The Beginning of the End

We had our last mass and dinner of the semester tonight. It's hard to believe that I have already been in Ireland for 4 months. I can remember the anticipation when I found out last February that I'd be heading to Ireland the next spring. For nearly a year I thought and dreamed about living in Ireland. And also, I remember the fear of the unknown--getting on the plane to Dublin and feeling like I had no idea what I was doing. I've learned that sometimes you just have to do things even if you are scared or don't quite know what you are doing. You just have to jump right in.

But these four months have been the most amazing months of my life. I don't think I am quite able to process it yet and might not be able to until I get home. I've learned a lot, seen new countries, done interesting things and met some awesome people. I've learned more about myself. I've gained a new perspective on the world and America.

Up until tonight I really thought I was ready to come home. But as my departure date gets closer and closer, I am finding that I don't want to leave at all. The other ND students in the program and the staff at the O'Connell House have been like family for the last 4 months and it's hard to think of all of us going our separate ways. Also, who knows when I will be back to Ireland? I know I will someday but I've come to love this island and the people who live here. I will miss the pubs, the beauty of the west of Ireland and I just can't bring myself to think about leaving. Dublin has definitely become home.

That's all for now, I guess. My departure is set for this Sunday, May 16. (Of course, barring any disturbances because of the volcano. Pray that it doesn't cause me any problems on the way home!) I'll leave you for now with a few of my favourite photos (and a favourite song) of the semester!

Finally made it to Paris!

Hello everybody! Can't believe I am already blogging about my last trip in Europe! I head back to the States 10 days from now! That is crazy!

Now, my trip to Paris was supposed to be 2 weeks ago. But the whole volcano thing happened and we had to push it back. It actually ended up working really well. I had 2 finals last week so was definitely ready for a break before finishing everything up. The trip was also fun because it was a GIRLS' WEEKEND! Just me and Ashley and Kaitlyn.

We got into Paris Friday morning. Ate crepes for lunch. Yum! And then we went on a free walking tour of the city. After the walking tour we went to Les Invalides and then the Eiffel Tower! That night after dinner we had wine and cheese while sitting by the Eiffel Tower.On Saturday morning we went to the Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame de Paris, and Montparnasse Tower. In the afternoon we went to Montmartre and Sacra Coeur. It was beautiful, on a hill overlooking the rest of the city.Sunday morning we got up early to get to the Louvre when it opened. The Louvre was a lot of fun and only a bit overwhelming. Museums are free the first Sunday of every month so we were fighting the crowds. But we managed to see the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. I didn't go up close to see the Mona Lisa. The large crowd of people around it scared me off. I liked the Louvre but it was too big to do only in a morning. My real favorite was the Musee d'Orsay which has works of people like Monet and Van Gogh. The paintings were lovely and it was much smaller than the Louvre.
Then it was time for us to leave. I was so glad we made it to Paris though. We ate lots of good food. The weather was lovely even though the forecast had said it was supposed to rain for 2 of our 3 days there.

Now it is back to studying and exams for me! Hopefully I can find the time for one more post before it's time for me to head home!

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!

Northern Ireland

This past weekend, I had my last class trip. The first trip we took was a beautiful trip to the west of Ireland right at the beginning of spring break. This trip was a pretty different. For the trip, we headed up to Northern Ireland for the weekend.

Of course, most of us know about the Troubles in Northern Ireland, have seen news of bombings, riots, and murders (not as much though for my generation since things have really calmed down especially since the Good Friday Agreement of 1998). But seeing it on the news is so different from going to where it actually takes place.

In that sense, the trip was rather sobering (though we did have some fun). We drove up on Friday and first stopped at Intertrade Ireland. It is an organization set up to promote trade and business relations between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Basically, their goal is an all-island economy though they can't really say this because some Unionists don't like that idea. After that, we headed up to Belfast and Stormont, where their Legislative assembly meets. The assembly was dissolved in the 1970s and power went solely to Westminster. The Good Friday Agreement gave power back to Northern Ireland though due to other disagreements they have only been self-governing now for about 2 years, which is the longest stretch of time since before the 1970s. We had a Q&A period with a DUP politician. The DUP, Democratic Unionist Party, is the hardline Unionist party and the majority party currently in the assembly. I should've probably first said that there are 2 big divides in Northern Irish politics (and they aren't by religion though that is a big indicator of which side you fall on). The divide is between Unionists, who support the Union with Britain, and Nationalists, who would favor unification with Ireland. Of course, the Unionists tend to be Protestant and the Nationalists tend to be Catholic. The DUP guy we talked with was actually really young, only 29, but boy, did he have an answer for everything! It actually got a little tense at times because our professor, Kevin, who is extremely knowledgeable and not afraid to ask the tough questions, wouldn't back down on things. But it was extremely informative. It was interesting to see how the Troubles had affected this young man who missed the worst of the Troubles. Yet, you could clearly identify his biases, especially towards Sinn Fein, the nationalist party at the other side of the spectrum. (he insinuated that they were all terrorists) The thing is with the situation that these politicians are bitter enemies. Some of them probably did plot each others' deaths. Many Sinn Fein members spent time in prison. Yet now these two political groups are expected to work together. No wonder things are still so complicated there.

Friday night we headed out of Belfast to our hotel. We ate a great dinner the highlight of which was a dessert called Banoffee pie. I think it's an Irish thing because I had never heard of it before. Basically it is a toffee and banana pie which is just delicious. That night at our hotel there wasn't much to do in the town so most of us just hung out in the hotel bar. They had a Dj and though the clientele was much much older than all of us (think 60s and 70s) we had a good time. They were probably pretty amused with us American college students out on the dance floor that night.

