Week 11: Ireland

Week 11: Ireland and new friends!!

Hallo again!

I have just arrived back from Ireland this morning after a lovely 4 day weekend filled with hiking, Guinness, and new friends! First though, I will start with the beginning of this week.

The week started off a bit stressful as they do. I had a physiology exam on Thursday that had been haunting me for a while, but I think I did quite well. We also had two people move out of their host families homes which is quite shocking this late in the semester, but they are doing alright as well!

This week, my host mother and I bonded on new level, although I feel like I say that every week, haha. Margarita gave me chocolate for Easter and we had dinner with her dance partner on Wednesday night. I loved sitting with them around the dinner table talking about our time together and sharing stories and I feel SO close to my host family. We keep making jokes about me never leaving, but I really will come back in about a year and my host mother said she will keep the house open for me when I do J

On Thursday after the exam, Kate and I got coffee at our regular coffee shop, Frank’s Coffee Shop, then headed to the airport!

We spent the first night in Dublin, where we went out to get a classic fish and chips meal for dinner, then went to the pub where we met a lot of nice Irish people. We all added each other on Facebook and told each other to let the other know when we will go to Ireland again or they come to America.

Giant's Causeway

On Saturday, we went to the Giant’s Causeway, a very very cool place with rocks shaped like pentagons due to ancient volcanic activity. I will post some pictures of it so you can enjoy the sight! That night, we stayed at a youth hostel and made friends with more Irish people and a guy from Austria. Youth hostels are such a great way to meet new cool people, who are even more adventurous than ourselves! The Austrian had been hitch hiking all through Ireland, which I would never do, but it was really cool to hear about and I didn’t realize people still did that.

Connemara National Park

The next day, Corey, Mitchell, Kate and I went hiking in Connemara National Park up a small mountain.  Mitchell had to carry me on his back for a bit of the hike due to my unfitness, but we made it up there eventually and Mitchell and Corey had a bit of a photoshoot once we made it to the top. It was SO windy and cold up there, but the view was spectacular! Later that day, we took the world’s shortest tour of the Cliffs of Moher (about 20 minutes), since we were running late to return our rental car. It was a nice sight but I preferred the Causeway.

Cliffs of Moher

We end up staying in Dublin on our last night and met up with our Irish friends from the first night again! We all went back to one of their houses and sat and around and talked for a couple of hours before we had to leave for the airport (our flight was at 6 in the morning !!). They were trying to teach us Irish lingo like “krass” and “crack” which for them means “What’s happening/ what’s the crack?” All four of us had a great night and it was the perfect way to end our perfect trip!

Anyways, now I will go and work on my pharmacology project and then wake up early tomorrow for our excursion to Bingen. I am not exactly sure what we will do I'm excited to find out!

Bis Spater and thanks for reading!