The journey has come to an end! As one last hurrah, one of our friends, Donal, took us to a place called forty foot in Dun Laoghaire. It is a spot where people have been swimming in the ocean for 250 years.
I thought I could handle it since I am from New England and the ocean is always cold, but we had to jump in and get out because the water was so freezing you felt like you couldn't breathe! People jump in the water here all year round, and it is popular to do it on Christmas day!
That night we got to have a final get together with all the friends we made over the past semester. It was hard to say goodbye, but we know we will stay in touch!
Overall, I had a great time in Ireland. I got to meet great people, both American and Irish, play hockey with a new team, travel a lot, and experience multiple new places. I'm really grateful for the experience, and thanks to everyone who kept up with the blog!
This morning we explored the Jewish Quarter of the city. This part was actually not destroyed when Hitler invaded because he had the sick idea to make it a museum for people to learn about the Jewish population there.
We went to an exhibit of children's drawings from the Terezín Ghetto, a place where many Jewish adults and children were sent before going to concentration camps. One woman urged many of the children to create drawings as an escape, and they were stored secretly in a suitcase under the floorboards of a house in the ghetto.
We explored more of the temples and some other churches, and then headed over to the other side of the river to check out some of the public parks. We saw a white peacock, which I didn't know existed! Our trip to Prague was short, but definitely worth it.
We only had one full day in Prague, but this was enough time to see a lot of the city! Prague is pretty small, but the architecture is really pretty, and the city is clean and safe.
We took a walking tour in the morning and got to learn more about the history of the city. Then we explored the castle part of the city, where the president lives.
Lastly, we walked over to the John Lennon Wall, a space that has been filled with Lennon-inspired graffiti since the 1980s. In 1988, it used to be a spot where students would air their grievances about the communist government. However, now it just advocates the global ideas of peace and love!
There was time between my last final and my flight home on the 17th for one last trip, so two other friends and I headed to Prague! We arrived in the late afternoon, so after we checked in at the hostel we had a Czech meal (think lots of different meat dishes, stews, and soft dumplings) and walked along the river Vltava as the sun was setting. There were lots of people sitting out along the river, and the sunset was gorgeous.
Finals at UCD are really different than at Swat! For one thing, the tests aren't in the classrooms on the college campus. All the students take their exams at a place called the Royal Dublin Society (RDS), which is really just a big hall with rows and rows of desks. There are 1,000+ students in the RDS at once, and someone sitting next to you might not even be taking the same exam as you.
Exams are two hours and most of the time worth about 70% of your grade for each course. Needless to say they were intimidating, but I think they went well!
My birthday was in the midst of studying for finals, so my friends and I did a low-key dinner out. We went to a really good restaurant in Dublin called Green Nineteen! We didn't eat out at restaurants too much because we all wanted to save money for traveling and other activities, so it was nice to go someplace kinda fancy!
After classes ended and before finals started, I got to make another trip to London! One of my friends had recommended a section of the city to me which has tons of street art, so I really wanted to go. The place is called Brick Lane - and there is paint everywhere! I got to see a lot of cool art.
In another part of the city, I got to see some of my favorite street artist's work, which is really a dream come true for me. Sadly a lot of it gets painted over, tagged, or removed, but that's just the nature of it. Here's a picture of Banksy's work and me!
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!
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
