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Published: October 16th 2008
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Ireland
shamrocks So I have finally made it to my home away from home, only to leave again. From what I’ve seen of Bangor I can only surmise that it rains… all the time. Great, I love being wet and cold! On a brighter note the one thing I thought could be ridiculous to bring - rain boots- was actually a very smart addition to the suitcase. So thank you Emmy, I now have dry pants everywhere I go! But wellies, rain, and Bangor are not the point of this blog so I’ll move on to….. IRELAND!
Our first stop on the island was to Dublin. This is the 5th largest city in the world and 60% of the population is under 30 years of age. So a nice, big, young city for everybody to enjoy, and we did! But in order to get to the island we had to take a ferry. This wasn’t very bad at all. In fact it reminded me of 1940’s cruise ships with grand staircases and chandeliers. The overall ride was pretty smooth as well. The trip over was a chance for most of us to meet and get to know one another. Just getting
Ireland
they have really fancy doors w/ knobs and knockers done traveling with two boys I am welcoming the change of estrogen greatly. I don’t quite know how much about the people that are in my central group so I’m just going to say if you want to know people’s names and a brief description then message me on the blog site and if you’re lucky I’ll put out a special blog describing everyone. The overall arrival in Dublin was not the Irish countryside that I had in mind. We were welcomed by the garbage, industrial loading dock, so pretty.
I haven’t traveled to too many larger cities, but Dublin seems pretty nice. There is a large millennium statue (it is a very tall point) that is right up the street from our hostel. Keeping that in sight you can travel around the city pretty easily and always make your way back. On our first day Tecwyn, our program director, took us through a brief walking tour. He then promptly left us to find our own way back. He seems to think this a great way for us to learn about the city and dive into the culture. Get lost and hope somebody speaks enough English to help you
Ireland
The map of our park out…. Yea, great. Actually he left us with maps and told us how to get back, along with directions on how to go to other site seeing opportunities if we were interested. So mom and dad don’t worry Tecwyn is a great guy that has so far taken very good care of us.
The first night there most everybody was feeling their jetlag - boy, am I glad that’s over with. We had initially intended on spending time in the natural history museum, but by the time we made our way through tourist shops it had closed. I’m not used to being around people that want to go shopping so much. It was fun to be in a larger group and with that many different personalities. Plus everybody was super excited about being in Europe (they also haven’t blown their budgets …yet). Jason Hassman had a great idea of going to the park just a couple blocks over. This turned out to be a lovely way to spend the remainder of the afternoon/evening. We walked through a very secluded park that made you forget there was a busy, booming city just around the corner. I personally enjoyed it because
Ireland
the park it was full of locals. Everybody was out sitting on the benches, grass, and…. each other, and enjoying the serenity, lazy Sunday afternoon, and…. each other. The amount of PDA going on in Europe is drastically different than Pella, Iowa. There’s a ton of it, everywhere. The park was super green, and the grass was almost mossy. It was a good opportunity to sit down and talk to people. We got to know the few people outside of the Central group, and I’m really excited about everybody here. It should be a fun adventure!
The next day tecwyn led us on a tour of Dublin. This started at the Trinity College, and ended at the Guinness Brewery - college and beer, I think Tecwyn knows us too well... 😉 The Trinity College was home to the Book of Kells. The book of Kells was amazingly preserved. The college also had a really good presentation and explanation of what you were about to see before you actually saw the Book of Kells. Looking at the actual book you see how magnificent the coloring is and the perfection in every word. I also really liked walking into the library (geeky I
Ireland
the park know). It smelled really good - for those book nerds out there you would be the only ones to understand. It smelled of old leather books, and it had ladders that moved like in Beauty and the Beast! (Sadly we could not go for a ride on the ladders, they were off limits).
After Trinity College we walked to a different park honoring Oliver Wilde. We then swung around to St. Patrick’s cathedral. St. Patrick’s a pretty big deal here… I don’t know why though… oh yea, St. Patrick’s DAY! (SOO jealous of everybody coming over next semester!) This was the first time for a lot of people to tour a cathedral, and it was fun watching and seeing how people reacted to visiting, and sightseeing a church. Some found it interesting and some thought it was disrespectful. I myself and getting used to look at cathedral’s, but I would never do so during a ceremony (I would like to attend a service, however, because I think to be in a church that majestic and historic would be powerful.) From there we went to the Guinness Brewery. This is the only thing not covered by Central, and was a
Ireland
A good group of good people (Starting Lower Left: Drew, Me, Alicia, Ron Next: Paulie, Jess, Kiley, Nalan Next: Andy, Christian, Hass, Nick) complete only if you want to go experience. I figured why not, only in Dublin once (maybe), and I’ve never had Guinness before. I do not plan on having it every again! Awful, awful, awful!! I did finish my pint though, I paid my $18 so I was going to finish it (never again though, ever).
Making our way back from the tour we decided to catch an Oliver Wilde play that Tecwyn had told us about. Not everything gets to go our way because it was sold out. So this naturally led us to decide we should go experience the night life in Dublin instead. We headed to the infamous Temple Bar- a huge tourist trap for a bar with amazingly expensive drinks, so I didn’t buy any. See aren’t I such a smart little penny cruncher. The temple bar was pretty fun place to be. It was a cultural experience. The whole block is considered temple bar, but there is only ONE Temple bar. The block is covered with people playing instruments, pretending to be statues, and selling art. It’s the same way during the day, different people same concept. I really enjoy these places, and the
people are very interesting. Plus for being street performers I think they’re pretty dang good. On our first night in Dublin (after the park) we hit up a pub called O’Shea’s (couldn’t be more Irish). They happened to be featuring live traditional music that night. We got to watch couples dance around the pub and the locals sing along. What a way to be welcomed into Ireland - Religion (catholic), Guinness, singing, and dancing!!
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