Fall Break

London

Right after midterms this past week my friends Jane, Sydney and I caught a plane to London. It was my first time flying on RyanAir which is a cheap way to fly around Europe. A one way ticket to London only cost me 20 Euro. In London I slept on Sydney’s Friend’s couch for two nights. Jane and I were only in London for two days so we did as much as we could in our allotted time. We walked along Thames river, took the London Eye, walked across parliament bridge, took pictures of Big Ben, walked around Westminster Abby, took pictures of Buckingham Palace and the guards, wandered around St. James park and Hyde park. In Hyde Park we saw a monument to honor the Canadians who fought in the Great War. This was my first time seeing someone recognize Canadian participation in the War with a monument. Jane and I visited the National Gallery where I saw paintings by Fragonard, Boucher, Vigee La Braune, Charden (all whom I’ve been studying in my Art class so it was really interesting). I also saw paintings by Van Gogh and Monet. My favorite paintings were: A Coastal View by Berghe and Psyche Showing her Gifts from Cupid, by Fragonard. We only had an hour in the Museum before they closed and kicked us out. We were lucky enough to be in London during a film festival called LondonLoves. In Trafalgar Square they played 16 clips from 1904 to 1997, which were all about London in some way. My favorite clip was a silent film called The Smallest Car in the Biggest City, quite a self-explanatory title. Our last day in London we visited Noting Hill, where we had a delicious red velvet cup cake that is allegedly pretty famous from a bakery called The Hummingbird. That night we visited Patrick and Jutta, family friends of approximately 50 years I believe. It was a great dinner and Patrick was really helpful with suggested activities in Ireland and gave me a good stack of maps, broachers and even bus schedules for Ireland. Jutta made a delicious dinner and she told me all about growing up in Europe and leaving East Germany in 1959 right before the Berlin wall and working as an au-pair for a French family in Paris. Patrick told me about Grandpa and Grandma getting married while Grandpa was still in a stretcher.

Cork

We got to Cork, Ireland on Sunday where Jane and I began our Irish Adventure. We started off with a tour of the Butter Museum which was right next to our hostel. Cork used to be the number one exporter of Butter in the world. We came at the end of the Jazz music festival so there were still a lot of people in town and lots of music and food and specialty vendors on the sidewalks. We walked threw Bishop Lucey Park, down Oliver Plunket street where all the pubs are, and to St. Finbarres’s Cathedral that had a beautiful gold angel on the top. We went to a pub that we thought was going to play jazz but we ended up listening to a techno group called Snowmen. We took a day trip to Blarney Castel where I kissed the Blarney stone, which is supposed to give you eloquent speech (I am still waiting for it to kick in). We ventures threw caves, waterfalls and the woods of the castle for most the day then back in Cork we visited Cork University, which is a stunning campus full of statues, old buildings with vines crawling up the sides and beautiful, green, flawless grass. I saw a lot of this grass traveling around Ireland. The next morning we caught a bus to Killarney.

Killarney

We just missed the bus tour around the Ring of Kerry so we ended up renting bikes and riding around for five or six hours. We biked to the Ross Castle, Muckcross Abby, Muckcross House and garden around the lake and to Torch Waterfall all together we rode about 20 kilometers. It was more of an adventure though because apparently this season they got more rain than usual and our path was blocked by small bodies of water multiple times but we just pedaled threw it getting our feet and ankles soaked. In retrospect this was a pretty risky event as it was approximately 40 degrees outside. It was just too beautiful not to continue down our path and the beauty was almost enough to distract me completely from my freezing situation. At night we wandered around the city and had a good Irish and Guinness Stew. The next afternoon we took a 7 hour bus journey to Kilkenny.

Kilkenny

The hostel we stayed in was by far my favorite one of our trip. It was called the backpackers hostel and it was a smaller hostel were there was only fifteen guests staying there. After exploring the not so active, night life of Kilkenny on a Wednesday night we headed back to the hostel. I sat in the kitchen and talked with five Australians and an American for most of the night and the next day we all visited the Kilkenny Castle and had lunch together. I wish I was staying longer but we headed to Dublin that same day.

Dublin

In Dublin Jane and I had dinner together and walking home it turned midnight and I was suddenly 21 years old! I know I am going to laugh at this in fifty years or even five but I am kind of sad that I am not a kid anymore. I am fully responsible for myself and I can’t just blame my mistakes on my adolescence. But I don’t make mistakes so I guess I’ll be fine. My friend Stephanie came and visited me in Dublin for my birthday. She was only staying for one night but we stayed up late talking and had breakfast together before she left for Galway. I have made some really good friends in Strasbourg and I am going to miss them so much when they all return to the respective schools next semester.

In Dublin Jane and I walked a lot and not surprisingly saw a lot of churches including St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I love pedestrian only streets so we wandered those a lot. We visited Trinity College, saw the book of Kells, the oldest harp in Ireland and the long hall two stories high and filled with 20,000 books. We celebrated Halloween in the Hostel because they were throwing a big party. Dublin loves Halloween. I also visited the Guinness Brewery and learned a lot about beer. I was one of the few people who walked threw the whole thing reading and trying to take in as much information I could. At the end you get a pint of Guinness and I was carded in a country that serves alcohol to 14 year olds. I also saw some really good musicians performing Irish music at a pub. It was a great week but I am really happy to be back in Strasbourg and in my own room and I can’t wait to sleep.