So glad I brought my boots!

This past weekend a bunch fo us visited our Irish friend Eddie at his home near Ennis. This picture does a wonderful job of describing Eddie:

He's the one on the right. He crazy and fun, has lots of friends, and plays the fiddle. His hair doesn't look like that, he only wishes it did. But he invited a not-so-small group of 7 of us to stay with him for a weekend so of course we all said yes. We took the train Friday night and were picked up by his dad who had a safari-like jeep that we all managed to squeeze into. We got to his house which is about 15 minutes outside of Ennis and smack dab in the middle of fields of sheep and cows. This was exciting news for Maggie and Ally as their only goal is to touch a sheep before they leave.

His parents were hilarious and really good hosts. His mom is an awesome cook and I can honestly say we all gained about 10 pounds or so since we were always eating and eating so much. The house was small so it ended up being a good thing his sister was out of town for most of the weekend. Maggie, Ally and I were the luck ones that got to cuddle all together in the biggest bed of the house which still was not really big enough for 3 people.

The next morning after gorging ourselves on porridge and scones that were so good they rival my own,  we took a peek at Mr. McMahon's car collection before we left for the day. And may I just say DAY-UMMM! He has got some NICE cars stashed away. The crowning glory was this:

a 1930 Rolls Royce. I don't even want to think about how much this thing would cost. Knowing my clumsy self, I didn't even breath on it.

After, we went our merry way to Castle Bunratty.

We had initially planned on going to the Cliffs of Moher but it was kind of gross out and we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyways if we had gone. It was a cool place and Eddie's dad managed to sneak us in using children's tickets. We were probably the world's oldest looking 15 year olds (especially considering the amount of facial hair the boys had) but they didn't even look at our tickets.

We walked around for a bit and then came across these goliaths of creatures:

no they aren't domesticated bears (Erika) but close enough. They're Irish wolfhounds. Fun fact they are the tallest standing dog breed and boy are they huge.

If they were a bit beefier I could have actually ridden this thing like a pony. Just get one of these when you have small children and you'l never have a need for a stroller! Just make a saddle, strap'em in, and you're off!

They did kind of smell bad (appropriately like wet dog) and I totally understand why not many Irish people allow their dogs inside houses.

After that we trekked through the castle:

looked at some killer stained glass:

went through some banquet halls that were too big for their own good:

and some staircases too small for their own good:

We finally got to the top to take some lovely photos:

and some not so lovely ones!

There was purposeful photo-bombing:

and inadvertent photo bombing!

I'm just that good. But it was a fun time. After we left the castle we walked around because there's a village of sorts surrounding the castle. There were lots of animals about the place and some people were obsessed with getting picture of and with them.

The only ones I cared about were the ginger pigs:

which were THE CUTEST things I've ever seen.

There were a bunch of buildings that were set up as they would be "in their time" that we went around to and they were pretty cool. They also had some shops in the town but we were there in the off season so most of them weren't open. There was also a church and some exhibit on plows but we were honestly more entertained taking jumping pictures and having ugly face contests.

This one was a tie.

We eventually headed home but stopped by an old abbey that we pasted on the way home:

It was super old with no roof and crumbling stones all around so it was funny seeing really modern gravestones in the graveyard.

After that we finally did head home and eat dinner (which of course was delicious). After that we decided to try and walk off some of the girth we were accumulating from the food and went for a stroll on the path behind Eddie's house. You need to climb a fence to get to the path in the first place:

so we were all super graceful when getting over of course.

It was really dark out but the path was right alongside a highway and I have a handy-dandy flashlight on my phone so it wasn't too bad. Eddie at one point mentioned that there were cows in the field right next to us so we (not so) wisely decided to jump the fence and go hunting for the cows. Lemme just say that I am SOOO glad that I was wearing my hiking boots because not only did the ground resemble cow poop, but but large areas of it WERE cow poop. You couldn't take two steps without trying to avoid a pie or two.

We finally came across them but they would move away from us when we tried to get close enough to touch them. The pictures at night were pretty creepy because they ended up looking like demon cows:

As we were heading back to the fence we heard a rustling in the trees that we were passing. We got a little skittish so as in scary movie style, we got closer to try and see what it was. We got pretty close but we still couldn't see so we just decided to hop the fence again as quickly as possible.

