Edinburgh and living on the Royal Mile

So I have been in Edinburgh before this trip with my family we stayed on the old side of town, behind Edinburgh castle and the Royal Mile. This time around our hostel was maybe 20 steps from the train station in front of the castle and on the backside of the Royal Mile leading up to it. For reference if you don’t know much about Edinburgh, the castle itself is a big indicator of where you are if you aren’t sure and leading down from the front of it is a giant hill called the Royal Mile. If you go down any of the steps or passages leading off of the Royal Mile you would find yourself near our hostel and near bridges that lead you to new town Edinburgh. If you across any of the bridges, you know you are in new town and you usually end up on Princes Street which is famous for its shopping and all around craziness. The big plus of our hostel was that we were one bridge away from the Princes street gardens which when the sun would come out were perfectly wonderful to be in. So you’ve already heard a little bit about my first day, but really all it involved was walking around to get our bearings and hanging out in the gardens before going to see the second Avengers. We had to walk through new town to get to the theater and the Scot’s steps that we took to avoid a hill were killer for our legs. One thing that I can count on Edinburgh for is the amount of steps you have to take to get anywhere will be huge! Our room in the hostel is one the 4^th floor so we had to do 4 flights of stairs before going up any other stairs or hills!

The castle from the gardens

Looking up the Royal Mile

Friday we went to Edinburgh Castle as a group where our professor left us so that the rest of the day after that was up to us. We toured the whole thing, which hadn’t much changed since the last time I was here only about a year ago, but was still interesting nonetheless. It is a castle, so you really can’t go wrong. We saw the canons, the crown jewels and Stone of Destiny, the war memorial, the war museum, and last we saw the military museum which was probably the most interesting besides the crown jewels. They changed out the last exhibit in the military museum since the last time I went through and had pictures from the soldiers in the Middle East which were very well done and interesting to look through. They were a very different yet similar subject, but instead felt like an art exhibit in the respect that was put for the photographer and the people who were photographed. So after about 2 hours or so, we left the castle and took a stroll down the Royal Mile. We popped into a lunch spot that some of group recommend from the night before and did a quick sandwich and wrap lunch. After lunch we decided to look around on the mile again briefly before going back to the hostel for a quick break. After the break getting Wi-Fi and out of the sun (which surprisingly was out in force, locals kept reassuring us this was not natural!) we went back out to just stroll along until dinner. For some reason we were all exhausted from our not very busy day, so we just decided to grab a dinner with drinks down at the bar next to the hostel. We went back to the Wi-Fi area again after to do some history lectures and then I stole one of the books from the swap to read in my room until I was too tired to do much else besides sleep.

The view from the castle

Princes Street gardens 

Sadly, our radiator had other plans for our room besides sleeping. At 2:30 am that next morning, our radiator let out an obnoxious buzzing sound that woke up 3 of us in the room like an alarm. The sound was so loud that when we tried to talk to each other, it was more like yelling. We soon realized where the sound was coming from and were as equally surprised to see that the other girl in our room, Christina was still asleep even though she was closest to it and it was emitting so much heat it was hard to even go near it. We left her, and one of the girls in our room left to go downstairs to complain to the front desk about the noise. She came back fairly quickly and we already had other people on the hall looking outside their rooms to see what the noise was. Ten minutes later, Christina was still asleep despite the fact that our light was on and we were all around her bed trying to figure out how to shut off the sound. Two men from the hostel came in, one who had lost his voice (rendering him even harder to understand as he had a thick accent) and one who was much too loud and happy for 2:45 am. They talked to themselves and to us trying to figure out what was happening and then without warning the one with the lost voice climbed over Christina (who was still asleep crazily enough, we tried to wake her up!) to get the radiator. Finally at this, she woke up very confused as to what was going on between the random two men in the room and the incredibly loud noise that was very close to her. Quickly after, they seemed to figure out what was wrong and twisted something enough to make the noise stop. We thanked them and they left, when Christina piped up still lost on what was happening. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the craziness as the sound proceeded to go off every hour like a snooze button until someone got up and did the same thing the men did. Basically, we didn’t get much sleep and there were many complaints to go around at the desk the next morning. 

