Back to Galway!

This weekend we took a two day trip to Galway to see the Cliffs of Moher. Not only did we see some beautiful sights, we also learned that the six of us seem to have a curse traveling together. We decided to catch a 2pm bus on Friday after everyone's classes so we were all packed up and waiting at the station when we saw that our bus was boarding. We went out to our terminal and it was PACKED. The Cork bus station is usually filled with maybe 50 people (and its a big station), so to see more than fifty people all trying to get on the same bus was a little out of the norm. Turns out by the time we got to the front of the line there were only 5 spots left on the bus, just one short of how many we needed because we were traveling as a group of 6. Luckily they called an extra bus that came thirty minutes later. Just our luck that bus broke down about halfway into our ride. After an hour pit stop on the side of the road and two mechanics the bus finally started running again! By the time we got to Limerick (an hour and half later than we expected) everyone needed a bathroom break, but by doing that we missed our connecting bus to Galway. We finally got to Galway seven hours after we left Cork which should be at max a three and half hour ride. It was all worth it though as we got ready for a night in our favorite town in Ireland.

The next day we did a bus tour (luckily no break downs this time) of the Barren and Cliffs of Moher. We did a walking tour up a mountain and got to see stereotypical Ireland, the green landscape with stone walls dividing the properties. We were amazed by the stone walls because it literally looked like if you touched them they would fall over because the rocks seem simply placed on top of each other like a balancing act. The tour guide said that the walls were erected in the famine era (to give the poor jobs) and therefore have been standing for years.

 

We then had one hour at the Cliffs of Moher and I totally understood what all the fuss is about. Its so goregous there you could spen all day just looking out at it. You have probably seen the Cliffs before in movies and not even know it. They're in Harry Potter, Ryan's Daughter, the Princess Bride and a few other movies too. The Cliffs are also a finalist for the 7 Natural Wonders of the World!

 This is O'Brian's tower

 One of my favorite pictures of the Cliffs (still can't figure out how to switch the pictures so they're rightside up -- sorry!)

It was a great weekend, and luckily our trip home was bus-drama free! :)

London calling...

London was the weekend trip this week and let me just say it was a much needed getaway from Cork. London is a city that I have always wanted to see ever since many of my favorite movies that take place there (what a girl wants, winning london, etc.)  but I actually knew very little about the actual city. Our trip started late Wednesday night (thankfully because there was a fatal plane crash at the Cork airport the very next morning). Our trip to get to actual London was, lets just say not the easiest few hours. We got off the plane at about eleven and were about to go through customs when my friend Amy realized she forgot her passport on the flight. After about an hour of trying to retrieve it (couldn't because the flight was already "secured" and no one was allowed on) we finally got to the bus to take us into the city. As we were walking to the bus stop we realized our bus was just leaving and started freaking out because we thought it was the last one. Thankfully there was one more bus coming yet that night. When the bus finally came half an hour later we were about to get on when the ticket person said we had the wrong dates for the tickets. So, after 5 minutes of Amy running around trying to get the dates changed we finally made it onto the last bus of the night just in the nick of time. After the bus ride we grabbed a cute taxi to get to our hostel but of course it wasn't that easy. The name of our street which we thought was Westbourne Road was actually Westbourne Terrace. After walking around the city at 1:30am not entirely sure where we were going, we finally called the US to get someone to googlemaps where we were. Luckily we found out the area we should have been walking in before the phone ran out of minutes. So after another two hours of walking around London and a few stops asking for directions later we finally made it to the hostel at 3:30am.

The next day we woke up to find the rain followed us to London. After a quick breakfast we made our way to town to see it in the daytime and visit a few inside places to get out of the rain. We went to the National Galley of Art and the V&A museum and saw Trafalgar Square and platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross from Harry Potter!

 national gallery

Day two started out with again a quick breakfast then off to see Big Ben, House of Parliament, and the London eye

 london eye!

 then the tower of london...

 St. Paul's Cathedral..

 Then souvineer shopping! we went into this huge shop at Picadilly's Circus and found this car and a man all decked out in the England flag!

Right after we went to the London Bar that is completely made out of ice! We walked in all decked out in our igloo suits and gloves and got a drink (in a cup made out of ice of course!) It was the coolest bar I've ever been in!

The next day was sunny and warm so we woke up early and started sigtseeing on our last day in London. First we went to the Portabello market (for those that have seen Notting Hill, we even found the bookshop that Hugh Grant worked in!!!). It was full of clothes, food, trinkets, and street performers. It made me wish we had a market like that in Cork! It was one of my favorite parts of the trip, getting to see all the amazing food and just "window" shopping at the street vendors. After the market, we met up with Sarah's friend and saw Westminster Abbey (where Prince William and Kate will get married at the end of April) and then went to Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, the guards were behind the gates, so we didn't get to try and make them laugh. The palace and the grounds surrounding it were gorgeous though, and there was so much of it that we didn't even see!

