Blogs from County Galway, Ireland, Europe - page 13

Hi again! Today was a fun day! We had a lecture on abortion this morning and it was very interesting. Ireland is very strict when it comes to abortions. It is illegal to have an abortion unless the mother's life is in danger medically or she is at risk off suicide. This bill was just past. There has been a lot of controversy when it comes to abortion. Many women go to the UK to have an abortion if they want to have one. One of the main cases dealing with abortion in Ireland was the X case. This case involved a 14 year old girl who was raped and her parents took her to England for an abortion. The Irish government stopped her and brought her family back before anything happened. They were put under ... read more

Hi! Today was a long traveling day! We left Killarney at 8:00 this morning and started our day. Our first stop was short one. We went to a beautiful waterfall! It was gorgeous! When I looked at my pictures, it looked like I took pictures of a picture and I stood in front of a green screen that was made to look like a waterfall. I did not do that, the waterfall was real and I am so glad I got to see it. After the waterfall we went to Muckross Farm. That was cool! We got to see a cow get milked and we saw the different size homes that the people lived in during that time. The number of cows a person had determined the size of their home. It was really neat to ... read more

Well, time flies when you’re having fun, eh? We cleaned up Swier’s Farmhouse early on Wednesday morning—strange what the male cousins left behind but I think I now know where all the missing mates of sock pairs live—and were on the way to make our flight from Manchester to Dublin in a circuitous pattern. The squiggle of a driving route began with a return trip to Haddon Hall because I had a sneaking thought that my sunglasses may have tumbled out of my purse when we stopped in their café for lunch. The super helpful and cheerful tour guide came skipping back towards us in pink knitted cap and fuchsia willies, big smile and thumbs up. Glasses found! Now on to Chester. Of course it rained, hailed, and sleeted and of course we were again circling ... read more

This weekend Randi and I adventured to Galway. After the 2 and a half hour bus ride, we pulled into the Galway Bus Station and a beautiful day! We checked into our hostel, The Galway City Hostel, and then went to find some food. We stopped into a pub called the Skeff. They were still serving breakfast so we decided to try our luck at an Irish Breakfast. It was the best decision we could have made. An Irish breakfast consists of sausage, bacon, an egg, black pudding, white pudding, and potatoes. Black and White pudding is not like the pudding you may be thinking of, it has a totally different taste and texture. It is more of a solid, but it tastes delicious. I also ordered a hot chocolate with the breakfast. It was so ... read more

I’ve spent 3 weeks at Sunny Meadow so far and how time has flown! I’ve crammed so much into my time here already and learnt a lot about farming and also cooking – how growing food and eating organically is a great way to live healthily, and new ways to cook good, wholesome vegetarian food. At home there are a few meals I usually make, nearly all of them to go with pasta or rice. Here, I almost never eat those staples, sticking instead to meals full of vegetables, eggs, potatoes and bread in different combinations. Every lunchtime we make soup, usually from scratch using veg straight from the garden, or creating something using cooked veg from the previous day. Nearly nothing goes to waste here – mouldy veg is thrown to the chickens or put ... read more