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!

Killarney and Around the Mountains

              We began Thursday with a bit of a flip flop on our schedule. What we were supposed to be doing was taking a bus and walking tour of the Ring of Kerry. Instead, our professor had some worries about weather and changed that plan to be on Friday. What he threw together for Thursday turned out to be one of the best days I’ve had here so far! We went to Killarney National Park by coach and then walked to Ross Castle which has been restored, only to pass it up and reach a pier where there were lots of small boats lined up. We did get a bit of time to explore Ross thankfully after being briefed on when we were leaving, and then split up into two groups on two separate boats. We then moved out onto Lough Leane and moved southwest through the mountains near Killarney. There are a bunch of lakes that we passed through including Muckross Lake, and the Upper Lakes. The sights were breathtaking. We drove around moving through the lakes for about an hour and 45 minutes, once stopping to hike a bit in order for the boat to get through a narrow spot, and ended up at Lord Brandon’s Cottage. Strangely enough, our boat guide nor the people who served us lunch near the spot had any history to say about the place. From what I learned by exploring after lunch, there are some ruins of a stone tower on private property and a bunch of hiking trails leading from the spot but no historical markers. Anyways from there we took horse carriages through the Gap of Dunloe, the gap between the mountains including The Black Valley (who got its name from the fact that this part of Ireland didn’t have electricity until about 20 years ago).

Ross Castle

The map of where we went

One of the boats that took us out

Lord Brandon's Cottage is the white house!

              The horse carriages took us on the 7 mile ride, where we only had to get out when we got to a very steep part of the road where Manhattan the horse couldn’t take us up. We almost picked up another passenger in our already cramped 4-person buggy when we stopped to let Manhattan catch his breath as it was the first day of the season for him. Our guide stopped near what I’m assuming was his home as he was speaking to another woman in Gaelic and in English about the sheep herding and how he needed to pick up another bridle. Their dog Lassie the sheepherder was very friendly with us and when he saw he could get a bunch of petting from us he jumped in to the cart and our guide didn’t even notice until he tried to get in after the dog! Past that, we got to see the mountains rise up around us and see where locals go fishing when it’s the season. Manhattan did a good job at not going too fast so that we could get photos and not have them be blurry! We ended the ride at Kate Kearney’s Cottage (which we also did not get told about) and rode back into Killarney by coach again. Overall it did not rain too much and it was mostly misty, but we got to see so much! Like I said, this was probably one of the best days so far!

Our horse Manhattan taking us through the Gap

The Black Valley

The view of the Gap of Dunloe

               Today, we actually did our Ring of Kerry tour. The Ring of Kerry is basically a circle tour around a southwestern part or Ireland where you go through many towns down the coast and through the mountains like Killorglin, Caherciveen, Waterville, and Sneem. This is a long tour by bus. We left at 10 am and returned at 4:15 pm, which makes sense because the route is so long but definitely was a little bit than we expected. I enjoyed the sights we got to see, because man did we get to see some beautiful places today. We stopped whenever the bus driver felt we should see something, or basically whenever someone from the group wanted to get off and get some pictures of the view. So we ranged from stopping at memorial sites, to coastal views of the ocean, to views of the mountains and picture down into the Gap of Dunloe. We at one point stopped at a mountain view overlooking the ocean and didn’t realize how windy it was until stepping off the bus. I think it was as bad as the wind in Ballyvaughan the day we hiked the mountain. You couldn’t stand up straight but if you did jump off of something the wind would carry you (which we of course did, for about 5 minutes too). I tried taking photos of everyone looking ridiculous in the wind, but even my camera was having trouble focusing because the wind was so strong. So in short the wind was crazy strong, but did make for some good photo-ops when we could get our cameras to work!

One of the places we stopped at for the Ring of Kerry

Ashley, Myself, and Becca at one of the sights

My friend Shari enjoying the slight breeze

                  So the Ring of Kerry works so that you are seeing the coast up until you starting turning back around to start coming back to Killarney. So basically the morning was seeing the coast, and then after lunch we got to see more mountainous terrain and where we had ridden with the horses yesterday. I cannot explain how long ago the beginning of today or even yesterday feels by the way. I feel like each day is a new year! To think its only been a month since we’ve left Auburn is crazy because it feels like we have been travelling for ages together. I am very glad to be on this trip with the people from my studio because I think we all mesh pretty well together, even if we do get on each other’s nerves every now and then. Tonight we had a Passover dinner because one of our group members is Jewish and wanted to share the holiday with us. We had a lot of fun and I learned a lot about Jewish culture and the dinner traditions including the fact that you drink 4 glasses of wine during the dinner! Anyways this has been a pretty short blog today, but I wanted to make sure I got to write about Killarney before we move to Inch Island way up in the north of the republic of Ireland. I’m not sure how much internet access I am going to have while we are staying there so I hope I get to write while I’m there, but if not you’ll be hearing from me in about 5 or 6 days! 

