My Alternative to Tulip Time

I was not quite sure we'd make it to Amsterdam! The Irish airports didn't open till Wednesday and our flight was out early Friday morning. Thankfully the ash cleared up and we were able to get to Amsterdam. (Me being paranoid and all had planned how to get from the Netherlands back to Ireland by ferry just in case the ash came back and we were stranded.) Our flight left so early Friday morning that none of us really slept the night before. It made for an interesting first day in Amsterdam. Thankfully our group (it was me, Kaitlyn, Ryan, and Jackie this time) got along really well.

Friday we checked into our hostel and then went on a free walking tour of the city. The tour was great. It's put on by a group called New Europe. They have free walking tours in a bunch of different cities in Europe. Amsterdam was beautiful! I loved the canals. On the lovely afternoons we were there people just cruised up and down the canals in their boats. Saturday we ventured out of the city. First we went to the Keukenhof Gardens. They were beautiful!! Almost all the flowers were in bloom and we had perfect weather that day. It was there I introduced my friends to poffertjes! Yum! I love those things! In the afternoon we went to Zaanse Schans and saw a bunch of windmills! I bought stroopwafels there. Those and the poffertjes just made my day!
Saturday night we did the Anne Frank house. It was a good museum, interesting and thought-provoking. That night we just got pizza, sat by a canal, and people watched. It was one of my favorite things we did in Amsterdam actually. Sunday we went to the Van Gogh museum in the morning. I liked the museum because it was smaller and we were able to see the whole museum (mostly because they had a floor and a half closed but it was still a great museum.) For the afternoon we relaxed with a canal tour and souvenir shopping. (And, of course, we ate more poffertjes!)
It was a quick trip but a lot of fun! Amsterdam and the Netherlands are beautiful! It's been added to the list of places I need to visit again some day.

Also, sorry for the shorter post. Finals are looming and Ireland/Europe is proving a pretty good distraction from studying.

My Weekend in Paris...Or not

I don't know if you have been keeping up with the news but most of the airports in Europe have been closed for 5 days now. Volcano erupting in Iceland? Ya, Dublin's airport closed too. I was supposed to fly to Paris on Thursday. That flight got canceled and I was moved to a flight on Friday which was, of course, canceled as well. Thankfully Aer Lingus let us move our flights back 2 weeks. Hopefully hopefully hopefully this whole volcano mess is over by then!

Me and my friends Ashley and Kaitlyn decided not to waste the weekend so we headed to Cork instead. It was a great girls weekend! Got into Cork Friday evening. Had a drink at a pub that was having a trad session. Then we ate dinner at a really great Asian restaurant called Wagamama's.On Saturday we walked around Cork and then headed to Blarney Castle. I know it is really touristy but the three of us loved Blarney. Of course I kissed the Blarney Stone at the top of the castle. Then we wandered around the grounds which were beautiful. After the walk we just napped in the grass with a view of the castle. No big deal.That night we had a few drinks at a local microbrewery we'd heard about. It was called the Franciscan Well Brewery. We loved that place. They had great beers!
And on Sunday we headed back to Dublin. It wasn't Paris but our weekend was still great!

Now back to that silly volcano. It was the airports closing that really made me realize that I have been living on an island for the past 3 months. An island. The only way for me to get anywhere outside of Ireland would have been by boat. How weird is that? (Also if you were wondering, the ash cloud is not something you can see. It's been sunny and clear almost every day since Friday! They are saying that if it rains here we could actually see the ash fall though.) We're hoping that the airports start opening up again in the next few days. Dublin says they're hoping to get some flights out tomorrow but we'll see what happens. They've said things like that before. I'm supposed to go to Amsterdam this weekend but am not at all sure that that will happen. If I don't make it, it probably won't be such a bad thing since I have finals coming up soon and in the Irish system they are all worth at least 60% of my final grade. Wow. I should stop blogging and get back to studying!

Easter in Rome

Figured it was about time I blogged about Rome since I've been back for nearly a week and a half now. (The picture is of me in front of the ND flag in front of the Colosseum waiting for Stations of the Cross with the pope.)

Rome was beautiful and amazing. Notre Dame does a trip/pilgrimage every year for study abroad students in Europe so it was nice to be around a bunch of ND kids. There were over 100 of us there!

I flew out to Rome Thursday morning with my friend Ashley since the 2 of us don't have class Thursdays. We got in and the weather was beautiful! 60s and sunny. A nice change from the rain, cold, and wind we'd been having in Dublin. We headed to the villa we were staying in (me just for one night since I took the place of my friend Kaitlyn). After that, Mike, an ND student studying in Rome, showed us around the city. We walked by the Colosseum and Forum. We went into the Pantheon. That night we headed to the Basilica of St. John Lateran for mass with the pope. It was crazy to say the least. The crowd jostled to get a glimpse of the pope and to get communion. It was interesting. The church, mass, and music was beautiful. That night we had good Italian food and wine! Italy is definitely my favorite country for eating so far.

The next day we picked Kaitlyn up from the airport around noon. After dropping her bag at the villa, we found pizza for lunch. Then we just walked around the city some more. Ate more pizza and got gelato. Then we headed to the Colosseum for Stations of the Cross with the Pope! We had to wait for a long time but it was worth it.
Saturday morning we had to be up early to get to the Vatican. ND had arranged for a guided tour of the Vatican Museums for the group. The tour was amazing and a bit overwhelming. The museum was really crowded due to the holiday but it really helped that we had a tour guide to get us through. After a lunch of pizza with an Italian waiter who liked to sing to us, we headed back to the Pantheon and then went on a short walking tour of various churches with relics of important saints.

That night we ate a great Italian dinner again. Then we headed out to see the Trevi fountain at night. It was beautiful.

The next morning we were up early again--this time for Easter mass at the Vatican with the pope. We looked outside that morning and it was a little cloudy but we thought nothing of it. Unfortunately, it started raining just as mass was about to start. And I was wearing a white dress and had no rain coat or umbrella. Despite the rain, mass was an amazing experience. My favorite part was the papal message after mass was over. The pope said "Happy Easter" in probably 80 different languages with people of those languages cheering loudly when he got to theirs. It was really cool.

We treated ourselves to a hearty Italian lunch after we changed into dry clothes at the hostel and then just bummed around the city. We stopped in a couple different churches that we'd missed on our walking tour (no shortage of churches in Rome) and braved the Spanish Steps in a steady rain. We called it an early night, exhausted from two very busy, early days.

The next day I met up with Ashley and Kaitlyn again. We met a priest Ashley knows from home, Father Matthew, who is studying in Rome for a few years. He brought an Augustinian brother along who happened to be Irish! The two of them showed us around the city. The Irish brother took us up to the terrace of the Augustinian house in the Vatican to give us a great view of St. Peter's. They showed us to a few beautiful churches and treated us to pizza for lunch. We walked by the Spanish steps again and Piazza di Popolo. They also showed us to a really great gelato place right by the Vatican. After we parted ways with them, we went to Castel Sant'Angelo which had great views of the city. Then we wandered to find another gelato place that was recommended to us. On the way to the train station we went by the Trevi Fountain again so Kaitlyn and I could throw coins in to make sure we'd come back to Rome someday.

And then it was time to leave. We got back into Dublin late that night, welcomed back by lovely Dublin weather (really cold and really windy).

I've been working on a big paper since then and am looking forward to the end of my classes this week. Paris this weekend and hopefully between finishing up my paper and starting to study for finals I can update this blog! Can't believe how quickly time is passing. I only have a little bit more than a month left here in Ireland!