September 17

Horror of horrors; my straightener refuses to turn on in Ireland.  I think it’s safe to say that it won’t work in England either.  What a pity.  Therefore, I will have to buy one over here.  In all, it’s a small price to pay for what we get to experience here. 

Before we began our day, we all met up for a cold continental breakfast at 7:30.  I was pretty tired as I had woken up at around 4:45 in the morning and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep…worthless jet lag.  Anyways, we convened at this place called The Buttery.  Did you know that they ask you if you want butter on your sandwich?  Like just a ham sandwich!  What are you supposed to do with that? And if they ask you if you want a salad on your sandwich, they really mean lettuce.  It’s pretty confusing, but don’t worry.  I’m getting kind of used to it.

Today we went to Glendalogh Monastery and Blarney Castle in Cork.  This meant that we were on the bus for FOREVER.  Like the majority of the people went to sleep on the bus.  I didn’t, but that was only because I fought to stay awake.  I didn’t want to miss anything on the way there.  We stopped first at the Monastery, which turned out to be built in the 900s.  It was incredibly beautiful.  Words aren’t even going to begin to describe this place.  It was founded by a hermit named Saint Kevin, which was slightly hilarious to me.  The grounds that we saw consisted of a massive graveyard, St. Kevin’s Kitchen, a very tall pointed tower, and the church.  The graveyard was interesting in that there were so many people crammed into a small space.  In fact, there were even more people there than you would think because in Ireland it’s legal to bury up to three people in one grave.  That way, families get buried together.  Or right on top of each other.  Either one.  The reason for the high demand in the burial plots in St. Kevin himself.  St. Kevin is buried in the church’ burial grounds, and a strong belief of many of the Irish is that if you’re buried in the same cemetery as a saint, you will make it to heaven for certain.  Unfortunately, the room is limited on the grounds and in the 1980s the government basically cut off access to the burial plots.  However, there were several families who only had one or two bodies in their family burial plot.  Since there could be up to three bodies in the grave, the government compiled a list of people who are allowed to be buried in the graveyard.  Each family had to pick which members of the family would be buried there.  Today there are only 7 names left on the list.  The second part of the grounds is St. Kevin’s Kitchen.  Long after the church and its grounds were abandoned, the locals decided to explore the area.  They looked at the church where the altar was and determined that because of a chimney-like structure on top of it that it was a kitchen.  False.  However, that name stuck with the history of the grounds and is still known as St. Kevin’s Kitchen.  The pointed tower is the tallest part of the monastery.  It’s height represented how rich the monks were in that area.  The entire monastery is surrounded by mountains, placing Glendalogh in the middle of a valley.  It’s truly amazing to just look at, let alone actually realize that you’re in the middle of it. 

After another long drive, we ended up in Cork where Blarney Castle is.  The main attraction of this beautiful castle is the legendary Blarney Stone.  According to folklore, if you kiss the Blarney Stone you will be given the gift of eloquent speaking.  It’s basically a necessity to kiss the stone if you go.  Therefore, I climbed all the way to the top of this massive castle to stand in line and kiss a rock.  I figured it couldn’t hurt.   Even the Great Orator himself, Winston Churchill, kissed the Blarney Stone early on in his career.  The stone is placed in a really weird location, though.  They have attendants to help you reach it.  Basically, you have to lay on your back, grab two iron bars above your head, and pull your head downward where there is really nothing to stop you from falling.  You lean your head all the way back and then you kiss it.  Voila.  Keep in mind that this is at the very tip top of the castle.  It was pretty intense.  After kissing the stone, Brad and I wandered about the castle.  I’m pretty sure we explored every square inch of that thing.  We went into hole in the wall places, crawled into places we probably weren’t supposed to, and took pictures of everything.  It was so amazing.  Then, we went to the gardens outside of the castle and found the Withch’s Kitchen (basically a little cave), a forest of trees straight out of a horror movie (Lauren and I definitely ran through them screamind like someone was chasing us and we were running for our lives), the Whomping Willow (or what I think looks like the Whomping Willow), and the Wishing Steps.  The Wishing Steps are obviously a place where you can wish for something to happen.  However, the wish will only come true if you start at the top of the stairs and climb down and then back up backwards and with your eyes closed, all the while thinking only of your wish.  That was easier said than done.  The steps are made of hundreds of years old stone that had been smoothed away by rain, wind, and millions of other wish makers.  Walking backwards without thinking of falling was not a simple task…especially when I very nearly fell off the side of the steps.  But, in the end, the mission was accomplished.

Later that night, we arrived back to Trinity College around 10:30.  Since curfew was at one, we decided to go out and explore the night life a little bit.  After walking around for probably 45 minutes, we found a small Irish pub with live music.  We went in and sat down for about half an hour, listening to the Irish music and watching drunken Irish people dance and stumble and sing uproariously to music that they all seemed to know.  It was very entertaining.  After a brief moment of panic (mainly on my part), we figured out where we were and made it back to Trinity. It's a good thing too....none of us have working phones over here. It would not have been pleasant trying to ask drunk people for directions in a place we really don't know anything about.

