And so the travels begin again...

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This is going to be a little bit different than what I’ve done in the past. On my gap year I did a play-by-play of pretty much everything that I did. This time all my writing will be shorter, and hopefully more interesting since I will just be focusing on the main events. I am studying in Switzerland for the spring with SIT, the School for International Training. The program is Multilateral Diplomacy and Social Justice and focuses on diplomacy, economics, political integration (EU), and many other topics that I’m still waiting to find out… <span><span><span><span><span><span>😊 We will have speakers every day that are professionals from different organizations so it will not be as cohesive a course as what I’m used to at Puget Sound, but more like a series of lectures and discussions. We have a couple projects and papers as we go, then final exams. The last month we conduct an individual field study project/paper that will involve lots and lots of interviews and hands-on research. The topic of which is yet to be determined so if you have any brilliant ideas feel free to let me know <span>😊 Hopefully I will also have some time to travel, adventure, and go skiing in the Alps!



But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Think back to January 5… I left my family in Puerto Rico to fly to Europe, stopping for a wonderful 24 hours with Christina at Princeton. One plane ride, one train, a subway, a bus, and lots of interspersed stairs climbing later I made it to campus. For those of you that don’t know, Christina is one of the four girls that I grew up doing gymnastics with from age 5 (plus Brandy of course, so really 5, but she moved a little earlier...). I got the grand tour of Princeton, watched the expert divers <span>J got a taste of Christina’s life, and even sampled 7 different cupcakes at a shop that won Cupcake Wars. We happened to be there at the same time as a group of women who literally bought one of every single cupcake in the store so that they could try them all (best idea ever). Since there were many more cupcakes than there were people they had more than they could handle and we got to sample the leftovers. Crème brulee was the unanimous winner (yes, I know, there were only two of us so the fact that it was unanimous doesn’t say much…).

After unsuccessfully trying to convince Christina that she really should skip finals and stowaway on the airplane, it was off to Ireland to meet Ashley and Kinzie (the other two of our gymnastics foursome). Our first 3 days were in Galway and the surrounding area. Galway is my favorite town in Ireland (at least out of the 5 that I’ve been to…). It is in the west of Ireland and is famous for its music and friendly people; there were plenty of both! We could stop anyone on the street to ask for directions (which we did a couple of times) and would end up getting into a whole conversation about Ireland or Alaska or places to see. Just about every pub had trad sessions (live music) in the evenings and the streets were filled with musicians. We explored Galway on Saturday and then rallied (that’s for you Annika) for a night out on the town.

On Sunday we went to the Aran Islands just off the coast of Ireland where they still speak Gaelic. We took the ferry to Inis Mor, the largest of the islands. Our plan was to rent bicycles and ride around, but since January in Ireland is about as sunny as January in Tacoma or Ketchikan Alaska, naturally it was raining. Instead we hopped on a little van with some other tourists from the ferry and did the good ol’ automobile tour of the island. We went to an old fort on the edge of the gorgeous cliffs, the stereotypical Irish pastures and farmland enclosed with stone fences (probably one of my favorite things about Ireland), some church ruins, seals, people surfing (I don’t mind cold water but even I think they’re crazy), and had lunch at an adorable restaurant with the best tomato soup in the world (after my mom’s of course). We had a little time to wander around the small, okay tiny, village before we caught the ferry back to the mainland. Most things were closed and the already sparsely populated island was even more deserted since it was winter, but we did get to hear some locals speaking Gaelic in the pub!

Monday we went to Connemara and Kylemore Abbey. Connemara is a region and if you go in the summer you should definitely stay somewhere there and go hiking! Lots of hills (they call them mountains, but not by my standards), lakes, and sheep. Kylemore Abbey looks like a castle and is right on a lake.

Then it was off to Dublin where we spent Tuesday to Sunday morning at a combination of a hostel and with my friend Lyndsey, a local Dubliner. Kinzie left on Thursday to get back for school, but we managed to get in some exploring before then. Throughout our whole Dublin time we went to Trinity College to see the library and the Book of Kells (there was also a really interesting display in the science building on water usage), the Guinness Factory (of course), the old jail, Phoenix Park (where Lyndsey’s dad is a park ranger – he tried to take us around in the jeep but we very quickly got stuck in the mud…), St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin Castle, and a whole plethora of other churches and old buildings. Just walking around the city is really fun because there are so many neat buildings. At least I think so, but Ashley tells me I am unusually intrigued by architecture, as evidenced by my absurd number of photos of random buildings… One day we went out to Howth, a small fishing village near Dublin. We wandered around the harbor, pier, and out to the lighthouse and had yummy fresh fish and chips. And it was gorgeously sunny! We had mostly sun in Dublin and we had hardly any rain the whole trip. We also went out to Newgrange, a burial tomb where the sun aligns with the entryway every year on winter solstice to illuminate the inner chamber, and to Johnny Foxes, Ireland’s highest pub.

Then it was off to Northern Ireland for three days – our history lesson portion of the trip. We stayed in Belfast and did a day trip to Derry to see the murals and the walled city and the Giant’s Causeway, an interesting natural phenomenon made up of many identical hexagonal/octagonal pillars. We also did the Black Cab tour in Belfast where we learned all about the conflicts between the Protestants and the Catholics, the Loyalists and the Republicans.

After one more night in Dublin it was off to Switzerland and back to Alaska for Ashley. A great trip that went by way to fast! We are definitely going back to explore southern and south-western Ireland.

Well I didn’t exactly adhere to my claim that I wasn’t going to give a play by play of my adventures. Hopefully you skipped the boring parts. From here on out it will just be the highlights since I will mostly be in one place doing boring schoolwork. I hope you all are having a good winter wherever you are!

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