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Published: March 5th 2009
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Lahinch Beach
TWe thought this would be fun! This past weekend the Study Abroad and Exchange office organized a day trip to Lahinch for any study abroad or exchange students who wanted to go. It was only 20 euro and the day was packed full of stuff, it was great! It was also nice for everything to be organized for us for once and not worry about all the small details of travelling ourselves! So the day started with us leaving Limerick at 7am on three big coach buses (there was 150 in total) We drove for about and hour and a half to this small town near Lahinch and got off at the Falls Hotel. When we got there we were taken to a conference room where they served us scones and tea and coffee. Everybody pounced on that and kept asking for more and more scones. The more free (well not technical since we paid 20 euro) stuff we can get the more willing we are to take it! After that an Irish women and her daughter came in and taught us about 5 traditional Irish set dances. It was really interesting (a lot like line dancing but a bit more reformed). Trying to squeeze a 150
people on the dance floor that is usually occupied by 30 or 40 so the dance instructor kept telling us was a little challenging. But everyone got really into it! I can remember one of the dances at this point, which I think isn’t to bad considering we didn’t spend too much time on each dance.
After the dance lessons we all got back on the buses and headed for the Lahinch beach. It’s a big surfer beach and there was actually a competition going on at the time. Of course they were full body wet suits because it was cold! I would say maybe it was 9 degrees! Everyone ran down to the beach (it was the first time I had been to the coast in Ireland) and took off there shoes and waded through the tide. Of course by the end we couldn’t feel our feet but it was worth it! We had about an hour to explore the little town of Lahinch and we found a sweet surf shop which I wanted to buy everything from but restrained! Plus the clothing were marked way up compared to back home so I would have broken the bank
Lahinch Beach
Me, Jenna and Kaelyn for sure. After that we headed back to the hotel for some soup and sandwiches but I wouldn’t really call what they served us sandwiches. They were the size of three fingers put together so of course being the hungry North Americans (that’s how we categorize ourselves if I haven’t mentioned that already…) that we are we kept asking for more!
After lunch we headed to the Ailwee caves. They are these caves that were discovered in the 1940’s and have remains of brown bears which have been extinct in Ireland for thousands of years. We went through them but being as big a tourist spot that it is it wasn’t really caving as they call it. There were lights and a path and a guide! But it was still really interesting. As soon as I walked off the designated walking path I got covered in water because I happened to walk in the one huge puddle in the cave. Good thing I had an extra pair of socks (yes I come prepared haha). After the caves we drove through the Burren on the bus and there was a guide on the bus telling all about the area. The
Lahinch Beach
One of the surfers from the competition area is covered with limestone and some sculptures made out of the rock which were made thousands of years ago. What was most interesting to me was that even though the land was covered in limestone, they still used it as farming land. There were tons of cows, sheep, and horse just grazing in the limestone. After that we headed back to the hotel one last time for this fantastic dinner! The best dinner I have had since I got here. I had some chicken (which I don’t eat much of here) and potatoes and vegetables and then ice cream for dessert. That meal will satisfy me for a while to come! We got back to Limerick around 9pm and pretty much everyone was dead.
The next day the international society had organized a bus to go to the Hurling match which I hadn’t been to yet but see everyone here carrying around hurling sticks. We didn’t really understand the concept of the game but decided we would try and figure it out when we started watching. We somewhat caught on but the first thing we all noticed was how violent a game it is. These guys are ramming
into each other like football players only with less than half the padding. They also use their sticks to hit one another, especially at the hand when they are carrying the ball. I don’t know if all this hitting is legal but they did it anyways. The medics had to rush to the field at least 8 times. No serious injuries though. Hurling though is a really interesting sport so I’m definitely going to try and catch another game, especially since the tickets are only 5 Euros for students!
And the last thing i'm going to talk about in this blog is the traditional (or trad as they call it here) Irish music festival we went to last night. It was a benefit concert to raise money for a student whose father had just passed away so the international office bought a whole bunch of tickets and we got them for free. There was a whole array of different trad music. There was just the basic piano to whole bands including the banjo, tin whistle, bag pipes, guitar, Irish drum (that’s not the name but I can’t remember it) fiddle, violin, flute and something called The Arms (its real
names is in Irish but I can’t remember that either but that’s the direct translation). The music is soo interesting especially since they all tell cool stories about the history. Tim (a guy from Switzerland) bought a raffle ticket together and happened to win two cd’s of some of the artists playing that night so I can bring home the music and let you all listen to it haha! When we left the pub it was snowing outside and then this morning the ground was covered in snow (which melted by the end of the day) but that’s pretty rare here so everyone was excited and upset. I was talking to the cab driver on the way home about the driving conditions back home as he was saying that it was too dodgy to be driving so he was going to head home haha.
Anyways it was a really good weekend! I finally got to some homework Sunday night since I had midterm this week!
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