ring of kerry - sunday.

Sunday, March 11th

Sunday morning began with much excitement as Steph, Sydney, and I learned that one of our biggest study abroad dreams was going to come true... We were going to get to hold Irish lambs! Apparently we aren't the only international students with this dream because our tour guide planned for a local farmer to meet us at the hotel with 4 female lambs, all between the age of 3-6 days!

After we'd finally finished cooing over the lambs we jumped on the bus to begin our final day of sight seeing in the Ring of Kerry.  We drove through the hills, sticking to the official Ring of Kerry tour road and made a quick stop for a view of St. Finian' Bay, and luckily a quick sight of the Skellig rocks, and the Irish countryside!

Despite great weather all weekend, it was a bit chilly up in the hills!

Just down the hills and on the edge of the bay is the Derrynane House and National Park, which was our next stop.  Now a museum, the house was once the childhood home of Daniel O'Connell.  For those of you who aren't up on your Irish history (and yes, there is more to this country's history than the Great Famine!), O'Connell was the face of catholic reformation in Ireland and known as Ireland's Peacemaker. The house has its own chapel and now holds many political and religious relics of O'Connell's time.  However, the house was nothing compared to the gardens and park that it lays within.  Although most of the plants weren't yet in bloom, the vines, ruins, and trees were truly beautiful. I'd love to go back one day when the park is in bloom!

When they finally managed to collect us all from the immense gardens and park we headed out for Killarney National Park.  Although the winding, bumpy drive through the mountains was completely sickening, the views were amazing!  By the time that we stopped at Lady's View for a picnic lunch the tour guides pushed me off the bus first after seeing my ghost white face... typical! The overlook was nestled in the mountains and had a great view of some of the basin lakes of the area.

Just a short way down the road from our lunch stop was a small park with a giant waterfall!  I never got the name of the park, and it wasn't on any of my tourist information, but I did get a good picture!

Our final stop before the drive back to Limerick was the Muckross House and gardens.  Although, once again, the house didn't interest me much (aka, I didn't want to pay to go in) the gardens were magnificent! Despite the short distance between Derrynane House and Muckross house there was a significant difference in the types and number of flowers.  Spring had defiantly sprung at the Muckross house!

My weekend in the Ring of Kerry is not one that I am likely to forget any time soon!

As you might have noticed I seem to be falling behind in my blogging... but I actually spent the last 2 weeks working on the essays, projects, and lab reports that I had neglected for the first 9 weeks I was here!  However, between assignments I still managed to get some more traveling in!  Posts to come on my weekend in Cork with Kristi, St. Paddy's Day, and a visit to Dublin.

Next week is 'Easter Week' (spring break) here at UL and I'm off for an adventure in Germany and Austria!  I won't have my computer, but should have some access to email and Facebook while I'm away, but will have much to talk about when I get back.

Happy Spring to all!

ring of kerry - saturday.

Saturday, March 10th

On saturday morning we get on early start and left the Ring of Kerry Hotel to head for Valentia Island. We essentially followed what is known as the Skellig Ring in the morning.  We made three main stops on the island  and another on mainland (which is actually just a slightly larger island too... weird to think about!) during the morning before heading back to the hotel for lunch...

The first one was at the Transatlantic Cable site. It was essentially just a plaque describing the attempts, and final success in 1865, to establish the first communication link between the US and Europe.  A pretty amazing feat for the time! In addition to the the plaque, the stop provided a great view of the bay and the ocean before the fog started rolling in!

Second we stopped at the Georghan Mountain look-out and dairy farms. This may seem like a weird combination, but the farmer I mentioned in the post about Friday owns both and lets our student groups into the farm to see the cows and calfs!  We had time to walk up all 3 tiers of the mountain and stop for photos along the way.  However, the fog rolled in not long after we started up and we could barley see our own hands after the 1st tier... we decided that it might be a good idea just to head back down at that point!

Our third stop of the morning, The Valentia Slate Quarry, was made successful by the lifting of the fog... again.  We were told that 'classic' Ring of Kerry weather is rainy and foggy, we luckily managed to stay dry the whole weekend and only lose one or two views to the fog.  The Quarry itself wasn't all that interesting, other than a strange, very well kept, Mary statue in an alcove in the cave wall (kinda hard to see in the picture).  The real event of the stop, however, was the view of the other side of the island, bay, and mainland.

Back on the main island, our final stop of the morning was in a town called Bellinskelligs, which is where Marian our guide grew up!  The bus let us out on a beach with a castle ruin that we could climb in... which was great craic.  Luckily the tide was out or it would have been impossible to get out to the structure, even then we had to take off our shoes to walk through the water.  I felt like a little kid wiggling my toes in the sand and climbing the stone walls of the castle like a giant jungle gym!!

It's hard to tell, but Sydney, Paul, and I are actually sitting on 

the upper wall of the structure after climbing up!

With sandy feet we headed back to the hotel for lunch before enjoying a few more sights in the afternoon...

With full bellies we jumped back on the bus to head to one of the three ring forts still standing on the Ring of Kerry.  This one was called Cahergall, the structure was huge and still in perfect condition!

                             

After the fort we had the choice to either take the bus back to town of walk back and see a few more sights on our own.  I logically decided to walk back... and I'm glad I did!  My friends and I opted out of seeing a second fort, Leacanbuaile, and got a head start on our walk to Ballycarbery Castle.  It was amazing!  (PS... for anyone who's into Amy Adams movies, this castle was recently filmed for the movie Leap Year)  We were able to duck under the fence and go right into the castle... it's really amazing to see these structures from the 16th century still standing!

Just as we were leaving the castle my camera battery died, but luckily me I got the pictures I wanted for the day and luckily for you that means the end of this crazy long post!  I clearly had an amazing day on Saturday... But I managed to add even more excitement into the weekend on Sunday, so keep and eye out for that post later this week!

ring of kerry - friday.

Friday, March 9th

Ok, So I spent the entire weekend in County Kerry driving along the scenic Ring of Kerry Peninsula... but I did way too much to put it in one post, so you're getting this one in shifts!

My trip was made up of a big group of UL international students from Australia, France, Germany, Singapore, China, Sweden, Canada, the US, and more.  We were all picked up on campus on Friday afternoon where we met our tour guide for the weekend, Marian.  Although she now lived in Cork, Marian grew up on the peninsula in a town we visited on Saturday so she was and really knew her stuff!

On our way to the Ring of Kerry Hotel in town called Cahersiveen we stopped at the Kerry Bog Village in Glenbeigh to see what life was like in the 18th century in Kerry.  It was pretty cool... there were 4 houses on in the village each a little different from the others.  They also had farm equipment, boats, and animals!  The animals that at the Bog Village were just the beginning of the zoo I would experience over the weekend!

This is an Irish Wolfhound, I couldn't get a picture with a person

 as a reference, but this is one HUGE dog!

Felt just like Iowa!

Kerry Bog Ponies! They are light enough to walk on the bogs without sinking... 

very useful for peat harvesting! And they are just plain adorable!

After our quick stop at the village we made our way to Cahersiveen to get settled in for the weekend.  We stayed in a hotel which was totally decadent (as my friend Paul would say)!  Although my hostel experience has been great here in Ireland, it was nice to not have to bring my own towel on a weekend trip and to share a room with only 2 girls instead of 5 guys and gals!

We enjoyed a great dinner and dessert (chocolate and Bailey's creme cheesecake... decadence again!) and then had a farmer who grew up on Valntia Island come in to talk to us about life on the island.  It was pretty interesting to hear him talk about how slowly things like TV and phone lines got to the island!  He still lives on the Valentia Island now with his family and has a dairy farm (which we visited on Saturday) and runs a tourist scenic overlook.

We finished off the night with a pint and a game of trivia... it was great craic!

I'll get Saturday and Sunday (don't worry, they will have more pictures and less words!) up as soon as I can, but I am off to Cork tomorrow to visit my friend Kristi from ISU and to celebrate St. Paddy's Day!!

for €5 i...

Saturday, March 3rd

Today was the first of the two €5 trips that the international office planned for the study abroad students here at UL.  The trip was called 'Into the West' and it included a stroll in Lahinch, a guided bus tour of the Burren, Irish dance lessons, and a visit to the Aillwee Caves.  The trip included a lot of locations that I have already been to and blogged about, you may recognize some of the names and pictures, Which I was kind of bummed about... but it turned out to be a great day!

We started the morning at the Falls Hotel in a small town called Ennistymon for coffee and scones before they got us on our feet for some irish set dancing.  Some of you may know that I am actually in an Irish dance class here in UL, so I had a head start today, but we got to learn a lot of new steps and dances.  It was exhausting, but a great morning work out!

 The Falls Hotel

The falls and Ennistymon!  If you check out my post about the 

Cliffs of Moher you will see a picture of the falls at dusk!

After set dancing, we hopped back on our busses to see the seaside town of Lahinch... again.  As worried as we were about seeing the same things that we had seen on the OPC trip we went on last month; Steph, Sydney, and I managed to have a completely different experience in the town.  When we got off the bus we headed away from the beach this time... the opposite direction the other students were wandering.  We stumbled upon a pair of steps in a grassy hill and followed them to a great ocean view.  Despite the wind (check out our hair!), the sun was shinning and the the day was beautiful... we even managed to wear short sleeves long enough to show off the ISU gear we all happened to be wearing!!

GO STATE!!

Back at the Falls Hotel we made a few new friends before lunch...

With full bellies we got back on the bus for a guided tour of the Burren and a trip into the Allwee caves... the picture descriptions give more details on this part of the day.  Sorry for the quality, all the pictures were taken from a moving bus!

Red Mary's House

 It is said that Mary lived in this castle in the 17th century with her husband, but when he died she was not able to stay there because women could not own land.  To solve this problem she went into town the next day and married. She stayed with her 2nd husband long enough to produce a male heir... then she pushed him off the castle! (That's some crazy female empowerment!!)

Poulnabrone Dolmen

A portal tomb created 4000 years ago as a grave chamber in a cairn of stacked stones... yes I am referring to the stone table to the left of the picture.

Aillwee Caves

The caves are naturally formed and were found in the 1940, after being covered for millennia, when a farmer followed his dog, who was following a rabbit, into a hole.  After the caves were discovered scientist found the bones of black bears (above) that had hibernated in the cave... Black bears have been extinct in Ireland for thousands of years! The caves have only been altered by human hand to put in the foot paths and safety railings needed for visitors.  It's pretty cool down there!

A giant wall of lime stalactites... the water that slowly creates these formations 

was continually dripping while we were down there.

We finished up the trip with another feast at the Falls Hotel and a long sleepy bus ride home.  I still can't believe that I did all that for €5, but I'm not complaining!  The next €5 trip will be incorporated with the weekend I spend in Dublin... I'm sure you'll hear plenty about that when the time comes!

Tomorrow is one of my first full Sundays here in Limerick since the weekend I arrived. I guess it's about time I start acting like a college student and head to the library to write a paper and study for exams!  In other words... don't expect a post about the 2nd half of my weekend.

But do stay tuned... with all that studying out of the way next weekend I am off to the Ring of Kerry!

kilkenny weekend.

February 25th and 26th

Spent 2 days in Kilkenny last weekend with Steph, Sydney, Sebastian, Paul, and Phillip (all the boy are German) and had a great time!  Killkenny is known to be one of the most beautiful inland cities in all of Ireland, and it did not disappoint!  The bus ride brought us through the true Irish countryside and many stereotypical small towns... and since I managed to avoid my usual bus sickness it was actually a fun ride!

After arriving at the Machabhainns Backpackers Hostel around noon on Saturday we headed out to enjoy a sunny day of sight seeing.  We stuck to the river and shops at first, but then we walked through the Kilkenny Castle park and realized that spring has sprung here in Ireland... even though it's only February! We decided that with a limited amount of sunshine in the forecast we'd wait until Sunday to actually tour the inside of the castle.

After another hour of aimless walking/sun-soaking/sight-seeing we met up with my Irish friend Tomás, whos parents live in Kilkenny, for the rest of the day so he could show us around.  Our first stop of the afternoon was Smithwick's Brewery!  We went on a 45 minute tour of the brewery and St. Frances Abbey on the grounds, learned about the history of the beer, and enjoyed a pint.  It was pretty cool and I really enjoyed my first Smithwick!

On saturday evening, we enjoyed spaghetti and meat sauce at the hostel before meeting up with Tomás again for a small pub crawl... kilkenny style!  We went to a few authentic places, a wine bar, and an old theater transformed into a night club.

On Sunday we rolled out of bed to get our tourist needs taken care of!  In addition to Kilkenny being one of the most beautiful inland towns in Ireland, it is also one of the most medieval ones.  We started out back at the Kilkenny Castle... although it was fun, it was a little less than what we'd expected and I wasn't allowed to take any pictures. 

Next, we walked back across town to St. Canice's Cathedral which was no dissapointment!!  The church itself was beautiful and completely full of stained glass and old tombs.  But the really amazing thing was the guard tower right outside the cathedral.  There are 32 left in all of Ireland (another 1 is in my pictures from my weekend in Glendolough) but only 2 area actually open to the public... and this was one!  The tower had 112 steps and was 100ft. tall.  The view of the town and countryside was amazing from the top! Something you should never miss if you make it to Kilkenny!

This is the view of St. Frances Abbey at Smithwick's from the watch tower.

We had to leave for the bus pretty much straight from the cathedral thinking we might be late.  However, the bus didn't show up until 30 minutes after is was supposed to come!  Very frustrating... but we finally made it home 5 hours after we left Kilkenny (it should have only taken about 3.5 hours).

It was a great weekend, and nice to have a local guide for the weekend!

Next weekend is only a day trip to the Burren (again) and the Aillwee caves with the international division... thank goodness!  I need a weekend night in my bed here at UL!