Blogs from County Carlow, Ireland, Europe - page 4

This morning our Irish Experience teacher picked us up around 11:30am to give us a mini tour of Carlow and the surrounding areas. She first took us to the Browneshill Dolmen. It is believed to have been built between 4000 and 3000 BC by some of Ireland's earliest farmers. The capstone is argued to be the heaviest in Europe, around 100 metric tons. We then traveled about 15 min outside of Carlow to Duckett's Grove. Its a gorgeous Castellated Gothic revival style house that was built in the 1830s on an estate originally of 5000 acres. The entrance of the estate is marked by an elaborate gate built abot 20 years after the house. The house was ruined by a fire in the 1930s but recently it is being restored and a garden is being planted ... read more

This morning we went to Carlow College to get our schedules and a little introduction to the college. I'm going to be taking Sociology, Irish Experience, and Irish Social Dancing here but we don't start till the 22nd of September. Afterwards we got a tour of the college. They have a student lounge and a gorgeous library! It used to be the schools church that they just recently converted into the library. After our lunch break we went to Carlow IT for another orientation session there. I'm taking Anatomy and Physiology and Chemistry. We were told that we may be starting later this week or Monday, but at the moment they had no schedules up and didn't even know what teachers were teaching our classes. It was very unorganized and frustrating for us since we're used ... read more

This morning we were supposed to go on a field trips for one of classes...already!...but it got cancelled due to unpredictable weather. Ryan decided to take us to Aldi's since none of us had any food yet and then we were sent out to do whatever we wanted. Kaley, Bridget, and I first got our groceries, walked them back to our apartments....about a 10 min. walk...and then decided to go explore the city. We love it! Carlow is a lot bigger than we all had been expecting, and all of the people are courteous and nice to us. We ended up walking all over the town for about 5 hours. We found the courthouse, part of a 13th century castle, a hospital that looked like a mansion made of stone and nothing like a hospital!, and ... read more