café au lait: Sean and Declan's 3 Day 91% Female, 54% Aussie, 46% American, 100% Great Craic Tour of the South

Where has February gone? As of today, I’ve been living in Lille for two months, but I’m not exactly sure where the last month went! I had expected February to go pretty fast with all the travelling that I would be doing, but I had no idea that it would go quite this quickly. I realized that it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted any new stories or photos here and you are probably wondering what I’ve been up to. Well, since the last time I posted, I have been to Wales, England and Ireland! The past two and a half weeks have been a whirlwind of trips and I have a lot of fun stories to tell about all the places that I’ve been, but I think I’ll start with some pictures and captions because it would take so long to share all my stories (and I’m a little behind on homework after all this travelling!) I travelled to Wales and England earlier in the month but I am going to start with my pictures from Ireland and include captions rather than writing about each place we saw just because the country is so beautiful and I think that the photos tell a story in themselves.

Here is a short summary of the places we visited each day (Friday, Saturday and Sunday on Shamrocker Tour with six Australian girls), on a map we made a clockwise loop from Dublin to the south and west coasts of Ireland, ending up in Dublin again:

Thursday, Feb 25th

-Arrived in Dublin around 11:30pm and met Liz, Allen, Sarah and Dana at our hotel

Friday, Feb 26th

-Left the hotel early and took the bus downtown to meet our tour group, tour left at 8:30am from Dublin

-First stop, the town of Abbeyleix for coffee then on to Cashel Rock to take some photos

-Stopped at Mitchelstown Caves were we walked 200 feet below the grounds and toured the caves

-Explored Blarney Castel and kissed the Blarney Stone, I now have the gift of gab!

-Drove to Killarney for the night, cooked spaghetti for dinner and then went to O’Connor’s pub and saw Pa’s pub theatre show

Saturday, Feb 27th

-Stopped outside Killarney to see the MacGillycuddy’s Reeks mountains

-Took the Slea Head Drive around the Dingle Peninsula stopping to take photos at Inch Beach, 4000 year old beehive huts, a beautiful beach near Coumeenoole North, and the most westerly point in Europe

-Had lunch and ice cream in the town of Dingle then took the Shannon Ferry between Counties Kerry and Clare

-Played the “Whose the Smartest Person on the Bus Quiz!” and I won!

-Stayed overnight in Ennis, where we cooked quesadillas for dinner and went out to two pubs (Cruise’s and O’Keefe’s) for traditional music and Guinness!

Sunday, Feb 28th

-Left Ennis for the Cliffs of Moher where the wind almost blew us away!

-Took a scenic drive along the coast, stopping at the Burren National Park before heading to Galway

-Spent a couple hours exploring Galway then headed straight back to Dublin

-After our tour ended around 5:00pm, we walked through Dublin, seeing St. Stephen’s Greens and Merrion Square before eating dinner

-Saw a movie on O’Connell Street because most things were closed after dark, by chance we happened to see Tilda Swinton at the movie theatre because her new movie was premiering there as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

-Crashed early in our super-fancy hotel!

Monday, Mar 1st

-Headed back into Dublin in the morning and met Cathy (a friend of mine who is studying in Dublin)

-Walked through Trinity College and the Temple Bar area, then saw Christ Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedral before shopping a bit on Grafton Street

-Took the shuttle bus to the airport and flew out of Dublin, getting back to Lille around 11:00pm

Ok, so that wasn’t really a short summary… Here are just a few of the over 1000 photos I took in Ireland!

Paris Charles DeGaulle Airport

Cashel Rock castle which was one of our first stops on the tour

A view of the Irish landscape from Mitchelstown Caves

An artsy photo of the cave entrance

Team America at Blarney Castle (Sarah, me, Allen, Dana and Liz)

Blarney Castle

Me kissing the Blarney Stone – now I have the gift of gab!

Pa’s Pub Theatre, put on in the upstairs of a pub called O’Connors by a local man named Pa who can drink a pint of Guinness faster than you can say pint of Guinness – literally

Macgillycuddy’s Reeks Mountains in the morning

Team American is flying high!

Probably my favorite photo of the trip, Allen jumped off the 5 foot tall fence to take this photo

Looking out over Inch Beach

4000 year old beehive hut complete with crappy red car and painted sheep

A quick photo stop along the coast – Liz and I decided to spell "Buchanan" (the residence hall where we work at home) with our bodies and ended up taking a jumping picture too!

The beach near Coumeenoole where it rained on us while it was sunny – still beautiful though!

Yay Iowa Staters!

The most westerly point in Ireland and Europe

The harbor in Dingle

Eating Ice Cream from Murphy’s which is supposed to be the best ice cream in all of Ireland – it was pretty darn delicious!

Inside the Rowan Tree Hostel in Ennis which was more like a hotel than a hostel!

Traditional music session in the hostel

Cruise’s Pub, where we hung out with our tour guide Sean on Saturday night

Early morning in Ennis – Sarah and I walked to a music store on Sunday morning so that she could buy a traditional tin whistle, the store owner opened the store just for us and Sarah found a really cool whistle!