Aran Islands…resumed

So I’m back. I’ve actually been writing papers and being a little productive lately, which explains why I’ve completely disappeared. But back to where we left off….

After we stopped at the sweater store and such, we reached spot 5 on the map, which was apparently the “don’t miss site.” We climbed all the way up and got prettyyy tired

Needed a break. Then we stared at the view and got close enough to the edge of the cliff…

stunning.

To say the least we were in a race against the clock to get back in time. We most definately thought we were going to be late for the ferry, but luckily the entire back way was mostly down hill. This was the most scenic part of the trip by far if you want to see Ireland as you may imagine it…

We love the thatched roof. This little baby below was my house. Tony found this one. I adopted it…when I retire I’m returning to the Aran Islands, buying it, and fixing it up. It’ll be my little project years from now…

Alright we made it back in one piece and with time to spare, amazing right? All of us were out of shape, some of us were smoking cigarettes while riding (not me), but we did manage to circle the island…way to go. If you come to Ireland visiting, you have to make a trip out here…it’s like an Irish fairy tale land…

thanks for waiting:)

Aran Islands and Irish Nostalgia

Ok so I could be working on the paper. I should be working on the paper. But I made coffee for Blogging round 3…I’m on fire what can I say, aaand I was excited to post about the Aran Islands because Ireland is still my favorite place that I’ve yet to visit.

For those of you who picture Ireland full bunch of rolling hills, thatched roofed homes, and grazing sheep/cattle, as did I when I fist got out here, I dedicate this post to you, because that’s what we saw at the Aran Islands. We took a bus, then a Ferry (after much deliberation about how to pronounce ferry…some say it like “fairy,” others say it closer to “furry”…whatever) then arrived and rode bikes all day. It was awesome. The pictures say more than my words so…

approaching the dock…

Kelsey and Ted…if this pic had audio you’d hear me singing Madonna. For your sake it doesn’t…

Whoever put up these rock walls was seriously motivated…

We’re not fit. Took lots of “photo” breaks:)

Every great musician starts out on the tin whistle:) shout out…

Shout out #2 – Westwood road anyone?

There’s too many photos, I can’t make cuts. This post calls for a Part II. Be back later…my blogging rampage has come to an end, I leave you itching in anticipation:) ….

Belgium Cont…Brussels

To be honest, we had such a good time in the fairly land of Brugges (the spell it all 3 ways- Bruges, Brugges, and Bruge, so sorry if I’m confusing you) that we didn’t really need/want to go to Brussels, but we a) felt obligated too since it’s more well known, and b) had already planned it out on the travel itinerary…so there we went. Upon arriving it was gray, misty, cold, and not overly thrilling, but the shopping was highly superior and there were four, counted ‘em, four H&M’s on one road so I was excited. Got a seafoam green T-shirt…it’s cute.

Shopping aside, Brussels is a political holy grail…EU headquarters located there, lots of important building that political type people would be super excited about. Here are my couple of photos:

I promise you that this is important. It’s either a political building or a cathedral…because those are the only two types of building that we walked into in Brussels, ha. Sorry for my lack of detail here…

There were maybe 12 chandeliers in the span of 12 square feet in this part of the Cathedral. It was really cool.

Same church. I really don’t like how so many churches have “Beware of pickpocket!” signs up throughout. People steal in churches apparently…upsetting!

City view from the top of a hill. I may or may not have complained the entire time walking up…:) I was full from chocolate. Sorry.

Ok that’s all…but before I go Waffles 101: There are 3 types of waffles in Belgium (I think). The one we’re eating in the picture (which is by far the tastiest) it the “tourist” waffle. Sadly. It basically has this sugar crust on the outside and those rounded edges. They’re sold by most of the street vendors, and to be honest, best eaten alone…no strawberries, whip cream or chocolate. Just alone. Don’t mess with a good thing. The “real” belgian waffle is rectangular, isn’t as sugary, and really light and fluffy. It’s good to, but it’s no tourist waffle. The third might be the dessert waffle (maybe, I have to check back on this) which is the one loaded with toppings.

Okay, now that you know a thing about waffles…you’re good to go. I was going to write a paper this morning…but well, ya. I blogged instead. Woopsiiess.

