocky slope, we were slightly terrified some of the time. We all put our purses around our necks and started the slow process down the volcano. By the time we reachted the bottom all of us were extremely dirty and tired, but felt accomplished! By this time it was sunset, so when we returned to Amanda's apartment, we collapsed in the kitchen while we talked to her roomate Kat. She was really nice. Amanda lives with all Scottish roomates, all in which were wonderful.
The next morning we got up at 5:15 so we could make some pancakes before being out the door to meet our tour that was going into the Scottish Highlands. We got there to be greeted by a minivan bus thing and our tourguide. We also had a lady from India, three french people, and two other american girls who were studying in Galway in Ireland. The tour was amazing! It started at 7:45 and we didn't return to Edinburgh until 6:30 that night. We went into the mountainous area of Scotland, while Bill, our tourguide explained the history of Scotland and Edinburgh, he pointed out spots where bloody battles had taken place and castles where Mary Queen of Scots was born and her son James. The mountains were breathtaking. My pictures do nothing to describe how I felt when I looked out onto the loch (water) and saw purple and blue mountains being reflected on it's black depths. It was amazing. We stopped in little villages here and there, such as St. Augustus, a town on the loch ness. We ate lunch there, the pb&j sandwiches we had packed, and went monster hunting. I didn't realize that the loch was 22 miles long and 180 some feet deep. It was interesting because I guess scientists had come there trying to prove that the monster did not exist, but they caught things on sonar that they can't explain...interesting. Nessie was first spotted by St. Columba and ever since then there have been hundreds of sightings. So who really knows?
When we returned to Edinburgh we went to try haggis, which is pretty much intestine stuffed with sausage. It was really really really good!! After eating that we went back to amanda's apartment to get ready because we were going to a club on edinburgh university campus called the Big Cheese. It's called that because it plays cheesy music such as the spice girls and backstreet boys, aqua, ext. But it was AWESOME!! It was so fun, and packed with college people. At 2:00 a.m. when we left we went to a kabob place and tried frlafel. I don't know how to spell it, but it was good as well!
The next morning we got up and went to church with Amanda. It was a Presbyterian church and everyone was so nice. The message was amazing as well. After the service we were introduced to friends of Amanda's and invited to the student lunch. We went and had some amazing food, then listened to a lesson presented by a young married couple from the states. They are over there because the guy is getting his masters in Scotland. They were so nice, and the lesson was great as well, I took lots of notes! After helping clean up, we headed out to do some shopping. That night then we just hung out, ate some popcorn, and went to sleep to be on the plane early the next morning. It was a great weekend!! Next weekend in Galway with the school, so that should be really fun. The next few weeks are going to be insane so I don't know the next time I will be able to write! I have a ton of homework, and right after Galway, Kelcie Freeman and Malorie Seaman will be here. And Tuesday Amanda and Kristen are coming up as well as Chelsea and Andrea from Poland. The last people will leave on Sunday, then Devin comes Monday, so this is going to be an intense but amazingly fun month!