AH!

I'm almost a month behind on posting - how can that happen?

Anyway, loyal readers (haha), I'm sorry for dropping the ball. Lessee. Here's a picture post of Ireland, complete with captions! Get excited!

A little setup to the trip: We had our first British Studies exam right before we left. It consisted of two hours, three essays to write, and a lot of stressed out kids. The test was set to finish at 4, and we had a taxi ordered for 4:05. Yay for cutting it close! But I finished the test early, and my travel buddies did fine as well. Andrew, Safire, and I caught our trains on time and made it to the airport. After a short flight to Ireland, we landed in Dublin. Andrew went off to find his hostel, and Safire and I were picked up by Mary, a good family friend of Safire's family. She lovingly put us up in her attic from Wednesday through Sunday nights. It was so nice to sleep on a real bed and shower in a non-hostel shower! Plus, she made us comfort food (tacos, mac and cheese). It was great. Picture time!

We spent two days bumming around Dublin, and two days getting out into the countryside.

Safire and I outside the tourist center in downtown Dublin. It was really windy, but we had great weather the whole time.

Temple Bar, an area with lots of, well, bars and pubs and shops in Dublin.

The interior of Christchurch Cathedral. It's beautiful!

The floor tiles in Christchurch. They were modelled after the original floor tiles (part of which they have an original section of tiles!)

St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

So the first day was spent just kind of wandering around and then going inside Christchurch. That night, after navigating the bus system back to Mary's house, she took us out with some of her friends to the pub. Lots of Guinness was consumed, and we had a great time getting to mingle with the locals.

Second day: more touristy things in Dublin. First stop, Guinness Factory! Then we rode a double-decker bus around and went to Kilmainham Gaol where they kept and executed all the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rebellion.

Safire and me!

One of my favorite Guinness advertisements.

At the top of the Guinness factory, they have a bar with a 360 view of Dublin. And they give you free pints!

A line of cells in the jail (I didn't take many pictures here; it was really creepy).

Looking up from one of the "exercise yards" of the prison.

It was really cold on the top of the doubledecker bus!

Nelson's Column, commerating Nelson, who defeated Napoleon. Apparently, he was born in Ireland.

Statue of O'Connell on the street named after him. He was an Irish nationalist in the Victorian era.

At the end of the second day, Mary again took us out to another pub. Here, they were playing music! It was so cool. The band was primarily older men, and they played a mixture of everything! I had a good time. The third day, Safire and I got up really early and went on a Paddywagon tour to Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone! We stopped in Limerick to change buses, so we have a couple pictures from there too.

The more historical side of Limerick (the Paddywagon driver told us there were gang wars going on, so we didn't spend a lot of time here...)

Hey look, it's your lovely blogger!

The looming Blarney Castle!

I thought this was pretty.

View from one of the windows in the lord's bedroom at Blarney.

After climbing a whole bunch of windy, slippery stairs, we got to the top of the castle! The ramparts.

The view from the top. The countryside around was beautiful.

Me kissing the Blarney Stone! I now have eternal eloquence.

Standing in front of the castle. What a cool trip!

We got back late to downtown Dublin, then somehow managed to get on the correct bus route going to wrong way. So, we took a lovely bus ride to the southeast side of Dublin, then got back on the bus, went back to the city center, then made our way to Mary's house.

The second day, Safire, Andrew, and I took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) out to Howth, a little fishing village on the coast. It was by far my favorite part of the trip. I got to see the ocean and stick my feet in. Plus, there was a market going on, and we ate fresh crepes for both lunch and dinner. It was wonderful.

Fishing boats (as you can see, we had PERFECT weather this day)

The coast.

One of the lighthouses. There's another one at Howth.

I don't think this would do much good out in the Irish Sea...

Safire and I - as you can tell by my mane of hair, it was a little bit windy. Some very nice Portuguese woman took this for us.

The ruins of an Abbey in the hillside.

More ruins.

They had a large cemetery with beautiful headstones.

These were growing on one of the graves.

Taking my shoes off to get my feet in the water!

My feet - in the Irish Sea! This is as far out as I went - it was really, really cold.

Rocks on the jetty we were on.

Lots of sailboats were out that day.

Looking back on Howth.

After Howth, we spent one more night in Mary's attic, then it was back to school on Monday - yes, we skipped classes to stay in Ireland an extra day! It was well worth it.

Well, that was the first long weekend. The second long weekend is next week! Yay!

Hopefully this weekend I can do some more posting and get caught up. That would be wonderful!

As always, I have many, many more pictures, so if you're interested in seeing some, let me know once I'm back in the States!