              Saturday we tried to have a lazy morning due to the crazy night, but we ended up making plans around 10 so that we wouldn’t waste the day. The plan that we actually stuck to was to get a brunch around 11 because the toast and yogurt hostel breakfast that day just wasn’t going to cut it, and then grab pastries as dessert and have those in the park. We went to a French bakery and café, getting whatever meal sounded best, breakfast or lunch, and had take-away little cakes and even a bag of macaroons. The cakes in the park were amazing as it had rainy and gray until that moment. On a sugar high, we went further into new town and found the Georgian House. The Georgian House is basically a house that has been fixed up to the way the original owners would have had it, and you get to tour it and learn a bit of history. I’m pretty sure out of the group I was with, I was the only one who actually really enjoyed it before we ran into the volunteer in the kitchen who would not let us alone the whole time we were looking through. Our favorite lines that she said (and that have been repeated several times already) were: in reference to a dish cover with a circle handle “If you like science, here’s a perfect circle!” and after discussing everything on the sheets we were given on the way in “You just look around now, I won’t bother, but if you have any questions about anything you see you let me know. For instance this! This is…..”. She was interesting, and quite a character. The other volunteer we spoke in length with at the house, was a student at the university who told us where the places to go out would be in old town. We decided to take his advice that night after going around a bit more historical places during the day and check out some of the places near the college. And thankfully after coming back that night, we did not have any radiator problems.

Enjoying our cake in the park!

              Today though, we have had our share of problems. Nothing that we couldn’t handle, but at the time we did not know what was going to happen. So we checked out of the hostel at 10 am and then walked to the train station to board our 4 and half hour train to King’s Cross in London. We were doing pretty well 2 hours into the trip and I had already made it through 2 more history lectures (on which we have a another test before we leave London in 4 days, so its slightly stressful that we haven’t even gotten all the material!) when we get the PA announcement that we are stopping in York and everyone on the train has to get off because they are having breaking problems. Now this is where we are all thinking the same thing, that when we have to line up to learn of another train we are gonna have a hard time finding one to fit 23 people all together. What really happened is that we basically let everyone else from our train get on the next train to King’s Cross and we took the second so that we could stay together. From there we had no problems, and got into the station and grabbed oyster cards for the tube. Once on the tube after waiting for several other trains to pass us, we also had to get off two stops early because something was wrong with the next stop. We waited and then got the next possible train for our stop at Tower Hill. We are staying 3 blocks from London Tower and the river Thames in a very classy hostel named Wombat’s which is a step up from the places we have been staying. I’m talking about the fact that I am sitting in our room typing this because there is (gasp) fast Wi-Fi in the rooms and each bed has its own light and USB plug with an outlet too. Honestly I am very glad that this the last place we are staying! I’ll tell you about our London adventures very soon!

Moving to Scotland and into Glasgow

Sunday was a day full of travelling with different modes of transportation the whole day. First we loaded up in probably the fanciest coach bus I’ve ever been on (we had tables on the bus!) and went about 15 minutes until we reached the edge of Belfast to get on a ferry. When I imagined a ferry, I thought a big boat sure with a lot of seats, not a luxury cruise liner with 10 floors and so many activities to do. This is a 2 hour ferry from Belfast, Ireland to Cairnryan, Scotland and I got a manicure and a pretty nice meal with some extra time to spare to check out what else they had on board (which included gambling slots, an arcade, the on-board spa, theater room, I think several bars and a restaurant, and shops with luxury items). To say I was impressed is an understatement. Everyone on the trip was amazed that this was the “ferry” to Scotland, A+ rating to Stenaline. Anyways after exploring the ship, a couple girls and I decided that a spa day would be nice so Shari and I got get manicures, and Ashley and Abbey decided to get massages. It was very nice and we all wished we could’ve brought swimsuits to get into the Jacuzzi! We all grabbed a quick bite to eat which ended up being GIANT kid’s meals that were perfect to hold us over. After sadly docking and getting off the ship, we boarded another coach bus which took us an hour and 45 minutes north to a town called Ayr. Whoever told me I was going to be too busy to read on this trip obviously has not sat on enough buses and trains while traveling, I am burning through books on my kindle. After getting into Ayr, we took a 50 minute train up and into Glasgow. From the Central Station, we walked 20 minutes or so uphill (which was killer, we all joke we better have great legs and arms from carrying our stuff after this trip) to our guesthouse. Glasgow is not how I expected it to be, but I actually really like it. It is surprisingly extremely hilly, like they have the slope marked on all the hills and let me tell you they are a workout. We settled in and then went out to explore a bit before coming back for a big day Monday. Sadly I somehow have NO pictures of this amazement so I have my fingers crossed someone captured it!                    

