Ireland, Part 2, Back to Dublin and into the West

Trinity College

 So, we're going to pretend that all of these blog posts weren't within a few days of each other. I'm determined to keep this blog somewhat up to date. After we got back from our whirlwind trip to London, we went back to Dublin and met up with Julie and Ed again. We didn't do much on Wednesday night other than go to a pub for dinner and some drinks. The next day, Thursday, we went to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. We couldn't take pictures, but the books were cool. They also showed you how they were made and inked, which was awesome. I think it would be fun to bind books that way, but I guess it's not if that's the only method you have of doing it. It was also kinda strange walking on a college campus again. Rome has nothing even closely resembling a college campus like Penn State. I miss it.

Thanksgiving dinner

 Thursday night was Thanksgiving, which was totally weird since it didn't seem like Thanksgiving to me at all. Probably because I haven't been in America for quite some time now. We went to a pub for dinner (Fitzgerald's, our fav) and had shepherd's pie and cider. Not exactly traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but it was still good. Thursday night we went kinda crazy at the bars and were definitely enjoying ourselves at our "usual" bar, Busker's, with our seven deathly sins drinks and the breathalyzer. Yes, they had a breathalyzer at a bar. No, I don't think anyone should know what any of our BACs were that night. It was a good night, even if the club we went to was basically empty and Eric and I may have made fools of ourselves. Its all good. We were doing all of this when we should have been sleeping, honestly. We decided to go on the Cliffs of Moher tour on Friday morning... at 6:40am. It was an... interesting morning. Its a good thing we could sleep on most of the bus ride to Galway.

Fairy fort

 The bus trip started with taking us to Galway, one of the cities in Western Ireland. Our tour started from there, essentially going down the coast, stopping periodically, to the Cliffs and Moher and then back up again. On the way down, we stopped at some Irish ruins, which were essentially out in the middle of nowhere. We stopped at a "Fairy Fort" (essentially leprechauns), and we also stopped at a pub in Doolin for lunch. I had Beef and Guinness stew, which was delicious. I never liked Guinness until I came to Europe, really. I wonder if its just because I've had it on tap or if it just tastes better here...
We also saw tons of sheep just grazing in fields. A lot of Western Ireland doesn't seem to be too built up.  A lot of it was fields and mountains, which honestly is kinda refreshing. Its nice to know at least some parts of the world are green. I do see why most people associate the color green with Ireland, though. It seems that everything is green, even their passport stamp. Its kinda funny. It really is a beautiful country though, even when its cloudy.

 Once we got to our final destination - the Cliffs of Moher - it was absolutely breathtaking. It was so peaceful looking at the water rushing up against the cliffs... until you get pelted with wind or water. Some of the water coming off the cliffs would be going up because of the direction of the rain. It was so strange. Walking past certain parts of the cliffs felt like one of the worst rainstorms. We snuck past a "do not climb" sign to get farther into the cliffs (smart? probably not. was it a really short wall that even I could climb over? yes.). The wind was stronger here, and there was no real railing at all, which really kinda made me a bit nervous. All of us survived, and we watched the light hit the clouds and the water crashing up against the cliffs. We explored the visitor's center a bit too, which was built inside a mountain. Our way back mostly involved sleeping as it gets dark in Ireland around 4:45pm in November, and we were all tired anyway. We got back to Dublin in early evening, but unfortunately spent most of the night packing. Yay for early morning flights. It was nice to relax a bit before getting on a plane (again) and going back to Rome for two weeks of hellish work.

It was Christmas in Dublin when we were there. I loved seeing all of the Christmas decorations. They just started putting up decorations in Rome when we got back from Ireland. 'Bout time. Ireland & London was an amazing way to spend Thanksgiving break. I was very sad when it was over. It was also great to see Julie, Eric and Ed. I plan to go back to the UK + Ireland whenever I get the money to be able to.

Well, its three days until I return to America. I'm glad, but I think it'll be weird too. It'll be weird that people can actually understand me. Studio is officially over as of today. My goal is to blog about everything Europe-related before I leave. Hm.. we'll see about that. Ciao for now!