April 20th - Beginning of the End

This is the last week of classes! After this week I have a week off, and then finals start. Although I am in six classes, I only have three sit-down finals because the other modules had either posters, a project, or a final paper. Finals are a bit more intimidating here because they count for about 70% of your grade.

Less than a month until my flight home! Time has gone so quickly!

 

April 19th - Kerry Day Trip

Seeing as we only have a few more weekends left in Ireland, some of my friends and I decided to sign up for another day trip. We went to county Kerry in the southwest part of Ireland. The drive was really long (3+ hours, one way), but the views were so beautiful!

We got to see some awesome scenery in the Killarny National Park and have lunch in Killarny. The area is really mountainous, but also full of lakes. My favorite spot was when we went to the Dingle Peninsula, where there was an amazing beach with mountains surrounding it. The Atlantic Ocean was cold, but it reminded me of home.

April 18th - Newgrange & Causey Farm

Today we visited two very cool (but very different) spots in Ireland! The first stop was a tomb called Newgrange, a really impressive sight. This monument is what they call a 'passage tomb' since you have to walk through a small passage that opens up to chamber in the center. This sight dates back to 3200 BC, which makes it older than pyramids or Stonehenge!

There are all these drawings on the rocks, both on the inside and the outside of the tomb. The stones are from different spots around Ireland, and some of them are huge, which means people must have brought them to the site using boats. Some are even from Dublin, which is an hour away by car.

The absolute coolest part is the roof box. On the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, the sun shines perfectly through the opening. Apparently there are other tombs that also have roof boxes that produce this same effect on different solstice days!

The rest of the day was spent at Causey Farm, where we got to see baby sheep and other farm animals, learn some Irish dancing (not the really fast dancing, kinda more like line dancing), play a bodhrán (an Irish drum made of goatskin), and step in a peat bog! Peat bogs are made of decomposed plants and water. The soil barely has nutrients and is slightly acidic, so it preserves things really well.

There are 'bog bodies' in Dublin's natural history museum - people whose bodies were preserved in bogs (haven't visited yet, I probably should). Stepping in it felt kinda like quicksand! Another cool thing about the bogs is that people used to cut out blocks of it, dry it in the sun, then burn it as fuel. There aren't that many of these bogs though, and they are often protected now to preserve the landscape of Ireland.

April 15th - Race Day

Today was a big day for students all around Dublin - student race day! It is a big horse race at Leopardstown Racecourse, and everyone dresses up really fancy, like the Kentucky Derby. There were students from UCD, but also Trinity College Dublin, Dublin City University, and other surrounding colleges. 

I am not that interested in horse racing, but I went for the experience. It was a good time! Here is a picture of one of my best Irish friends and me.

April 8th - Learning how to play Hurling!

Today two of our friends taught Nicole and I a bit about the hurling! You play with sticks called 'hurleys' and a small ball called a sliotar. You can pass in the air or hit the sliotar on the ground, and you can catch it in your hands!

The actual sport itself is pretty rough; you can body check and everyone wears helmets. We just passed around on the fields at UCD. The weather has been great!

 

April 5th - Dinner with Iris!

We actually didn't even get to see Iris until Sunday since she was away traveling for Easter break as well. For dinner, she took us to a very cool spot on the North side of town. We had to take the ferry over!

The restaurant was right on a canal, and had a very cool atmosphere. Iris had actually never been there either, but she said a lot of people who live in Amsterdam enjoy it. The menu was all in Dutch, so she had to translate! We had a great night catching up with her!

April 4th - Anne Frank House and Canal Tour

In the morning, Kat and I woke up really early and got in line to tour the Anne Frank House where her family hid during the Holocaust. It is possibly one of the biggest tourist attractions in the city, and the line was massive. We got there early enough that we didn't have to wait that long though. The tour was very sad, but I'm really glad we went.

Later we took a boat tour through the canals! Amsterdam is full of canals, cute houseboats, and leaning canal houses! I loved the city and have never been anywhere like it.

April 3rd - Exploring Amsterdam and Van Gogh Museum

My other American friends from UCD came to Amsterdam too, but they stayed in a hostel downtown. Today we spent the day exploring with them! We ate a nice lunch outside and walked around in the outdoor markets. At night we went to the Van Gogh Museum, which has the largest collection of his artwork. I really enjoyed it. Here is one of my favorites!

April 2nd - Arrival in Amsterdam!