  

Monday was a new kind of day on this trip which was a really nice change of pace. Instead of going to a school or doing history lessons, we started working with a company called Snook here in Glasgow. Snook is hard to explain and I want to do them the best justice, so I’ll just say they are a service design company that work with a variety of organizations and people to bring the best type of ingenuity to lots of different products and types of problems to make things easier than how they are already. I know, very vague and broad! Basically, as this is the best example they gave us, if you have two coffee shops that sell the same coffee and have the same prices, service design is what makes you choose one shop over the other. Anyways, with Snook we were divided into groups of 7 and 8 and charged with a specific question to tackle. The group that I was put with was charged with the question of how we could better market alcohol awareness to the ages of 16-25 in Glasgow. We did some idea brainstorming in some creative ways, which I am thankful for, because when you think too hard about one singular goal it’s hard to just find the solution. I like that sometimes you can just back into an idea after getting inspiration from something completely different. We took a couple of hours after lunch to roughly craft some ideas, and with some refinement (and lots of arguing) we had 3 fleshed out ideas to run by people in research. That night we were in encouraged to go out and ask some questions of people, so we took that and ran with it. We decided on the bar Nice n’ Sleazy (which was actually was more nice than sleazy) and questioned a couple people while also appreciating the weirdness of the whole thing. It was a good way to end Monday.         

   

The team in action brainstorming

Our friends at MakLab let us use their basement

Tuesday we were back at Snook, where we combined some of our ideas in order to create a better platform for alcohol awareness. We knew we had to present our ideas at the end of the day, so most of our time was focused on getting the rough edges smooth and creating a visual and representative presentation. Our idea in basic was that we would create cheap coasters with humorous pictures and slogans with lead ins to a website with hangover cures that you could vote on, alcohol facts, advertisement from companies encouraging safe drinking, and taxi services that you could use while checking out the website. We did a PowerPoint, handed out rough mock-ups of the coasters, and had a poster with what the website could look like. We got some great feedback from the people at Snook where they told us how we could engage people better, and gave us good examples of the direction we were headed towards. After presentations, we walked to their actual building about 10 minutes away, because we had been using a space underneath a fabrication center. Snook is actually located above a bar and a tea room, so we were taken around their studio and then went downstairs to grab celebratory drinks. After taking with more Snook employees and hanging out we went for a group dinner at Wagamama, which is a really good Japanese chain around the UK. Though after dinner, we were told some bad news about one of the 3^rd year students from Auburn in our program and we all just decided to go back to the guesthouse and chill out there.

