Our First Trip Outside of Ireland: London!

Last weekend, my friends and I finally took our first trip outside of Ireland!  We landed in London on Friday morning, after almost missing my wake-up call!  From that moment forward, London was definitley an adventure.  After taking the bus to Shannon Airport and flying into London Gatwick Airport, we took another bus into the center of London.  We got lost for about an hour looking for our hostel, which (luckily) was in a really nice part of the city.  Our hostel was located on Queens Gate, which we soon found out is different than Queens Gate Terrace, Queens Gate Mews and about a million other streets with the name Queens Gate in it, but after walking for a little around we finally found our hostel!

The hostel was located across the street from the Natural History Museum, which is only 1 of London's many free museums.  Of course, we took advantage of the free entry and enjoyed walking around the museum for a couple of hours (Mom- I know you're so proud of me right now). Besides all of the cool stuff on the inside, the building itself was gorgeous.  Even just looking at the outside of the museum was awesome!

After the museum, we headed back to the hostel and got ready for our pub crawl!  We headed into the city around 7:30 and paid 12 pounds for the pub, which ended up being a great decision!  We got 4 drinks for free, as well as free entry into all of the bars/clubs that they took us to.  Apparently the last bar itself costs 15 pounds, so it was definitely a great deal!  We met some other Americans who are stationed in Germany with the Air Force and just had a great time checking out the nightlife of London.  We got home relatively early (around midnight) and had our first night in a hostel!

The next morning we got up, had some much needed (and missed!) Starbucks and headed on our way to a tour of London.  A company called Sandemans New Europe was the company that puts on both the pub crawl and the free tour that we went on.  Many of the other tours that were advertised were around 25 pounds, but with the free tour, the only fee you pay is to tip the tour guide.  We each gave him 5 pounds each, so it was definitely a money saver, and I could not say enough great things about the tour, itself!  We saw all of the important stuff- like 10 Downing Street, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc. and our tour guide was AMAZING- he was so knowledgable about the city but also very fun.  After the tour, which lasted 2.5 hours, we went to a restaurant where we were given a 25% discount as members of the tour.  Overall, I would highly reccomend doing the Sandemans free tour in all of the city's that it is offered!

After the tour, we went to Oxford Street, which is supposed to have great shopping.  It seemed like it would've been a lot of fun except for the crowds were way worse than Times Square or Fifth Avenue, even during Christmas season!  None of us bought anything, except for postcards and other small souvineers.  Next, we decided to check out Harrods, the famous department store that takes up an entire city block!  Besides the usual clothes and housewares, they have several different types of food (which all looked delicious!) and even a section dedicated to pets, where you could buy a dog bed for 650 pounds.  A little ridiculous to say the least.  After Harrods, we went back to our hostel for a little bit and showered/got some rest.  Then we met a few of my friends from highschool near Piccadilly Circus.  It was great to see a few familiar faces in a huge, foreign city!  After walking around for an hour or two, we found a delicious place to eat.  Most of us got sandwiches, and I got to catch up with my friends from Notre Dame.  After eating and taking the tube back to our hostel, we got in around 11ish and decided to call it a day so that we wouldn't be too tired for our 7:30 wake-up call the next day.

Overall, London was an amazing first trip!  Its close enough to Ireland that many of the things are still the same, but it was definitely a different experience than Galway has offered.  The city itself is just massive, so I definitley appreciated being back in Galway and knowing exactly where everything is.  Even though I had been to London before, it was nice to have more flexibility and see the things that I hadn't been able to experience the first time around when I went with my highschool.  Seeing the London nightlife and going to the Natural History Museum were a few of the new things I got to experience, and also definitely on the top of my list for the trip.

Being away and switching it up was great, but I was definitely happy to come back to my bed in Galway and feel comfortable with where I was in the world!

The Natural History Museum

Pub Crawl with Michela, KC, Jamie and one of the guides

Horse Guards Parade with the London Eye in the background

(They hope to make this where the 2012 Olympic beach volleyball will take place!)

Jamie and I in front of Big Ben

Kathleen, Kaitlin and I! Notre Dame 2008

Connemara and Cong!

Today I took a day trip to see Connemara and Cong!  Connemara is packed with beautiful sights and Cong is a little town on the way that is famous for being in the movie "The Quiet Man" with John Wayne.  After a late night out in the pubs, it was definitely a little difficult getting up at 9 am!  (I'm not sure I've been up that early since I've been in Galway!)  The early wake up call was well worth it.  I was blown away by the beautiful lakes, most particularly Loch Corrib, which seemed neverending!  We basically circled around the lake for the day and that alone took 8 hours!  The first stop we made during the tour was to the Ross Errily Friary, which I'm pretty sure is the oldest friary in Ireland.  It was huge and entirely made out of stone!  It was fun wandering around the friary and seeing all of its little nooks and crannys! The next stop was Cong, where we saw the village of Cong and Cong Abbey, which was much smaller than Ross Errily, but still very pretty.

After a few stops along the Loch Corrib and a couple of gorgeous pictures later, we made our way to Kylemore Abbey, which started out as a castle, but was later turned into an Abbey.  Even though we had to pay extra to be able to see everything, it was so worth it.  The Abbey itself was gorgeous and the inside was so ornately decorated.  It is set right on a lake with the mountains of Connemara as a view- definitely something I wouldn't mind waking up to!  With a stone-walled garden, a neo-gothic church and a few other sites on the surrounding land, Kylemore Abbey was definitely magnificant!