For Easter break we didn't have class on Good Friday or the Monday after Easter, so we took this time to take a trip! We headed off to explore Amsterdam! My best friend Kat from Swat actually joined us too!

We stayed in our friend Iris' apartment, which was super nice of her! We know Iris because she played field hockey at Swarthmore for a year with us, but then decided to go back and study in Amsterdam where she is from.

March 31st – Last Lab

Today I had my last lab for my biology class, which marks the end of all my labs! The semester is really going by quickly now. This picture isn't even from lab, but I walked by it in the science center and had to take a picture!

March 28th - Street Art Jam

Today Joel and I went to a really cool venue in Dublin called the Bernard Shaw. They were having a street art jam, so you could watch multiple Dublin street artists at work on walls near the venue! The atmosphere was really cool and the place was packed! They had inside seating and outdoors, and a pizza bus.

I have no better way of describing it, haha. It's basically a food truck that is situated outside and always present at the Bernard Shaw! And the pizza was phenomenal.

March. 26th - Joel arrives!

Today my friend Joel from high school arrived in Ireland! He's been studying at Oxford since the fall semester, and he is doing a full year there. We hadn't seen each other in over a year, but honestly it feels like I just saw him yesterday. I had a great time catching up and showing him some of my favorite things around the city.

March 22nd – Mom’s Last Day in Ireland

On my mom's last day in Ireland, we went to a seaside fishing village called Howth. It was a really nice day out, and surprisingly there were lots of people around. There was small market where we got really yummy homemade bread.

Then we got to walk a mountainous trail along the shore! After our hike we ate great seafood for lunch. I'm so glad I got to show my mom Dublin!

March 21st – Guinness Storehouse

On Saturday we did the number one tourist activity here in Dublin - Touring the Guinness Storehouse! In the storehouse you get to learn all about the Guinness family (actually great philanthropists) and how Guinness is made.

I also showed my mom Phoenix Park, where all those wild deer are! You can get pretty close to them, and two male deer were actually fighting with their antlers.

March 20th - Visiting the Countryside

Today we took a day trip to see some of the countryside of Ireland. We got to walk around Glendalough, a beautiful spot that used to be a monastary. It has two beautiful lakes - here's a picture of us in front of one! We got to do a lot of exploring.

The trip also included a drive through the Wicklow Mountains and to a great spot to view Guinness Lake. Much like a pint of Guinness, the lake is almost black in color, and they actually brought in pale sand to make it look even more like Guinness! It was really windy, hence my hair being a bit crazy in the picture.

March 19th – Touring With My Mom

In the morning my mom and I took a tour of Kilmainham Gaol, an old jail in Dublin. This is where many Irish Revolutionaries were held. Later we walked around the National Botanic Gardens, which was free! There were lots of cool cacti and bonsai trees.

The picture is from our walk around the University College Dublin campus - this mural is right in front of the science center!

March 18th – Visit From My Mom

My mom arrived in Dublin today! We had a low-key day but did a lot of walking. I showed her a bunch of the 'must-sees' in Dublin - St. Stephen's Green, Trinity College, the Spire, and more important things like Butler's, a cafe with the absolute best hot chocolate and lattes (just kidding, but they're seriously amazing). We had lunch at the Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub!

March 17th – St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Paddy's Day! Paddy's day here isn't that huge for people who are actually Irish, and they tend to avoid the massive crowds downtown. Surprisingly, we did not do the very touristy thing of going to the parade downtown. Instead we visited Croke Park, the stadium in Dublin where Gaelic sport matches are held.

If you haven't heard of Gaelic Football or Hurling, I strongly encourage you to look them up on YouTube! These two Irish sports are like combinations of multiple sports, and they're both contact, so they are very intense to watch. Croke Park is the third largest stadium in Europe, and we got to see both a Hurling and a Gaelic Football match. So it was still a pretty eventful St. Patrick's Day.

Later that night, we got to catch up with Ainsley, my teammate and the goalie of the field hockey team - Swat Reunion! She's studying in Scotland and was visiting Ireland with her sister.

March 16th – Return to Dublin!

We are back from our trip but on to more activities! Tyler Zon of the men's soccer team came over from London to see Dublin, and two of my Irish friends took all the Americans on a coastal hike!

We walked from Bray to Greystones - over a hill (not technically a mountain) called the Bray head. Sometimes being in the city makes me forget we are so close to the ocean. The trail was beautiful, and there were lots of people paragliding above us!