+47: Paris Recap!

Before you read any of this, hit "play" on the video below, and listen to it in the background.





Sparknotes: PARIS IS FANTASTIC!


Wednesday/Thursday:
We left for the bus station in Galway at around 11 on Wednesday night to catch the 12:15 bus to Dublin, which took about 3 hours.
We got to the airport at 3 for our 6:20 flight...waiting ensued. After arriving at 9:30 Paris time (an hour ahead of Ireland), we navigated the regional rail system and the metro to drop our bags off at our hotel in Montmarte, which is an adorable neighborhood.
From there, we saw:

Some really cool nerdy graffiti:



Le Sacré-Cœur, a 19th century basilica, which is amazing in its own right, but also offers AMAZING views of the city:





Le Tour Eiffel:








We ate baguettes in the park at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for dinner. Obviously. Then we went to the Musee D'Orsay, which has mostly Impressionist and post-Impressionist works in it. It was a great museum, built in an old train station. Even better, though, is the fact that we got in for FREE with our Garda registration cards. Basically, a lot of museums in Paris are free for EU residents (not citizens, residents), which includes us. Ace, right?
We headed back to Montmarte and sat at a cafe around the corner from our hotel....that's when we found out that Courtney ended up in Belgium, but that's a completely different story.


Friday:


(musical accompaniment:


)


We saw le Arc du Triumphe, then went shopping on les Champs-Élysées:




Then we met up with Willy, my philosophy TA from freshman year, and his girlfriend Caitlin, who moved to Paris a few months ago. They took us to this amazing falafel place for lunch, and then Willy showed Colleen & I around the city for a bit. We went to the park behind the Louvre for a bit, then went back to our hotel for a little while...then Colleen and I went to the Louvre. THE LOUVRE. There are no words that could possibly describe it. It's fantastic and amazing and I got lost more than once, but I guess that's to be expected:









At one point, I went to ask a guard for directions, so I went up to him and said: "Pardon, parlez-vous Anglais?" ("Sorry, do you speak English?"), and he looks at me and says "Mais vous parlez français.." (but you speak French!). I got flustered and told him that I only spoke a little bit, and he switched to English and pointed me in the right direction. Hilarious, really.

[Just a note on language: I got by pretty well with very limited French all weekend. And by pretty limited, I mean "Bonjour/Bonsoir" "Excusez moi" "Pardon" "s'il vous plaît" "oui" "non, merci" and "cafe au lait"--basically, I was very polite and well-caffienated.]

After the Louvre, we met back up with Willy and Cait and went to a bar in their neighborhood. I had this fantastic beer called Desparados--it's basically Corona with tequila in it, served with lemon. Yum!


Saturday:




We went to Notre Dame, saw the Sorbonne, etc. in the Latin Quarter:







There was this adorable philosophy bookstore next to the Sorbonne--if I had a million euros/ could read French, I totally would have bought all of the books.




Later, we met Courtney and Rachel, who also goes to HWS, for dinner at this cute traditional French restaurant by Notre Dame. Then they took us to get crepes by their hotel, which were sooooo good!






Aaaand, that's about all she wrote. Our flight (which we almost missed, honestly) was at 10:15, and we got back to Galway around 3:30. All in all, an awesome weekend!

+42

We went to Cork this weekend...nothing spectacular to report, really. We took a 7 hour tour of Cobh and Cork city on Saturday, and then went to Blarney, Lahinch, and the Cliffs of Moher.

As usual, a photo montage explains more than I really ever could:

From a microbrewery in the city:




Brighton-esque gazebo in Cobh


Court, Kels, & I at Blarney


Surfer in Lahinch



Hobart kids being silly at the Cliffs:




And, arguably the most fantastic picture of the weekend, a closeup of the one above:







...the end!

+37

Whew, things are getting super busy here! Classes are in full swing, it's midterm season (how did THAT happen?!) and I'm in the middle of the month in which I'm traveling every weekend--two weeks ago was Dublin, last week was Castlebar, we leave for Cork in the morning, and next weekend, I'll be in Paris! SO EXCITED!

+32/+33: In which I find the craic

This weekend Courtney, Kelsey and I went to Castlebar (Co. Mayo) to see Riverdance! We left Galway at around 10:30, and arrived in Castlebar at noon. The day started off pretty well, aka we found a McDonald's and got milkshakes.
Then, the trek to our hotel started. Basically, it was a little outside of Castlebar (or so we thought). In my defense, as the person who booked the hotel, it seemed REALLY CLOSE on the map. But really close ended up being 3 miles...which doesn't sound like much when you say it but is, in reality, quite a hike. Being the poor college kids that we are, though, we thought we'd give it a shot.

