I returned home to Swansea from London Sunday evening, after bidding Briana a temporary goodbye (I will see her in Prague in less than a month). Class all day Monday, once again. Monday is the only day of school I refuse to miss. Any other day, if I have the opportunity, I am going somewhere! Thus Tuesday morning I left early for Ireland. Turns out it took me till Tuesday night to actually get there (I probably could have swam to Ireland faster than it took for me to make it there. I lie, but I bet Michael Phelps could have beaten my plane easily). When I arrived at the Bristol airport, a massive cloud of fog covered the runway, preventing the plane I needed to catch from landing. After hovering overhead for awhile, the plane was redirected to Cardiff Airport (only 1 hr from my house instead of 3, plus 4 hrs of waiting!) and I hopped on a bus to Cardiff.
Finally arrived in Cork at around 9 o’clock and met up with Elizabeth Scholz, another friend from childhood (this time from Sardis Pres) studying in Ireland and stayed with her the first night. The day after I arrived was her 21st birthday and so I took her out to breakfast and we wandered around Cork for awhile in the morning. Went to their farmers market, called The English Market. Lovely place. And Cork is a very pretty city, similar feel to England but a bit larger and more spread-out.
Then I hopped on a bus to the countryside town of Bantry, where one of my housemate’s family lives. Liam’s family has a farm in rural Ireland and were gracious enough to let me stay with them for a day. I enjoyed it so much, seeing how families live is my favorite part of going to new places. Liam’s little sister Amanda stayed home sick from school that morning, but was miraculously better at lunchtime when I arrived. I played with her all day and then Debbie, Liam’s mom, took me to see some pretty countryside and mountains after dinner and the next morning. After picking Amanda up from school the next day, Debbie drove me back to Cork where I saw Elizabeth again for awhile and then caught a bus to Limerick, 2 hrs away.
Another one of my good friends from high school, Emily Gunn, is studying at Limerick University this semester. I spent Thursday night through Sunday afternoon with her. Emily had two other friends who are studying in England come for the weekend as well. On Friday we shopped around Limerick for a bit, in preparation for our Saturday day trip to Dublin! Saturday morning we woke up super early in order to catch the first bus to Dublin. Arrived and ate breakfast, wandered around for a bit, saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and grabbed front-row spots for watching the parade. One of the most interesting parades I have ever seen. NOT Irish at all. All of the groups (aside from American high school marching bands, one of them being Marvin Ridge HS, loved the NC representation) wore strange artsy, sciency costumes. After the parade the several girls I was with wandered around the city some more. We wound up later in a bar where the Wales-France rugby game was going on. Wales won! And following was the bigger event for all the Irish..Ireland vs England. All of the pubs and bars were jam-packed with people. Too many for my liking. Eventually it was time to grab some dinner and catch our bus back to Limerick. Only one problem..the bus never showed up. It was an awful hour or so in which I was terrified I would not make it back to Limerick that night and possibly miss my train the next day. Thankfully we were able to squeeze onto a different bus that was provided by the university, despite the fact that we didn’t sign up to take it. I sat on the floor for a good portion of the ride since there were not enough seats, but I didn’t care. Definitely way more stressful of a night than I care to relive again so moving on…Sunday morning Emily and I went to the Limerick farmers market for breakfast (notice a pattern here?) and I took a bus to the airport to return to Wales.
Ireland was so gorgeous, and I felt like I really got to see a bunch in 4 full days. Cork, Bantry, Limerick, Dublin. A very fun week!
presslyblackley 