Ireland = Rain

I've found the quickest and easiest way to make friends when traveling to different countries:
1. Find something or someone that your new country hates with a passion.
2. Tell your new "friends" that you and America also dislike this person or thing.
Voila! Instant Friendship!

This formula worked quite well for me this weekend. You see, last week in British Studies we learned about an extreme Puritan, Oliver Cromwell, who basically hated the Catholics, especially Irish Catholics. When he took over as Lord Protector of England in the mid-1600s he attacked and tortured Ireland relentlessly. Throughout our trip to Ireland this weekend we would meet new people and tell them we were from the States, and then proceed to tell them that "America hates Oliver Cromwell." Our new Irish friends thought we were pretty funny and it gave us something to talk about. . .

Well, it's Monday and I'm exhausted. I had an amazing trip to Ireland, but I'm really worn down... probably because this was our first long trip done completely on our own. We traveled in a group of 10 girls: Me, Lauren, Dani, Daphne, Kimberly, Erica, Denee, Penny, Caitlin, Sarah. This was a long trip, and there are so many things we did. I think the best way to explain my trip is to break it up into days. Here we go...

Wednesday - 7 p.m. - Street Car Taxis pick us up from the Manor. (one 4-person car and one 6-person van) We drove an hour to Nottingham Airport. This Airport is similar to Evansville Airport. Yes, it was really that small. All 10 of us bought our plane tickets from a discount website... ryanair.com. We now understand why our flight was so cheap. The same woman who checked our luggage and gave us our ticket turned out to be the same person who took our tickets so that we could board the plane almost 2 hours later. And what do ya know.. she was also a flight attendant on our plane. ha. I wouldn't be surprised if the Airport janitor turned out to be the pilot. Our flight went smoothly and only lasted about 45 minutes. We arrived in Dublin before midnight. The 10 of us found benches in the Dublin Airport and we made ourselves at home. It was a pretty rough night, and my first night staying in an Airport. I probably slept a total of 2 hours. Did you know there's actually a website ranking the best airports to sleep in? Erica found it: http://www.sleepinginairports.net/

Thursday - (it rained today) by 5 a.m. most of us were awake in the Dublin Airport. We used the public restroom to wash our faces and brush our teeth. We found information on buses leaving the airport and going to the place we were supposed to meet our paddywagon tour. (the paddywagon is a 3-day tour bus that travels through southern Ireland). We bought a bus pass for 1.6 euros, and we caught the next double-decker bus at a little after 6 a.m. We all climbed to the top of the double-decker bus and then realized we really had no idea where we were supposed to get off at. It was dark outside, there were no maps on the bus walls telling about the stops, and the bus driver didn't make announcements at the stops. Erica went back down the bus stairs and asked the bus driver which stop we needed to get off at to get to Paddy's Palace (our paddywagon meeting place). He told her he would give us a "shout out." About 15 minutes later on our journey, the bus driver yells something over the speaker about a group of 10 this is your stop. It was really funny & embarrassing at the same time. The bus was packed and people were chuckling when we got off. It was very clear we were American tourists.

So Erica told the bus driver we needed to go to Lower Gardener Street. He dropped us off at Upper Gardener Street. Picture this: It's dark, wet, and chilly. Ten American girls are walking down a sketchy Dublin street at 6:45 in the morning.... dragging loads of luggage. It was quite a scene. After a good 15-20 minute walk we arrived at Paddy's Palace. At 8 a.m. the tour began.

I don't know what I was imagining this trip would be like. Maybe a ghetto tour bus from the early 70s with peace signs and "love not war" painted all over it. I was way off. Our tour bus, or our coach, was awesome. It was this huge green Mercedes bus that had Paddywagon painted down the side. The cool thing about this tour is that it lasted Thursday through Saturday and provided all major transportation as well as 2 nights in hostels. (Hostels are different from hotels... hostels are more like church camp or dorm living... bunk beds and community showers.) Tours to different historic places were also included in our trip. Other than meals, souvenirs, and clubs, most of this trip was covered. However, I still managed to spend a lot of money. You'll have that, I guess.

First stop on Thursday was Cahir Castle. All I remember about it was that they used part of it in the filming of the movie Braveheart starring Mel Gibson. Next we went to Blarney Castle where we got to kiss the Blarney Stone. Supposedly it gives you 7 years of eloquent speech. We'll just have to see about that. We spent a lot of time on the bus because we covered so much ground. I slept quite a bit, but our bus driver, Gabriel, also pointed out interesting historical points as we drove along. Thursday night we stayed in Killarney at a Paddy's Palace Hostel. We took a carriage ride around the town, and later we went out for dinner. Following dinner we went to a pub that had live music and then we finished off the night at Club Grand where they played 80s music. Yay!