Our board being used for organization

Our website mock-up

Wednesday was our free day in Glasgow, so after breakfast Shari, Ashley, and I grabbed some coffee at a shop around the corner and decide to just walk until we saw something we wanted to do. The only thing that was permanent on our schedule was seeing the Glasgow School of Art which was designed by Charles Mackintosh, whom I’m pretty sure we all have a design crush on. Sadly though, last spring the Mackintosh building of the school was damaged in a fire, so they lost the library and still have scaffolding up blocking the building from being used. We got to hang around the newer building and go through a little exhibit they had up explaining Mackintosh’s work, but our last history test was over his work so we already knew most of the information. We could’ve gone on the tour, but if I was going to pay for it I would have wanted to see in the Mackintosh building. We then walked out of the middle of the city to the park district, where Ashley decided she needed to go back to the guesthouse so Shari and I walked around aimlessly taking in the fresh air. We took the long way around the park and then made our way back towards St. George’s square in the middle of Glasgow. We stopped at the Willow Tea Rooms which was also designed by Mackintosh and had a midday break. After walking around the models on the first floor of never built works and grabbing a quick bite to eat, we walked past the markets lining the pedestrian walkway. We, of course, walked into the Primark (which is just like Penneys where EVERYTHING is so cheap) and I had to talk myself out of some great shoes. We just walked until the exhaustion of the day caught up to us and I went back to my room to do a new history lecture since we do have a test before we go home.     

A model of Glasgow School of Art

The real outside of Glasgow School of Art (scaffolding and all)

A detail of the new building of Glasgow School of Art

The fountain in the park

The view from the park

Today we have had a lazy morning where we didn’t leave for Edinburgh until 10:45. We walked another really long walk to a different train station, Queen's street station. We got into Edinburgh and I walked around with Becca and Christina near Princes Street and made a big loop around the castle which we are going to see tomorrow. With Ashley though, I went to see Avengers:Age of Ultron because it came out earlier here than it does in the U.S. and I did enjoy that! I'm off to do another history lesson so I'll fill you in on the rest of Edinburgh soon!              

Italy and the state of my feet

              Tuesday was probably the longest day on this trip so far. We woke up at 2:50 am to make sure we were all packed and ready to leave Kinlay house at 3:30 am for the airport. We then proceeded to be an hour earlier than we needed to be for our 6 am flight, because our professor was scared there was going to be a rush. After a needed Starbucks visit, we got to our gate in the Dublin airport. I appreciated the outside of the Dublin airport because it was lit up and beautifully built. I did not appreciate the inside of the airport, as there were just really long hallways with nothing in them to take to gates where there were no bathrooms or anything at all besides lines. Anyways, we got on our flight (with two less bags I could cry about having just one carry-on for our trip to Italy) and made a 2 hour trip on which I slept most of the time. We got off and headed straight through passport control and towards our bus, which took us from the Bergamo airport to Desenzano. We were staying in Desenzano at the Aurora hotel and making day trips to everywhere else since it’s in the middle of Milan and Venice. Since we had landed at 8 am Italy time, we got into Desenzano around 11 with enough time to explore the city. First we walked up and down the market that was down one of the main streets and picked up a few cheap things. We grabbed an amazing lunch of Italian pizza (which has to be one of my favorite dishes there because it has more of an olive oil base than tomato) where the waiter took our badly spoken Italian orders and proceeded to use the wrong pronunciations we used when he presented the food laughing and told us the right way to pronounce our food. Since Desenzano isn’t exactly a tourist city we experienced some language barrier while we stayed there, but I still remembered some phrases from the last time I went and I learned some essential words to get through the week.

The "Old Harbor" in the middle of Desenzano

Desenzano from the water

Harbor at Desenzano

              Tuesday still was even longer as after lunch, we explored the city seeing the castle that sits at the top of the hill looking down on the city and seeing the pebble beaches which line the lake Desenzano sits near. We went window shopping and walked through the alleys and cobblestoned streets trying to scope out what we wanted to eat later and where would be good places to go. We sat down for dinner a short while later and our new professor Jarrod who is taking over after we get back from Italy also ate with us. I got seafood pasta and Jarrod accidentally engaged one of the guys who were going around with roses so he ended up having to pay for the roses that were thrust into all the girl’s hands at the table. He joked that it would be on the University, but he just laughed about the fact that it had happened so quickly!