Chocolate, Waffles, and Belgium

A few weekends ago we ventured off to Belgium…not knowing what was there besides food, beer and cheap Ryanair flights…and it was wonderful. We found lots more in addition to awesome chocolate. While in Belfast the weekend before one of our program advisors actually recommended that we not miss Brugges while there, so last second change of plans, we actually spent more time in Brugges that Brussels, which is the right way to go. Not everyone hates it as much as Colin Farrell.

There’s no other way to describe Brugges outside of the term “fairlytale.” I felt like their should be elves and gnomes running around outside the pretty buildings alongside the river. Enough said, now look:

Sample beers the first night in the hostel. small glasses, don’t worry…

Center of town, think it was called the square? Very cute…

We went on a tour of a Chocolate Museum…greatest tour of my life. This man, note it, did not go to “Chocolate school.” He went to “pastry school.” He may have definately gotten pissed when I referred to his educational history as chocolate school…

We were going to do a tour of a beer factory but we would have had to wait 2 hours…but here’s a large display of Belgian beer…

Lovely little park/river in Brugges. Almost everyone who lives here is around 60 years old, so I’m betting it’s not the most cheap place to live…would be a beautiful place to retire though…

We went into every chocolate store we walked by, which essentially was one every 3 yards. the praline out here is nuts (ha, get it). So tasty…

Love me some Kappa symbols.

I asked one woman (not this one) who worked in a chocolate shop how much she loved her job and she said in her funny accent “I love it, I just can’t stop eating the chocolate!” It was cute. Anyways we did all the awesome touristy things in Brugges like the well…tours…but we also climbed to the top of the tower where the guy kills himself in “En Bruges.” We watched the movie after we came back though, so it wasn’t quite as daunting. Ok Brussels pictures next….not nearly as exciting…

Belfast. Never Again.

A couple weekends ago we went to Belfast, Northern Ireland. The vibe in this area is very different due to the political turmoil so you definately have to watch what you say a little bit more closely. I kind of felt like everyone was a tiny bit more pissed about life here than in say, the Republic of Ireland, but I’m really not the person judge anyway since I know so little about what happened and what’s still going on. (we may have gone to a talk about it…it was early, room was warm…hense I started napping, the speaker actually called me out on in…haha ooopsiiess.)

I don’t have too many photos of the city because to be honest, I didn’t fall in love with this place (I may have been ready to leave shortly after we arrived) but some cool things are in Belfast so I snapped some shots:

Giant’s Causeway: (this is a really cool, naturally occurring series of rock formations)

Place where Titanic was built:

Murals: A lot of places you go in Belfast you see these political murals. The art is amazing, they’re kind of scary to be honest because it shows just how intense people are about the political issues….here are some cool ones:

(Frederick Douglass incase you don’t recognize him…or you can’t read)

This one was a huge strip of murals all on the side of a building on a busy street. It was our last stop, and I was happy to head back to Galway. Glad I got to see Belfast, but won’t be returning any time in the near future.

Pardon the Interruption…

This weekend in Galway is RAGWEEK…stands for raising and giving….there are a lot of student activities that go towards raising money for charity, but essentially the students know it for being a week’s straight of pure Irish festivities and insanity. Okay, so that’s where I’ve been, back for now, so I’ll continue to with the travel updates…

Traveling…

The last 3 weeks have been all over the place…which is why I’ve been completely m.i.a. We started off in Paris, then Belfast in Northern Ireland, and lastly…just got back yesterday…Brugges and Brussels in Belgium. It was definately nice to see some new scenery, but I must say, Galway still remains the favorite. I’m bias.

Okay I have a ton of picture from Paris, but here’s a little of the highlights…

Notre Dame

The Louvre and the glass pyramid

Renoir in the Mussee D’Orsay…such a cool museum- all the stuff you learn about in the third grade right before your eyes..

L’Opera at night…had to ask at least seven people “pour les directions.” They love my french to say the least.

The Eiffel Tower lighting up at promptly 9 p.m….we may or may not have been assaulted by gypsies waiting on the steps, but it was well worth it…

And lastly all the cute Boulangeries (coffee/bread places). Paris is an amazing city. I could have taken pictures of all the food, life, and stylish people around me. The shopping is insane and the ambiance is hard to describe….maybe a combination of classy, romantic, sophisticated, yet almost stuck-up/intimidating all at the same time. This was my second time, and favorite time in Paris. I couldn’t live here permanently I don’t think..it doesn’t quite have the home-y/lets all be friends atmosphere like Ireland, but it sure is a place you can’t miss. Stunning.

