London

London was amazing....most of these Pictures are pretty self explanatory.

In addition to the things in the pictures, I went to the national gallery, the modern art museum, ate really good Indian food, t

o Shakespear's Globe, and just generally really enjoyed the city!

Tower Bridge
Buckingham Palace
I went to see Les Mis in the theatre. It was unbelievable.


West Minister Abby
Big Ben
West Minister Abby

The West Coast

Hey all!

I know I haven't written anything on here in a really long time, and it would take lots of words to describe everything, so I will just post some pictures with a short explanation! Some things I don't have pictures of so I will just write about those a bit. The following pictures are of when I went to the west coast of Ireland (about a month ago) and I will post pictures of my London trip soon.

These were really old celtic graves, that were across the street from the hostel I stayed in, in a small town called Doolin. Also just down the road from the hostel was a great pub with absolutely wonderful live traditional Irish music. I was a great time and the people there were very nice friendly.
One of the many rock walls I saw. This one has been standing for probably over 200 years.
A sample of Burren landscape that is common in the area of Ireland I was in. It was really neat. It is said the Tolkien got some of his ideas for The Lord of the Rings from this landscape. Oh and I finished reading the Lord of the Rings books. They were so incredible, beyond explanation.

I could have watched the water crash against the rocks for hours. It was so beautiful and peaceful in a strange sort of way. This is the Atlantic by the way.
A bit of the country side, that I was wandering around in.....I wasn't lost, just turned around a little. I eventually made it back to the hostel i was staying in. It is just hard to ask for directions when there are no road signs and cows are the only things you can ask!
A castle I ran into during my wandering. When I first got here I was really excited to see castles, but now they just seam like a normal thing to see....they are everywhere.
Cliffs of Mhor
These signs were all over the place. Of course this just made me want to hop the fence and go exploring, however my desire to live overcame my desire for adventure. Good thing I suppose.
This picture is to demonstrate how extremely windy it was at the cliffs. It was unbelievable. If you jumped off the ground the wind would take you back like 2 feet, it was really fun.
The Cliffs again. They are about 200 meters high.

This picture is actually from just south of Dublin, in a town called Dun Laoghaire. I went there just after I got back from the west. It is a nice little place and the harbour is pretty.

I haven't looked at these pictures in awhile, and they are just reminding me of how much fun I had! I think that one if the best things about being here is that whenever I go somewhere for the weekend it is somewhere I have never been before and there are always new things to experience. I love traveling and adventure and learning new things and different ways of life and culture from the people I meet here. Traveling is such a great way to broaden your perspective on life.

Not up to much

 

Hey everyone sorry I haven’t written in awhile…..I haven’t been up to anything to eventful. My computer is being stupid and won’t let me upload anything, so no pictures or videos this time. This past weekend I stayed in Dublin. Natalie and I went to the Modern Art Museum on Friday afternoon. It was nice, but nothing spectacular, some of the exhibits were closed because of construction. Saturday, we went to Phoenix Park and that was a really good time! It is the largest enclosed park in Europe and it makes Central park look dinky. We hired bikes and road around the park for about 3 hours. It was a beautiful day, the leaves were falling from the trees, and it just smelled like autumn. I was excited because there were lots of leaves on the ground and I love crunching them! After that we walked to the Natural History Museum and spent some time looking around there. Saturday night one of the girls in our class was having a birthday party, so we went to that and had a really good time. I am really stoked because some of the girls in my class are in a climbing club (like rock climbing) and I went with them on Monday. The go to a place similar to climb time, if any of you know what that is or have ever been there, but it’s free! So pretty much I can climb every Monday and Tuesday night for free if I want to! The club also goes on trips and I might try to go on one if it works out. They are going on one this weekend, but I already had made travel plans. My friend Jeff is coming (he is studying at Kent in Canterbury) to Dublin and then he and Natalie and I are going to Galway, the Cliffs of Mohr and the Araon Islands. We have Monday off of school, so we will be able to be gone for a long weekend. It is going to be so fun, I have booked us to stay at what seem to be some really cool hostels (one is on a working farm and is in an old farm house….or at least that’s their marketing ploy), and the scenery is supposed to be gorgeous!