              Wednesday was Milan day. We walked to and then took a train in the morning which was around 2 hours into Milan. Then we quickly went to the subway and took two lines to get to the edge of the city where the Salone del Mobile Milano was. This is a HUGE convention center with 24 exhibit halls which were all filled with design companies showing off their best stuff and student work as well. I would recommend anyone who likes to walk through Ikea, likes looking at home magazines, or even just appreciates design should for sure go to this Salone. I wished I could’ve stayed for 4 more days though to see everything because for reference, out of those 24 exhibit halls I only saw 6 of them and we were hustling because we only had a couple of hours. The original plan of going into Milan was to go to the Salon and walk around for 2 hours, then meet up with an Auburn alumni from our program, and then leave to go see The Last Supper. When we reached Chris Gibbons, the Auburn alumni, as a group we decided to veto The Last Supper so that we could stay and look around for longer. It was a perfect amount of time to see what we could before the fatigue of the day caught up to us. What I didn’t realize was that the Salon is something like 3 miles long and you have to walk a good distance with help from those moving sidewalks to walk between exhibit halls. I also, dumbly, was excited that the weather in Italy was warm and sunny rather than rainy and cold so I wore sandals. Little did I know how much walking I would be doing so after leaving the Salon I was happy to be sitting on the subway towards the Duomo. We got off of the Duomo stop and split off to catch separate trains back to Desenzano by the end of the day. Christina and Ashley stuck with me and we made a wide ark of the Duomo going down the side alleys before having to heading back on the subway to the train around 7:30.

The housing for the convention center!

At the Salone

One of the exhibits to draw attention

I just liked this chair, cool back!

Flatpack Lighting

Interesting chair setup!

Pantone chair with miniatures

              Thursday we did another day trip, but this time to Venice. I have been to Venice before, but we got off a ferry the first time. Coming off a train is the completely opposite side of Venice which I was grateful for. We collected as a group and made the trek to the heart of the city. After getting dumped out into St. Marco’s square, we had free time in Venice for about 4-5 hours. I ended up being in a group of my friends - Ashley, Shari, and Becca – and we walked around, found a place to eat lunch, and then ran into our professor Jarrod about 4 times without seeing anyone else! We walked with him occasionally if he was going same direction we wanted to go, and Jarrod and I ended up placing a bet on who could walk the most steps, him or me, because we both had Fitbits (I won by the way!). Eventually we split off after realizing Jarrod probably wouldn’t want to go around shopping with us. We found a leather store where Ashley and Becca both got purses and I found a nice wallet in a rich brown color. We walked around window shopping in the expensive places and really had to take a lot of breaks to soothe our tired feet. As previously stated my footwear for the Italy trip was not wisely picked out, so by the end of the day I had a couple blisters and a weird step pattern that I tried to use to ease the pain. Anyways, 38 bridges, 2 gelato cones, and a cup of sangria later, we met back up as a group at the train station to catch the train back to Desenzano.

View from St. Marco's square

Cool view of the flags

Cute little canal and bridge

View off of one of the Grand Canals

Plaque of Venice

              Friday we had a free day where we had to be back before 6:30 pm to make sure we could get to the airport in time. There was a ferry that could take across the lake to the peninsula town called Sirmione so a group of us decided to do that. There is a castle inside the town that is much grander than the one in Desenzano so we poked around that for a bit, and grabbed a quick bite to eat. We did some more window shopping and some souvenir shopping before making it down to the beach. We wanted today to be a chill day to let our feet have a rest so we just sat looking out on the water and the mountains for a little while before heading back into town. I went into a shop that had 135 different gelato flavors and they were crazy about handing you samples. They were just thrusting them into your hands speaking in rapid Italian so that before I even ordered anything I had 7 generous sample spoons worth of gelato. I ended up going with an apple flavor and another flavor that I don’t even know what it’s English name is because there was no picture or obvious translation, but it was good. We then caught an even quicker ferry ride back into Deszenzano with very full stomachs so we ended up just sitting around watching the Italian version of old MTV where it’s just music videos all the time. We got picked up the bus not too much later and headed back to Bergamo to catch our flight back into Dublin. We grabbed our other bags from the luggage locker that we left them and then checked into Kinlay house for the last time. By the time I had repacked everything and got ready for bed it was 2:30 am so at least it was full circle on our Italy trip!

