New city, new adventures

Today was kind of a slower day for us. This is mainly due to the fact the fact that it was our first day in limerick. We started off by getting up early once again to catch the bus. The bus ride was only about three hours long. Most of us spent this time sleeping. Upon arriving to Limerick, we headed straight to the Strand hotel. Yes, i said hotel and not hostel. I knew it was going to be a great hotel just by walking into the lobby! However, when we got there we found out our rooms wouldn't be ready until 3pm. But the good news about that is they were nice enough to take our luggage from us and put it in our respective rooms when they were ready. So, after leaving the hotel we split up to grab lunch. We also had some extra time to walk around and get to know the city. We then caught a bus to The University of Limerick. We had a meeting with one of the Professors in the computer science department. Not too many question were asked because I think a lot of us were suffering from that "2:30" feeling. However, she was very informative about how they do the program there. After that the international student office gave us a tour of the campus. I think we could all agree that we wish Ball State has a campus as nice as theirs. After the tour we went back to the hotel. We pretty much all just hung out in our air conditioned rooms over looking the city of Limerick for the rest of the evening.

Dinner and a show!

Here are some video clips that will give you a flavor of what we enjoyed earlier this evening.

   

Today, we got a very good understanding of the Irish culture, modern and past.

Our first stop for the day was Trinity College, which is renowned for owning the illuminated manuscript, the Book of Kells.

The university was a lot like Ball State in that the buildings where relatively close together, but the lawns were groomed and manicured, and no one was to step on the grass. That would never fly back in Muncie, where droves of us college kids slowly come out of hibernation as the weather warms to play frisbie and pick-up football on the lawns. 

We met up with the head of the computer science program and Trinity, and he kindly answered all of our questions, and treated us with free tickets to see the Book of Kells and gave us a quick tour of the campus. 

My favorite part of the tour was the Long Room. It was, well,...long. And full of books. Lost and lots of books. My kind of room. I could stay in there for hours just looking at the books. Reading them, breathing in the history. 

The Book of Kells was impressive, but you couldn't see much, because it was open and there were only two pages shown. 

After the college, we got lunch, where Josh and I found a local cafe where nothing was over 4.50euro and was quite tasty! 

The Leprechaun museum was next. I was a little wary of what the museum would be like. I imagined it to be boring, with just a lot of videos and a little man walking us around. 

I was pleasantly surprised!

Our tour guide was very excited about the Leprechauns, and gave us all the information about these mythical creatures that we could ask for. She got us to find the inner kids in each of us, which was refreshing. 

Everyone climbed on the furniture in the Giant room, and after the tour was over, we were expected to draw her a picture and give it to here to be framed and put up in the museum. Oh goody. 

The rest of the evening was left for us to do whatever we pleased, and Josh and I went off finnish off our shopping for family and friends. 

At 7:20, we walked over to the Arlington Hotel for dinner and a show. I was expecting it to be boring and super expensive. Thankfully I got one of those wrong. 

The band Púka that played was amazing! They really got into their playing and singing and I really enjoyed the band and dancers. 

Benaiah got invited to dance on stage with one of the dancers and he gave his best shot. He didn't do too bad!

Overall, a great day in Ireland.

Besides being sick, I've enjoyed it!

Last official post of the trip. 

Peace out!!

Kayla

After a cab, two trains, two coaches, and a ferry we made it to Ireland!

(Sorry for the last few posts from us being a bit out of sequence.  I think we’re all caught up now, however.) Note that you can click on the photos to see a larger image.

Sunday was another big travel day for us as we moved from London, England, to Dublin, Ireland.  We arranged for two cabs to pick us up from the hostel at 6:45 AM and take the seven of us and our luggage to Euston Railway Station to catch our train because the tubes didn’t start running early enough.  We got breakfast and lunch at the station and boarded our first train only to discover it was very full and had very little space to store our luggage. We did eventually get it all stored and evicted other passengers from our reserved seats.


Train travel here is a bit different than in the USA in terms of seating. You buy a train ticket which means you can board the train, but does not guarantee you a seat. If you want that, you pay a bit more. We’re very thankful we paid the extra and had reserved seats because we were traveling the morning after a big rugby match and the trains were packed with fans headed home. About half way to Holyhead, Wales (where we caught a ferry), we transferred to a second train that took us the rest of the way. Unfortunately virtually everyone else transferred to the second train as well and luggage space was still an issue. One of our bags ended up sitting in the aisle the whole trip.  On our train rides, we had the opportunity to see lots of contryside, including canal boats, the ruins of a castle, and cattle and sheep in fields.