Needless to say, everything is going really great. Wow I just ate a piece of bread with rhubarb ginger jam I bought and it's so delicious!  I have a biochem test on the 28^th, so I have been studying for that. Of course I have been reading a lot…I finished the first book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and am half way through the second book. They are so amazingly good! I was having really good luck with the weather, sunny mild days, but is has started to rain a lot. The last 2 days it has been pouring, it is still quite mild though. Thankfully is doesn’t take but 5 minutes for me to walk to class. I pray that everyone on the other side of the Atlantic is doing well, it’s just a short swim if anyone wants to visit! I look forward to telling you all about my weekend.    

A wonderful Hike

Sorry I have been lazy and haven’t done the little video of my apartment yet, soon though. I had a good uneventful week, mostly filled with going to class and starting on a few papers that are due at the end of the term. On Thursday night Natalie and I went to dinner with some of the girls in our class, it was nice to hang out with people and the food was good. I just stayed in Dublin for the better part of the weekend. One of my professors invited Natalie and I to go to a dietetics conference on Saturday afternoon, which was really close to our apartment. There were a bunch of different research projects done by dieticians that we looked at/read and we also listened to a few presentations that were interesting. Later on in the evening there was an awards ceremony with champagne and appetizers. It was really fancy and our professor (who is the nicest lady and very helpful), made sure we drinking champagne. We had already had one glass each and when she saw us with empty hands she ran up to the bar and got us both another glass. We both thought it was so funny and are still not quite used to being able to drink alcohol legally.

Today (Sunday) we decided to take a little day trip just up the coast from Dublin and do a bit of hiking. We took a 20 minute train ride to Sutton and hiked around the peninsula to another town called Howth and then took the train back to Dublin from there. The scenery was so amazing and probably one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen! The trail was along the coast and we were walking along some cliffs that overlook the ocean. A lot of it was uphill, but the last part going into the village was down hill, which was a nice break. Every thing was 

 green and we couldn’t have asked for a better day. It was breezy and sunny and about 14 degrees C (approx. 57 degrees F, I am trying to use Celsius while I am here, it leads to less confusion during biochem lab). We hiked around for about 4 hours and wandered around Howth for a while and got some really delicious fish and chips. It was so much fun and felt good to be out in the fresh air and away from the city for a bit. I was pretty tired by the time we got back to our apartment and have just been reading and working on some homework for biochem this evening. Hopefully I can make a lot of headway on some of my papers this week. I am going to

try and get them done as soon as possible, so I can leave as early as possible to start my traveling elsewhere in Europe during Christmas break. I am going to Galway and the Cliffs of Mohr (both are on the west coast of Ireland) in 2 weekends and the first weekend of November I will be in London, I can’t wait!

Cork

                                                                        Cork City 

This past weekend Natalie and I traveled to Cork City, which is in the southeastern part of Ireland. We took a bus on Friday afternoon and arrived in Cork that evening. The ride there was wonderful. We got to see rolling green hills and lots of sheep and cattle. Everything here really is very green! Once we arrived we didn’t know where we were going to stay, but easily found a hostel to stay in just up the hill from the main part of the city. Cork is much smaller than Dublin and we quickly found our way around the city and to a nice pub with good music. On Saturday morning we took a bus to go and see Blarney Castle (it is only about 20min. from Cork). The castle was really neat and we got to kiss the famous Blarney stone that is as the very top of it and supposed to give the gift of eloquence to all who kiss it. The grounds around the castle are very beautiful and we walked round for a while and enjoyed them. We then took the bus back to Cork. For the rest of the afternoon we walked around the city, saw the main cathedral and went to a small museum. There were other things that we could have done but we were sick of spending money, so we decided to just go back to the hostel and rest for a while. Latter we went back out and got dinner and then went to another pub and listened to some more good music.

                                                         Blarney Castle 

Me kissing the silly stone (the man in the pic is a guy that works there and I guess he has to over see people or something)

 Just a glimpse of the castle grounds 

Sunday morning we took a train to Cobh (pronounced cove, the b-h combination in Irish makes a v sound and yes Irish is a language for those of you that didn’t know), which is a little island in a bay area near the city. Since it was Sunday morning not much was open, but we just walked around the town and along the coast and enjoyed the view. Latter in the morning we watched the end of the Cork to Cove 15 mile race that was going on and that was fun to see. We hopped back on the train and went back to Cork, collected our things from the hostel and then headed to the bus station to catch a ride back to Dublin. The ride was about 4 ½ hours, which was long, but again I got to enjoy the beauty of the Irish countryside. It was nice to be back in Dublin and once I got back to my apartment, after being gone for the weekend, it felt surprisingly like home. I liked that.

