Last day!

Thus begins my last day in Ireland! 

We started out by going around the hostel and taking pics. 

cute no? 

anyway, once we had checked out and put our bags in a locker in the basement, we headed over to Phoenix Park.

Phoenix Park is the largest enclosed park in Europe. It was truly massive.

on top of the monument in the previous picture.

What was cool is that there are herds of wild reindeer that live in the park. We were able to get really close to them!

After we had walked around the park we went to see St. Patrick's cathedral. (did you know he's not even Irish? He was born in Britain and was captured by Irish pirates at 15)

What is so special about this house?
Oscar Wilde lived here! He is one of my favorite authors. It took us a while to find his house, but we finally did!

Here is me and Oscar Wilde!

Now, I haven't mentioned this before, but in Dublin, lots of people paint their doors. Apparently it is because there were really strict building regulations, so the only way the architect could leave his mark on the building was to make the doorway fancy and paint the door.
Here is the most ornate door I saw this weekend. On other houses the frame was super fancy.

More colorful doors.

Did you know that Ireland's colors are the same as University of Miami's? 

Yeah, they are! Kali and I had to take a picture of us throwing up the U in a gift shop.

Around 5ish we took the shuttle to the airport and headed back to London. We had a really strong tail wind so out flight landed about 20 minutes early! It was strange returning because we didn't have to show our passports, we just handed out boarding passes to a guy behind a desk. We had to go through customs going into Ireland, so I don't know what was up about coming back.

But we made it back to campus by around 10:30, not a bad trip at all!

Debbie, there's a danger sign! (Ireland day 3)

On Sunday Allison, Lauren, Kali and I went on a day trip to Wicklow county (southern Ireland). The bus picked us up in the morning and we got back around 5:30.

 We started out by driving south. We stopped at a cliff above Guiness Lake. It is called this because the water is so dark and the beach there is so light that it looks like a pint of Guiness with the foam.
Unfortunately it was super foggy and misty. SO you couldn't see the lake. It was kinda cool to peer over the edge of the cliff and seeing absolutely nothing below though.
I also completely ignored a danger sign to get these pictures. I live on the edge.

Next stop was a bridge where they filmed a scene from the movie P.S. I Love You.
I have not seen this movie, nor do I have any desire to, but it was a cool looking bridge, and it was cool to think that a popular movie was filmed there.
By this point, it was still super foggy, but the mist was starting to lift just a little.
We also stopped to see a waterfall, but again it was so misty you couldn't see much.

the lower lake

 Next up was a monastery and 2 lakes in Wicklow.
This was really cool, the monastery was near the bottom of these mountains and then it was a 10 minute walk to the lower lake and another 15 minutes to the upper lake.
I really wanted to be able to see both lakes and explore, so I went off by myself to hike and run around.

Along the way I saw some wild goats in the mountains! It was really cool!

The upper lake

 Here is a path to the ruins of an older church above the upper lake. It was super creepy, there were all the old tombstones around and it was still pretty cloudy and misty outside, and it was all the more creepy because I literally could not see or hear anyone. I scampered on out pretty quickly.

I climbed pretty far up the mountain because there were some signs saying that St. Kevin's cell was up there. When I came back I found out that St. Kevin was the one who founded the monastery, but at the time I had no idea who he was. After a pretty hard trek, I found out that his "cell" is now a 2 foot high wall on a cliff overlooking the lake. Worth it? nope.
But the view was really cool. -------->

After I had climbed as far up the mountain as I was going to go, I headed back to check out the monastery.
It was really cool, the cemetery surrounding it had some fairly recent graves and some super old ones as well, so that was neat. The tour guide said that only people whose families are buried there have a right to also be buried there, and only 9 more people might be buried in that cemetery, which I thought was pretty interesting.

Inside the church.

 After that we went to some small town and grabbed lunch at a pub and then went on to a weaving mill.
The lady there showed us all the machines that they use to weave things and then let us wander around.
I've never really been interested in the weaving process, but it was pretty cool. There were also all these HUGE spools of yarn and thread lying around.

Once we were done at the mill, we headed on back to Dublin. That night we went back to the sister hostel to unwind and watch another movie, this time it was Donnie Darko. Which, in hindsight, is not a really good "sit back and unwind" movie. But whatever. On the way back we passes by the police headquarters. Two really drunk guys were arguing with some policemen outside. We turned the corner and were halfway down to our hostel when one of the drunk guys came sprinting around the corner followed by a policeman who caught him and pinned him to the ground. It startled me like none other, but was kinda funny. All in all  a really cool day. I took some video, but I'm in the middle of writing 3 papers, so once I have made some progress on those I will work on putting the videos up. 

Dublin take 2!

the Spire 

The second day we were in Dublin, it was sunny and nice outside yay!  Among the many many helpful signs and pamphlets at the hostel was one for free walking tours of Dublin, so Kali, Lauren, Allison and I decided to wake up early and go on a tour that left the hostel at 10:20.  It turns out that the tour actually started at 11, and the 10:20 time was just to walk over there together. We were a little late, so we headed out ourselves. I had taken a lot of pictures yesterday of the streets of Dublin, but since it was so nice outside I took a lot more.

This is the Post Office. I found out Later on the tour that one of them any times the Irish revolted against the British they took over the Post Office among other important buildings. There are still bullet holes in it from the fighting that ensued. 

The double decker buses there are yellow. We ended up riding these around a lot!

