Ireland

Again with the extreme delay in posting. Apologies.

Ireland was really beautiful and fun. It was the first trip that I wasn't really anticipating, and I think it's because I did it with a tour group, which I've never done before. I tend to buy a Lonely Planet and then start researching and planning everything that I want to see. It gets me excited about my trip. But since the tour group kinda plans everything out for you I didn't really do any research and just showed up. I'm still kinda debating if I enjoyed going as part of a tour group. On the pro side, everything is taken care of for you --> Transportation, hotels, sites, etc. You don't have to worry about much and its easy to meet people. But I thrive on exploring a place and felt I didn't have as much ability to really delve in as much as I would like. Plus you are grouped with people that might not share the same travel values as you (i.e. I like to avoid the label of tourist as much as possible, while some of the people in the group might as well have been wearing flashing yellow "BEWARE tourist" signs. My final conclusion is if you want to visit somewhere and have it easy, then go for the group, but if you want to get your hands a little dirty, plan it yourself.

Ok but now to the actual trip. The irony of the trip was that we had signed up for a pub crawl and i guess I assumed it would be a younger crowd. However, when we showed up it was just my friend and I, then two women in their late twenties, one woman in her early forties, and then senior citizens. I was more amused than annoyed :-P Plus to be honest I wasn't as interested in late party nights anyways (even though the small younger group of us did manage to check out the pubs all night).

We started in Galway, which is on the western side of Ireland. We went straight to the Cliffs of Mohr from the airport. It was so beautiful. I don't think I have the words to describe but I'll do my best. The cliffs dropped straight down into the ocean. The wind was so strong that I insisted on walking slightly hunched down for fear of blowing right off!!! All I could think was that Mom would NOT be happy if I managed to blow off the cliffs of Ireland. haha.

On the way to the hotel our bus got trapped in a traffic jam. See below. :-P

I really enjoyed the Pubs in Ireland. You see them everywhere in the US. There's an irish pub in every city. But the real thing is awesome. Irish music and Guinness. I love Guinness as well. Yay Guinness.

The second day involved much driving around the country side. It was so beautiful and it was one thing I definitely appreciated the tour for, because we were on these tiny roads that i could not have gotten to without renting a car. Everything was so breath taking.

The next day we drove to Dublin, which frankly just felt like any European city. Not that it wasn't unique in its own way, but Galway felt like IRELAND whereas Dublin was Europe. But there was still plenty to do. Over the two days were were there we went to the Jameson Distillery, Guinness Brewery, saw Trinity campus and the Book of Kells (12th century written gospels in beautiful writing with artwork), and just generally checked out the city. I also got to meet up with a friend of mine from Brown who is from Ireland originally. After being out of the states for so long is was nice to chat with someone who I've known for the past 6 years. Most of my interactions here in Copenhagen are with people I've met less than 4 months ago. It was nice to talk about old friends and things like running and college that people here don't know about.

I got back home and less than a week later was on a plane for Vienna...but that's a whole 'nother post. Coming soon. I promise.