Hello from Salzburg!

Three things about traveling:  your feet always hurt, grocery shopping in a different language is not as easy as one may think and everything you see turn into "this is my favorite so far"! Without having a computer this past week to blog, I have no clue how I am going to blog all about what we have seen and did so far.  But here is a feeble attempt at Paris only.  I will blog about Austria when I get back to Galway as it is most definitely the highlight of my trip!

40 Hours in Paris.

Mac, Pat, Ben and I landed in Paris on Thursday evening.  Even with none of us knowing French we managed to figure out how to take the subway and wander down some streets until we found our hostel. With it already being late, we pretty much called it a night and rested up before our one big day in Paris.  Good choice.  The next day we woke up early ready to conquer Paris.  We were quite proud of everything we saw in one day, but our feet were not so happy.  We were extremely happy to wake up to sunshine and warm weather, a nice change from the dampness of Galway.  We started the morning at Notre Dame and  then walked along the river to the Louvre Museum.  The cathedral was absolutely amazing! As was the Louvre.   Actually, everything we have seen in the last 8 days has been amazing, so from here on out, if I mention it assume it was great! We made our way to the the Arc of Triomphe and had great time watching the crazy drivers navigate the giant, laneless round about!  We made it the Eiffel tower in the late afternoon, but then after dinner we decided to come back to go to the top! Standing inline for 2 hours was most definitely worth it.  Even though it started to pour as we go  to the top, the view was amazing of Paris at night.  It was also incredibly windy being that high up and trying to stand upright for a picture proved to be very difficult. Following the trip to the top, we bought Nutella-Banana Crepes.  YUM! For anybody that has seen the movie "Midnight in Paris" you will understand the importance of our next adventure.  The boys wanted to make sure  that at exactly midnight we would be at the steps of the church as it is in the movie.  As designated navigator for our entire trip I was in charge of getting us there.  We ran through back streets of Paris as I yelled left or right a little bit behind the boys.  Luckily, the map didn't lead us a stray and we got there with a minute to spare.  We called it a night after that since we had an early morning flight to Vienna the next day.  Paris was exactly what I thought it would be like and 40 hours isn't nearly enough time!

The Louvre

View from the top of the Eiffel 

Come back Sunday for  more pictures and stories on Salzburg including climbing mountains, Sound of Music scenes and more!  

Down by the Bay!

Today was the second day with absolutely beautiful weather! Not only no rain, but not even a cloud in the sky.  After sitting in class all morning and muddling my way through mid-term assignments, I decided to take my camera on my run.  So here you go, Mom!  This is the beach right in Spiddal!  Luckily, I was there when the tide was out so I was able to run along the beach for some picture taking.

Oh My Guinness: Dublin!

On Thursday, we headed East to Ireland's capital, Dublin.   We are starting to get accustomed to the bus rides so this three hour trip felt like nothing! Our first stop was the Rotunda Hosptial, the oldest maternity hospital in Ireland.   As the first maternity hospital, it was founded in 1745 in response to the appalling conditions in Dublin. As it is still a working hospital, the halls were busy with expecting mothers and new born babies.  We were able to get a complete tour of the beautiful gardens and main lobbies, but because of security we were not able to see the rooms.  Lucky for me, the director of our tour decided she could take a small group of students around who were interested in health careers to see more of the hospital.  We were amazed that all the rooms had 8-10 beds in them and that the hallways were extremely narrow!

Our group had dinner at the Brazen Pub-the oldest pub in Ireland! 

On Friday, we woke up to absolutely perfect, sunny weather!  Which was more than welcome since we would spend the next 8 hours walking around Dublin.  We met our Theology prof early in the morning for a walking tour.  We covered more sites and land then most of us would have liked.  Including, Trinity College, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle and more! 