 After seeing the palace, we went to Herrods, basically a place where all the prominent designers have a massive mall. This Herrods was five floors with every designer purse, jewelry, furniture, and toy you can imagine. Then came the best part. I walked into a little bit of heaven. We went into a massive room filled with only chocolate and tea, my two favorite things! Amy and I (the other chocolate lover of the group) went to buy on of the truffles and they kept giving them to us for free! Like I said, heaven!

 As our final thing to see in London, we went and saw Big Ben and the House of Parliment at night which was amazing! Then we went back to the hostel, grabbed our bags, then went to the airport to sleep for the night and catch our 6:20 flight! It was such an amazing trip, my favorite to date! For next week, we're going to Galway again to see the Cliffs of Moore!

Our first trip -- PARIS!!!!

We left for Paris very early on the morning on Thursday, our first international trip! When I say we left early, I mean early. We went to Dublin the night before (our flight was out of the airport there) and met up with some people then woke up at 6am. After check in and boarding we got chocolate muffins and hot tea to put us in the mood for Paris! My friend Carole who studied abroad at UMW last year lives in the city so we stayed with her during our three days in her stomping ground. She met us at the airport and we caught up on the hour ride from the airport to her apartment. As always we were all starving so we went to Carole's favorite crepe resteraunte and got dinner (salty) crepes and dessert crepes which mean ham, cheese, and egg dinner crepe and a chocolate with whipped cream dessert crepe for me. While we were waiting for a table at the resteraunt Carole took us to a palace that was nearby. Kings lived there until Louis the 16th moved to Versialles.

 After lunch we went to the Centre Pompidou museum that has modern art and a really unique outside of the building (above). The view from the top of the building was amazing. We pointed out excitedly all the sights we were going to see on our trip. The art in here was not my style, but the next museum we went to, d'Orsay was full of famous painter's works including Monet, Manet, Van Gough and many more. We even found some of my friend Leigh's friends grandfathers (yeah see if you can follow that) paintings. It made me appreciate my art history class that Monique forced me to take. Almost all of the artists we studied were in this museum.

After the museums we were starving again so we stopped at a restaurant and had the most amazing bruschetta (yours is still better though mom) and pizza and some dessert! ONe of the best parts of our trip was all the food we ate. Everything was so good, I can see why Paris is one of the food capitals of the world. )My favorite thing we ate there would have to be the nutella crepes, but more about them later...)  Then we walked to the ferris wheel where we got yet another amazing view of the city.


I should also just mention that the three days we were in Paris were freezing. I know I shouldn't be complaining because at home its below freezing and snowing, but Paris is a big city and we were walking everywhere. So after the first day where we literally walked the lengths of Paris, we decided that the metro was the way to go.

this was my artsy picture of the ferris wheel :)

Day two in Paris

For our first full day in Paris we woke up early and went straight to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Now I love Notre Dame the college and the movie, but the cathedral is so beautiful. It has so much history and different touristy collections inside but still functions as a church too (we were able to sit in on mass while we were there -- so weird to recognize the different parts of mass but hear it in a different language). There is so many interesting parts of Notre Dame that I can't possibly type them all, so here are some pictures that will do the explaining instead hopefully :)

 The next stop was Luxemburg Gardens which was so green seeing at how cold it was (and the lack of rain). There was a palace here that the senators now do their business in (behind us in the second picture).

 We stopped for lunch and I got a super french dish called Croque Monsieur which is basically a much much much better version of grilled ham and cheese. It was a quick but delicious lunch to get us energized for...........

......THE EIFFEL TOWER!!!! I remember seeing it from a distance the first day and thinking that it wasn't anything special, but then seeing it closer it was so cool! My friend Amy and I tried taking jumping pictures and it actually worked (for the first time in my life :) )

After the Eiffel Tower we had nutella crepes that were so beyond amazing words can't even describe. I devoured mine in under two minutes and wanted five more. We then went to the Louvre which was HUGE!! You could easily spend 3 full days in there and not see everything so we decided to see the famous stuff; Mona Lisa and the Aphrodite statue. Then we went back to Carole's apartment and made pasta for dinner. Then we planned on going on a cruise on the Seine River but we couldn't find the boats, so we ended up getting dessert at another Parisian restaurant, guess what i had? That's right, another nutella crepe. We were so exhausted by the time we got back that after a little wine, we went straight to sleep to gear up for our last day in the city of love.

Paris- Day Three

Our last day in France may have been my favorite of the whole weekend. We wanted to get an early 8am start and go to Versailles. Turns out we set our alarms for the right time, but France is an hour ahead of Ireland. So we didn't leave the apartment until about 9, but we were all so exhausted that it all worked out for the best! So we took the metro and a train to Versailles, about an hour ride from Carole's flat, got some McDonalds breakfast to get going, turned the corner and saw....