September 16

I’m HERE! After a long, nerve-wracking, more than seven-hour flight, we made it to Dublin, Ireland.  Unfortunately, there is a six-hour time difference between here and the Mo.  This basically means that when it should have been 1:00 in the morning, it was really 7:00.  We landed around 8:05ish and I think it’s safe to say that no one got more than two hours of sleep on the plane.  They also served us breakfast and dinner on the flight, but let’s face it…airplane food is sketchy at best and this was not its best.  This tidbit of information is important later on in the story.  Just remember that.  Anyways, we landed and immediately went through a passport and customs check.  Even though there were atleast four lines of attendants checking non-European passports, it still took us an hour and forty-five minutes to clear the check.  Due to our zombie-like attitudes and the fact that the attendants had such awesome Irish accents, no one seemed to really mind the long wait too much.   The funny thing was that I would look at someone that worked at the airport and all of a sudden I would think, “Hey, that guy’s Irish.”  It was kind of bizarre actually.

After we collected all of our bags (I did not bring the most stuff, by the way. Although my backpack is the largest, there are some people who simply have more bags than me. It made me feel better.), we met up with Lauren and Tyler Knight, who have helped plan our two week trip before we actually arrive in London.  They had arranged for a bus to pick us up and take us to our next destination.  Ok, I’m basically from Houston.  I know what aggressive driving is.  But compared to Dublin and I’m sure the rest of Europe, Houston drivers are incredibly sane.  Besides the fact that it was weird watching the driver drive on the wrong side of the road and turn into the wrong lanes on the rode, we would stop literally an inch away from the car in front of us, weave and swerve in and out of traffic, and really go into any lane we want to with the full confidence that the driver next to us would move out of the way.  Since no one honked at us, I’m assuming this is normal behavior.  We rode the bus to Trinity College in the middle of Dublin.  This massive building is incredibly old and a huge tourist attraction, and we get to stay in it.  It’s pretty awesome, but there’s no free wifi. 

By the time we had everything in our rooms, it was around noon and we were supposed to take a walking tour of Dublin.  Thankfully, Lauren figured we were probably hungry so we stopped at a coffee shop and got a snack and some caffeine to wake us up.  After this, we walked to a pub in Dublin called the International Pub.  The pub (which I would like to add was the first official sight-seeing thing I saw at Dublin haha) was the base of our walking tour centered around the Revolution of 1916 when Southern Ireland formed a band of rebels to overthrow British rule right around the time of the potato blight.  Our guide was hilarious, and he as an Irishman had deep respect for the Alamo, which I, of course, appreciated.  He said that even though on paper it looks like the men fighting for Texas at the Alamo lost, they really won.  That battle went on to become a rallying point in the Texas Revolution.  He then continued to say that even though Ireland has never really won any battle (even though they have tried countless times), they still believe in their hearts that they won.  It was pretty funny.  As we continued on the tour though, it got to the point that most of us were dead on our feet.  In all honesty I don’t think I remember anything he said towards the end of the presentation.  He did accuse me of not clapping for him hard enough….that much I do remember haha. 

Next, we were given an hour to do whatever we wanted to do for lunch so a group of us decided to go exploring.  We found Dublin Castle, which has a beautiful church inside of it.  As the exploring continued, we found a “modern” garden and the free Revenue Museum and then proceeded to get lost.  We wandered around the streets of Dublin for a while, half hoping to find our way back and half hoping to just find something to eat.  See, by this time we were all running on less than two hours of sleep and no food since about 7:00 the night before.  We were all rather impressed that we were still coherent, much less participating in walking tours and having energy to explore.  Luckily for us, we used a map to figure out where we were and ended up finding a Noodle Bar to eat at.  Win win win. 

After our hour break, we went to see the Book of Kells, which is a Bible written and illustrated from the 800s.  It was really cool getting to see that bit of history, but the amazing thing was the Long Room.  Do you remember the scene from Beauty and the Beast when the Beast shows Belle the library for the first time?  That’s exactly how I felt.  Oh dear goodness the library was massive.  It was one of the longest rooms I’ve ever seen, and it was covered front to back with shelves of the oldest books at Trinity.  The shelves went all the way to the really high ceiling, and there were dozens of busts of famous philosophers, scientists, and other great minds.  To me, that was the best part.

            After that exhibit, we were given the rest of the day to do what we wanted.  That meant that I wandered around Dublin with Mary, the girl with whom I’m sharing a room, looking for a place with free wifi.  Guess what…they don’t have free wifi anywhere.  What a pain.  But, in the process of wandering we found the next best thing and quite possibly a better thing…a shake bar!  There were so many things to choose from, and it was delicious.  So what did we do after this packed day?  Did we continue to get to know this new city that we are only in for a short time.  Why no we didn’t.  That is because at precisely 7:15 pm, we had all crashed and were in bed.  That’s 1:15 Houston time.  In other words, our bodies couldn’t handle being up more than 30 hours at a time.  Oh jet lag.