Sirmione Castle

The beach and the water in Sirmione

              Today we have taken a train from Dublin into Belfast, so that we can take a ferry to Scotland. The train was uneventful and we are back in the same hostel in the same rooms that we were the last time we were in Belfast. We had to work on a PowerPoint of what we did in Carlow for a grade so that’s all we’ve really been doing. I did have Indian fusion food when Ashley and I were craving Mexican food and then with a couple of friends found a burrito place that was actually really Indian food in burritos and tacos! I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if my mouth was on fire for half the burrito bowl! Anyways, the day is just to catch up on sleep and blogging so that tomorrow we can be ready to move to Scotland! Talk to you about it soon!

              

The Road to Belfast and the Walled City

We left Inch house at 7 am on Thursday morning to drive up and around the Atlantic Coast in a long drive to get to Belfast. We originally had a lot planned for Thursday and sadly our professor cut the day down so that we only had 2 stops instead. The first stop we made was at Dunluce Castle which is also known as Harrenhall to Game of Thrones’ fans (thanks Hunter and Ashley for giving me the names of all the Game of Thrones places we went). It was beautiful, but sadly not open because it’s not quite the tour season. We got to take lots of pictures and enjoy the view, and even went down to a cove called “Mermaid’s Cave” that used to connect up to the castle. Next we drove past Bushmill’s Whiskey Distillery (which was originally on our schedule and the oldest whiskey distillery in Europe) and to the Giant’s Causeway. We walked down past the visitor center and straight to the causeway hearing stories of the giants that made it. We had about an hour to walk around and explore the geological wonder and take photos before loading back onto the bus. We then passed up the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge which I also had been looking forward to going on since before the trip, but I guess this gives me something to come back to Ireland for. We drove onto Belfast and checked into our hostel for the night. And of course I immediately looked for a Mexican restaurant as Ashley and I have been craving it again, and we found a place with burritos that made my mouth water. This was probably one of the first time in months that Mexican food made my mouth burn and my lips tingle with that familiar spice and flavor! So good!

Dunluce Castle

A view of Giant's Causeway

Chilling at the top of one of the formations

View of the ocean and the causeway

The hexagonal pattern of the causeway 

Friday we had an eventful day starting at 10 with a trip to a design firm called The Design Factor to get shown around and spoken to by William Lee, the man who founded the company. His talk was very interesting and I was really glad that we took the time to stop there. Next we had the quickest lunch ever, like honestly running in an out of a KFC, to catch our Black Taxi Tour which was too soon after The Design Factor. We got to drive around Belfast with our driver, Jerry, and he pointed out places in Belfast with importance like the Europa hotel, the most bombed building in Europe since WWII which was carried out by the IRA, and the Crown Bar which is the oldest bar in Belfast. We stopped at the Peace walls that have a eerie way about them similar to the Berlin Wall to look at murals that change up to every 6 weeks to reflect new problems or highlight triumphs. There are 22 walls around the city with 7 gates that close and open during business hours in the week, and 2 of those gates don’t even open on the weekends. The largest peace wall is around 5 km long which is crazy to me. We stopped to sign one of the walls, which is the only legal place for graffiti in the world. They did, in fact, take pictures from what the Berlin Wall looked like and repainted it on this wall and have it available for visitors to sign so that it could maybe come down one day like the Berlin Wall. I hope it comes down so that the insane segregation stops, and maybe all those signatures will be worth something.

