Ireland and Wales!

Hello! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to write another blog post. The past two weeks or so have been pretty busy with traveling, school work and trying to see the last few London sites on my list before coming back home in 2 weeks! Last weekend I took a trip to Ireland with 9 other friends from Drexel who are studying abroad with me. We flew out of London Gatwick and arrived in Dublin on Thursday night. Our hostel, the Abraham House, was pretty close to the bus station (we took a bus from the airport in Dublin). The hostel was alright but probably the dirtiest I've stayed in so far in Europe. All 8 of us girls stayed in one room and the bathroom smelled like mildew the whole time we were there and we found hair ties and random things around the room, so we assumed it hadn't been cleaned all that well. The first night we went to Burger King for dinner (I know, so European right?) and then we went out to a nearby bar off of one of the main streets in Dublin, O'Connell Street. Friday we all ventured out into Dublin but because of the size of our group we decided to break into two groups of four. My group walked around for a little while and then headed over for a tour of the Jameson Distillery. We had heard good things about the tour and I enjoyed it. There was a brief movie of the history of the distillery and then a tour guide took us around the building and showed us the different stages of the process of making whiskey. Cassie, Shari, Amy and I all volunteered to be whiskey taste-testers so at the end of the tour, they set up little glasses of Jack Daniels, a Scotch whiskey and Jameson and he taught us the right way to drink it and then asked which one we liked best. I liked Jameson the best. Then we also were given a free drink. At the end, each of us received a certificate for being master Jameson whiskey-tasters! Next we headed out to lunch and I had a delicious tomato and mozzarella panini. We then met up with the other girls and went to the Guiness Brewery for a tour there. Different from Jameson, this was a self-guided tour of the 7 story complex explaining the history and process of making the beer. On the top floor there is a bar that has 360 degree views of the city of Dublin which was really neat, and they give you a free pint of Guiness. Now before everyone thinks I'm some kind of alcoholic for going to both of these places in one day, let me remind you that I was only in Dublin for a day and a half and both of these places were recommended as top sites to go to! After this we went back to the hostel to rest for a while and that night went out to a famous bar called the Temple Bar, which is a pretty touristy bar but still fun to go to anyway. I paid a ridiculous 8 pounds for an irish coffee but I figured I'd better try one if I'm in Ireland. We hung out for a while in the Temple Bar area and then came back to the hostel. I woke up pretty early to do a "Wild Wicklow" Bus tour of the Wicklow Mountains which was probably the highlight of my trip to Ireland! I was most looking forward to seeing the Irish countryside and the scenery but since we only had a weekend there I had to pick a day tour fairly close to Dublin. Our bus tour took us through Glendalough to an old monastery, Ennis Kerry, along the coast and through the mountains. One of my favorite movies is "P.S. I love you" and we saw where a lot of the Ireland scenes were filmed. It was just such a beautiful area! I wish I could have spent more time out of the city, even though I liked Dublin as well. It is a very walkable city! The last morning (Sunday) I woke up early and toured around myself. I saw St. Stephens Greene and St. Patrick's Cathedral. I ate lunch at an authentic Irish restaurant and had a delicious corned-beef omelette, and then shopped around for a while. I went to this one store that specialized in the history of Irish names. I decided to see whether they had anything on Crossan and they did! So I purchased a sheet of paper with our family's history which I thought was cool! It was a little pricey but I thought it would be a neat souvenir since the Crossans came from Ireland. At around 3 pm or so we went to the airport and then flew back to London. We took Ryan Air for the first time which I was a little concerned about since it is so cheap! They give you the very basics- no free drinks & you have to pay to use the bathroom on the plane. You also don't have assigned seats so it is first-come-first-serve.

Monday our class took a trip to Greenwich where I got to stand at the 0 degree longitude line. I also went to Brick Lane with my Shakespeare class to get some Indian food and learn about Jack-the-Ripper since he was from that area. Harrod's is now all decorated for Christmas and I went there on Monday as well to look around. The store is just huge! It's incredible.

In about a half hour I'm leaving to go to the coast of Wales for the weekend! It's an "Adventure Weekend in Wales" and was organized by FIE (We still had to pay for it though). I signed up to do different activities including mountain biking and sea kayaking. We're also all doing some hiking. I really have no idea what to expect so I'm excited! I'm going to get going since I have to finish packing my bag but I'll write more when I return on Sunday night! Cheers :-)