Well it's official, I only have 1 month left, and I couldn't be more sad about it. To my loyal Chicago readers, I love you and miss you, but I just don't want to leave. I am predicting horrible reverse culture shock. I simply want to rester ici toujours. (Stay here forever). I will be making the most out of these last 4 weeks, and I am going to try and not think about leaving... It's going to be tough. But anyways, time to rewind. Ireland :
So we flew from Pau to London on Thursday and had to go through customs, then through security again and had to literally run as fast as we could through the airport to catch our plane. I need to get in shape. The troop consisted of myself, Maddie, and Dahna, and we met my friend Eric who decided to take his spring break in Europe. I met eric with a huge hug and non stop conversation to catch up on not seeing one another for over 2 months. So the journey started. We took off from London and arrived in Dublin about an hour and half later and managed to get on the right bus that took us within feet of our hostel. Once we arrived and put our stuff down we went out to look for a place to eat. We found a bar and asked if they had food, the bouncer said no then we asked him where to go and he told us a better bar to go to.. I think he wants a new job. The pub we went to was called O'Neils, naturally, and we all sat down to eat nearly 10 lbs each. The first thing we ordered-- Guinness. It was perfect. Cold and beautiful, just how i like my men. I had my guinness with a phenomenal plate of fish and chips and great company. We didn't want to stay out too long because we had to catch a bus at 8 in the morning so we went home and slept comfortably in our great hostel.
Day 2: After a lovely 4 and a half hour drive through the countryside of Ireland, we arrived in Cork. We once again dropped our things off at our hostel which was conveniently located on the biggest hill in town. This required us to walk nearly 90 degrees straight up with all of our junk, but it was worth it. Seriously if you need a workout regime just move to Ireland, it's hilly and you walk everywhere. After our stuff was put away we went to Blarney. Side note-- the most frequently used item on this trip, next to my credit card, was definitely my umbrella. It rained everyday, it would stop for a little bit and give you hope and then crush all that hope with giant drops of rain filled tears. Anyways, we get to Blarney and head to the castle!! It was just beautiful. The entire grounds was breathtakingly gorgeous, with the greenest grass i've ever seen. It looked like they were preparing for the PGA it was that green. We saw a random opening in the side of the castle that turned out to be a cave. Not my cup of whiskey filled tea, thats for sure. I do not like small crevices, and if i find myself inside a cave i tend to wake up. Nonetheless, i ventured into the claustrophobic cave just so I could write about it and say I did it. Well world, I did it...very quickly then I ran out. How anyone can be excited when hearing "oh hey guys I found an even smaller hole we can climb through and possibly be attacked by swarms of Irish bats.." I dont know. I just kept praying that I wasn't going to become the next chilean miner. Once we emerged from hates, we entered the castle and took the long winding journey up to the top to kiss the blarney stone! It was similar to a neverending stairwell. The trek to the top was filled with stops along the way. We saw where the 17th century kitchen was, the living room, the movie theater, and everything else that castle's have. We even saw a pigeon in a little nook who looked not so pleased to see us. We made it to the top and had a gorgeous view of the entire city. We were then dangled over the edge of the castle, only being held by the 70 year old Irish man who could have dropped us at any time. I kissed the stone and immediately became a leprechaun. The end. No no, i just immediately felt that I acquired herpes, tuberculosis, and the common cold all at once. I proceeded to purell myself.
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| In case you forgot where you were |
After we all had our 7 minutes in heaven with the stone that no one even knows why it's good luck to kiss, we ventured toward to poison garden. Naturally. We saw lots of scary signs warning us not to eat the plants, which was obviously very hard to refrain from. We then walked through the grounds, had a photo shoot in a miniature castle, and trespassed on the Blarney house property. It was a great day. We returned to Cork and went to the English Market to get food to cook for dinner that night! We were all great chefs and even managed to have Eric iced which was the perfect infusion of America into Ireland. Being "Iced" for those of you who don't know, is when you purchase a Smirnoff Ice and hide it for someone to find, it has to be creative, and once they inadvertently come across the bottle they must kneel on the ground and drink it. It's all in good fun. After we finished dinner and met some interesting characters we hit the town and met up with my friend Julia Martens from high school. A fellow Oak Park-er! It was great to see her, and hear about her stories of Cork. I love being able to get into bars and not be carded, yet another reason why I am not looking forward to going home. So the night ended and the next morning we had to once again catch the 8 oclock bus back to Dublin. It was raining. I was glued to the window because every 5 minutes I would see baby sheep and goats roaming. Once back in Dublin we went to the Guinness factory, and I have to say, that is the coolest museum i have ever been too. Sorry Art Institute of Chicago, you lose.
At the museum we learned all about how to make the beer and everything that has to do with Arthur Guinness.. They're a little obsessed. At the end we got to learn how to pour our very own pint's of Guinness. They are very particular on how to do it, and now I am picky about how I get my Guinness. It is a 2 step process. You pour the beer about 3/4th of the way, then let it sit for no less that 19.5 seconds, and then you push the spout thing the other way and fill the cup (that HAS to be glass, dried, and have the emblem of Guinness on it) to the top and make it look like a pillow. It was beautiful, I didn't want to even mess up my perfect creation. We then got to drink our free pints. After we went to the Gravity bar at the top level of the museum, and no there was still gravity, we got to see an awesome view of all of Dublin. We made our way back to our hostel and ate at the lovely irish fast food restaurant next door. Highlight of the trip is when Maddie accidentally asked the owner how old he was instead of asking what time the place closes. I'll give her the benefit of the doubt because we've been in France for so long and forgot how to speak english. It was a great end to our Irish adventure. Summary: Irish accents are so hot, AND there really are a whole lot of gingers indigenous to these parts of the world.
The next morning we had to wake up at 3:45am and catch the shuttle to the airport. We made sure to be early this time, and I said goodbye to Eric, got on the plane and then an hour and a half later landed in Paris. I had to change airports, and there was about 4 hours inbetween so we wandered Paris. No big deal right? We went to a little cafe, went to the Arc de Triumph and le Tour Eiffel. It was the perfect way to end our trip. I hopped on the airplane and was greeted in Pau by Christine. Sadly I left my camera at the hostel in Dublin, but they have sent it and i'll be getting it shortly.. Oops!
This week was the last week of french classes, so i'll talk about that in the next post. Last week was also St. Patty's day, I went to the Irish bar in Pau and ordered a Guinness. I kid you not, it didn't compare to the ones I had in Ireland. It was even served in a plastic cup with a Kronenbourg emblem on it! Quel domage. Who would have thought Ireland would have made me picky!
Tout a l'heure
Mariel
