Erin Go Bragh: April 2011

Since the last time I wrote, I got to experience St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, go to Cork and kiss the Blarney Stone! St. Patrick's Day (or Paddy's Day) was exactly what I was expecting in Ireland- lots of tourists dressed up in green and orange drinking lots of alcohol! Since it's a national holiday, we didn't have class, along with the rest of the country. The parade started at noon, but we headed down a little bit late only to find that we couldn't see anything anyways! It reminded me of a parade on the 4th of July with lots of floats and all the Irish families together. All the Americans stood out like a sore thumb, but we didn't care because we were having so much fun!

After the parade, we went to Eyre Square and hung out at some of our favorite pubs, which were PACKED! It was nice to have a big group of friends to spend the day with, especially when some started to fade around dinner time. After a day full of pub crawling, we headed to our friends house to relax for about an hour and then we were out again to more pubs. We got to meet up with some of our other friends who weren't able to make it out with us during the day because they had visitors. When all was said and done, I celebrated Paddy's Day in town for 13 hours straight! It was an amazing experience and I'm so happy that I got to be in Galway for it. Since Galway really is the culture capital of Ireland, I felt like I was really getting to see the proper celebration of the holiday and not a tourist-y one that might be in Dublin.

The next week was filled with lots of Fairfield visitors, as it was their Spring Break! I got to see a bunch of familiar faces, but also got to meet some new Stags, which was nice! One of my friends and her group of visitors had decided that they wanted to travel to Blarney to kiss the Blarney Stone and I decided to join! We got to Cork on a Tuesday afternoon and explored the city a little bit- its bigger than Galway and has kind of a Greenwich Village vibe to it-- it was really cool! Our hostel was attached to a pub so after we got some dinner and had a quick 20 minute rest, we went downstairs for a pint. The pub, called the Bru Bar, was really small but very cool- we got to sit on comfy couches next to a fire! It definitely made me feel right at home. Then we were off on our adventure to find a reccomended pub called the Courthouse Tavern. We thought the name sounded cool and had been talking about it all day so the build-up was huge! When we finally found it, we got a pint and sat outside under the heated lights. It was such a beautiful night and it was nice to get to know a new group of girls and get the update on whats going on at Fairfield. We had to be up early the next morning, so we called it a night pretty early.

The next morning we were up at 7:45 to catch an early bus to Blarney, which is about 20 minutes outside of Cork. We got to the Blarney Castle about 15 minutes after it opened, which was great because we didn't have to wait in line for anything! I was only expecting a castle, but after walking into the park area, I was suprised to see such a gorgeous area! The gardening and landscaping was so pretty. We walked over little babbling brooks and through the dungeon area of the castle before we started our trek up to the top. At the top of the tower, the view was amazing. You could see the spread of the green of Ireland for miles (or kilometres?). After admiring the sight, we got to kiss the Blarney Stone! I was really nervous at first because it's so high up and you have to kind of lean back over the ground, but it all happened so quickly that I felt silly afterwards. After kissing the stone, we walked around the grounds and saw the poison garden, that has a bunch of poisoneous plants with descriptions on them. Then we walked to the Blarney House, which was absolutely beautiful. Its an old house with an expansive backyard. It was so pretty that all the girls were saying that they wanted to get married there!

After we finished wandering around, we decided to get some lunch. At this point I wasn't really feeling well- my throat was starting to hurt, I felt a little dizzy and was just really exhausted. Turns out- I ended up getting a sinus infection and an infection in my throat. It was my first sinus infection, and it was terrible! I got the antibiotics I needed from the pharmacy, but now I know how painful they are! Anyways- we made it back to Galway safely that day in time for everybody to go out!

The rest of that week was the usual- going to classes and enjoying the nightlife. That Thursday, it was my friend Aoife's 18th birthday so they had a house party at her house. It was SO much fun- one of the best nights since I've been in Galway. It was so nice to have all of my best friends together under one roof celebrating an exciting event! I got to meet a lot of new people to and some of our friends played the guitar as we all sang along. Its definitely a night I will always remember.

The celebration continued when we visited Aoife at her home in Kildare on Saturday to celebrate her actual birthday with her family. It was such an exciting experience to be in a real Irish home and meet Aoife's entire family- her grandma was so cute! The homecooked meals were also something that I had greatly missed, so it was great to have such delicious food! That night we went to the pub down the road from Aoife's house. It was so cute- very small town Ireland where everybody knew everybody. Most of the people were even related! It was also a nice break from the expensive prices in Galway- we got lots of good deals on Bulmers!

Our friend Ciara also lives in Kildare, so the next day we got to see her house. Her family has a bunch of cows and I had been dying to meet them. It was so much fun to walk around her backyard and feed the cows! We got to meet Ciara's parents too and they also cooked us another delicious meal! In the afternoon, her brother sang us the song he did for the talent show, which was AMAZING and our friends played a little bit more on the guitar (They even learned how to play Rebecca Black's "Friday"). After such a relaxing weekend, it was hard to say bye to the countryside but we had to get back to Galway. The next week (last week) was the last week of classes, but I didn't attend a lot of them because I felt absolutely terrible. Towards the end of the week, my antibiotics started to kick in and I was feeling better so I made it to a few classes at the end.

On Friday, a group of us went to see a Connacht Rugby game. They were playing Edinburgh right in Galway, so it was easy to get to and not too expensive! Seeing a rugby game live was a really nice experience to have with the other Fairfield rugby girls. Its such a big part of our lives back in CT, so it was nice to be able to watch a game and have a little taste of home!

On Saturday, we went to a silent disco at a pub called the Roisin Dubh. Basically, there are 2 DJs and the only way you can hear music is if you wear the headphones provided. You can flip back and forth between the different DJs. Most of the time it was really funny because if you took your headphones off, people would be singing the words to songs, but there was no music. I'd been wanting to go to one for a really long time so it was exciting to finally make it there! I would definitely go back again.

Now that classes are over, I've been doing a lot of work before I leave on my big travelling adventure! So far I've handed in three papers, but I still have two to write before I leave on Sunday morning. After those papers, I won't have any school work until my final on May 10th so I will get to enjoy exploring Europe! My friend Ania and I are backpacking around the continent for 3.5 weeks, starting in Edinburgh, to visit her friend, Zuzu. Zuzu is joining us as we go to Amsterdam, and then its just the two of us going to Berlin, Krakow, Prague, Florence, Rome, and Paris. I'm a little bit nervous to be travelling for such a long amount of time, but I'm sure I will be so tired and having so much fun that I won't realize how fast the time is going by!