Friday - (it rained today) We departed at 10 a.m. and made several interesting stops throughout the day. We had sing-alongs on our bus. Gabriel liked to jam to some of our favorite 80s and 90s songs. We even got to dance in the aisle.

I found that most of the Irish aren't too hard to understand. They have a lot of different words that I've never heard of before though. Most of the words are Gaelic which is another language spoken in Ireland. One guy taught me how to say "My name is Ashley" in Irish, but I can't remember how to right now. Turns out Ashley is not an Irish name, but Ashlyn is! Sometimes I introduced myself as Ashlyn, just for fun. Oh, haha, and get this... The Irish don't use the "th" sound. So, example time. American: "I thought about my weekend." Irish: "I taught about my weekend." .... American "I have my third class at noon." Irish: "I have my terd class at noon." Haha.

Friday we saw some of the Lakes of Killarney. We drove through the festival town of Tralee. Have you ever heard of the "Rose of Tralee?" It's some kind of beauty pageant, and also a song. We took the Shannon Ferry into county Clare. We saw the walls that were built during the Potato Famine. We also got out to see some 3-million-year-old rocks. The rocks weren't that exciting, but of course I still had to take pictures with them. We saw the Cliffs of Moher... well sort of. It was way to foggy to see anything, so I just bought a postcard of them at our lunch stop.

Friday night we stayed in Galway, where supposedly 40% of the population is under 20 years of age. It was supposed to be "Ireland's most hip, most historic medieval party city." It was alright. I actually enjoyed Killarney better. Friday evening we had dinner at a pub called Richardson's, then we went to dance at Club Cuba. We slept at the Kilnay House Hostel. Cold showers, but clean sheets. I'm not complaining. :)

Saturday - (it rained today) Last day of the Paddywagon tour. We left Galway at 9 a.m. and traveled on the bus for awhile before hitting our first stop at Clonmacnoise. This was the site of some Monastic ruins and celtic crosses from the 9th century. On our way to lunch we saw the Great Bogs of Allen. It just looked like a bunch of mud to me. For lunch we ate at a pub that was known for their Guinness Stew. It was delicious. Guinness (the beer) is huge in Ireland. There are signs everywhere advertising it. The Guinness factory is actually in Dublin... we were going to visit it on Sunday but ran out of time.

Before Gabriel dropped us back off at the hostel he took us for a tour of Dublin. We drove through Dublin's Phoenix Park, the largest urban park in the world. We saw where the Irish Uachtaran (President) lives.... it looks similar to the White House.

Our Saturday night stay was not included in the cost of the paddywagon tour, so we booked an additional night at Paddy's Palace (our original starting point on Thursday). Somehow they lost our reservations, but they were able to put us in one of their sister hostels, Jacob's Inn... located down the street. It was actually very nice. We had one bathroom for 10 girls, but it was nice that we could all be in one room. Saturday evening we did a bit of souvenir shopping, and then we ate at Hard Rock Cafe. It was a great meal. We even splurged and shared the giant desserts. We asked our waiter where the good clubs were located. He told us about several, and then gave us all VIP passes to a Club M. After dinner we showered and went out to Club M where they were having a Valentine's celbration... free chocolates and champagne. Their dance floor was killer! We had a great time dancing and meeting new Irish friends, bonding on the fact that we all hate Oliver Cromwell.

Sunday - (it didn't rain today! but we're leaving) We checked out of Jacob's Inn by 11 a.m. and we went in search of the bus station. It took us a good hour of walking (with all of our luggage) before we found it. We made it to the Dublin Airport and checked-in with plenty of time to spare. We ate lunch in the food court and then waited to board or plane for the last leg of our journey. We arrived at Nottingham Airport at 3:30 p.m. and waited for our taxis from Grantham which were to pick us up at 4:00. The hour-ride home was a little sad... I was really sad to see our Ireland trip come to an end.

I've posted new pictures under the "Ireland" album. I hope you enjoy them! Just click here: http://community.webshots.com/user/ashleyhenke

There's so much more I could write, but this entry is already the longest I've ever written. An experience of a lifetime, that's the only way I can describe it. In fact, this whole Harlaxton experience has been the experience of a lifetime. I can't believe I'm visiting these places and seeing all these wonderful, historical, famous things. Ah! Sometimes I just have to pinch myself to make sure I'm really here... in England, studying, living, taking it all in.