Last weekend was Easter. Just a recommendation to anyone wanting to travel to Ireland, or really anywhere in Europe connected to the Roman Catholic Church, don't come Easter weekend. Everything closes, including the grocery stores, and a bustling city like Dublin becomes a ghost town. So while my parents called me telling me about the feast they were going to have, I sat on the other line eating toast because that's all I had in my cupboard...it was either that or brown sugar. But, things are back to normal now and food beyond bread is available.     

     Today I went to the Botanic Gardens. It was sunny and 51 today so it was perfect. The grounds are huge with five or more green houses and an endless park. I'll have to go back in late May when more of the flowers outside have bloomed. But even so, the place was beautiful, not just the plants either, the greenhouses were works of art themselves.      

     I was only there for an hour and a half but managed to take a million pictures. My favorite green house was the South American one, of course, and it was filled with gigantic trees and plantain plants plus there was a cat that lived inside too.  It was incredibly humid in there so I had to keep wiping off my camera lens. But I will say that I welcomed the humidity and the warmth of the green house. I've spent a lot of my time here being fairly chilled, so it was nice to feel like it was summer for a minute. 

and then magically i went from dublin to the amazon.

green house cat.

St. Patrick's Day, etc...

     Well after hounding me enough for a  new post, here it is. The Elders concert was fun, lots of old people except my friend Anna and I. The Elders were definitely better than the band after them, Prepare the Haggis or something? Not sure,  but nobody stayed for them anyway. Other than that last week was normal until the weekend. Ireland played England in rugby and we lost which is pretty bad, I think we're in fourth in the six nations league now. But Wales beat France, and we like Wales more than anyone else so that was good. That was saturday and then monday was St. Patrick's Day.

     The holiday here wasn't too eventful, but I tried. Anna and I went to the parade at noon. It was mostly kids and their parents and then a lot of tourists. We got bored of that pretty fast so we went to Doyles which is the Trinity University bar. Hung around there until our Irish friends came into town and from then until about 2 in the morning it was a series of bars and cabs and drinking. I will say I woke up that day hoping for Irish breakfast but that didn't happen, I think I ate pasta instead? Who knows but it wasn't the same. I kind of got that for the Irish it was a day off kind of like Memorial Day is to the US but with all the tourists in town it makes it a lot more rowdy.  But that was St. Patrick's day in all its glory. 

     Lucky for me I've had this week off for Reading Week plus I have monday off because of Easter Monday.  Unfortunately for me, all my essays are going to be due in a little over a month so I've actually been using my time off to sleep and read. Good Friday is tomorrow so all the pubs close early so I can't even try to go out.  Oh well, its probably for the best. I haven't been taking any pictures because I haven't been doing anything. Plus its been raining here more than usual, thus its too bleak to even want to take pictures.  But here are a few of my friends and what not...

Part of the parade. I think the theme had something to do with animals and the wild. 

Here is a huge dragon balloon. It got kind of windy and the balloons were flying into the crowd, thus scaring all the children. Kind of funny.

Clare, Sorcha (Sarah in Irish), and Kerry.

Anna, Kerry, Aisling, and Clare dancing with some guy.

dollars, euros, and now pounds sterling

     Now that I've been traveling a little bit and meeting more Irish I've picked up the differences between Northern and Southern accents.  Thus, being in the North this past weekend wasn't difficult as I could actually understand what they were saying. I traveled to Belfast and Portrush for a few days with the program that I am here with.  So it was my first experience with a bunch of American students in Ireland, which of course had its good and bad points. When we got there we saw the Protestant and Catholic areas of Belfast that experienced the worst of "the troubles". I actually really didn't like this part of the trip and was glad that it was short but the rest was of the trip was grand. 

     We were in Belfast for the day and stayed in Portrush for the rest of the trip. Portrush is this town  on the northern part of Ireland right on the coast. It was close to Bushmills the town and home of Bushmills Distillery of which we had the chance to tour. Drinking whiskey is really hard to do at ten in the morning but we all seemed to managed. After that we went to Giants Causeway. Find out more about the Giants Causeway myth here. There happened to be 70 mph winds that day which was really dangerous for the type of terrain that Giants Causeway is on.  We had plenty of warnings to stay off the rocks and away from the water because that's how people have died in the past. So I did just that, took a bunch of pictures and then headed up to the top for tea.  

     On the last day we woke up early and went to Dunluce Castle. It was still pretty windy and cloudy so we didn't stay long but what we saw was so beautiful.  I would definitely say that this trip had the best scenery so far. The cliffs and the greenery everywhere reminded me how happy I am not to be in the midwest during winter. Plus I met some more Americans, of whom some are from Kansas City. 

     Tonight I am going to see the Elders in city centre with my friend Anna. She's also from KC but hasn't ever heard of them. I'll let that slide since she's from North KC. The DCU fashion show is also this week which I am excited about. Its actually a big deal because the model that wins receives a contract with a modeling agency in Dublin. Then this weekend I am going back to Carlow for another friend's 21st. It seems like its hard to be bored here but I need to start writing my essays soon. I am lucky and don't have any final tests but I have papers to write. Oh and just to let all of you know, St. Patrick's Day is a big thing here. Maybe its just a Dublin thing but I've heard it gets really crazy and its almost a week long event. So I'll let you know how that turns out.

Bushmills didn't allow pictures anywhere in the distillery so I had to settle for the lobby and the tasting. 

Hot Totties at the end of the tour.

On the way down to the rocks. 

The rocks are the reason for Giant's Causeway. Look at their shapes closely and then read the myth and it'll really amaze you.

Part of Dunluce Castle.

View from the Castle.