 King Louis the 16th decided to build this excessively massive palace and decided to put gold in every nook and cranny of the house. Literally every room seemed to be fake just because the gold was SO gold. I wish i could explain it better, but every room had an insane amount of gold, paintings, and was usually color coded (in order of the rainbow too, very creative). The picture above is of the Hall of Mirrors, a very famous part of the palace. The other pictures are of just half of the palace, so imagine that times two. Now imagine that and add about 20 of those. That's around how big the grounds of the palace are. Behind the actual building are massive gardens. There is a canal and few ponds going through the grounds (not to mention the couple restaurants, biking routes, ice cream shops, and the other buildings on the grounds). So after we walked through the palace we walked the grounds to Marie Antoinette'a house (after a stop for nutella crepes and hot chocolate). I would say we walked about 6 miles easily just from our strolling around the grounds to and from the different houses (and it was freezing while we were walking too. So cranky and tired but in awe of how beautiful the gardens were we went to lunch at a local restaurant. My favorite part though (big surprise) was the dessert. I literally wanted each and every item that is in the picture. It took me about 5 minutes to decided what i wanted, and I finally decided on a strawberry tart that was beyond delicious. My friend had an eclair at the same shop and I don't think I've ever seen either of us so happy.

I can't figure out how to change the picture so its right side up, but this is the Sacred Heart Basilica. Goregous. Breathtaking. Amazing. I was semi speechless when we saw this. I'm not sure if it was the building itself or the combonation of being sentimental it was our last night in Paris along with the beauty, but it was my favorite part of our trip. After taking tons of pictures we went inside and saw all of the paintings. I must say that I think Europe has a good idea making all of their churches so goregous with all their paintings on the walls and the murals on the ceilings because church was packed. After our quick tour of the basilica we went to Montmarte, the town surrounding the church. It is known as a town full of artists and it still holds true. At 9 at night in freezing temperatures artists lined the streets showing off their work and offering to draw a portrait. We ended the night with dinner then wine and cheese at Carole's apartment. She tried to make us crepes but we had a batter malfunction so ate brie and bread along with a french dessert she made!

We had such a fun trip, full of sighseeing and visiting with Carole. Wish we could have spent more time there, but I have to say, it was good to come home and relax!

and we still kept walking....

This weekend we thought we were going on a nice fun trip around eastern cork. The six of us spent an hour to figure out what kind of outfits we would need to trek around towns we knew nothing about. So we packed up and got onto the bus and SURPRISE! this wasn't a weekend trip around eastern cork but a spiritual retreat. Our weekend turned from being a tourist to a simple relaxing weekend with the coolest monk ever. Brother Richard was the first monk I have ever met, and he completely negated the image of a meditative quirky stereotype I had in my head. He was a down to earth guy with an iphone 4 and made everyone feel at ease. We had a few "sessions" on Saturday where he brought up really interesting topics and even read people's personalities. 

The place we stayed at was on the beach, so we took a nice long walk. The houses were right next to Youghal, the town we visited the first weekend here. We thought the town was right near the hotel, which it was but we went the wrong way on the beach and ended up walking 45 minutes the wrong way. Eventually we figured it out and walked the other way and made it to town after a 2 hour walk. Thankfully the beach was gorgeous so it made it worth it!

 This is the six of us on the retreat! This weekend was not what we expected, but we still had a ton of fun!

just keep walking, walking, walking....

Going into this trip, I knew that the European way of living was very different than in America. What i was not prepared for was how much my feet would hurt. Walking 20 minutes to each place you want to go seems to be the norm here. The grocery store, our friends house, school clothing store, really any store is a 15 minute walk. The best is going to the grocery store. At home, sometimes trying to carry all the bags just to the car seems to be a endless task. Imagine carrying those same groceries for 15 minutes up a hill, on a sidewalk, and through crowds of people trying to get to where they need to be. Also, in an effort to "be green" customers have to provide their own bags when you go to grocery stores and bag their own food. This would not be a big deal, but it usually takes awhile to bag up all my stuff, and the cashier doesn't start checking out the next person until I get all bagged up. I usually have a very angry Irish native behind me who is so efficient at packing their bags they look at me like a crazy American.  So we usually carry all of our groceries in this one huge bag and our backpacks after spending what seems like 15 minutes to bag up our groceries (really only takes 2 but I'm telling you those stares really put pressure on the situation). Needless to say, I have come to appreciate both baggers in the grocery stores as well as cars SOOOO much.

Another thing I appreciate is my mom's home cooking. I never realized how much effort goes into thinking about what to make for dinner. We have to plan our dinners every week when we go to the grocery store so we don't have to make a ton of trips (if you aren't sure why, read the paragraph above). Our dinners pretty much consist of chicken nuggets, pizza, fries, and these amazing sandwiches that are made right by our house. I'm amazed by how anyone gets any more variety to their diet. I was thinking about a week's dinner at home, and I don't think we repeat any meals for about a month. How my mom does this still baffles me. So for any moms reading this, I have so much more understanding and respect for all the effort that goes into making dinners!