The next morning, Ally, Maggie, and I decided to go out sheep hunting to see if we could get close enough to them. Both fortunately and unfortunately Eddie's dog, Bruno, decided to tag along. Bruno is an adorable little dog who thinks he's the world largest dog.

We had hopped the fence into the fields across the street from Eddie's house where the sheep were and he came FLYING across the field to greet us. He laid down the second we bent to pet him wanting us to scratch his incredibly muddy/sheep poopy belly.

So of course I did. He was so cute but he would also like to chase the sheep around. I do have a video of it but I seem to be having some technical difficulties in getting it from my camera to my computer but I'll put it up when I can.

We did get fairly close, but still not close enough to touch them. They also bleet at us none stop but some of the noises these sheep were making was actually frightening. It sounded like they were either in pain, possessed, or a combination of both.

The rams were separated from the ewes and they were much more reluctant to run from us so we got closer to them. The field we were is very different than its appearance. Even in this picture above the ground looks firm and covered in grass when in actuality, we were slogging through this:

basically a swamp of sheep poop. Like I said, soooo glad I wore my boots.

After our failed sheep hunting attempts, we decided to revisit the cows which, thankfully, we could now see.

Unfortunately, we also finally saw what was in the trees from the night before. You know, the thing we decided to get closer to before leaving? For reference, we were less than 20 feet away from this:

In the dark. Creeping around. Definitely not one of my best life decisions. Anyway we didn't hop the fence this time but tried to lure them in with grass (it had worked at the castle earlier with the deer).

Unfortunately, this is as close as they got:

and Maggie is clearly upset by this. They would've come closer probably if Bruno hadn't decided to chase them. Honestly this dog thinks he's the biggest thing in the world because he was chasing a full grown bull.

On our way back we had the misfortune of being caught in hail...again. But this time it was special because it was coming at us sideways! How exciting. Not. I've never actually been caught in hail where I needed to turn my back to it so I'm not blinded by it. Check that off my bucket list.

When we got back we all decided to go to Ennis and walk around for a bit just to see the city. "City" being a very relative term here.

It was nice with lots of little alleyways and shops and stuffz and it gave us something to do beside sit around and eat. Which, none of us would've had a problem with anyways, but it was probably for the better we didn't. It was also surprisingly crowded for a Sunday afternoon because all other places I'd been to on Sundays have been pretty dead. We also stumbled across this gem of a restaurant:

And you might be thinking, "Oh well that's just a coincidence! It must stand for something other than 'you only live once'!"

Nope. It does.

We also narrowly missed a second even worse bout of hail. We had literally all just piled into the car to head home, and were waiting for Mr. McMahon to come out of his friend's house. Just as he opens the door the hail starts. I actually thought there were going to be dents in the car. When it finally stopped the ground was white like snow, only, surprise! It wasn't snow.

So after one last belly-bursting meal, we were packed up and ready to go. His parents invited us to come over anytime we want which we warned them not to do because we probably would take them up on their offer. Overall, this too falls under the title of successful trip as there were very few of us able to stay awake for the whole train ride home.

Shouldn't it be snowing when it's this cold?

So it's coming up to 2 weeks since I last posted. Whoops. It's been busy.

Two weekends ago (19th&20th) my API group went up to Dublin for the day on Saturday. Deborah, our awesome RD, told us that people often stayed over the night on their own for more time in the city so of course a bunch of us hopped on that idea. We decided to book a hostel because, let's face it we're all cheap college students. Well, at least I am. Anyways, we left bright and early Saturday morning. It was also the first time I was taking the train anywhere so that in itself was kind of exciting.

Turns out besides having tables in front of the seat and having a trolley with food go around it was just an average train ride. I was super tired from waking up at the grueling hour of 6AM (go ahead roll your eyes Baumanns) so I fell alseep as soon as I saw the trolly go by. And I'll be totally honest, I really wanted to see it go by cuz it felt like Harry Potter. Nerd and proud of it!

We got to Dublin around 10:30ish and surprise surprise, it was raining. It wasn't torrential down pouring so I didn't care, but what I did care about was that it FREEZING. I had dressed in fairly warm clothes but I was pretty chilled to my bone for most of the trip.

Our first stop was to Trinity College where we were meeting our tour guide.  He was a professor at the history department at the college. He really knew his stuff and was funny too. His eyebrows were kind of distracting at times because they looked like fuzzy caterpillars glued to his head. We set off for our tour of the city and both thankfully and not thankfully it was a walking tour. It was still kinda gross-ish out but at least I was warmer from walking everywhere.