The River Liffey

 

Really old cast iron bridge, its called the ha'penny bridge because in ye olde days you had to pay half a penny to cross it. They recently reinforced it using iron from the same company that built the Titanic. This same company also built the Guiness Storehouse.

This is where our tour started. It is the government building that the Irish built right next to the British government building. During some uprisings it was used as a meeting place and a retreat point.

Tower inside what they call a castle (the building the British built). Notice it is not a castle. There was a tower dating back to the 12th century though! Anyway Ireland used to have crown jewels (a necklace type thing with medals and ribbons and stuff) and they were kept in here. One day they decided to get a new safe to put them in, but the safe would not fit through the door. A man who worked here suggested that they put the jewels in a drawer in his desk that had a lock. So they did. Not surprisingly the jewels disappeared and no one knows what happened to them, although the guy whose drawer it was was obviously a main suspect.

Our awesome tour guide Helena.

12th century tower. Used to be a prison. The only guy who ever escaped from here later went on to travel to Europe with all the Irish clan's gold to but an army somewhere to fight the British. When he was crossing the Alps, he tied all the donkeys together so they wouldn't get lost. Well, one donkey slipped and so all of the gold fell off the Alps and has never been seen again.

Alright, so a lot of writers lived in Dublin. This door is where Johnathan Swift was born (he wrote among other things A Modest Proposal).

This is Christ Church cathedral. In the organ inside, they found a mummified cat and the mouse it had been chasing when they ran up the pipes and got stuck. Oddly enough they are on display inside.

Inside Trinity College, the best university in Ireland. Oscar Wilde studied here.

This is the library inside Trinity College. George Lucas used it as inspiration for his Jedi library. (meaning he asked if he could film in there and they said no so he totally recreated it on a computer. the recreation was so good they tried to sue him for it but failed.)

So, the tour was about 3 hours long. Yes, it was a really long tour, but it was really cool to see so much of Dublin and actually learn what significance some buildings had that I would not have heard of otherwise. 

After the tour was over, we grabbed lunch and hopped on a bus to go to the National Botanic Gardens.

Holy dang it is a beautiful place. 

it looked like Professor Sprout's greenhouse from Harry Potter

There were 2 large greenhouses and a number of smaller ones scattered around a park that was truly huge.

Are we in Miami or Ireland?

Outside was so pretty, I imagine it would be absolutely amazing in the summer when all the flowers are in bloom. There was a wedding going on while we ere there, or at least there was a wedding party walking around being followed by a photographer.

After we had walked around we headed back into central Dublin. That night we went to University College Dublin where Allison's friend Andrew is studying abroad and then later to a pub in the Temple Bar area. The pub was cool, but really loud, there was a live band playing. The band was actually really cool cause they did covers and mash-ups of rock music and stuff you hear on the radio. 

On the tour, our guide had mentioned how a lot of the young people liked the Spire because it was lit up at night. 

Over this trip we came to realize exactly how awesome that was. When we left the pub it was dark and we thought we knew our way back. Basically all we had to do was head toward the Spire and we knew our way back from there. You can see that thing basically anywhere you are in the city. 

a whole pint of Guniess=challenge completed! (1st day in Dublin)

This past weekend Allison, Lauren, Kali and I went to IRELAND!!!!! Specifically Dublin, although we did go on a day trip (more on that later). 

We flew out Friday morning with some of our other friends from QM Thomas, Kasi, and Abby. This was quite the voyage because we took the tube to the train, the train to the airport, the airport to Dublin and then a bus from the airport to the hostel. But we made it! The hostel we stayed at was called Isaac's Hostel. I would honestly recommend it to anyone going to Dublin. 

here is a picture of our room, there were 4 bunks, but since we paid for a 6 person room, we only ever had 2 more roommates. The first 2 nights 2 German girls stayed with us.

 After we checked out the hostel, we met up with a friend of Allison's who is studying abroad in Dublin named Andrew, got bus passes for the weekend, and headed on over to the Guiness Storehouse.

outside the Guiness Storehouse

It was kinda cool. You walked around a self-guided tour that was all about how Guiness was made, which to be honest, I didn't find all that interesting, but it was alright.

What was interesting is that apparently there is a certain way you are supposed to pour a pint of Guiness. Here are the steps folks: if you have been doing it wrong it is time to change your ways.

Got all that? according to another sign it should take 119.5 seconds. So, you know, practice and time yourselves or whatnot. 

 After you finished the tour, you went up to the bar they have at the very top of the Storehouse that has all glass walls so you can look around the city. you couldn't see that far because it was raining, but it was still a really cool view.  We also all got a free pint of Guiness.

a view outside

Finishing a whole pint of Guiness was a CHALLENGE! That stuff is filling! Oh my goodness. Halfway through the tour, you got about 1/4 of a pint to taste, so I actually went above and beyond here. Lauren, Kali and I stayed in the bar until they closed and kicked us out because we WERE finishing our pint gosh darn it! And we all did!

Done! 

I liked how Guiness tasted, but I don't think I will be drinking one for a while.
After that we headed back to grab dinned and go back to the hostel.
Isaac's hostel has a sister hostel around the corner, and every night they have a free movie night where whoever want to watch a movie can come and pick one to play in their common area. We went over and the four of us decided on Pretty Woman. By the end of the movie we were still watching it, but so were about 6 older guys. It was hilarious.

Thus was the end of day 1!