Travelling in and Around Cork

              Monday was Blarney Castle and Blarney Stone day which actually turned out to have much more than I was expecting to do there. My handy dandy Rick Steves’ Guidebook didn’t have great things to say about Blarney Castle and not gonna lie Rick Steves usually knows what he’s talking about, and I’ve used his books a lot over the years. Well I have to say Rick Steves was wrong. He said it was basically a touristy mess where people mindlessly line up to kiss the Blarney Stone. He forgot to mention there is so much on the castle grounds that you can spend hours after kissing the stone wandering around and looking at the stuff there. I’ll give you some background first before going into what we did though. Blarney Castle is a Jacobean 17^th century castle that has stone at the very top, The Blarney Stone, which if you kiss you receive “the gift of gab”. Lots of celebrities have come over the years to kiss the stone, but the claim to fame I think they are most proud of there is that Winston Churchill kissed the stone and then went on to be a good public speaker. Well I waited in line up some very narrow and steep stairs (Like how did they carry trays down those stairs from the kitchen?!) to get to the top of Blarney Castle. One man who went before our group kissed the stone and his little girls asked him why he did that, to which he replied “Well that’s what we do when we are in Ireland, we kiss stones.” Our laughter across the way made him hang his head and smile, but we appreciated his statement! Anyways I did get to the Blarney stone, where you get to hang upside down clutching onto two railings to kiss the very bottom of the stone. They do clean the stone by the way, every few people to make sure its not gross much to my relief.

Blarney Castle

Me kissing the Blarney Stone

              So after going down some less narrow and steep stairs, and seeing some closed off passages of the castle I hadn’t planned on buying the souvenir picture. Its pretty reminiscent of roller-coaster snapshots, but as it turns out my friend who I entrusted with my canon to get pictures of me kissing the stone didn’t actually turn the camera on! It’s okay because one of my other friends captured the picture with their phone but the best one was actually the one they took for me, so I ended up forking over the ten euro just to have a good picture! A cheeky old man then came up to me and asked me if I was the Blarney stone, which means at least I can get the attention of Irish boys but maybe not the ones I had in mind.

              We left the castle area and moved on to the Poison Garden, which sounds way cooler than it was. I have to give them props though because they did include a range of plants included Wolfs bane and Mandrake root (adapted from Harry Potter, the sign said). From there we went to the Blarney House, a Victorian Manor looking house that sadly wasn’t open to the public yet. We did sneak into the back garden near the side of the house, but didn’t really gain anything from our espionage because there wasn’t much but a walking path. We grabbed a really cheap and warm lunch from a café inside the grounds and then planned the rest of our day because there were so many things everyone wanted to see. We went towards the walking steps, which if you walk down them and then back up backwards with your eyes closed only thinking about your wish it will supposedly come true. I, of course did this and it was actually pretty fun because I almost fell about 3 times. A couple people in my group also did the walk, which was as funny to see. We went past to the Druid ruins (dun-dun-dun), the sacrificial altars, and faerie rings which were just kind of fun to see. We took a boardwalk to the Icehouse (a cellar for ice storage), the horse graveyard (so much of a letdown because it sounded like there should be bones or something at least creepy), the dungeon (which was creepy and was like how I think of spelunking probably is like), and the fern garden (which was gorgeous, and I didn’t know there were so many different types of ferns!). After that we headed back down into town to catch a bus back into Cork, and walked through Cork window shopping and got dinner shortly after at an Italian restaurant.

Blarney House

The Druid's circle

The entrance to the wishing steps

The fern garden

              Tuesday we took a bus into Cobh (pronounced Cove), which is the last place the Titanic stopped before sinking and the port where immigrants used leave Ireland from. We met our tour guide Marian who took us along the Titanic trail in Cobh, which does not include that much history from the Titanic but rather the history of Cobh mixed with stories. We were told about Annie Moore, who was the first recorded Irish Immigrant to enter at Ellis Island and who left from Cobh, or Queenstown as it was known then. We walked up the harbor towards the White Star Line Titanic Museum (which I wanted to go in, but was too pricey and we didn’t have enough time anyway). We saw a Lusitania memorial monument, which is magnificent piece in the middle of a main square, and then a Titanic memorial which was a tiny nub comparatively. Then we moved towards St. Colman’s Cathedral where Marian left us in a flurry of historical information and places we should see before leaving Cobh. The Cathedral was beautiful with amazing stained glass that is so colorful and stone walls that are preciously carved into intricate patterns. A lot of pictures later, I was back outside walking downhill (extremely steep!) looking at what people call The Deck of Cards which is a bunch of tightly put together buildings in a variety of colors. We found a café that Marian recommended, and then explored the square we were in. After stopping by the Titanic museum, which is actually in the old White Star Line office and realizing we couldn’t do the tour we were at a loss of what to do. Thankfully one of our group members remembered there was another museum that we could visit which was close to the bus station we had to meet up at. We went inside but also couldn’t do the tour! We decided to just take a look around the historical plaques outside the museum and I even entered a raffle for a trip for two to come back to Ireland (fingers crossed!).

View of St. Colman's Cathedral

Front of St. Colmans

Inside of St. Colmans

The Deck of Cards

              I wish we could have had more time, maybe even an hour, just to explore Cobh because it seemed like my kind of place. Anyways, we all went back to Cork by bus and then had a little down time at the hostel before going into town again. This time we choose an Asian restaurant and the fried rice was so good! Menglin told me that it was pretty authentic food as she had been already and still wanted to come back with a couple of us. We had to finish off our history lessons by ourselves this time around, so after dinner I pulled up the video and took notes from my bunk bed. It wasn’t bad, but it did take a while.

              Today we left Kinlay House Cork by a very small coach bus (we had to cram our bags and ourselves in) to drive a little under 2 hours to Killarney. Killarney is medium-sized town that is west and a little bit north from Cork close to the Ring of Kerry, which we are touring later this week. We are staying a hostel called Neptune’s and this time around have girls with 3 to a room. We already went out for a café lunch and window shopped around town stopping into a couple of places. We went to the edge of town to see St. Mary’s Cathedral and grabbed gelato coming back. We a have a meeting with our professor later today, but I think staying here will be a good time. Till next time!