Ireland

Finally. This past spring break, I was able to travel out of the country with fifteen other kids my age and three awesome adults. After taking a weekly class for about three months, our group had gotten to know each other pretty well. After each student gave a presentation over a different aspect of the places we were going to travel to, we had all learned enough about the culture, historical sites, and things to do that we could barely hold ourselves from jumping on the next flight available.

Day One
After waiting so long to leave for those nine days away from home, I couldn't believe it when the morning was finally here. We flew from Dallas to Atlanta (two hours), and then Atlanta to Dublin (seven-eight hours). Once we got there... I was wiped out.

At the DFW airport, Helen, Joey, Samson, Nikki, Esther, Claudia and I ventured off to find some food for lunch. Nine dollars! That was the first money (out of about $500) that I spent on the trip and was very reluctant to do so. Helen was my plane buddy on the flight to Atlanta- where we had about an hour layover until our flight leading to the final destination. Upon landing in Atlanta, my air sickness that I was unaware of kicked in and I sort of freaked out. I took a motion sickness pill right after we got off the plane.

After we got off in Atlanta our big group rushed over to the mini-subway they had in the airport and finally found our terminal, which was on the other end of the airport! After waiting about twenty minutes to board, we got on and spent a long seven hours on our way to Dublin, Ireland. Helen and I were plane buddies, again! As we would be for the rest of the trip. I slept and listened to music for most of the time. The landing was better thanks to the pill. Around 7AM Dublin time, we were all running through customs and the airport to finally find our tour guide, Kate, who took us to our hotel.

Our group: Cathy, Sergey, Samantha, Krista, Joey, Juan, Megan, Helen, Nikki, Katie, Sameep, Samson, Kapela, Masha, me, Hailey, Esther, Claudia, Young, and Starkey (not pictured).

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Day Two
The time change left all of us feeling a bit groggy once we arrived in Dublin, but this didn't hold any of our excitement back. It didn't really feel like I was in a different country until we stepped outside of the airport territory. Kate briskly led us out of the airport after a few of us exchanged a bit of US Dollars for Euros so we had money for dinner to our mini-charter bus that was awaiting us across the street. I was prepared for the walk though, especially after one of our Monday night classes where we were all required to bring our suitcase packed as if we were leaving that night. Kapela had us running all over the school: up the stairs, down the hallways, down the stairs, and back to our classroom. I felt like collapsing afterward, and that definitely taught me that I needed to lighten up on my packing. After arriving at the bus I wasn't out of breath, and we all made ourselves comfortable for the fifteen minute drive to our hotel for the next few nights, the Jurys Montrose Hotel just outside of Dublin.

When we arrived, Kapela told us all to go up to our rooms and warned us that we better be back in the lobby in no less than about forty-five minutes. Esther and I went up and unpacked a little and then headed back downstairs to see Kapela at one of the tables with some Euro coins in front of her. She explained to our group that we would need coins, not bills, to ride the city bus- which we would all be doing in a few minutes. Not everyone had coins, so we all shared and traded until everyone had exact money (the city busses didin't give change). We all walked to the bus stop which wasn't that far away and boarded on our way to the heart of Dublin.

Jet lag was sort of kicking in for me by now, so I was definitely tired as we got off in the busy, yet somehow calm city. The chaperones told us that we were responsible for our own lunch and had the rest of the afternoon free. Wow! That was a lot more freedom than I had expected. Our group of seven from the airport stuck together for lunch; we bought cheap sandwiches from a convinient store and ate them in St. Steven's Green, a beautiful park right in the middle of Grafton street (a famous pedestrian shopping street). After lunch we made our way to the mall which was right across from the park. It looked so different than those in the US! We walked around for a little, used the restroom (where we had to pay twenty cents), and then split up as four didn't feel like shopping anymore. Psh... lame.

Claudia, Helen, and I spent the rest of the afternoon just... walking. Taking it all in. It was a culture shock, but honestly, a good culture shock. I loved it. Everything was green, the people were friendly, and English was spoken by pretty much everyone. It was such a difference from the States. I really can't explain it, but it was just different. Walking through the streets, we stumbled upon a doorman who was in one of the travel videos we watched in class! That was exciting. Some of the other cool things we saw were many musical groups playing randomly, huge groups of bicycles parked outside buildings, motorscooters (Dad would've loved it!), sculptures on the sidewalks, and vibrant green grass.

