MerakiMoon

Instead of going to Cork, my dad and my sister decided that we wanted to spend a day in Dublin. I had already done a lot there, but I love the city, so I was more than happy to take them around to the things I loved and experience new things with them. We booked the Guinness Storehouse for our morning, which we did as a group, but I was excited to show them around, and I knew my dad wanted to do this a lot, so I was excited for him to experience it too. It was very rainy when we got there, we took the tram and then walked the rest of the way there and pretty much got right in, which was nice. We went through until the tasting room, and this time I actually drank the Guinness, and I was not a fan.                                                                         ...

Tonight was game night! A couple of people headed over to Kirchner's to play some games and eat pizza since a lot of the group was gone for the weekend. The pizza was actually very good. I can tell I'm starting to miss American food a little. I had a couple of pieces, and we sat down to start a game of Uno No Mercy, which I had never played, and admittedly was a bit intimidated to play because of how much it was talked up. Although, getting competitive made up for it because jeez that game gets really freaking competitive, it was really fun and the fact that you could give someone 20+ cards should be criminal. After we finished that game, we decided that we wanted to go get ice cream from Eurospar over on Abbey side, so everyone started to walk over, and it was such a nice night out, and it was fun because we were all joking around and talking. We got to Eurospar and we grabbed a plain swirly for Kirch while she took Thor to the park, and I got one with oreo and some graham cra...

 Today, we took a trip to Cork in place of Kirchner's class to take a tour of the Cork City Prison. We started the day at 6:55am for the early bus to get to Cork, and oh my god, we were so tired. It took about an hour to get there, so we got there at around 8:15ish, which was another hour and forty-five before our actual tour began for the prison. Me and a couple of other people went over to a Starbucks and I got a very good almond croissant for breakfast before we started walking towards the prison. It was about a 30-minute trek through the city and up a hill to get there, but it was really nice to walk, even if it was raining. Getting to the prison, it looked very medieval from the outside, and getting to see the grounds and all of the cells was a really cool experience, coming from class and learning about the different types of prisons. The audio guide was actually very interesting, and it was also very cool to be able to go through all of the stations and hear about real exper...

One of the big days for travel was today with my family. We had planned an eight-hour tour of the Wicklow Mountains, which I was not mentally prepared to be in a bus again for that long, but woo! We met our tour guide at 9-ish by the Molly Malone statue, which I hadn't seen or at least noticed until we actually got there, and it just breaks my heart every time I see her because of the wear on her statue, on very specific parts. After that, and briefly talking to my dad about the statue and more of its history, we set off with the remainder of the group to the bus to start the tour. We started out going about an hour out of Dublin to Glendalough, where we did a short tour of the seven churches area. It was really cool to see some of the older architecture again, more towers and older buildings from another lifetime ago, which is a crazy thing to think about. We talked about Vikings and their influence on the area and the architecture as well, and then we stopped in front of a rock t...

The last portion of the tour that my family and I went on deserved it's own post.  We signed up to go horseback riding at a small farm up in a hillier area, and it's safe to say that everyone was excited to go. My sister and I used to ride when we were younger, and we used to compete in small equestrian shows in the summers. As life goes everyone got busy and we weren't able to continue, but that didn't stop either of us from looking forward to this portion of the tour. My poor dad though, he might be a little spooked by horses since he had a bit of an experience when my mom used to ride and they went on a trail ride together and my dad's horse decided that it wanted to take a quick run to the other side of the trail. It was a bit chilly in the area since it had been raining all day, but for the moment it seemed that we might get off the hook and have a dry ride. They brought the horses in and they were so gorgeous, the one that I got was named chocolate, and she ha...

Today, I had a couple of things on the roster. A lot of it was on a bus, which was not great for my motion sickness, but it ended up being okay. Early in the morning, before we got to the waterfall and the estate, I had to register for classes, and I got most of the ones that I wanted, which was great. Then, after a little while, we ended up getting to the waterfall, and it was gorgeous, the surrounding area was so green it was crazy to me I had never seen anything like it in the States. Getting up to the waterfall, it was much bigger than I thought it was going to be, and there was a little platform where you could get cute pictures. Some people went up the stairs, which was, I think, an hour-long hike, whereas the part we were on was only a five to ten-minute hike back to the bus, and it was very enjoyable. The poem I thought of for this trip was the one that Margaret read, I n Gallarus Oratory by Seamus Heaney, it made me excited to visit the oratory and it was nice to hear the poem...