Snowy Stockholm

I made it back from Stockholm, tired (up at 3:40 to head to the airport) but happy. Stockholm was great!

My friend Ryan and I flew into Stockholm on Thursday. We stayed with Ryan's uncle and 3 cousins. It couldn't have been more fun!

Friday Ryan and I took a tour of the City Hall in the morning. We met up with his cousin, Erika, when she was done with school to walk around the Gamla stan (Old City) and grab lunch at a cafe. We met up with Ryan's 2 other cousins, Hannah and Jonathon, at the Medieval Museum after lunch. To end the day, we went to Modern Art Museum. Stockholm has nearly 70 museums which is nice especially when the weather is cold and snowy. It was nice to see snow again though since I really didn't have much winter at home and it doesn't snow that often in Dublin.
Friday night we had a fish fry at the apartment and then watched the Olympics till late at night. That was nice because Ireland really doesn't care about the Olympics. I've been dying to just watch a little bit of it. Thankfully Sweden pays a bit more attention to it.

On Saturday morning we had Swedish pancakes for breakfast. YUM! Then we kids headed out to more museums: the Historiska Museet and the Vasa Museum. The Vasa Museum was really cool. The Vasa was a big warship that sank in Stockholm's harbor in 1628 on its maiden voyage. They found the wreck in the 1950s and salvaged it. It took them nearly 3o years to restore but now it's in the museum.

Saturday night we watched more Olympics-saw the Swedes take gold and bronze in cross country skiing. And then it was time to leave. We were back in Dublin by 9 this morning.

I'm not going to lie. I was ready to get out of the snow and get back to Dublin's more moderate weather. (Remember when I said that Dublin doesn't get snow that often?) When we dipped under the clouds on our descent into Dublin, we saw SNOW! It snowed in Dublin last night! Thankfully it was all melting already which I was happy about.

Stockholm was so fun! It was great staying with Ryan's uncle and cousins and not in a hostel, getting home cooked meals, hanging out with Ryan's cousins and having them show us around. Now I am ready for a weekend here in Dublin since I haven't had one since the second to last weekend in January. I have essays due next week that need to be written and my friend Ashley has ND friends coming in from Austria this weekend so we'll have fun showing them around the city.

Dingle

Let me just start this off by saying that I have now been in Ireland for a whole month! Wow. It is going by way too quickly already!

I had been anticipating spending this past weekend in Dublin since I haven't done that in a few weeks. But when my friend Kaitlyn suggested we head out to Tralee and Dingle, I couldn't say no. It was so worth the trip.

We planned to stay in Tralee 2 nights and go to Dingle for just a day. When we got to Tralee, though, we decided to go to Dingle that day and spend the night. It was the best decision. Dingle was an hour-long bus ride away but the drive was beautiful! It's the prettiest part of Ireland I have seen so far.We found a hostel to stay in and then headed out for a short walk. The scenery was so beautiful! And we had sunshine!
That night we headed to a few pubs. It was nice because since it's the off season there weren't many tourists so it was basically us and the locals in the pubs. We stopped at this pub called O'Flaherty's and ended up spending most of the night there. Our friend Sam got to talking with a local guy. Later in the night the bartender/owner and a few other guys played started playing some Irish music. We also found out from the owner that the local Sam had been talking to was a great Irish dancer and he ended up dancing a bit for us. All in all it was good craic.

What wasn't very fun was the hostel we stayed in. It was fine for sleeping but sometime during the night, the heater must have turned off. It was freezing when we woke up!! To top it all off, the hostel had no hot water! Because of that all of us could not warm up for the rest of the day.

We took the bus back to Tralee that afternoon and were planning to catch the rugby match and stay the night. But when we got to Tralee we collectively decided we all just wanted to get back to Dublin that night.

Even though we left early it was still a really good weekend. Here is the real highlight of the weekend though! Dingle has this famous friendly dolphin, Fungie. He's been around since the mid-80s. They have tour boats that go out to see him and everything. We were all joking around about seeing him. If any of us saw something in the water, we'd yell, "FUNGIE!!" Unfortunately on our walk we did not spot him. But as our bus was leaving Dingle, I looked back and saw one of the tour boats that goes out to find Fungie and THERE HE WAS! So I woke my friend Ashley up and we both got to see him!So I am traveling again this coming weekend and then hopefully just staying in Dublin the next weekend! I really need a weekend here especially since I have essays due soon! So after going to Stockholm this weekend I will get to work!

Galway!

Another weekend, another trip. Going to Galway this weekend was a great idea! We didn't even really decide we were going till the beginning of the week! It was really nice to see more of Ireland. Galway is on the west coast and we took the train there so we definitely go to see a lot more of the countryside.

We spent Friday just doing our own little walking tour. We saw the church where Christopher Columbus stopped on his way to the New World. We walked along the pier. We stopped in the shops. Ashley, Kaitlyn, and I bought souvenirs: Claddagh rings! They were originally made in that area. The ring is two hands holding a crowned heart. It's really pretty. We felt bad for dragging our friend Ryan to all the jewelry shops though but it was worth it.
Friday night we made our own pub crawl! We visited 6 different pubs around Galway! It was a good mix. We had some good traditional Irish music at a few of them. Overall, they were less crowded and cheaper than pubs in Dublin.

Saturday morning we did something amazing! We ate the full Irish breakfast. Now this is not for the faint of heart. It was a lot of food. Let me see if I can remember: tea, orange juice, toast, bacon (kind of like Canadian Bacon), a fried egg, fried potatoes, mushrooms, half a tomato, baked beans, sausage, black pudding, and white pudding. We were so full afterwards. None of us wanted to eat till dinner.
After breakfast, we wandered through the farmers' market and then walked by the river up to the Cathedral. Even though it was really foggy out we decided to walk out to Salthill to go on the promenade by the sea. We didn't have much of a view but it was still fun.

Ireland was playing Italy in rugby that afternoon (they just started the Six Nations tournament. It's a pretty big deal especially since Ireland is the defending champ from last year) so we headed into a pub to watch the match. I'm starting to feel like I have a little bit of an idea of what is going on in a rugby match though it still looks a little chaotic to me at times. Ireland won the match and we chatted with a nice Irish guy throughout the game. Irish people will talk to Americans about anything and they often seem much more interested in current American events than any of us are.

So that was the weekend in Galway. It's been a good start to the week here in Dublin. We watched the Super Bowl last night at O'Connell House. This weekend I might head to Tralee and the Dingle Peninsula with some friends and then next weekend I am heading to Stockholm. Hopefully a weekend just in Dublin at the end of the month!