It's definitely lots of fun traveling around Ireland and seeing how different each part of the country is- and I've still only explored the West coast!  We're planning a trip to Dublin for the last weekend of February and hopefully I'll make a few more trips before then. 

Ross Eerily Abbey

In Cong, between two Counties! (Galway and Mayo)

Cong Abbey

The beautiful Loch Corrib

Connemara with Michela and KC

Kylemore Abbey

Mountains at Kylemore Abbey

Week 3!

Since I've been here, I've been having such a blast meeting loads of new people and getting to really understand the culture!  I'm really happy with where I ended up living (it was my first choice and thank goodness it worked out!).  It is mostly Irish students in my housing complex and it is set up townhouse style. I feel like I'm really getting the full experience- I've made tons of Irish friends, but I'm still able to keep in touch with my friends from Fairfield very easily!  We're a little bit further away from town, but my house is much homier than where most of the Fairfield students live and we have almost everything we need right down the road!

We've been keeping ourselves busy by going to classes, visiting the pubs and walking around town.  There are some things in Galway that never get old to look at!  I love walking down the cobble stones of Shop Street and listening to the street performers.  I could do it everyday and not get sick of it!  I can't wait to walk down to Galway Bay again and take a few pictures.  It really is a beautiful part of the world.

Yesterday was Australia day, and one of the pubs (The Skeff) has a lot of Australian staff so they were having a celebration there.  We decided to join in on the celebration a little bit- the place (one of our favorites) was decorated to a tee with fake grass and fake straw all around and tons of Australian flags!  It was kind of weird being Americans celebrating Australia Day in Ireland (so many cultures in one!), but it ended up being a great time as always!   Tonight we will probably head out to a few pubs again- its such a great place to meet new people and hear stories from all over the world.  Not to mention the live music!

One of the things I miss most about America are the restaurants that I'm used to!  Getting pizza over here is pretty expensive and they don't really have as much of a mix as I'm used to.  Going to the grocery store is always an interesting trip- I'm starting to learn what is good and what I should never even go near.  I've found a few good soups and a couple of frozen meals that are good, but our freezer is so small that its hard to plan ahead!  Although, last night a few friends came over and we (aka they) cooked a delicious salmon meal with pasta!  I was in heaven.  Tonight I will be making microwavable Chicken Pot Pie.  Not everything can be perfect, right?

Me with my roommate, Emma

Classes!

While I'm in Galway, I have to take 6 classes in order to get the required amount of credits for Fairfield.  Classes meet either once a week (for two hours) or twice a week (one hour each).  Usually lectures classes meet two different times a week while seminars meet once.  Lectures are super big, especially compared to Fairfield classes and seminars are usually about 20 people big and are more intense with discussion, etc.

The classes I'm taking while I'm here are:
Northern Ireland: Politics of a Divided Society
The Development of the Castle in Midieval Europe
The Welfare State
Introduction to Practical Ethics
Coastal Environments
Women in Irish Society

I've been to each class and everything seems to be great, it'll just take a little bit of getting used to!

Arriving in Galway!

On January 4th, I flw out of Philadelphia International Airport to land in Brussels, Belgium and then flew from Brussels to Dublin, took a bus from Dublin to Galway and then a taxi from Galway to my new home in Gort na Coiribe!  After a long journey, my ears still hadn't popped and I was exhausted, lonely, jet lagged and without my main bag of luggage.  Needless to say, I was feeling a little homesick when I first arrived in Galway.  I moved in on a Wednesday, while my Irish roommates did not move in until Sunday night.  I slowly started to make Gort my home, by putting away clothes (after my luggage finally arrived!), buying a bedspread and eventually, throwing stuff everywhere.  It looked just like my room at home, or at Fairfield.

The first night we decided to explore the nightlife in Galway, which was not hard to find!  It seems as though there are pubs everywhere you turn.  When we went to Taffe's one night, my friends and I met a girl named Jamie, who ended up living in the same housing complex as me, which was nice since I didn't know anybody else that lived there.  We decided to walk home together and since then have figured out our classes, made plans for a few trips across Europe and hung out a ton.  After a few days in Galway, I realized I wasn't feel well, so I decided to go to the doctors where I was diagnosed with strep throat and put on antibiotics.  A couple of days and dozens of hours of sleep later, I found myself feeling good as new!  We met a new friend named Ania, I introduced Jamie and Ania to all of my Fairfield friends.  I feel like I've been new a ton of new people everyday, which was one of the things I was most excited about during my study abroad experience.  Its so interesting meeting people from different parts of the world and listening to them talk about thier difference life experiences.

I couldn't be loving it here more- the views are beautiful (even the walk to school!), the people are so nice and the culture is charming.  I can't believe I actually get to live here for 5 months!  My roommates are super nice- I live with four other girls from Ireland.  One is from County Galway and the other three are from County Clare, which is only an hour away.  All of the Irish students go home on the weekend which is nice, because its a lot quieter but it's also a little weird with Gort being so empty!  I guess I will eventually get used to it.

On Sunday, Fairfield organized a trip for us to see the Cliffs of Moher, which were just beautiful.  I had seen them before, but this time they were even more spectacular.  I can't wait to travel more around Ireland and the rest of Europe!

Now it's time to get ready to go to the pubs, but I should have another update soon about my classes and everything.

Walk to School

Me, Emily and Emmy at the Cliffs of Moher

Sitting On the Edge of the Cliffs!