We first walked around campus a bit and it's gorgeous even in not so good weather:

I think this was the bell tower...probably.

 Bicycles! =D

Actually there was a funny/not-so-funny story about one of the chancellors of the college. He was given lots of money to rebuild buildings and do lots of new construction stuff which included building new housing. Now, the heads of colleges in those days were supposed to live on campus in house number 1. So it was the building behind the bikes in the picture above and he build houses and had a number 1 on the where he "lived". Turns out, it's just a long hallway going through to the back where there's another path to his gigantic mansion he build for himself. So now, he not only had a kick-ass house, but it's away from those pesky students and they can't bother him. Needles to say the people who gave him the money in the first place were not impressed with how he had squandered it. Glad to see that nothing has changed since then either.

After that we headed more into the city area. There was this cool statue:

which was actually made as a big "screw you" to the British. It's right across from some important building where they were and everything in the statue is purely Irish.

After that we moseyed on over to Temple Bar which is the main touristy area. It jam packed with shops and restaurants and of course everything is mad expensive there.

Ironically enough it doesn't get it's name from a bar, but that's not stopping bars and pubs in the area from hopping on the trendy bandwagon trying to lure in tourists.

We then went to the city hall which has some pretty cool mosaics all over:

Apparently no one knows why the Dublin city seal has three burning castles on it. There's the half-full glass outlook that it meant they were going to defend themselves and burn other peoples' castles. Or you could look at it as the glass is half-empty and they were planning on burning their own castles for some reason. Or my personal favorite, you could just make up whatever story comes to your mind. It'd probably be more accurate. Definitely more entertaining.

They also had one of the seal of Munster which is the state/province (I don't know what they're called here) where Cork is:

Yet again the fascination with the number 3 but at least this time it crowns and not burning castles.

After that we passed this shop:

and I was SO SAD I didn't actually get a chance to go in while I was there. Just an excuse to come back though =)

We continued our tour which was winding and twisting so I had no clue where we were. We eventually came upon this church:

and I swear, my first thought was that I would see Quasimodo swinging around somewhere on it. It had so many nooks and crannies and climbable parts that someone could realistically get around by climbing on the outside. I forget the name of it but I know it wasn't St. Patrick's Cathedral because that was this one:

At one point we walked by an old marketplace where merchants and travellers would gather. When it was built the person in charge decided to show it was a marketplace by having faces of different people that would be there or represent the different goods. So they had an oriental face, a native american one, and to be totally un-politically correct they had the "winking jew" who was supposedly cheating you out of your money:

funny yet not exactly PC nowadays. What's also ironic is our tour guide said a lot of the traders would've been Jewish themselves.

After that we headed to lunch at some pub closer to our starting point and it was delicious. Granted, we were all so cold at that point we would've eaten dirt if it was hot and we got to sit someplace warm. Even if we weren't freezing our asses off it still probably would've been good.

We then went back to Trinity College to go see the Book of Kells. For those who don't know they're copies of Bible passages (maybe the whole thing? not sure myself) that were done my monks a long long long long long long long long long time ago. And they're pretty with paintings and stuff. The exhibit was cool because they had pictures of all the different paintings and writing in them and gave lots of background info on them but the actual books were not all that exciting. Yeah they were nice looking but each of them were only open to one page so you couldn't actually see the whole book.

What was more impressive was the Long Room which is this GIGANTIC library. It's over 200 feet long and 2 floors. The whole time in the exhibit we weren't allowed to take pictures and there were so many security guards ready to swoop down if you so much as thought the word camera. So unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it. Thank god for Goolge Images though!

Afterwards we were allowed to roam the city as we pleased. Those that were heading back to Cork had to meet at the train station at 6ish so that gave them about 3 hours but we were basically let loose since we were staying. We decided to head up to O'Connell St which had huge pedestrian shopping areas. As a side note, there are a lot of those here. Just areas completely devoted to pedestrians where you can either shop or eat. A decent part of Cork city center is like that too and I really wish places in America would get more of them. Needless to say, it would help shrink people's waistlines. It was a cool place though with lots of street performers and good people watching.

We then decided to go to the Guinness Storehouse which is basically the same thing as touring the distillery  but with beer instead.

It was a cool place and it was HUGE. It was about 6 or 7 floors of museum/how-we-make-beer tour. One thing I thought was funny was the lease signed by Guinness back when he first got the building.