Trinity College- The most prestigious university in Ireland.  We looked at the Book of Kells, which is an illuminated manuscript very similar to the St. John's Bible.  The coolest thing was the library, or the Long Room. The books are still shelved as they were in the 18th century, from largest to smallest.  We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, check out this link to see the awesome room. Long Room

We also spent a lot of time at Ireland's National Museum. I think our group would agree that the "bog bodies" was the coolest exhibit.  These bodies were found perfectly preserved in bogs across Ireland and are dated back to the 2nd and 3rd century BC.  They are so completely preserved that their hair, nails, skin and clothing are still intact! Not only were bodies and clothing preserved, but also this big chunk of butter!

Bog Butter from 150 BC

On Saturday, we headed out of Dublin to see Knowth Megalithic Tomb.  On of the most famous tombs in Ireland is 600 years older than the pyramids and 1000 years older than Stonehenge. There were over 127 large kerbstones around the mound.  This huge boulders have artwork chiseled into them and most of the boulders come from over 50 kilometers away.  There are  passages in the tomb that go East to West, during the winter and summer solstice the sun aligns perfectly with the tunnels.

And for the highlight of the weekend... Sunday we went horseback riding!  I was one of only a couple who had never been on a horse before (Thanks Mom and Dad!)  Luckily, I got a small horse, Yorkey! We practiced a bit in doors and then headed out to the fields for a trot.  It was a lot of fun and we were all happy it wasn't raining. We elected to bypass a scheduled stop at another old monastic site in order to get back early and tackle all our mid-term assignments. Now we are all looking forward to break as we all had mounds of reading and papers to write waiting at the cottages when we arrived.  Only three more days and I will be Paris bound!

It is raining cats and dogs!

Trying to write this post is proving to be quite difficult as I can barely hear my self think; the rain is so loud right now it sounds like a thousand marbles being dropped on the glass roof above me. One of the most ironic aspects of our cottage is the dining area.  The eating nook is essentially a glass box- all the walls are windows and the entire ceiling lightly tinted glass.  This design is great in intermittent periods of sun that are scattered during the day as the room heats up rather quickly!  Yet, any bit of rain and wind sounds like the cottage is caving in and that we will all find our selves spinning to the Land of Oz from the gale force winds that wind around the coast and up to our cottage.

The last week in Spiddal has been quite rainy and windy!  We have certainly been spoiled with the nice weather for most of September. The rain didn't bother us much since we had a long weekend off to just hang out in Spiddal.  This was wonderful for everyone as we were starting to feel the affects of traveling 3 or 4 days out of each week. I especially welcomed this time off to try to kick my cold! Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were spent drinking gallons of tea, watching movies and sleeping.

On Saturday, a group of us got a hostel in Galway for the night.  All 11 of us crammed into a single hostel room with only 8 beds.  Oops!  We spent the afternoon roaming around through the City Centre taking time to shop of course!  We found a wonderful  farmers market and I would have bought everything there! Luckily, I didn't have my grocery shopping bags along so I was restricted to only the produce that I could carry and eat at the time.  We finally found a good Mexican burrito place in Galway for dinner and spent the night wandering the streets and doing our own little pub crawl. Most notably, we spent much of our night at the King's Head Pub. The most famous pub in Galway as it has been around for the past 800 years.  The name of the pub comes from a tenant who lived in the building in the 1600s, Col. Peter Stubbers, who is accused of executing King Charles I. Of course, the rain and wind began that night again and we spent most of our time feeling like drowned cats.

We were lucky again on Sunday to have a day in Galway filled with sun.  Some of us went to mass at the Cathedral in morning.  The Cathedral sits on the River Corrib-the only place I've seen leaves change colors yet! Sunday afternoon was the championship match for the National Hurling Title in which Co. Galway was playing Co. Kilkenny.  Unfortunately, Galway was pulverized by Kilkenny. But, it was still fun to watch the game with the die hard hurling fans in Galway!  The entire city was filled with maroon and white banners and everyone was wearing jersey's, face paint, scarves and hats in support of our Galway team!

River Corrib

Changing leaves! 

After a relaxing week, it is time to get a lot of work done before mid-term break!  This weekend we leave for Dublin on Thursday for another excursion with the group. After that I have three days of classes before I am off to Paris, Vienna and Salzburg, Austria to visit friends!  Stay tuned.

Northern Ireland!

