Class trip to Kenmare!

First of all, let me say sorry for the lack of updates! Life has been pretty crazy! I spent the 2 weeks between my Stockholm trip and spring break mostly writing papers and catching up on work in general. One weekend I did help my friend Ashley show 2 friends (who are both in ND's Austria study abroad program) around Dublin. It was nice being one of the experts on the city for a weekend!

And after those 2 weeks, it was spring break! Now, I got 2 weeks of spring break here which is crazy. And I spent most of those 2 weeks travelling. So since I haven't posted in a long time, I have a lot to say about all this travelling!!!

The first trip I took for spring break was a 3-day class trip to Kenmare in the west of Ireland. It was great! First of all because ND paid for our hotel (so much nicer than hostels!) and for most of our meals. Second, because I realized just how much fun all the people in our ND group are. Third, because Kevin, our programme director, knows so much about Ireland! Fourth, because the weather was absolutely amazing (pretty much unheard of in that part of Ireland). So you get the picture. The trip was pretty awesome.

On Friday, we drove from Dublin out to the Ring of Kerry, actually a pretty long trip. The Ring of Kerry was beautiful though. It was probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. My pictures and descriptions really don't do it any justice. That night we got into Kenmare and ate a great dinner at the hotel (3 courses-so good for us poor college students). Then we headed over to a pub and divided up into teams to play pool and jenga! It was a really really fun night with our Notre Dame group!
The next day we headed out on a walking tour of Kenmare with a local retired principal. Kenmare was a cute little Irish town with a lot of history! After a light lunch (read: Coke and chocolate digestives--the diet of poor college students), we went out to the local hurling club to learn hurling. Hurling is an Irish sport. It's kind of like lacrosse or field hockey but not quite. You play with a wooden bat thing called a hurley. I'm really doing a horrible job of trying to explain this so here is the wikipedia article if you really want to know http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurling. It was a lot of fun and the Irish guys were really patient trying to teach us Americans how to play. We also learned a bit of Gaelic football (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaelic_football). After that we hiked in the Killarney National Park before another night at the pub.
Sunday we drove the Slea Head Drive on the Dingle Peninsula (also one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen) and then it was back to Dublin! That's my class trip in a nutshell. It was a great way to start spring break!

More to come in my next posts about the rest of my spring break!