We arrived at the Holyhead station, and discovered signage in both English and Welsh.  After a brief wait were checked in for the ferry.  We were shuttled out to the ferry on a coach.  Unfortunately virtually everyone from the train transferred to the ferry as well.  At least we didn’t have to deal with our luggage this time as it was checked.  We eventually found a couple of tables that we claimed as ours and everyone settled in for the Irish Sea crossing.  All was uneventful; a nice smooth trip.


We arrived at the Dublin port and learned the ferry company was now charging a small fee to ride their bus from the port to city centre.  We paid up and were on our way once again.  We got off the bus, walked across one of the many bridges that cross the River Liffey, turned left and walked less than a block to the Abbey Court Hostel, our home for the next four nights.

After checking in, we gathered and walked to the Brazen Head, as it was dinner time.  Dating back to 1198, the Brazen Head is officially Ireland’s oldest pub.  No, I didn’t type the year wrong, we’re talking 800 plus years old.  We were able to find a table that would hold all of us and had some great food and drinks.  I had a traditional  Irish stew.  As we were finishing up, a local Irish band started showing up one by one.  As they arrived, they started practicing.  They didn’t actually start playing until after we left, but we got to listen to little pieces of lots of songs for half an hour or so.  Good stuff.  After dinner, most of us headed back to the hostel for bed, while others headed other directions.
  

I’m looking forward to our first full day in Dublin tomorrow.

All day bus tour of Ireland (Northern Ireland)

Another Tuesday, another day of required blog posts. Do not fret, I will entertain you with my words yet again.

Woke up at the buttcrack of 5:50AM to catch the 6:45 PaddyWagon to both ends of Ireland. After having a less than familiar Burger King breakfast, we made our way to the bus pickup area around 6:25 and waited until 6:47 (late! ... jeeze) to be picked up by the big green bus that we would learn to love for the rest of the day.

The trip up felt the longest and was mostly a nap time for us tired adults. When arriving in Belfast we all got out for a 5 minute toilet break and regrouped with our new tour guide to take us on our journey. His name was Tory.

Our first stop was the Carrick-a-rede bridge. The 15 minute walk to the bridge was quite the journey, but well worth it for the views we were able to witness. I was excited to cross this bridge and was not nervous at all, but that was not true for the entire group. I was able to look down and even bounce a little on the bridge as I walked across. The members of our group that were nervous made it across no problem and the sights were not limited to just the brave-hearts. Here are some of the views I captured:

Our next stop on the tour was Londonderry/Derry, to see the the culture of an area still separated from a recent war within itself. There are two sides to the fight, Protestants and Catholics and the communities that define both sides are separated by a giant stone wall. This stone wall has many writings and art drawn onto it that expresses the people of the towns feelings and struggles throughout the fight and during the recovery. The paintings were stunning and very well detailed.

The final stop was at a location known for its unusual rock formations that stick out from the ground in a mess of hexagonal pillars. Said to have been created by giants, these rock formations were a good spot to sit back and take in the views while we waited for our lunch to finish cooking.

Overall, the tour was long and full of beautiful sights. Returning back at almost 10PM from a trip that started around 7AM leaves you tired and ready to rest for another great day in Ireland.

Monday again already?

It's Monday and we're off to explore Dublin. We arrived Sunday evening after traveling all day. Our hostel is the Abbey Court Hostel and is in the City Center, the center of activity.

We started the day with breakfast and then went in search of a phone store and pharmacy. Several of us have come down with colds so we made a stop to get medicated! Dave and I needed to get new sim cards for our phones so we took care of that.

Dublin Hop On Bus tour became our transportation for the day. We got on to learn about Dublin and to see the sights. It was a wonderfully sunny day so we sat out on the top of the bus. Several people have told us its the first time they have had a sunny day in months. I told them we brought it with us!