After traveling since Wednesday, it sure feels good to be back at the Park Lodge! This past week was filled with so many different sites and cultural experiences I feel its best to give you quick highlights of the weekend.  We headed to Northern Ireland on Wednesday in search for a cultural and political experience that we had not yet encountered. We were warned- "You can talk about anything to the people of Northern Ireland, sex, drugs and music.  But its best not to bring up politics and religion."

Quick background on Northern Ireland:
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and not the Republic of Ireland.  Ireland was partitioned in the 1920s as a way to ease disagreements between those who wanted to be part of the UK and the southern  counties who wanted to have their own republic.  While this never settled any arguments, The Troubles began to really explode in the 1960s.  At this time the British Parliament was primarily Protestant and there was a large division between the Protestants (Unionists or Loyalists) and the Catholics (Republicans or Nationalists). In 1968, civil rights protests began to ignite.  Catholics were living in poor housing conditions-families of 10 or 12 were in one bedroom apartments without utilities while a single Protestant student may have lived in a nice home.  Parliament allocated housing to Protestants before Catholics even if that meant jumping the queue.  The Troubles escalated throughout the next decades.  Students continued to be educated in schools of either Protestant or Catholic.  Violence between neighbors, British troops and the IRA infiltrated the lives of everyone in Northern Ireland-primarily in Derry and Belfast.  It wasn't until 1996 when Peace Talks began and the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 that began the cessation of violence in Northern Ireland.  Most of the people in Northern Ireland would agree that there has been peace for the last 12-14 years.  Yet, you can drive down one side of town covered in British flags, murals of the Royal family and blue and red everywhere. Then, turn the corner and Irish flags, Celtic symbols and Gaelic writing covers the street corners and shops.


Highlights of the Weekend (I might upload more later, but it takes almost 2 hours to just do these few!):

Giant's Causeway...thousands of hexagonal column

We also toured Bushmill's Distillery.  It was started in 1608 before  licences were required to make whiskey. It is the only distillery that has survived since that time. 

The Irish/Catholic side of Derry.  Protestants, remaining loyal to Britain, still call Derry "Londonderry"

This wall separates the Protestant side from the Irish side in Belfast. Similar walls also run between the houses in Belfast.    Recently, the city voted on if the walls should come down.  25% side they wouldn't mind, another quarter said they  would never want them down and the last half said they could maybe come down in the future.

We also toured the Titanic Museum which is built exactly where the Titanic was built.  The ship building industry was a huge economic benefit for Belfast, over 35,000 men were employed to build Her. The museum was phenomenal!  They even had the evening gown which Rose wore during the sinking of the ship in the movie!

We had a great weekend North, but it is so nice to be back at the cottage.  We have an off weekend this coming weekend and I am looking forward to some time around Galway! 

Irish adventures at their very best!

 This weekend was filled with more adventures than can possibly be written about!  On Thursday we headed south to the County Kerry. Co. Kerry is know for its magnificent scenic drives filled with mountains, cliffs and gorgeous overlooks. We toured the 15th century Ross Castle after we arrived at our hostel in Killearney.   Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed in the castle.  The castle sits on a beautiful lake in the basin of two mountains and is  an absolutely astonishing. On Friday, we were able to tour the Victorian Age Muckross House in which the Queen of England had stayed at along with many other Irish scholars. The rest of the day we drove around a scenic "highway" called the Ring of Kerry. The road carves its way through the sides of the mountains and brings you across the entire county of Kerry. It is so narrow that there is an unwritten rule that coaches only travel clockwise around the Ring because it is not wide enough for two buses to pass side by side.  For all you Glacier fans, imagine the Going to the Sun road except a lot more curvy, a few less goats, one lane wide and sheer drop offs into the sea crashing below. At one overlook we stopped for pictures and a few of us decided to scurry up a near mountain for a better picture. We crawled hands and knees to the to and while the prickly bushes were not a pleasant experience-the view from the top was amazing!

Top of the world!