                                 View of the bay from Cobh 

 Bus ride scenery 

All of my classes are going well and time is going by fast. My professors have started to give me my assignments that will be due at the end of term and will act sort of like a final, which will make up the better part of my grade. Thankfully things haven’t been too tough and I don’t foresee them getting to terribly difficult. I have started reading Lord of The Rings for fun and am starting to get really engrossed in the first book. It is a bit dangerous when I start reading a book, especially one that is long, because I tend to get a bit detached from real life and just want to read all day until I finish it! Oh well, I am trying to have self-control, but it is quite good. Today was the first day that is has rained since I have been here! This is very remarkable since it normally rains very frequently; I have been told that it practically rained straight through July and August. I guess I have just been lucky to get such nice weather thus far. I am going to post a video soon of my apartment so you all can see it. It is very small, so it won’t be long, but I know some of you would enjoy seeing it.

Well I hope that you are all deeply enjoying your lives and not taking for granted the wonderful gift that life is. Being away from everyone that I love has made me appreciate them even more than I did before and I am very grateful for the life that has been laid out before me and am excited to see what lies ahead. 

                                                                        Christ's Church
                                                                         Christ's Church
                                                               St. Patrick's Cathedral 
                                                                     Dublin Castle 

  Damien Rice (the concert I went to was in the chapel of Trinity College)

All Settled In...

I have been in Dublin almost a week and for the most part am all settled in. I know my way around school, have found the cheapest places to buy my groceries and am starting to be able to make my way around the city without having my nose in a map. I get along with my two roommates really well. Natalie (goes to Purdue and is in my major, but we are just becoming friends here) and I share a room and then Jorin (born and raised in Sweden, but parents are from China) lives with us as well. We are all very different, but I have been able to find common ground with both of them and I am looking forward to getting to know them better.

During the week I meet with professors, decided which classes I would be taking for sure, and then went to class. This weekend, thankfully I got to explore a bit and see some really amazing things. Thursday was defiantly the highlight of my week since I got to see one of my favorite musicians, Damien Rice, play in concert and then went to the same Pub that he was at! I know I have already shared this with some of you, but I was pretty excited about it and it was kind of by chance that I got to go.

On Friday night it was culture night in Dublin, so many historical sites and museums were open late, and were free. Natalie, Jorin, a French girl (I don’t remember her name, but she was very nice), and I went around and saw a bunch of stuff. We first went to the National Art Museum and saw many beautiful paintings and also got to see an Edvard Munch exhibit. He is a very famous artist that did prints and it was amazing getting to see the originals. Next we went to see The Book of Kells at Trinity College library. For those of you who don’t know what this is, it is the 4 gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) written in Latin and embellished with these beautiful symbolic drawings. It was all written/drawn on calfskin and was done in the 9^th century. The Library at the college was amazing as well. It houses over 200,000 manuscripts and books, has really high arched ceilings, is all made out of really beautiful dark wood, and has the ladders that you would imagine in a really old library. Unfortunately I couldn’t take pictures there. After this we went to see St. Patrick’s cathedral, which is massive, very intricately designed and decorated, and very old. Saturday Natalie and I went to see Dublin Castle as well as Christ’s Church and a few other places. The castle was really neat, but is more like a palace than a castle. It had a lot of history behind it and was very lavish. Today parts of it are used for government offices and such things. We only got to see the outside of Christ’s Church, but it was still very neat.         

This morning I went to church with Jorin. She goes to a Chinese church and I liked it a lot, but I kind of stood out because I was the only white person there and I was a bit taller that most people. I am used to standing out and being stared at after being in Zimbabwe though. I will probably go back, especially since it is nice to go to church with someone else rather than on your own. After church we wandered around the city center, which is a touristy area with lots of shops, people, and street musicians. I love being here for so many reasons. Of course I love the adventure of being in a new place and experiencing a different culture, but I also love how old everything is here and all the history behind things. I also love the diversity of the city, how you can walk, ride a bike, or take public transport everywhere, and how easy it is to travel to other countries. I look forward to traveling around Ireland in the near future, as well as meeting more new people and building friendships.   

I am having some trouble posting pictures, but I will try to put some up in the near future.