We ate dinner at the hotel that night and then went to bed, ready for some sleep to help cure the oh-so-awful jetlag.

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Day Three
After my roommate and I stayed up last night to watch some good old MTV (Esther said I fell asleep just a few minutes after getting into bed...), everyone woke up early the next morning to eat a traditional Irish breakfast: eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, black/white pudding, and hashbrowns. The bacon was much different than in the US- it was thick, real meat, rather than that cheap microwavable bacon you can buy in stores now. The pudding is traditional to Ireland, so no one had tried it before except Kapela, who had been there before. It was basically a sort of meat patty... I don't really know how to explain it. The black one was alright, the white was even better, so all in all, I'm proud to say I tried it.

Afterward, our group boarded the bus on our way to St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin. It was a rather long bus ride through some important parts of the city, so Kate the Tourgide attempted to inform us of the history as we passed through places like Ha'Penny Bridge. Oh, and did I mention that Kate was from Great Britain? Everything she said had a British twist on it, and Kapela was getting very annoyed with her lack of organization by this point. Today we also had a professional tour guide with us named John, who would tonight replace Kate as our permanent tour guide. John took us through the cathedral and gave us very in-depth reviews of every stone, wall, carving, and chapel that was worthy and important, which was a lot of them. Helen had a coughing fit and one of the priests went and got her a glass of water- "I'm drinking holy water!" She was so excited.

Our next stop was Trinity College. This is where Starkey (Kapela's old English teacher) attended for a couple years so she led us around the campus for a bit. Once again, the grass was very, very green. This time there were signs that said "Keep off the Grass". Emoface for Helen, who wanted to do somersaults in the lawn. Anyway, we continued on to see the Book of Kells, which was located inside part of the old library the school housed. Although there was a lot of history here, I wasn't really interested and browsed through the display rather quickly. Next we went through a library called the Long Room. It was one long walkway with short rooms full of books branching out from either side of it. At the front of each room there was a head sculpture of a famous person from the literature, science, etc. world. I spent a little money at the gift shop, but refrained from buying the forty euro sweatshirt! I was proud. Samson spent fifteen euro on a tiny little music box... kind of creepy.

The rest of the day was free time. Our smaller group spent a lot of time just walking around again. We bought sandwiches from a convinient store again and ate them outside. Kapela and the rest of the chaperones saw us, and she was so proud of us for being frugal and sticking together! The weather got to be pretty rainy so we pulled our umbrellas out. Pretty much every day in Ireland was rainy and a bit chilly, but I liked it almost better than the Texas weather back at home.

Our group took the bus back to the hotel and ate dinner on location once again. After dinner, we went to the pub adjacent to our hotel and just kind of hung out. We were obvious Americans, so a group of Irishmen started up a conversation about where we were from and how we liked it here. It ended up in everyone exchanging songs, ranging from some Irish song about a yellow triangle to I Like Big Butts. Interesting.

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Day Four
Today was a somewhat early morning as we loaded the bus to travel onward to Killarney. On our way, we stopped at St. Patrick's Rock of Cashel. Although once again I wasn't that interested in the history, I did learn that the castle was once called "home" by a boy's choral group. Some rooms of the castle had obviously been redone, but most of the main pieces were still in their previous rooms and intact, like hanging rugs, benches, and sculptures- the famous one being the Trinity Cross. One of the interesting things about the Rock of Cashel was that it had small heads or faces carved into random places. It was actually kind of creepy. In the corners there would just be a random head sculpture sticking out and staring at you. After looking at some of the indoor rooms the guide led us out to the cemetary outside, where the graves had people burried from centuries ago to just recently. The reason people could be burried so recent is because their family was burried on the castle grounds, so they had the right to be burried there. Many celtic crosses could be spotted on top of graves or on gravestones (the crosses with the circle around the intersection of the lines). The outside view was beautiful.

Another stop on our way to Killarney was Blarney Castle (two castles in one day!). Everyone was more excited to stop here, mostly because of the beloved Blarney Stone. Previously I had thought that it was just a rock on the ground, but on location I learned that you had to climb a very narrow spiraling stairway hundreds of feet up to the top of the castle, lean very far backwards, and kiss the stone- which was built into the castle. Although my dad warned me that the locals urinated on the stone at night, I still went ahead and (barely) kissed the stone to receive the ever-so-neccessary Gift of Gab.