View from the Ring of Kerry

On Saturday night we attended a traditional Irish musical called, Clann Lir. It was an amazing show filled with Irish dancing and  traditional music.  Check out this video from youtube,  it was absolutely amazing! Clann Lir

The most exciting adventures were on Sunday as we ventured to the Cliffs of Moher-the tallest cliffs in all of Europe and the most popular tourist place in Ireland. The cliffs are also made famous as there is a scene from Harry Potter that is filmed on the cliffs. We took a boat out into the ocean to see them from ocean level first.  And it was not a calm day!  We all were holding on for dear life! You couldn't sit on the benches because one wave would sending you sliding across the boat.  Standing was only possibly by holding on to a railing, a friend or usually both!  Appreciate the pictures as it was quite difficult to stand, hold on with one hand, take a picture with another and protect the camera from crashing waves on the boat deck. It was a great ride and even though we were soaked and cold it was worth it!  Afterwards, we went to the top for another view.  The ocean looked so calm from up top-but we were not fooled! It was a beautiful view!  All the adventures of this weekend topped those from last.  I am excited for what next weekend has in store!  We are leaving for Northern Irleand on Wednesday morning and Belfast on Friday.  Hopefully, I will be able to meet up with Courtney for the night!  

Cliffs of Moher

Limerick, Monastic Ruins, The Burren and Glenstal Abbey

As you can tell from this post's title-we had one very busy weekend! On Saturday morning we left for our first overnight weekend excursion to Limerick. Brother Colman,our theology professor and Benedictine monk, was our guide for the weekend.   We headed south around Galway bay to many medieval monastic ruins. The area around Limerick county is filled with monastic ruins aging to the 7th and 8th century.  It was very cool to be able to explore old churches, tombs and even see some human remains... Our adventures then brought us to  The Burren which in Irish can be translated to "rocky place." Now a National Park, the Burren is made of karst limestone which was once the ocean's floor. We were able to hike back to a small oratory and cave that was the site of St. Colman Mac Daugh's hermitage.  The site is a famous Irish pilgrimage site and there is a running well that we all drank from.

7th Century Monastic Ruins

The Burren

Inside the hermitage cave 

Holy well

Karst Limestone

After exploring monastic ruins we wound our way through the country side to a small town called Sixmilebridge.  The gravel roads were so narrow that the bus driver had to stop multiple times to fix the mirrors that were folded inward because of the hedges and trees brushing up against the sides of the coach. After wandering around Sixmilebridge,most of our group found our way into Gilly's Bar. To our surprise, they were hosting a surprise 40th birthday party!  They invited us all to stay and we spent the entire night dancing with the locals-none were under the age of 35. We all agree that it was the best night in Ireland yet!
Sunday morning we drove to  Glenstal Abbey , a Benedictine Monastery.  The Monastery is home to 50 monks and 207 prep school boys. The boys board there for the school year-most are from prominent Irish families. Yet, there are many international students as well. Brother Colman was reluctant to humbly share that the prep school is ranked as the top secondary school in all of Ireland.  We toured around the grounds and   a small underground chapel that holds many religious icons from the early Eastern Orthodox Church. The Benedictine monks lived up to their name and provided us with wonderful hospitality and a delicious grilled salmon lunch! 

Glenstal Abbey

On our way back to Galway, we stopped in a small town outside the monastery to watch the Championship Hurling Match on TV.  Assuming most of you do not know what hurling it is, imagine this: rugby players running around throwing a baseball by passing it to each other on a hockey-like stick. Or as Brother Colman says, "It's like hockey-but requires skill!" The players try to score be either hurling the ball into a soccer goal for 3 points or over the football upright for 1 point. And for all not well versed in Irish sports-this game was like the Superbowl and our hometown, Galway was playing!  We were all extremely shocked at how physical and quick the match was.  Ironically, Galway and Kilkenny tied!  And while it was the championship game, there is no overtime and they play again on September 30th for a rematch.  Hopefully, we will be able to go! Below is a link to the entire hurling match...I would suggest you take a peak! Galway vs. Kilkenny Hurling Match

This week promises to be a busy week with classes and reading assignments, but we head to Kerry next Thursday-Sunday for another excursion. Check back for pictures of the Cliffs of Moher, Ring of Kerry and more!