Almost half way through the semester, insane. Midterms are this week and next week so stress levels are rising. My new thing is to go into city center and just get off-campus at least once a week. I usually meet up with my friend Corinne (who I know from Ithaca and is also studying abroad here). We usually just walk around the city, it's nice seeing a familiar face. This past week while walking along Grafton Street we decided to get up close and personal with Molly Malone...apparently it's good luck to grab her bosoms, so of course we had to try it.
Within a few hours I ran into an old friend from high school and we ended up grabbing coffee and catching up on life. How random/lucky is that? Thanks Molly!
Anyway, this weekend was super fun. On Saturday, I went with the study abroad program to Newgrange and Trim Castle. Newgrange is this ancient pagan tomb thing where the sun shines exactly into it on the winter solstice. You have to go underground in this tiny cramped area, with very few lights, to get inside. Plus there is all these insane cave carvings and tomb things. Totally creepy but totally cool. And then they turn the lights out and all the ghosts swoop right in...just kidding on that last part but they really do turn the lights out. It's really hard to describe, even when my mom asked me about it, my response was "It's like this old place". 5,000 years old to be exact.
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| Maggie, Katie, Myself & Callan in front of Newgrange |
Trim Castle was also really cool. Sorry I keep using the word "cool" I don't know how else to describe these places. Or at least we thought Trim was really cool until we went to the Blarney Castle the next day.
Sunday we took a bus tour to Cork, Blarney Castle, and Cobh. The Blarney Castle is freakin' huge, and majestic, and ancient, and just really really cool. That's where we all kissed the Blarney Stone. Legend has it that this guy rescued this girl who was drowning in a lake. When he pulled her out he put her on this rock, gave her CPR (mouth to mouth) and she came back to life...but she wouldn't stop talking for 7 years. So if you kiss the Blarney Stone, you will be given the "Gift of Gab" for 7 years. It really does sort of work, we were all really giddy after kissing the stone we literally went frolicking around the castle grounds, climbing trees, and putting flowers in our hair....or we were just high off of the cleaning products they use to sanitize the stone either way it was nice.
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| Blarney Castle |
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| Kissing the Blarney Stone! Yes, you have to lean over backwards! |
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| Climbing Trees! |
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| Frolicking through all the flowers |
Before Blarney Castle, we stopped at a marine port town called Cobh (pronounced "Cove"). This is the last port Titanic stopped in before heading to New York. I was really excited about this stop as I have always had this fascination about the Titanic. I have all the books and have watched all the Discover/History Channel documentaries...nerd life. We went to the White Star Line headquarters which has been converted into a museum called the Titanic Experience. When you enter they give you a boarding pass of a third class passenger who left from Cobh and then you walk through the museum as if you were a passenger on the Titanic all the way till the sinking of the ship, where you get in a fake lifeboat. At the end you find out if your person survived. 123 people left from Cobh and only 44 people survived. About 6 of us went through the museum, my person was the only one that didn't make it, rough.
The girl I had was Mary Delia Burns, she was a 17 year old housemaid. She was traveling with 2 friends, one of whom survived. I posted the link of the survivor's story under Mary's name...it's really sad though.
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| RIP Mary Delia Burns |
On a lighter note, spring break is coming up very quickly. This weekend I plan to get all my homework and laundry done so I can start getting ready for the big backpacking trip.
Also, my Education in Ireland page is up! My video is super cheesy, it was my first time using iMovie so don't judge. Still in the process of converting from Microsoft Movie Maker and all things related to PCs. They have also asked me to do video blogs versus written blogs...maybe I really did receive the gift of gab from the Blarney Stone.
Education in Ireland promotes people coming abroad and studying in Ireland. So my job is to blog about how amazing Dublin and UCD is, which isn't very hard to do. I'm already looking into coming back for my Master's. It's way cheaper and Europe is way ahead of the US in sustainable development.
Thank you for your continued interest in my adventures! Slainte!
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