Cead Mile Failte

Cead Mile Failte - In Ireland that means "A hundred thousand welcomes!"

These past few days I was lucky enough to return to the land that has so much meaning in my life. For starters it's where two of the greatest grandparents a girl could ask for came from. It's the place where the color green comes in many different shades, Galway Girl is a song that never gets old, and Guinness is a plenty.

Wednesday afternoon my friends and I left for our first stop on our European adventure - Ireland. After a bus, a train, a plane, another bus, and some walking we had finally arrived at our hostel. After checking in we walked to a nearby pub and grabbed some dinner. All of us were shocked when our food arrived and the plate was actually full! Their portion sizes reminded us of home and our stomachs left happy.

Thursday began our first full day in the country. We woke up and started exploring Dublin. What was first on our stop? The Guinness Factory. I had already been with my family the last time I came to Ireland but my friends were dying to go and it's definitely something everyone needs to experience. The factory teaches you all about the process of making Guinness all the way down to the packaging. For most people their favorite part of the tour would probably be the free pint at the end of the tour, mine on the other hand was the view. The top of the factory is a circular bar that has windows all around it giving you the best view of Dublin. Off in the distance you could see the Wicklow Mountains and every picture I took didn't even come close to doing the view justice. After our tour we met up with my family. Kiera came to Dublin and brought us back to her house where Martina cooked us the BEST dinner. I mean she went over the top with the food. Salad, bread, sandwiches, chicken & rice, etc. Then there wasn't one but TWO desserts. Pavlova- basically a fruit pie which was heaven, and an apple crisp. She was incredibly sweet to do all of that for my friends and I. We were so thankful for her! It was nice to be in a homey environment just sitting on the couch hanging out and watching tv. We had all missed those simple luxuries!

Friday was our long day. We had to be up at 6:45am to catch our day tour bus that was going to drive us all around the Irish countryside. It took us to Limerick, the Cliffs of Moher, Doolin, the Burren, and along Galway. Little did I know this tour drove right through the town my Grandpa grew up in. We actually drove down the street his old house was on. I can't explain this feeling. There we were entering Ennistimon and I'm sitting there pointing out the graveyard my great grandparents are buried in and the house my grandpa grew up in. It was surreal and made me realize not a lot of people have that. My whole life having family from Ireland seemed so normal, I mean I didn't know any difference. Listening to Irish music, watching riverdancing, hearing common Irish sayings, generally talking about Ireland was an everyday thing growing up. Then here I am in the actual country explaining all of those things to my friends. Being able to talk about your heritage to someone is cool and interesting but actually being able to point out specific landmarks where your family came from was incredibly special. I felt so proud that I had such a deep connection to this place. It made me even more appreciative of the fact that I was able to travel here with my grandparents two years ago and see everything from their eyes.

To continue with my family ties I was able to meet up with my great aunt and uncle for lunch. Sadly the lunch was too short since our bus had to get onto the next stop but I was glad I got to visit with the cutest Irishman! (Besides you Fefawn!) After lunch we drove through the Burren which is this land absolutely covered in rocks. It was right along the ocean and our bus driver was kind enough to stop and let us get out. The waves crashing against the rocks and the sun shining bright made for multiple photo opportunities. Once our tour ended we ate dinner at a pub and again our stomachs were pleased. The Irish had fed us well. We ate our dinner and listened to live Irish music and I was finally able to hear Galway girl! Needless to say that song was stuck in our heads the rest of the trip.

On Saturday our trip came to an end. We spent the afternoon purchasing our souvenirs before making our way to the airport. None of us were too upset about saying goodbye to our hostel. After listening to a chorus of snores the past three nights and seeing people changing just about anywhere (including a guy changing right by my bed - ew.) I was ready to be back in my London home. I had an incredible time in Ireland and cannot wait until I go back.

As the Irish would say, Slainte! (Cheers)

Catch Up

It's been brought to my attention.. Lauren.. that I've been slacking in the blog department, well here I am to catch my few readers up on the events of the past week.

Tuesday:
- My cousin Katie got us into her posh club she works at to celebrate Mardi Gras. My friends and I got all dolled up and spent time with London's finest. When we arrived we were greeted with mini hamburgers, fries, popcorn, crepes, candy, etc. And the best part? It was all FREE. We had a little (a lot) of everything. We may have even loaded up our candy bags before we left for the next day :) Not a bad night at all!

Wednesday:
- ISA took us on a tour of BBC Studios. While I was actually looking forward to this excursion it turned out to be kind of boring. We learned that BBC is relocating it's studios to a newer building on Regent Street and most of the current building had been evacuated. We were able to see a few studios where shows were filmed, but being all British television shows I had no idea what they were. The most interesting part of the tour had to be when we found out was once the building was fully cleared out it was going to be turned into a hotel. It would include restaurants that are themed around past shows filmed at the studio. It sounded very cool!


Thursday:
- Valentine's Day. What better way to celebrate than buying a cupcake at Harrod's and watching Crazy Stupid Love with your friends? And did I mention the cupcake had a chocolate covered strawberry on top? It was DELICIOUS. Sadly my dreams of a precious British boy buying me flowers from the tube will have to wait until another day.