We finally pulled into our hotel in the small city of Killarney in time to get ready for dinner in the hotel restaurant, which was Shepard's Pie! My favorite. After dinner, Esther and I went up to our room, to find that it was at the end of a very long hallway and the single window opened up to a concrete wall which was just... scary. It didn't help that for a little while we watched a movie about a little girl that fell down a well. We were just creeped out. While walking around with Helen and Claudia, Samson started following us and jumping out and scaring us so we finally just asked Kapela if we could sleep in someone else's room so we wouldn't be all alone at the end of the hallway. Kapela agreed and we roomed with some of the other girls- thank goodness! Later that night Kapela took a group of us to a pub down the road. It was really crowded and kind of awkward since we weren't allowed to drink, so we were obviously out of place. We left and went back to the hotel and tried to get a good night's sleep for the next long day of driving ahead.

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Day Five
After an okay night's sleep at the creepy hotel, everyone had free time to spend around the city until about 11:30am, when we would head to the Cliffs of Moher near Doolin. We had a chance to take our bus down to Ross Castle (a fifteen minute walk as described by John), but the boys wanted to shop around the city instead. Because of this, the girls all had to walk down that rainy morning since we wanted to see the castle. We carefully followed the map, yet found ourselves passing the sign to Killarney National Park, which was NOT on the map. Hmmm. We asked a person driving by if they knew where the castle was, and they said to keep going and we'd run into it. At this point we'd been walking nearly forty-five minutes when we finally saw the castle (and my hair, once straight, had turned curly thanks to the rain). Only having about an hour left before we had to be back at the hotel, we quickly led ourselves around the outside of the castle since the inside tours were guided-only and took around thirty minutes to complete. After a few quick pictures of the parts of the castle without construction going on, we briskly started on our way back to the hotel. As we were leaving, who did we see? The boys coming to see the castle! Sheesh. That was a bit frustrating since we walked forty-five minutes in the rain to see a castle under construction. Oh well.

At 11:30am we quickly boarded the bus on the way to the lovely Cliffs of Moher. The Cliffs extend many miles and are hundreds of feet tall, and there's no wall holding anyone back from falling off. Once we arrived, we waited in the bus (which was shaking violently from the heavy rain and wind... yes, it was safe to go!) for Kapela to go get our tickets before we unloaded. It was a quick walk to the actual Cliffs, and when we got there it was almost impossible to see how far they extended because of the rain. Every umbrella that was brought out was ruined from the wind and everyone who went out got soaked. You can see in some of the pictures the aftermath of the wind, but finally the weather died down and things cleared up to where we could fully appreciate the mass and beauty of the Cliffs. Thirty minutes later, we were all back on the bus and made a quick drive to Doolin where we'd be staying for the night.

We stayed in the Doolin Activity Lodge. It was by far the nicest place we had stayed at all- it was more like a big house than a hotel. A large number of the girls shared one of the "houses" and Esther and I slept in the same room together again. Room buddies! Next to the lodge was a large sheep pasture, which Samson was very excited about. For dinner we drove to Gus O'Connor's Pub (one of three in the very small town) and ate beef stew and this delicious brown bread. Our table of five ate at least three baskets of the bread... it was so so so good. Starkey bought the special flour you need to cook it, so I'm definitely going to try and find her and get her to make me some bread. Starkey bought each table a pint of Guinness to share because according to her, "You can't go to Ireland without drinking Guinness". Our table split the glass into five so each person had just enough to get a taste for what it was like. After dinner, we exchanged American songs for Irish ones with some of the locals and just had a good time. This night was sort of hard for me because I was definitely feeling homesick and sort of getting tired with being with the same people every day, but I still had fun. A good night's sleep helped out a lot.

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Day Six
I didn't want to wake up this morning, but I did. The girls watched Dora the Explorer in some Irish language and then ate breakfast in the dining room of the lodge. Once we got on the bus, I started thinking about everything I had just went through.

I didn't want to leave Ireland at all. The beautiful country, the awesome experience with friends, the wonderful new onlook that I had already started to take on being outside of my own country, my home. Traveling to Ireland provided me with so many stories to tell, so many memories to look back on... I miss it so much. Every time I get stressed out, I always think "I wish I were back in Ireland". It was such an amazing trip, especially since I got to spend so much time with some of my closest friends, like Helen, Claudia, Joey, and Samson. Although our entire spring break trip wasn't over (we still had London to go), I thought of Ireland as a completely different traveling experience. I appreciate my parents so much for paying for most of it and letting me go... I'll never forget it.

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Goodbye, Ireland.