(I should preface the rest of this by saying that there's been a lot of construction in Castlebar lately, and GoogleMaps hasn't been updated yet, so we were working off of this map I drew on Friday:

)

We found a real map at some point, but mine ended up being more helpful I think...(new career plans! cartographer!)
Anyway, as we walked toward the hotel, we passed a sign welcoming visitors to the city...yup, our hotel was in another town. We kept walking and walking and walking and finally stopped to ask directions to make sure we were headed the right way. We saw a B&B and thought that would be a good place...so Court rang the bell and stepped right inside when a teenage girl answered the door....long story short, it was not a B&B, but we were headed in the right direction.

So, we kept walking and walking and walking, stopped for a snack, and kept walking. By the way, it was raining the ENTIRE TIME.







Towards the end of our trek, we found two donkeys in a pasture. They seemed alright at first...




....but then one of them ATE OUR MAP:






I could tell you how we all felt when we finally arrived at the hotel, but I think this video (one of many Courtney took) is way better:





Obviously, we took a cab to and from Riverdance (which was FANTASTIC). But really, I don't think that's what I'll remember about this weekend. I'll remember the ridiculous 3 mile walk to our hotel because it was SO MUCH FUN. We've been talking about what "craic" is in one of my classes--basically it's Irish for "a good time," but it's apparently very elusive. Really, though, I think we found the craic while walking down the road from Castlebar to Breaffy. We didn't spend any money, and we didn't actually do anything, but it was the best time I've had in a while--Even though it was raining for most of our walk, we laughed for the entire two hours. It was just so ridiculous and unbelievable and I kept dropping my bag and did I mention a donkey ate our map?

I couldn't make this stuff up, and I don't think I'd want to--it's much more fantastic when you actually live it.

Good craic in Mayo...just watch out for the donkeys.

+29

I can't believe I've been in Galway a month already!

Part of the walk to campus involves walking along a four lane high way, and eventually crossing a bridge over the river Corrib and passing the ruins of a building--I can't figure out whether it was a house or a church, or when exactly it's from. Anyway, as I was walking back from my first Skeptic Soc meeting, noticed horses running a few city blocks behind the ruins. Then it sort of hit me that below and beyond the highway was all pasture...it's kind of amazing how close the city and the country are here. There isn't suburban sprawl like back in the States, it's just there. Interesting, huh?

Alright, it's my turn to make dinner tonight, so I should start that!


s.

+27: Dublin Recap!

This weekend, the HWS/Union group went to Dublin! We left Galway at the decidedly ungodly hour of 7:30 and arrived in Dublin around 10. Despite massive pre-bus caffeine overload, most of us fell asleep on the ride over, so it went by quickly.



Our first stop was Croke Park, home of the GAA. The Gaelic Athletic Association is dedicated to the preservation of Irish sports--hurling and Gaelic football, and most of the all-Ireland games are held in Croke. What's really cool is that all 34 teams (all Irish counties, plus London and New York, both of which have a large enough Irish population to play at the top level) are amateur--no one gets paid, and everyone does it in their free time. One of the guys on Galway's hurling team actually works at the organization I'm volunteering with, which is really cool. The park's capacity is something like 82,000 and it's usually filled for finals...so crazy!



The next stop was Kilmainham jail, site of the executions of the leaders of the Easter Rising. Our tour was actually pretty brief and not as thorough as the last one I went on, but it was still so eerie to be there. Of course, when you put a bunch of college kids in a jail with open cells, things like this happen:





After that, we headed to the Guinness factory, which was excellent, as expected. For some odd reason, not everyone in the group liked Guinness...more for the rest of us! We spent a lot of time in the Gravity bar...the views are fantastic!






























After that, we had some free time. It was Culture Night in Dublin, so a lot of museums and attractions were open late/ free. We ended up walking around Temple Bar for quite a bit before calling it a night.








On Saturday, we had a walking tour of the city, which was really well done, and then we had the afternoon free. Court, Kels and I ended up on Grafton Street where Court finally got her caramel frappe (apparently the Irish don't do many frappuciono type things) and I finally got my M&S banoffee. We ate in St. Stephen's Green, then went to O'Connell Street, Henry Street, and the Jameson Distillery.









After that, we went to see "The Plough and The Stars" by Sean O'Casey at the Abbey--what an amazing performance!


On Sunday, we headed to Newgrange to see the neolithic passage tombs, which had fantastic views of the Hill of Tara, etc. from the top:







Finally, we went to Clonmacnoise, a monastic settlement literally in the middle of the country.





One of the coolest things there is the Whispering Arch, which was supposedly used by priests to hear confession without risking getting sick--you whisper something on one side of the doorway, and it can be heard perfectly on the other side.





I'm going to end with this picture, from the Gravity Bar at Guinness, because it's so awesome: