London

The Canadian flag in the background is misleading. I was in fact in London this past weekend! We were a little apprehensive about this trip because it was our first trip we had planned outside of Ireland. We left from Shannon Airport on Saturday afternoon, and we were in London by about 2. We took a bus from the airport to London, it was about an hour drive. We got dropped off and maneuvered our way around London to go find tickets to a play for that night. Because it was so late in the afternoon we had trouble getting the tickets we wanted. Originally, we wanted to see the play Wicked, but no seats were available. We decided to go for Chicago. We had really nice seats! The play was amazing, and I'm not really that much of a play person. I was so impressed by their set as well. It was all black with not much going on. I kept thinking to myself that it was really plain looking. After the play began, I realized it was anything but plain! After the play ended we walked to grab a bite to eat and headed back to the hostel early for our big day ahead.

Sunday we decided we were going to take a tour because we didn't have that much time to spend in London. We chose a company called the Big Bus Tour Company. It's a double decker bus that has two lines that take you all over London. You pay for your ticket and you can hop on and off anywhere between these two lines. A Boat cruise down the Thames river was also included, and two free walking tours. I'd say we got our money's worth. Seeing everything we wanted to see on our own would have been an impossibility. We stopped at Trafalgar Square first. They have these huge lions, which is obviously a perfect place to be touristy and take a picture! We all took our turns climbing up on the lions and snapping a picture. The thing is that these lions are pretty hard to climb up on. It looks way easier than it actually is. There is little to no footing, and not much to grab on to. (probably done of purpose so tourists stay the hell off it, but as Americans , we're always up for a good challenge) On this particular morning it had also rained a little, so the stone was very slippery. Lauren climbed up first, we gave her a leg boost. Then I climbed up and joined her. We came down and Mallory decided she wanted to give it a go. Now, people are lined up behind us to take their turn with the lion. Mallory has a bit of an audience. She goes to put her leg up and boost herself up, and it turned into the most uncoordinated, ridiculously ungraceful attempt of anything I have ever seen. She is about 4 ft in the air, flailing her body around yelling "GUYS I CAN'T, I CAN'T, IT SOOOOO SLIPPPERY!!" The rest of us are now laughing so hard we can't even attempt to help her. She gained a crowd of onlookers now, all pointing and laughing at her stuck on the lion. At this point I am actually crying of laughter, and I can't breathe. It was almost one of those laugh so hard you might throw up things. Finally, Christy goes over and gives her a push up onto the lion. I was fortunate enough to catch the aftermath of the push on camera. It's one of those moments that I think about in class, and break out laughing in dead silence. (Thank you for being as graceful as a baby giraffe taking it's first steps Mal. you've provided a life long hysterical memory.)
After that fiasco, we hopped back on the bus and toured all around London. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, the Tower, the Tower Bridge, London Bridge, and a ton more. We took the boat cruise over to the side where Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey were.


We hopped back on the tour and headed to Buckingham Palace. We watched the guards march around, took tons of pictures, and took a couple minutes to relax.

After our tour ended we were starved! It was Mal's Canadian Thanksgiving, so we decided to splurge a little on our dinner. We stopped at a pub called spice of your life on the way home. Everyone got fish and chips, except for me! (not a big seafood eater!) I went with a vegetable quesadilla instead! Our food was delicious, and we all shared some desserts after! After dinner we headed back to the hostel and got ready for the night. We headed out to the Absolut Ice Bar. It was so cool! An entire bar made out of ice! They give you special jackets, and gloves to wear in so you don't freeze. We were allowed one drink with our admission ticket. I ordered a drink that had vanilla vodka, apple juice, cinnamon, and something else that I can't remember but was delicious! Our drinks even came in Ice cups!

(Outside the Ice bar!)

After the Ice Bar we were exhausted and headed back to the hostel to get some sleep! The next morning we were waking up early to go to Abbey Road!
We took the underground to the Abbey road stop. While waiting for the T, I saw a happy little reminder of home :)


Abbey Road was really cool to see. I think we picked a bad time to go. As it was early on a Monday morning, so the traffic flow was pretty heavy. I did get a few pictures of me walking across though!

After Abbey Road I was supposed to meet Lauren and Christy outside the underground station at Russel Square. I realized I was running a little bit late walking back to the T and I still had to get my ticket! Mal and her friend Hilary already had there tickets so I told them I would hurry ahead and grab mine while they walked back. So I practically ran to the station. I was waiting in line to buy my ticket when Mal caught up to me. I turned around and said to her that I just had to get my ticket, and she nodded. I got my ticket, turned around.. and NO ONE was there. Mal and Hilary had disappeared. Instant panic set in. The other really nice part about this story is that my cell phone had stopped working because I forgot my Pin number, and had to shut it off on the plane ride over. So here I was, lost, in London, with no cell phone. I had no way of contacting Lauren to tell her I would be late, or to tell her I was lost. Then I thought maybe I could just go to a pay phone and call them. I realized that a.) I wouldn't know how to dial out from a London pay phone to an Irish cell and b.) that even in the rare chance that I figured that out, I don't know any of the girls numbers by heart. After having a mini panic attack, I realized I needed to figure something out because panicking clearly wasn't getting me anywhere. So I thought well maybe they just already went out to the T and they are waiting for me to get on. So I ran down the escalator, to find NO ONE again. Even more panic set in. I decided I would just have to figure it out on my own and hope the Lauren and Christy are where we said to meet/ hadn't left yet because I was so late. I hopped on the T and had to sit for about 15 minutes in a state of complete anxiety. I must have looked so distraught to other passengers because I could feel their eyes on me. I felt like I was either going to start bawling, or throw up. On the T ride over I began to think of alternatives in case Lauren and Christy happened to not be there. The worst part is that when I finally reached my stop, there's only two options of exit...walking up 175 steps or waiting for the elevator. I knew for sure in the state of panic I was in that 175 steps would probably kill me. So I waited a few for the lift. The elevator doors opened and I spotted the girls! An overwhelming feeling of relief set in. Lauren and I locked eyes and I smiled hugely at her. She gave me a death glare and started shaking her head. See, they had been waiting a good amount of time for me. With no communication, Lauren thought I blew them off, was being completely irresponsible, and I was making us late for our 100 dollar train ride to Paris. I would've given her the same face is the situations had been switched. However, her death glare sent me into a hysterical fit of tears on the sidewalk as we were running now to catch our train. In between sobs I was saying "But Lauren you don't understand, I was LOST" I am not an emotional person, and especially not a crier. It took me kind of a long time to pull myself together. Eventually, she understood the situation and translated my sobs into a comprehend-able story. All tension was lost, and they sympathized with my traumatic experience. Not only did we make our train, we did it with time to spare. I will say that I am pretty proud of myself for navigating back to where I was supposed to, in London, with no cell phone, and no real clue of where to go.

From London we took the Euro star to Paris. I will write my blog for Paris a little later. I am absolutely exhausted, and preparing for another trip for this weekend right now. We are headed to Kerry. We paid 165 euro and a hotel, all transportation, and all meals are included for the weekend! They are even picking us up at our university! We are all excited to finally stay in a nicer hotel, and have things planned for us instead of going through the stress of planning. It should be a relaxing weekend :)

cork & blarney!

Our trip to Cork started off a little rough. We missed our first bus, and had to hop on another one to get into the station downtown. Then as we were pulling into the station we saw a bus labeled Cork just leaving. (what an awful feeling that was!) So we sat and waited inside the station for another hour. We had some tea, and got some snacks! All and all it wasn't so bad that we had to wait.

The bus ride was not as long as I had thought! It took about an hour and a half. We got off the bus and waited for Lauren's friend Brennan to pick us up. We were going to stay with him for the weekend. Although I don't think he really knew what he was in for, hanging around 3 girls by himself all weekend long. (We're still really sorry Brennan...) Brennan had brought his friend Rory along for the walk. Rory instantly began talking to us and he has a very animated, in-your- face personality. He's an absolute riot, but on first impression, after our chilled out hour and half bus ride, we were a little overwhelmed with him. He began pointing out all these important buildings and streets in Cork. He spouted off so much information from the top of his head that we actually thought he was making it up (not like we'd ever know the difference?) We had our own personal tour guide, but the rate at which he was speaking mixed with his accent made it almost impossible for me to comprehend. (Plus I'm not even sure I was awake yet from that bus ride. )

Our tour ended at Brennan's house. He goes to UCC and lives in the student accommodation. It was really nice, and somewhat reminded me of our apartments here. I was so relieved to stop walking and put my things down and relax. The boys didn't have the same mind set. They were ready to head out the second we got in. Lauren, Christy and I locked eyes and were all in agreement. Lauren smiled at them and said, "guys, would you mind if we just sat down for about 5 minutes..." They understood and let us sit. Although, Rory did look like an impatient child sitting in front of presents on Christmas morning. We asked them where we were headed that night to a pub or to a club. They asked why it mattered, and we explained that you would wear two entirely different outfits depending on the place. They wanted to go to the clubs, so we said we would have to change. The boys decided they would head to the liquor store, or "Off License" while we got changed. I think their patience might have been wearing thin. Upon their return, we had changed outfits, put make up on, and did our hair. I was proud we had gotten ready in that short amount of time. Brennan's room had been torn upside down with our clothing, and hair products. It looked like the backstage of a fashion show. The boys walked back in the room and the first words out of their mouth was, "It smells like girl." We weren't sure at that point if it was a compliment or not...

We stopped at Rory's place before we went out to the clubs because he wanted something to eat. He made peppered steak, and fries. There was no way he was going to eat that in front of the three of us, who hadn't eaten since the morning, and not share! It was absolutely delicious! He was a good sport about sharing, and even made us our own batch of fries!

After we chowed down, we headed out to the club. The first one we went to was called Liquid Lounge. It had a weird entrance that was upstairs, and there was a different pub underneath. Christy somehow didn't see us walk up the stairs, and headed straight into the pub. I realized at the top of the stairs that Christy was missing. Then remembered she had no cell phone on her because she had left it at Brennan's. In a panic, I began to look around everywhere for her. Finally Brennan said ever-so-calmly, that he saw her walk into the pub. (information that would've been helpful before the panic set in...) So we all ran down to find her. She came walking out of the bathroom with tears in her eyes exclaiming, "I thought I lost you guys!!!" Needless to say, we kept an eye on her the rest of the night. I think we should invest in one of those leashes people put on children who wander, as this is not the first time Christy has gone missing.

The next club we went too was called Gorby's. It was really fun, and reminded me of some of the clubs back in Limerick. We stayed there for awhile, and then we decided it was time for food! There is the best pizza place ever in Cork! It's called Fast Al's! It's a little place on the corner of a street, and they sell pizza by the slice. It was amazing! After our pizza we walked down and ended up by a fountain in the center of Cork. We hung out here for a while, mostly people watching. At about 3 we decided to call it a night and head home.

The next day I woke up with no voice, and I was absolutely exhausted. I had not been feeling well all week, and I think the night out had done me in. We attempted to head to Blarney, and headed for the bus station. All of us looked like zombies on our walk there, and the thought of going one more step took a lot of convincing. When we got to the station we bought tickets and tried to go find the bus. We walked around the station 3 times, and still could not find it. we looked at all the bus names and numbers, and there was not one that said Blarney on it. We missed the first bus, and decided to wait and try again with the next bus. The same thing happened, we walked around, looked at all the buses, nothing! Were we missing something?! Was there a trap door, or secret passage way we were supposed to know about?! At this point we were all so tired and frustrated we decided we'd put Blarney off until Sunday and headed back to Brennan's.

We relaxed and hung out there until the evening. We decided we would keep things relaxed that night and just hit up a few pubs. We had a couple drinks at Brennan's before heading out. The first pub we were at was really cool. I liked the atmosphere there a lot, and they played really good music! We stayed there for some time before heading to the next pub. The second pub was a lot bigger, and they didn't play as good of a tune selection. It was still a really good time though! We didn't stay out very late this night as my eyes were struggling to stay open.

The next day we woke up and decided to grab some breakfast. We went to a bagel place and sat outside to eat and drink some coffee. This man came across the street with some instruments. Thinking nothing of it we just continued to eat and chat. A couple of minutes later we realized he had two instruments. A fiddle he played normally, and then a guitar. He laid the guitar out at his feet, and then strapped a crazy looking device to his foot and began to play that and his fiddle! It was the most bizarre, and coolest thing I have ever seen. I can barely pat my head and rub my tummy at the same time, and this guy was his own one man band. He also had the cutest little dog who came over and sat with us while we watched the man play. We decided we definitely had to leave the guy some money, and I was voted to go up and give it to him. In the process of turning back to the table, I swung my body around in an awkward way. Christy happened to snap a picture of it, and it's produced a hysterical picture of me that we laughed at to the point of tears. It almost looks like I'm dancing a jig in front of him. (which is humorous because I am actually learning a jig as we speak in Irish step dancing.)

We headed to the bus station after breakfast with a sense of determination to find and get on the bus to Blarney. We bought our tickets, and walked around again. We couldn't find it again. I walked up to this group of older bus drivers and pretty much yelled at them to help me. They said the buses for Blarney line up down the road a little ways, and said it in a way as if it was common sense! We walked down the road, and sure enough, the bus stop for Blarney was there! We waited for the bus, and I honestly don't think I've ever been so excited to see a bus in my life!


We got off in Blarney and followed the signs to the castle. We paid the 8 euro to get on the grounds, which we thought at the time of payment was a little pricey. The castle was really nice, it was interesting to walk around in it and getting to the top was a fun journey! Lauren and I struggled through a few panic attacks while climbing up. The stairs were tight and spirals, and the steps themselves were often not even bigger than your foot. The view at the top was breath taking! We had been debating the entire way up whether we were actually going to kiss the stone or not. We had been told people pee on it, and then once we saw how you actually had to kiss it it seemed like I was going to have to decline. Something about hanging upside down that high up, while holding on to bars and some random old man, wasn't settling right with me. But then that little tourist devil popped up on my shoulder and talked sense into me. I have to keep reminding myself that all these opportunities are once in a lifetime, and I am only here, for sure, right now. I need to push myself to do things I wouldn't normally be comfortable with at home. So I laid down, held on to the bars & random old guy, and gave that stone a big smooch. I now go forth with the gift of eloquence.... and Irish piss.

After the castle we walked around the grounds. It was amazing. I felt like I was in a different world. It gives off a very fairy tale feel. I easily could've spent a majority of the day there. Every picture I took there, I loved. I even took a picture of the ground and it still came out beautiful. The 8 euro was very well spent. We headed back to catch the bus, and then back to Brennan's to grab our things and say goodbye!

We thanked Brennan for being such a good host, and listening to 3 girls talk and complain all weekend long! We got to the bus station and got in line for the bus back to Limerick. In front of us there was a mother with 4 children. The youngest was an infant she was holding. There was a girl about 10, and two boys about 7 and 8. The younger of the boys was being an absolute brat. He started giving the bus drivers a hard time, and they actually looked at him and told him to go away. Which made me bust out laughing, I've never seen a child spoken to like that. Her kids were basically just out of control. All she was doing was yelling there names at the top of her lungs. This made her baby start screaming and the kids didn't pay her any attention and continued in their deviant ways. When the line started moving the little boys started kicking over the suitcases of the people walking in front of them, and then smiling when they turned around as if they were proud. Lauren asked when we got closer to the bus if this was the one to Limerick. I responded, "based on what I've just seen I'd say we're headed in the right direction." Back to good ol' stab city we went!

Next week we have two days off so we've planned a longer trip this weekend. We're leaving for London on Saturday, and then we're heading to Paris until Wednesday. Our flight back lands and Cork so we're unsure if we'll spend the night there again or not. Depends on how exhausted we'll be! I'm excited because this is our first big trip outside of Ireland. It's also my first time to both London and Paris! Wish us luck!

p.s. It's beginning to look a lot like... faaaaallll :) my favorite season!