The highlight of the day seemed to be the tour of the Guinness Storehouse to learn all about Guinness. Steven and Josh earned certificates in pouring the perfect pint while the rest of us got to sample a free pint of Guinness in the 360 degree Gravity Bar. We got to take lots of pictures of Dublin from the the highest point in town. Everyone was even more excited to have the rest of the afternoon and evening to do what they wanted to. It was nice for the two of us to have some time too. Kayla, Sarah, Dave and I went to dinner at Hard Rock Cafe and had a nice evening.

It's nice to be able to walk around without an umbrella or heavy coats. We had cold, rainy weather in Edinburgh and London was cool. So it's nice to have sunny weather.

What I haven't quite gotten used to yet is the fact that the skies are still light at 10 at night and starts to get light at 4 in the morning. Our room has a skylight in it and it is a bit challenging to sleep in very late. We find ourselves getting up early and watch the kids drag in at 9:00 am! Our room is on the fourth floor and there is no elevator so I'm getting lots of exercise! Unofficially we have walked over 80 miles so far!

Tomorrow is a very early morning as we head on a day trip to Northern Ireland. Going to be a great day. Can't believe that we head home on Sunday. The time has gone fast. Have to make sure I take time to really savor the rest of the trip. I may never pass this way again.

Saturday's Ravenous Renedevous

Saturday we had two places to visit, the first being the Science Museum in London and the latter being Stonehenge two hours outside of London. As is usual we were up at the crack of dawn around 8 am. Being quite drained from the previous evening the men joined up with the women for breakfast and our morning meeting. As we concluded our meeting we set off for the tubes. If you are not familiar with the tubes, they are the wonderfully designed passageways of the deep. In simple they are the subways of London. Also to note that we are quite far from the center of London so our tube ride averages 30 minutes a morning. So we hopped on the tube to the Science center. While at the science center I observed the history of the beginning of what we call “natural energy” to modern machines that now harness “natural energy.” I took a visit to the computer and mathematics exhibits which were quite small for what I was expecting. The computer history normally interests me quite a bit, however I was not that impressed with the exhibit. So we moved on to the mathematics side of the wall which was quite interesting to see some of the problems that were solved such a long time ago that seemed so complex to me even now. Those were the main areas that I was able to view. After this it was time for a 2 hour trip to Stonehenge which I used mainly for napping. When I woke up I was quite drenched in my own sweat. The seats on the bus were very comfortable but the fans were not working. We finally reached the site of Stonehenge and hastily got off the bus to cool off and tour the area of Stonehenge. It was very cool to see one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I did not listen to the history very much because right off the bat I knew the Stonehenge’s ancient use was long forgotten and so the history is very much speculation. I speculate that Stonehenge is a portal to an alien world. After a long day and another 2 hour bus ride the last day in London ended with all of us viewing one of the Seven Wonders of the World and all in all one of the more exciting days we had in London and on our trip as a whole.

Thirsty Thursdays!

Once upon a time, seven Americans got up early for they had a train to catch. This was a magical train that did not lead to Narnia, but Instead to Cambridge. On this train, seven Americans fell fast asleep. To their surprise when they awoke, they arrived in a land far far away. The end. So, we arrived at Cambridge and the first thing we noticed was the literally hundreds of bicycles sitting outside the station. We departed on a bus that took us near the Cambridge market. After we got off the bus we met a man named Mike. Apparently he's been friends with Dave and Louis for a few years. After meeting Mike we went to the Cambridge Visitors Center. We purchased tickets for a tour. Additionally, I purchased a neat shirt as a souvenir. We then split up into groups for lunch. After our lunch we went on a two hour tour. During this tour we visited King's College, King's Chapel, and Queens' College. These are all parts of the University of Cambridge. Following the extremely exhausting tour, we split up once again to do some shopping in the local market. We then took the bus back to the train station and rode the train back to London. Upon arriving back in London, we split up into three different groups. The girls went to a musical called Billy Elliot, Two of the guys went to Stomp, and Dave and I headed back to the hostel. I took a nice long evening nap. Then I started my laundry and hung out with our roommate from Manchester. I also met two Canadian girls. We agreed to meet at Cedar Pointe sometime this summer! After my laundry was finished and the conversations were over, we went to sleep.

New day, new city!

We made it to Dublin, Ireland last evening.  More posts coming soon.

It looks like this blog will go over the 1000 page-views mark sometime today!  :-)