Tuesday, April 16, 2013

"There are only two kinds of people in the world, The Irish and those who wish they were."

Here's an update on how Ireland was as I take a break from the insanity which is my life. (When I say insanity, I mean it's finals week.) Needless to say, stress is a thing. Luckily, Caitlyn, Zoe, and I enjoyed a break and went to Ireland for two days! We left at about 6AM Friday morning and made it back home around 10 or 11 Saturday night. Going through security was easy on the way there, but apparently my headband has metal in it (who knew?) and I left some water in my water bottle, so I enjoyed a full body pat down [airport security style] experience (which was difficult since I'm ticklish almost everywhere). 



They had these straighteners you could use in the airport bathrooms. 
It was hilarious.
What's more hilarious than that?
Probably watching me try to take the above picture with my phone while drying my hands and trying to be super discreet. 
We began by walking over to Trinity. 
Very nice school. 
Beautiful.
We didn't go check out the famous stuff there because we were travelling on a budget. Obviously.
We did, however, cheat the system a bit by standing within earshot of a couple of tours as they walked around the campus. 
We walked on down to St. Stephen's Green.
Lovely.
Apparently framing my face in pictures is a thing again.
Saw some purple and gold (HSU represent!).
At one point we realized that we hadn't really eaten anything but a granola bar.
So we stopped and Zoe and I had the most amazing apple pie with cream.
It looked almost as good as it tasted.
Just looking at it is making my mouth water.
Have I ever mentioned how much I love food?
We stopped by St. Patrick's Cathedral. The park outside of it was lovely.
Not sure if they just call churches cathedrals in Ireland or what.
But it looked nice.
And then we headed over to Christ's Church Cathedral.
And proceeded on inside to do a little self guided tour.
The floors were nice.
After visiting almost a million churches, cathedrals, and chapels this semester, I began noticing things that normal people wouldn't notice.
Like the zig zag design on the arches? That doesn't happen in most places.
And if I remember correctly the pointy-ness at the top of the arch 
is an indication of it being from the Gothic era.
(just checked on google to make sure--I was right)
I never saw "The Tudors" but maybe you did? 
Apparently they filmed a good bit of it at Christ Church's.
And they had the costumes but I didn't take any pictures of that.

After that, we tried to go to Dublin Castle, but there was some "EU Presidency Event" shenanigans, so normal people weren't allowed.

If you know me well, you know I love a good play on words.
Like Shakespeare, that's why he's great.
There were a bunch of bridges, very pretty.
That night we went down to the Temple Bar area.
Tons of people were out and and some of the crowd even danced along with the music, Irish-style.
These guys (both in the picture above and below) were very very talented. I was impressed.
Another bridge.
Me on a bridge.
The next day we happened to run into a Socialist Party protest. 
It was very exciting and fun to watch and discuss the merits of the protest.
The gathering was huge!
We went to the Leprechaun Museum
(yes, it's real)
That picture above is a tube we walked in that made us shrink down to leprechaun size.
It's magic.
We really enjoyed the tour.
Irish folklore is fascinating, actually. 
Check it out sometime if you're bored or looking for something to read.
The weather was very gross, cold, and wet. 
So we came to this mall place for sanctuary.
We each bought a cupcake and sat on the floor in a little nook like homeless people to eat them.
[it's starting to become a bit of a habit to eat in weird/homeless-esque places]
Another bridge picture.
Except way more awesome than all the others.
We went to a little cafe,
where Zoe lined up and balanced one of each type of coin in the euro currency.
Our waiter made fun of us.
But I guess we earned it.
You know those super high maintenance people in restaurants?
That was us.
Silly Americans.
A great time with these two wonderful ladies!!
Ireland was more like Texas than anything I've experienced in the past three months. The culture felt kind of like home, with similar music (some Irish music sounds country-ish, except ten times better), their accents were hardly noticeable compared to what I expected, and the people were very friendly!
I was so sad to leave, hopefully I'll find a way to go back someday.

Also: 3 days till I leave London.



1 comment:

  1. If I'm not mistaken, I believe they're called cathedrals if it's a Catholic Church? And since a large majority of Ireland is Catholic, I think that would explain the name thing? Possibly. Just Googled it, and Wikipedia says that a cathedral is a Christian church that contains the seat of a bishop. So I was kinda right because that includes Catholic churches, but it also includes a few other denominations.

    Also I really enjoyed the videos of the singing men.

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