So I made another trip to the market 2349 years ago…

I feel like I should start this post with “Once Upon a Time” because its so overdue, but this story is so typical of my existence that it needed to be posted…I’ll give you the abbreviated version….

So my friend Ginny and I decided to go the market again. We started walking and found this:

I was excited to say the least, almost got hit by a car mid-pose.

Soon after we both discovered we were lost. 40 minutes out of the way lost. Lesson learned- Ginny and Sarah rely on line leaders and need someone who knows where they’re going. We only had to ask about 7 people to point us to the market. Belows a nice view, we were excited…and we thought that dome was our destination, but now that I know the city a tiny bit better, I can tell you it wasn’t…

I got my much desired crepe of nutella and carmelized bananas:

Ginny’s was tasty too…and then we split this donut, but I insisted that Ginny pose with it…. (I don’t like donuts and I get these weekly they’re that good)

As much as I wanted the market vendor pesto, by the time we got to the market it was gone, so I got mine from Sheridan’s which is right behind Ginny in this pic and it was awesome…

I posed behind glowing flowers…(strange store- Lady in the back isn’t judging me or anything)

Eventually we ventured home, only to stop at Aldi on the way home. We frolicked through the grocery isles and then got home, for me to realize that I no longer had my bad of 3 potatoes (from Paddy, obviously) and pesto. I was crushed. Called 3 of the stores we had been in, got real sad, and then went back to Aldi as my last hope of finding it.

I asked the manager if he’d seen a white bag…he finished my sentence…I was so excited until he said- O yea some other blonde girl just asked me that.” (Ginny). Before I did the walk of shame home, he insisted that he had seen a brown bag though, and brought me to it. End of story- he found it bear the pasta sauces, way to go manager Mike Hennessy. Almost hugged the guy.

Yay for a days worth of shopping. The end.

Cliffs of Moher

It’s about time that I posted these pics since this event was almost a week ago, so here they are. This trip was actually a lot more extensive that just the Cliffs. We saw a famous graveyard (?) and some really famous tomb that I should know the name of, but can’t say I remember it right now. We went through the “Burn” (if that’s how you spell it) and say limestone ground/rocks that had been there since the iceage…and anything associated with the iceage is awesome, including the movie, so I was stoked. On the way to the Cliffs we stopped at McFitzpatrick’s and I had one of the best bowls of soup ever, even though I did manage to spill the attempt at bowl number one all over the hot dinner display window. Oopsies:)

On the drive down…

Irish Traffic! And Michael the tourguide…he was another AWESOME one. Told all sorts of stories and turned them into lies. Not sure if anything the man said was legitimate…

ha.

The entire Daley family was in here. They had the whole right side basically…

Vintage Irish countryside..

Group shot..woooo

And now what you’ve been waiting for…

We were at the Cliffs for two hours, so to be honest by minute 120 I definately didn’t feel like continuing to stare at rocks (at one point we decided to stare at the sky waiting for rainbows…failure) so I went into the giftshop and read an Irish cookbook until we left. Enough said…I was the last one back on the bus. Love me my cookbooks!

Market Saturday…

After waking up surprisingly late our group headed into town at about noon to see what we’ve heard so much about at the Farmers Market. We may have gotten slightly confused on the way there about directions, but managed to find our way. It was busy but smaller than I expected. One station had a ton of sauces, and olives…I really wanted the pesto and that’s what they were fresh out of. Others made food right on the spot like crepes, chilli,hummus burritos, mystery curry soup, fresh donuts and bagels…lots of stuff.

I went to the hummus station and tried every flavor. They were good, and I did get one, but I must say, the carmelized onion hummus that I found from the grocery store is still my favorite! They had pesto hummus, jalapeno, sweet sundried tomato, and the one that I got: roasted red pepper. At 2.90 a pop, its a decent buy for a container.

Here’s where I got my broccoli, cucumber, and sprouts. I was informed by a nice Irish woman that Patty (guy in cap) gives better deals that other guys, so I hung out with Patty for a bit.

Then we went down into the water, I snapped some foggy pics…

And this is some kind of important gravestone/jail/mystery monument…

Street Life:

Interestingg….

Anyways tonight we’re all cooking dinner here, and maybe going to the Cliffs tomorrow:)