Dublin and Whitlow

I absolutely loved Dublin. As a city, its definitely not as pretty as Paris, and much smaller and dirtier, but I liked the vibe of the city. Reminds me a lot of London. There are so many pubs and bars, and the people were all really nice. Gotta love the Irish.

Me, Sam and Brittany got in really late Thursday night, and were too tired to go out or do anything, so we crashed. The next morning we woke up and decided to do a day tour out to a town called Whitlow. It was really on a whim, because we originally had wanted to go to Cork but couldn't make that work since it was 4 hours away. We got there and were confused when it was an actual town and the bus driver didn't just drop us in the actual countryside. However, we asked some locals, and they told us how to get over to the bay in the town. When we finally got there, it was gorgeous. We met a dog along the way, who we named Whitlow (original I know) and who followed us around everywhere once we met him. There was a way to get down to the actual beach, so we sat there among the cliffs. It was a sunny day so it was nice out, and I found a ton of seaglass which I saved. We sat on the beach for about half an hour which was really relaxing. Afterwards, Brittany decided to go buy treats for the dog, and me and Sam decided to walk around on the fields. We ended up finding that the fields directly above the cliffs were actually a golf course, and we walked around the entire thing. On the way back, we actually ran along most of it, like we were 5. Strangely enough, we didn't get that many dirty looks.

We headed back into Dublin that evening for a Pub crawl. This ended up being a lot of fun. One of the tour guides was really attractive, but sadly had a girlfriend. There were a lot of drink specials at a lot of the places, and you payed a flat rate to go on the tour, but the leader of the pub crawl didn't actually make me pay which was nice. They took us around to different pubs and bars that people in Dublin actually went to, which was cool. I liked a lot of the places, nightlife there is a lot different than Paris but the vibe is pretty cool. We headed back home at around 2 to get some sleep before the next day.

The next day we thought we were in for a St Patty's day parade, but sadly that morning we found out that the information concerning parades that we found on google was actually for Dublin, Ohio and not Dublin, Ireland. The good news was that the Ireland Wales rugby game was on. I don't understand absolutely anything about rugby, but it was such a huge deal over there and it was really cool to see everybody all dressed up and in the bars cheering for their teams. Ireland won in a landslide, I didn't understand how. We also went to the Guinness factory after pretending to understand the first half of the rugby game. I have to say, I have much more appreciation for the taste of beer after I understood how it was actually brewed, and we got a free pint at the end which was cool.

Our intention that night was to pull an all nighter, since we had to leave our hostel at 5am for the bus to the airport for our 7:50 flight. However, me and Brittany both were too tired by 1:30, and were asleep by 2. This only leant us 2 and a half hours of sleep, which helped a little but not that much. The journey back was pretty brutal, and I had so much work to do that I couldn't sleep all day.

Despite the brutality of the trip home, I had an extremely relaxing and fun weekend. Dublin is definitely a cool place, and I wanna go back and see more of the Irish countryside. Perhaps discover my roots? We shall see.

visitors and a trip to London

Hey all,

I really need to get better about writing in this thing, as now I have to write two entries to talk about everything that's happened in the past few weeks. My spring break was the week before last, and I headed over to London for that. But before that happened, my big sis in my sorority came to visit me. She only had circa 48 hours in Paris, and there was a lot she wanted to see so we did whirlwind sightseeing. It was really nice to see a friendly face, and it was good to see one of my friends from home. We had a lot to catch up on.

The first thing we when she got in was (after getting food of course) walk around on the Champs d'Elysees. Since I have been here I have realized, as have many other people, that there is a lot more to Paris than just the Champs and la Tour Eiffel, but I am still amazed at how pretty it can be in that area. The Eiffel Tower may be one of the cliche spots of Paris, but everytime it sparkles I get just as excited as I did the first time I saw it sparkle. Kari also got really excited the first time she saw it sparkle. We found a spot that I had found with a friend earlier up near some art gallery where you get an excellent view of the Eiffel Tower, with la Defense in the background, and a good view of the Sacre Coeur. After we took in the scenery from that view, we walked around and sat under the Eiffel Tower, and drank wine. We were under it to see it sparkle again before we headed home. The next day, we got a slightly later start than we would have liked since we were both exhausted from busy weeks. But once we got moving we headed straight to the Louvre. She wanted to see the Mona Lisa, and, as with most everyone else who sees it for the first time, found it quite dissapointing. We also walked around the 7th near where Sciences Po is and went to the longchamps store so she could get a bag.

That afternoon/evening, we actually went up the Eiffel Tower. I had been told that because I was afraid of heights, it would be a really bad idea to do it, but because both Kari and I are afraid of heights, we decided to brave it and go together. We were both surprised because our fear of heights didn't pose much of a problem. The elevator up to the second floor (the first floor is a restaurant) was easy, and the second floor didn't pose too much of an issue. However, once we got up there, we had to wait in a ridiculous line to get up to the third floor, and by this time it had gotten pretty cold and rainy. The elevator up to the third floor was the scariest part, because its glass and you can see all the way down. But once we were up on the top it was enclosed, and it was an excellent view for picture taking.

The next day, I put Kari on the train to CDG and I got on the eurostar to head to London. I had a week off of school last week, so I decided to go visit friends there. My best friend from England's parents still live there, and because they are like my second family, I stayed with them, even though Kirsten is in Virginia. It was a relatively relaxing week for the most part, got to go into London one day. The Wednesday of break there was a memorial service for a high school friend who died in a car accident recently. It was a difficult day, needless to say. That evening I also managed to pick up some sort of stomach virus, and so I was sick for the next 24 hours. Although stomach flus are never fun, it gave me an excuse to lay around and watch TV and movies. I watched quite a few documentaries on the history channel, and thoroughly enjoyed them all. It was a good visit though, I was glad I went and had some R&R. Much needed. On Friday night, I got to go into London and see my dad for the night as he was around on business. It was good to see him after such a long time.

When I got back to Paris on Saturday, I had to get ready for my sister to come on Sunday. It was definitely good to see her. Although I am having a blast here, it is really difficult to be away from my family, and since I probably won't see any of them until may it was good to have her around, particularly when I had just gotten to see my dad. I had class, and a lot of work I had to do before the weekend so it was difficult for us to get a lot of sightseeing done, but we walked around a lot and I showed her different areas of the city. She was only here until Thursday, when I had to head to Dublin.

Work is really beginning to pick up at Sciences Po, and its extremely difficult. I am extremely interested in all of my classes, so it isn't difficult for me to keep up but the assignments are difficult. Today, I had an expose (10-15 minute oral presentation) in French in my Religions and Societes class. I spent quite a lot of time going over the reading, and then when I got home from Dublin on Sunday I did the outline for my presentation, and filled it in afterwards. I practiced the night before, and it went very well, but this morning when I did it nerves got the better of me and I didn't present as well as I had hoped I would. It went alright, and I am definitely glad to have it over with. I remember a friend of mine who did this program last spring talking to me about exposes, and she said it was one of the most difficult things she had to do, but once you do that, things get a lot easier. I am hoping this is true. Even though all of my classes are pass/fail, I still want to do well.

I have a good friend from Atlanta visiting me this weekend, and I am hoping to be able to get some more sightseeing done. The weather is starting to get nice and the sun is starting to come out and the city is even more beautiful than it usually is. Its getting me really excited for actual springtime here.

That's all for this one, update on Dublin in another post of course.

Megan