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Published: April 23rd 2013
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Downtown Dublin I have been up to so much since my last post! First of all, my trip to Ireland 2 weekends ago was incredible. I cannot wait to go back. Dublin is such a beautiful, animated, and wonderfully friendly city. We arrived Friday evening, and spent a few hours checking out the city center. We wandered around the Trinity College campus to take some photos and relax a little after the flight. From there, we explored the Temple Bar area and found a great pub that had traditional live Irish music every night. I had some incredible Irish Guinness stew with mashed potatoes for dinner, and we spent the evening singing along with the boisterous crowd. It was such a great introduction to Ireland!
On Saturday, we did a 12 hour day trip that drove us all the way across the country, East to West, to explore the Cliffs of Moher on the Atlantic coast line and several other small villages along the way. We stopped in Limerick, which was the setting for the book Angelas Ashes, and also hosts a great view of the River Shannon. We then moved on to the main attraction of the day: The Cliffs of
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Cliffs of Moher Moher. Our hilarious bus driver warned us as he let us off at a secret (not open to the public) access point to the cliff walk that it was "a wee bit windy out there." He was not kidding! The huge gusts of wind and occasional rainfall added to the extreme feeling of the walk, but we still got some pretty incredible views. The Cliffs of Moher are the second highest cliffs in Ireland, and are absolutely breathtaking. Altogether, the walk was only about 1.5 km, but the views of the ocean and of the coast line were unforgettable. We definitely earned our gigantic, traditional Irish lunch of sirloin, mashed potatoes, roasted root veggies, cabbage, fried potatoes, soda bread, and seafood chowder (which contained all fresh seafood caught that morning). Ireland definitely had some of the best food I have tasted all semester. From the cliffs, we progressed Westward through some small fishing villages, and stopped at middle ages abbey to see well-known ruins and a famous cemetery. The fog lifted enough to give us a great view of the rolling hills and mountains, and it was exactly as I had always imagined Ireland would look. Saturday night we headed
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Starting our cliff walk at the Cliffs of Moher! back to the Temple Bar area for another great night of songs, cheer, and Guinness.
Sunday morning, our flight ended up getting pushed back an hour so we had enough time to make it to the Guinness distillery. The museum itself was awesome and very well done. We learned about the beer-making process and the history behind the brand, which was very interesting. We rounded out the visit by sipping free breakfast Guinnesses in the 7th floor "gravity bar" which has 360 degree views of Dublin. We finally had some sunshine and blue sky, too, so I got a chance to capture the city in a rare light! All in all, the trip was fantastic and I cannot wait to return to Dublin!
This past weekend, we had our final CEA day trip to Reims, the capital of the Champagne region of France. We started off the day with a hike through "Les faux de Verzy," one of the few forests to host a weird species of trees. The trees have crazy twisted trunks and branches that, when covered with leaves, form huge mounds all over the forest floor. It was quite an interesting sight! From there, we
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Notre Dame de Reims had some free time to explore the city of Reims and to visit the beautiful Notre Dame de Reims cathedral. Although it looked very similar to the Notre Dame de Paris, this cathedral is much more intricate and beautifully carved. It was pretty spectacular. We spent the remainder of the afternoon on a private tour of the Pommery Champagne caves, learning about the champagne-making process, seeing the caves themselves, and enjoying a complimentary glass of real French champagne. Pommery is one of the most prestigious and world-renowned champagne vineyards, so it was pretty cool to get to see how everything worked on the inside. We were also finally lucky enough to get a sunny, rain free day on a CEA trip! That in itself was enough to make it a very special day 😊
In general, I am thoroughly enjoying Springtime in Paris. Being able to finally enjoy a baguette on the lawns of the Eiffel Tower or stop for ice cream on the way home is such a huge change from the freezing, dreary winter. I have already been able to picnic on the Seine and at the Eiffel Tower! This past Sunday my friend Shannon and I
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Gargoyles up close! enjoyed some sandwiches on the Seine while watching a jazz combo, and then climbed to the top of the Notre Dame to get some sun and see some awesome views of Paris. This coming Sunday, we leave for our whirlwind tour of 4 countries over the course of our two week Spring break! I will have lots of stories to tell when I get back!
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