Edinburgh, Scotland

Scotland - kilts, plaid, and a castle is all I think of when I imagine Scotland. Well, it didn't dissapoint when we went there for a quick two day jaunt. The town in relativly small, so we saw all the sights in just a day including the castle, the famous Royal Mile, and numerous other sights. Luckily for us, the two people I went with had friends studying abroad there so they showed us all around the town! Even though there wasn't a ton to see, it was one of my favorite cities, looked like it came straight out of a movie.

 One of the last bars on this street is called Last Drop. This was the last drink that people who were about to be hung had before the final deed was executed. The square where the public hangings were performed is just to the right of this picture. Despite its dreary history, this square is now one of the most beautiful spots (in my opinion) in Edinburgh!

The Edinburgh Castle, the landmark that all the locals use for directions. The castle is perched high up on a mountain and can be seen from almost all the city.  Any time we asked for directions, the first step was "Walk towards the castle...." The castle itself was humongous and mesmerizing. Being in Ireland we have seen a lot of castles, but this one took the cake. Amazing.

Scotland was also full of views. Everywhere we went seemed to be up a steep hill with the best view of the city. I especially like it because there were mountains right next to the city! So cool to see such opposites so close together.

Fun fact about Scotland for all you Harry Potter fans- J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in a pub called "The Elephant House" in the heart of Edinburgh. The picture above is of a church surrounded by a huge cemetery. This cemetery is where she got ideas for numerous names used in Harry Potter including Tom Riddle and McGonagall (not sure if that's the right spelling).

Scotland was a great trip. It was definetly my favotire city of all the places we've been as far as a quaint, cute, little town that was filled with sights and a historic feel, but homey at the same town. If I had to pick a second place to study abroad it would be Edinburgh (I have to say though, I am not regretting being in Ireland one bit, I LOVE LOVE LOVE it here!)

the month of march...

wow! I can't believe its been so long since I last posted on here. March has been a truly busy month not only with just schoolwork but it also marked the beginning of families starting to visit Ireland!!! Leigh and Amy (two friends that went to Mary Washington but we met in Ireland) had four of their friends come visit for a week and we all ended up going to Dublin together! We saw the infamous Temple Bar area and went sightseeing for a weekend before saying goodbye. While the rest of the group went on a bus tour all day Saturday, two of my friends from Cork and I went souvenir shopping! I've been in Ireland for three months already and had yet to shop! (A fact I'm pretty proud of by the way!) While we were shopping we saw so many street performers, some sand artists, the people that stand really still (don't know what they're called), and musicians! Dublin was such a fun city to make a quick weekend getaway.

Unfortunately, after the Dublin weekend came two weeks of non-stop schoolwork. I lived in the library franticly trying to finish my 3 papers, marketing project and study for my three tests. March seems to be the month where everything for all of my classes are due! Thankfully I got it all finished (except for one paper due Friday)! Ireland has a very interesting way of scheduling schoolwork. There is usually only two grades for an entire corse. One is the final which is generally worth 70-80% of the total grade. The other part is call "continuous assessment" which I naively took to be homework assignments and tests throughout the semester. But Ireland likes having its own unique way of doing things. This continuous assessment really mean a 2,000 word research paper for each and every class. So, needless to say I've had my hands full the past two weeks getting all my schoolwork done. I can't really complain though because January and February equated to literally no work except looking over notes, so I guess it was time to put in a little elbow grease and knock out a few papers and study.


Another exciting event that happened in March to make this busy month even more chaotic (but still even more fun!) was............

ST. PATRICKS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


I still can't believe I spent St. Patty's Day in Ireland. Not only was every single person decked out head to toe in green there was such a sense of pride in everyone in the streets. Of course, supporting my Irish heritage (i am kelly o'dolan :)  ) i was decked out in green along with the rest of my friends and even wore some Kanye shamrock shades, had a shamrock milkshakes and some green food! It was a day where everyone was each other's best friend and the city transformed itself into a manifestation of all things stereotypical Irish!  Here's some pictures of St. Patty's!

After these past two weeks of nothing but library time, I realized that this means traveling month is ALMOST HERE!!!! My friend's aunt just got Taylor Swift tickets in Dublin this Sunday. For those of you who don't know, Taylor Swift is my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE singer and I've wanted to go to one of her concerts for years! Another dream of mine is coming true! So Sunday I'm off to Dublin with some friends to see Taylor Swift then heading off to Scotland Tuesday for our 5 day trip to Edinburgh! After Edinburgh starts the month of April which is a "studying month" in UCC. Students take all their finals from fall and spring semesters in May here, so many people have up to 12 finals in May. Luckily for study abroad students this means a month to travel Europe! And that is exactly what I'm planning on doing! After Scotland we have a two week trip planned to Germany and Spain. The day after we get home from Barcelona my parents, sister, and two cousins are coming to spend 9 days in Ireland and see all the gorgeous sights that I can't stop talking about. After the family trip the six of us "traveling buddies" will end our trips together by going to Greece! First we're going to Athens then Santorini (where Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 was shot!)! I can't even describe how excited I am for the next 5 weeks. This whole experience of living in Europe has literally been a dream come true, wish it would never end! Hopefully I'll be better about posting things more frequently, but I'll only be home a few days in April so bear with me!

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!