If you can see in the picture the lease is signed for a short 9000 years. Apparently they think it's funny too or they wouldn't display it as the first thing you see when you walk in.

As is typical of these type of tours, we all got a free Guinness at the end. We could choose to have ours just served to us or we could wait in line and be taught how to pour Guinness properly and then get to pour our own. You don't really need to guess which one I did.

 Aaaaaand ta-da!

I even got a certificate for it....Which will be going up on my wall right next to my whiskey tasting certificate!

at least they spelled my name right on this one.

After that we walked to the train station to drop people off and then headed to the hostel to drop our stuff before dinner. On our way back we saw this:

see? even they even want their rivers to be green!

The hostel was cool and exactly what I expected of a nicer hostel (we had sheets! how exciting) but the guy at check-in was a real ass. We had 2 people cancel on us last minute and we didn't know the place had a 24 hours cancellation policy. We just asked him if we still needed to pay full price as we didn't know and he honestly couldn't have been ruder in his response. But besides that, the place was cool.

We then went hunting for a place to eat and came across a swinging pub that had pints for 3 euros until 8pm...because that's the important thing for finding a place to eat. When we eventually found a seat and got menus, we realized we were the only people eating. This wasn't the first time though. I've often gone out to eat with people and realized that we were the only people eating at the place. I truly am mystified as to when people actually eat though. I know "tea time" is big here and that's usually around 5pm or so and that's like 1st dinner with tea and a light snack. Then dinner is usually later at like 8ish. But still, we've gone out to eat at both those times and STILL we've been the only ones eating. Some places we walk into didn't even serve food after 5...which is kind of weird if they have "restaurant" outside the pub.

Anyways, we all got super tired as we were eating. Like, nearly fall asleep at the table tired. Instead of go back and go to sleep like someone smart would've done, we decided to stay out. Christine knew someone studying in Dublin so we decided to meet up with him and made the long trek there. Along the way I had briefly said something about how it's funny eavesdropping on people's conversations as we walk, and lo and behold, someone had been eavesdropping on us too. The guy was American and had heard our accents and just started talking with Christine while his other friends started talking to me. These guys turned out to be Brazilian and only one of them actually spoke English. He had come to Ireland to learn English. He wasn't studying or working, just living there to speak English. He probably didn't know that he had chosen one of the worst places to learn English since sometimes it's hard for even me to understand people. Most Irish people find the American accent "hard to swallow" or "it's takes some getting used to" both direct quotes that people have actually said to me. Mr. Brazil said it was "musical" which I thought was rather strange because musical is NOT a word I would use to describe how I speak. He did say it was amazing how much easier it was to understand me which was part of why he liked it better. Yeah I would like someone's accent better too if it meant I could actually communicate with them.

We had been walking for a good amount of time and chatting before we realized, oh hey, we're going the wrong way. So we said goodbye to our newly made friends (we never even asked their names) and about faced to go in the right direction. When we finally got to the pub and met up with Christine's friend we were all so tired we could've easily turned right back around and gone home. We ended up staying for about and hour or so before finally deciding that, yes, we need to go sleep if we don't want to resemble a pack of zombies. My bed was conveniently right next to the radiator which made up for being freezing the entire day.

The next morning after downing toast and a bowl of "granola" that looked mysteriously similar to something a donkey would eat, we headed off to the Dublin Zoo. It was a nice walk through what I presume is the main park of Dublin with lots of "excuse me"s from runners and dog-walkers out and about.

We tried to get to the zoo as early as possible so we still could get home at a reasonable time but it was actually an awesome time to go in general. The animals were all up because it was feeding time so they were all moving around and doing animally things. We even saw this one jump up into the tree:

Wrong continent I know, but you could say that about a lot of the animals. I was actually surprised because it was frigid while we were there and they were still all out and about. I guess they can handle cold better than use hairless apes can. This little guy was one of my favorites and would try to hit your hand if you put it up against the window...which he was climbing:

and of course, this is a hippo. He is fat. His mother is fatter.

At one point while we were there, it actually started hailing which, of course, is always a blast to be outside for. We finally made it through without causing too many problems though. The only exception being when Amanda opened the door that clearly says "Emergency Exit: Alarm Will Sound" and boy did it.

Overall I deemed it a successful trip since not one of us was able to stay awake for the train ride back to Cork. The true sign of a good trip.