The building for The Design Factor

One of the walls covered in murals

Writing on the Peace Wall

Posing with my signature 

Next we got dropped off at the Titanic Museum which is a beautiful building at the very north of town. The building itself is supposed to represent either the boughs of a ships, the iceberg that the Titanic hit, or a star in honor of White Star Lines, the company that the Titanic was under. The museum itself was interesting but not what I was expecting at all! At this museum we started with the building of the ship as Belfast was the city where Titanic was built before going to sea. Then to the shock to everyone on our trip there is actually a ride in the museum that takes you through the ship-building experience! It was fun like the E.T. ride that takes you up and down through a bunch of screens and a voice walking you through the process. We went through 2 more floors exploring how the rooms would have been actually set up for each class of people, what supplies the Titanic had aboard (I didn’t realize they had to bring all the linen possible because they had no way to wash it and actually how much mail it was holding as a Royal Mail ship), and the survivor stories. The telegraphs that Titanic last sent certainly put a chill up my spine, and the tour on a huge screen of the wreckage kept it there. The museum even has a part where you can stand on screens above the debris field that makes you feel like you are swimming above it, way cool. We finished off the exhibitions and walked to the nearest train station to take us down back to where our hostel was. 

The Titanic Museum in Belfast

A group of us posing in the sign

           Saturday was a free day for us, so after a lazy morning we decided to go the city center to see the town hall and check out the shopping. After realizing how expensive going from the euro to the pound is, we quickly gave up shopping to retreat back to the hostel only to get stuck in hail again. We have a huge sketching assignment due on Monday, so a lot of us hunkered down to get most of that done before dinner. I hit a snag when my mom let me know that my card was being used in California, so she and I figured out a way that I could get money for the trip with as little trouble as possible (with her doing most of the heavy lifting on the task and I just listened). With that all settled our group dinner was right around the corner at the Europa hotel. We didn’t get bombed, no worries. We did have a 3-course meal that was typical of fancy restaurants, that being that the courses were extremely small but at the end of dinner I felt full. We were going to go out that night, but the assignment that we have and the cost in pounds deterred us.

           Today we are taking a train back into Dublin, where we are staying for 2 days and then taking a plane over to Italy for an international furniture fair in Milan(!!!) and a day trip to Venice! I’m super excited to both be going back to Dublin and back to Italy where I have been to Venice, but not Milan. We have some great plans for the limited time we are there, but I think what everyone is looking forward to most, collectively as a group at least, is that we don’t have to wear layers in Italy. It’s actually warm there! I’ll tell you all about it soon!

Staying at Inch Island

           Saturday morning we all got up bright and early to board a coach bus to Inch Island. We drove for about 10 hours stopping for lunch at Foxford Mills, and stopping to see W.B. Yeats grave which has a weird epitaph. It was like driving home to Texas from Alabama with all my stuff at my feet and with 22 other people. It wasn’t too bad because a lot of people slept for most of the time and I had pre-downloaded a movie at the hostel to watch on the way. The man, Tony, who is taking care of us in Inch Island drove all the way down to pick us up and then take us back. For reference on where we drove to, we were staying in Killarney near the Southwest side of Ireland and we drove all the way up the inside of Ireland to the Northern tip which is close to the border of Northern Ireland. So after an extremely long day of driving, Tony drove us up to this house that looks very small on the outside, which actually turns out to be a huge place on the inside that reminds me of the Clue mansion in the movie. The house here which we are just calling a guesthouse, is perfectly suited for students to stay here. There are massive desks in each room and in the hallways with rows and rows of bookcases filled with books on everything you could ever need (and some you don’t i.e. The 2004 top 10 everything book). If students were staying here for a couple of weeks I could see this place as a comfortable place to stop. We are staying 4 to a room here and we didn’t get placed in the ghost room (which I’m still not sure if he was joking when he spoke of this room or not).  After a quick dinner we were exhausted and went to bed without hassle.

W. B. Yeats grave (read the engraving, weird right?

One of the hallways of rooms at Inch House

The sitting room at Inch House

           Sunday was Easter Sunday so we had the day off to do whatever we wanted. I opted out of walking to the Catholic Church with some of the group because I wasn’t sure what I would get. Instead I spent the morning reflecting on the trip and enjoying that we had some free time. Shortly after the morning though my happy free time bubble was burst when we all realized how much work we had to do for this week and next. We had a history test scheduled for Wednesday, and we also have a sketch project going on that is due before we head to Italy in about a week. The rest of Sunday I spent trying to catch up to a good spot on my sketching project and then studying history of Industrial design.