The next morning we went to Giant's Causeway, which is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption (thank you wikipedia). It was really cool! (Even when Kevin gave us an extended lecture out on the Causeway where it was really windy and really cold.) We also went on the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge out to this island originally used for fishing and sheep grazing. It was a great time for those of us who aren't scared of heights.For the afternoon we went back into Dublin and had a tour of Belfast with a local man, Peter Maguire. This tour focused on the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods and the political murals in these areas. Peter grew up in Belfast in the near the Falls Road in the Catholic area. He gave us personal insight into what Belfast was like during the Troubles. His grandfather was beaten to death for being Catholic, one of his uncles was killed, and he also lost his best friend. He himself was beaten badly by a British officer one time when all he was doing was driving a date back home. His point-of-view helped me understand why the situation is so complicated. It is because for these people it is so personal. Many of these people had someone close to them killed or in some way hurt during the Troubles. (Kevin gave the statistic that the death toll in Northern Ireland which was about 4000 during the troubles would be equivalent to 5 million Americans dying when you compare the populations.) I was also shocked during the tour to see that they still have "peace" walls separating the Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. These aren't just dividing fences but huge, tall walls (taller than the street lamps) which are supposed to prevent people from throwing petrol bombs over. They even have gates that close on the through roads each night. There are many of these walls throughout Dublin. Besides this we also saw many political murals. These were also a bit intimidating, especially the many that glorified violence.
Sorry I have rambled on so long about this trip. But it really got me thinking about the situation there. It is incredibly complicated and people forget that. It will be interesting to see what kind of progress is made in my lifetime.

Next up on the slate is Notre Dame's Easter Pilgrimage to Rome!

Finally caught up!

Hello everyone! Once I finish this post the blog will be officially up-to-date on all my spring break adventures! Finally! As you can tell, I was pretty busy for my 2 weeks of break. Class trip, then Italy, then my family visited! So the morning after I got back from Florence my friend Ashley and I headed to the airport to meet my mom, dad, and Andy! While waiting we played fun people watching games such as Rugby fan or Not a Rugby fan (Ireland played Wales that day) and American or not an American (more entertaining than the rugby game). Finally they arrived and we got our rental car. Now this shows how good a friend Ashley is that she would be willing to ride in the rental car with us in Dublin where they drive on the left and not the right like we Americans are used to. Dad did fine though. No accidents or anything like that.

Ashley and I spent the day dragging my very jet lagged family around a very crowded Dublin (because of the rugby match that day and St. Patrick's day coming up). We gave them a little walking tour and then I took them to the Guinness Storehouse that afternoon where I was the only one to drink the complimentary pint of Guinness. Disappointing, isn't it? But I guess I understand because it is an acquired taste and I only just started to not mind drinking it this past month. We ate dinner at a nice Italian place near the hotel that night so my poor family could go to bed early.The next morning everyone woke up feeling much better--no more jet lag! We drove to Galway, checked into our B&B there and then just walked along the Salt Hill Prom and through Galway. We got dinner at a really cool pub and then headed back to the B&B to go to bed early.

The next morning the plan was to drive to the Cliffs of Moher and then do the Dingle Peninsula. Driving to the Cliffs of Moher was a bit of an adventure. We somehow ended up driving on a little one-lane road through the Burren, where there really isn't anything. Thankfully the GPS got us to the Cliffs just fine. The Cliffs of Moher were really cool and were something that I had not done yet. We had nice weather which was good because it can get pretty windy and cold up there. From there we drove down to the Dingle Peninsula which took a lot longer than we anticipated. So we didn't get to spend any time in Dingle but did get to drive the Slea Head Drive on the peninsula. I'd done that on my class trip just about a week before but it was still just as beautiful. We headed to Killarney then because all of us were pretty tired and hungry and crabby.The next day we headed out to Muckross House and Torc Waterfall before driving through Killarney National Park and doing the Ring of Kerry. Again this was a lot of fun even though it was WINDY out! We ate lunch at a nice local pub called the Blind Piper and had great seafood chowder. Another great dinner in Killarney that night was followed by some traditional Irish music. The first pub we went to had way too many Americans in it for my liking. Thankfully, we stumbled upon the place the locals go and had a lot better time there.
The next morning it was time to leave Killarney. We made a stop in Kinsale, a cute little fishing village, on our way to Waterford. There we got a walking tour from this really nice, really funny, and really knowledgeable local guy. From there we drove to the Rock of Cashel, ruins of a cathedral and also where St. Patrick baptised the king of Munster. That night we were staying in Waterford...in a castle!! It was on its own little island with a car ferry over to it. We ate dinner that night at the hotel. It was so nice! We had a four course meal, started eating at 7 and weren't done till 9:30! Probably the fanciest dinner I've ever had.

And then it was time to head back to Dublin. We drove through rain that morning (the only rain while my family visited!) but thankfully it had stopped by the time we reached Dublin. That afternoon we saw the Book of Kells and Trinity Library, which was awesome especially for someone like me who loves books! We also went to Christ Church Cathedral and St. Stephen's Green. That night we ate pub grub at one of my favorite pubs, O'Neills.
So that was it! It was a whirlwind tour of Ireland but we had a great time! I was so happy that my family was able to come visit! And now I've caught you up on all the goings on of my spring break!