Friday:
-Melanie and I went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner. Fun Fact: it was the first Hard Rock ever! I had no idea it started in London. We had to wait a little bit until we were finally seated which caused the both of us to become hungrier. Being the Americans that we are we decided to split the Jumbo Combo. It included potato skins, onion rings, wings, chicken strips, and egg rolls. Yes it's as big as it sounds and yes we ate it all. Our waiter was quite impressed and even commented on the fact at well we had done. Not too long after we saw him deliver the same platter to a table of four. We weren't embarrassed. Definitely satisfied our American food craving!

Saturday:

Door the queen was behind!

 -Today ISA took us on an excursion of Windsor Castle. It's the Queen's weekend castle.. (What?!) But she just so happened to be there at the exact time we were. Probably the closest I'll ever get to her. Sigh. The castle was beautiful and we were able to see many of the rooms where the Queen hosts guests for dinner and other fancy royal events. It was also one of the nicest days we've had in a while weather wise!

-Not far from the castle is Eton College where both William and Harry attended school as well as Eddie Redmayne and the current Prime Minister David Cameron. Sadly the school was closed that day but the nicest man working inside opened the doors for us so we could take pictures of the courtyard. He also gave us a few facts about the place and showed us a picture of William's first day of school with Princess Diana. My friends and I just had to recreate the picture. Typical.

Sunday:
- Another day another ISA excursion. This one was creepier than the others. We went on a Jack the Ripper tour. For those of you who don't know about Jack let me give you a quick little history lesson. "Jack" went around gruesomely murdering women in the late 1800s, and when I say gruesome I mean too gross to write in my blog. Google it if you're that curious. Anyways, the man was never found. Creepy! They had a few suspects and believed there were numerous copycats of the Ripper. Our walk went along the pathways the women were last seen and eventually found. Again, creepy. Good thing our tour was during the day or I would have been truly scared. Our tour ended at Spitafields Market not far from our dorm so we grabbed a bite to eat at Las Iguanas. It was a delicious Mexican restaurant! Not as good as Mama Roja's though but it'll do.

Sidenotes:
-Emma's mom sent her homemade marshmallows and they're probably the best marshmallows I've ever had. I didn't know it was possible but now I must know how to make them! Melanie's mom sent her Girl Scout cookies and we went to town on them. We LOVE care-packages.
- Allyse and I booked part of our Spring Break trip. Cologne, Germany. Prague, Czech. Paris, France. SO EXCITED! Just adding more stamps to my passport and becoming a little world traveler. I don't hate it :)
- I apologize for the amount of food I talk about in my posts but it's how I spend my days!

This girl is off to Ireland on Wednesday so my next post will be all about my Irish adventures. Cheers!

Stonehenge, Bath, & Chelsea

I haven't been very good about writing in this recently so it's time to do a quick recap of the events of the past few days.

Saturday ISA took us to Stonehenge and Bath. Stonehenge was fascinating. Mainly because the first thing we heard on our audio recording was no one knows why it's here or what it was really used for. What?! It's just so funny. They have their suspicions though. They think it was used as a place for healing because they found bodies buried around it and all of them had some sort of disease. It also perfectly aligns with the summer solstice. Downside to the trip was that it was absolutely freezing outside. Don't let my pictures of the bright and cheery sun fool you. It wasn't warm. It was difficult to take in all that Stonehenge had to offer. I mean these rocks are over 4000 years old! We did the best we could though. And hey my pictures still turned out pretty good! If I can't find a job after college I could always pick up photography!

Bath has been one of my favorite places so far. I love London but it was so nice to get out of the city and finally see the English countryside. After all I am an Oklahoma girl and all we have are the plains. Bath was kind of settled into the land and as we're driving up we could see basically all of it from the top of the hill. It was beautiful. All of the buildings are built in the same creamish colored stone. They all had this uniformity that made the whole town seem idyllic and like your quintessential English town. We were able to walk around Bath for a little while before heading into one of Bath's main attractions the Roman Baths. The baths were first discovered when a man was walking around with his pigs and they stumbled upon this water and began playing in it. Well his pigs had leprosy and after getting out of the water he noticed they were healed. Once the Romans found out about this the rest is history. The began using it as a public bathing area. Definitely don't think I would have ever used it! The water is warmed naturally and felt great when we stuck our hands in! Little did we know it's not the safest to touch nowadays. Oops.

The rest of the week had been uneventful. The best part happened to be when I finally got my fill of breakfast food! I had been craving it for the past month. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, hashbrowns. I wanted the works. The Breakfast Club happens to be right around the corner from my dorm and serves breakfast all day. New favorite place.

Today we went to Chelsea Football Stadium. That was actually pretty cool. I wish I had done a little research though and learned more about their players. I literally had no idea what our tour guide was talking about the whole time. It was still interesting to see their stadium, especially since the team had recently won the Eurocup!

Hope everyone has a brilliant week! I'm off to bed cause although it may not seem like it I have class in the morning.

Cheers!

P.S. Some exciting news to share. My trip to Ireland is booked! In just two weeks from today Melanie, Emma, Allyse, and I will be traveling to Dublin. Can't wait!!