             Monday morning we had 3 lectures planned about the “Troubles” in Ireland before breaking for lunch. The first speaker talking to us was the leader of the guesthouse, Tony, giving us a brief background of the problems. Basically the shortened version, the divide of Ireland came from the division of the Protestant and Catholic religions that have both been the official religion of Ireland and the cause of a lot of problems ever since through monarchs and the people. We had two more speakers from very different worlds who both talked about conflict resolution and what they learned from being nationalist or unionist about the affairs. Jon McCourt, the last man to talk to us in the morning was even part of the IRA and told us stories of how he protested and then became involved more deeply in the matters. After we finished having lectures, we had a quick bite to eat and then went into Derry. Derry or Londonderry depending on whether or not you are a nationalist or unionist is where a lot of stuff went down during the Troubles. We got showed around by our last lecturer Jon, who still lives in the Bogside of Derry and he showed us the city from St. Collum’s Cathedral to the city walls, to the murals reflecting on the Troubles. We had a bit of free time after his stories and tour to get better pictures of the murals (which there are a ton of) and get a bite to eat. Surprisingly enough, and I have tested this in many of the cities we have visited, the Mexican food I have had here is closer to what I actually consider good Mexican food than that of Auburn’s which is where I spend most of my time during the year. I thought I was going to be homesick for good Tex-Mex, but so far I haven’t been disappointed!

The sign for Derry in the Bogside 

St. Collum's Cathedral

John McCourt giving us a tour of his hometown

Mural in the Bogside

Another Mural in the Bogside

              Tuesday we had another tour planned, but this time for the area surrounding Inch Island and the island itself. Tony first drove us off the island to a nearby mountain/hill (at this point its hard to differentiate what distinguishes mountain from hill) where we got some beautiful views of Inch Island and also got to see the Grianan Aileach Ring Fort, where we took group photos (very unorganized and crazy-like annoying some fellow tourists) and basically just enjoying the views. Then we drove down a ways to see the Catholic church Tony goes to each week and that was interesting to see because the whole thing is circular in shape to match the ring fort. We also checked out a local museum that was based out of an old church (which probably would have been better suited for children) and had a tea and scone break before heading to a graveyard to see a friend of Florence Nightingale who was important to the Irish and cleanliness here. We toured around Anne Jones’ grave and around some even older graves with Greek lettering before heading back to the guesthouse. After that Tony made us a huge lunch of soup and sandwiches, and we studied for our test. 3 hours later (!!!) Tony made us burgers to eat, which I would have appreciated so much more if I was actually hungry! This man is spoiling us with his home cooking!

View of Inch Island from the hill (The house is on the right in that string of white houses!)

The Grianan Aileach Ring Fort

Completely circular church we visited ( sadly I don't know the name!)

The graveyard for Anne Jones

           Today, we had our Industrial Design history test at 2 pm so after lunch we sat in the kitchen working on the tests. The environment was weird to be taking a test, but we all definitely studied very well considering that everyone could have a study group here! We had the option after the test to go and do grave rubbings with charcoal and rice paper and pick up laundry, but seeing as I didn’t drop off laundry and I didn’t real like any of the headstones from yesterday enough to keep them, I didn’t go. I instead packed and got some well needed down time away from our huge crowd. Before dinner we had a special guest, Mollie, who played the harp, sang, and did the river dance for us. She even taught some people in the group the (very) slow way of doing the dance. She was so young too, 19 and had so many talents! I think we were all very impressed! Tony then set up a very nice dinner for us complete with candles, tablecloths, wine, and home-cooked Guinness stew. We all had a nice time and have been hanging out since packing, playing cards, and with me writing this blog!

              Tomorrow we have an early morning and a full day ready to see the sights of the Northern Ireland coast and seeing the sights like the Giant’s Causeway which I am super pumped for! You’ll hear from me soon!

Note: You know the drill, read this like it is Wednesday because I didn't have wifi to post this last night (or any night on Inch Island)! You'll hear about Belfast and Giant's Causeway soon enough!