Interlaken

Tuesday was a very full day of travel. We woke up in Brussels, rode the metro to the train station, took the train to the airport, flew to the Geneva airport, and then took a three hour train ride from Geneva to Interlaken, Switzerland. Our time in Interlaken was short, but so wonderful. 

It is one of my favorite places I have ever been.  

Our first evening there was just spent walking around the main town area (it's not a very big place) and watching the sun set behind the mountains. The air was cold and so fresh-smelling!

On Wednesday morning, we woke up and took a hike on a hill near our hostel. 

The view from the top of the hill. 

Balmer's, the hostel we stayed at. So cute. 

That day was the most gorgeous day of the trip, and I knew we were in for a great afternoon.

Bruges

Last Monday, our final full day in Belgium, we took a day trip to Bruges. It was just an hour-long train ride away from Brussels. 

We spent the afternoon walking around the small town, which surrounds pretty canals. 

The fall leaves were beautiful. The leaves don't really change color too much in Ireland, so this past week was our first glimpse of traditional fall leaves. 

Our relaxing afternoon in Bruges was the perfect end to our time in Belgium. 

Brussels

Hello!! I am back home in Ireland after an amazing ten day break. After traveling to Dublin last Thursday and spending the night there, we caught a plane to Brussels, Belgium early Friday morning. It was the most beautiful take-off I have every seen from a plane. The sun was just rising as we flew over the coast of Ireland, and the combination of the ocean, green fields, rising sun, and clouds was incredible. Everything went smoothly, and after arriving at the Brussels airport, taking a 45 minute bus ride into the city, and figuring out the metro system, we made it to our hostel in the early afternoon. The rest of that first day was just spent walking around and exploring the city. 

  

We were lucky to have a lot of time in Belgium, so we weren't rushed to see anything. The weather was also incredible the entire week- just one perfect fall day after another. It was such a great change from Ireland. Although it was still sort of chilly, seeing the sun every day made such a difference, and it was perfect weather for walking around outside all day. It was also really different and nice just being the five of us (Me, Ellen, Bethany, Kelly, and Katy), since on all of our other trips we have been with our whole group of 29. 

Saturday and Sunday were spent seeing the sights of Brussels, which included the beautiful and unique architecture, a few churches, some pretty parks, an outdoor market, stands selling fresh waffles, and MANY chocolate shops. Between Belgium and Switzerland, which are both known for their chocolate, I think it was the most chocolate I have ever consumed in one week. But they are known for their chocolate for a reason, and it was indeed delicious. 

The first of many waffles. 

We only got lost a few times...

The beautiful square, the Grand Place

 

The Atomium, a structure built for the 1958 Expo that we went inside of. There are escalators in those connecting tubes. 

The Grand Place at night. 

Brussels was a cool city I'm glad I got to visit. Check back soon for posts about the rest of the places we went! 

A Wonderful Week

The past week has been one of the best in Ireland so far. It was filled with so many fun moments and little things that made me realize how much I really love it here. For example:

Beautiful afternoon walks to the beach in Spiddal. 

A trip to Kylemore Abbey in the beautful Connemara region. The lake the abbey is on looked straight out of Harry Potter. We had a tour, walked around the walled gardens, and had a discussion session with one of the sisters about the state of monastic life today, which was really interesting. 

 Friday morning was the second session of cooking classes that Geraldine, the cook at the Park Lodge, is putting on for our group. We made homemade scones and jam, two different fish dishes, potatoes, salad and salad dressing. 

So many scones

Look at that plate of fish!

The finished products

That night some of us went to the Galway vs. Bray soccer game. As far as European football goes, this is about as unofficial as you can get. The crowd probably filled a quarter of the stadium. Galway is one of the worst Irish teams and lost by a lot, but it was a nice night out and still a lot of fun! 

A little toga party (note the pink sheets- just working with what we've got!)

On Saturday, the first annual (as far as we know) Cottage Olympics were held at the Park Lodge. We sort of planned the event, and everyone really got into it and it was so much fun. Each of the six cottages competed against each other in events like "How well do you know your cottage-mate?" and a potato peeling race. 

Other highlights of the week include getting TWO packages in the mail (thanks Mom and Patti!!), a fun dinner with our next door neighbors, and a traditional dance class at the music school in Spiddal. There are also some visitors here from the CSB/SJU London and Roman-Greco programs, which was a fun surprise. 

Tomorrow morning Ellen, Kelly, Bethany, Katy, and I are headed to Dublin where we will spend the night and then leave early Friday morning for Brussels. I won't have my computer with me, so my next update will probably be after November 5th when I will be able to tell you all about our adventures in Belgium and Switzerland!

Photo of the Day

We had to wake up early to leave on a day-trip to Kylemore Abbey today, which meant I was able to see this beautiful sunrise from our kitchen window. 

Weekend in Dublin

We are back from our trip to Dublin, which I enjoyed a lot. Overall it wasn't my favorite city I've been to or the most fun excursion we've done on the trip so far, but it was still a great weekend. I feel like there is a lot more to see and do there, so I'm happy I'll be back there a week from Thursday before we leave for our break, and again in December when my parents come to visit.

Most of the things we did during the daytime in Dublin were class-related, which was good but also got a little long sometimes. When we arrived on Thursday afternoon after about a two and a half hour bus ride, we toured Kilmainham Gaol. This former jail is now a museum that tells the story of the many leaders of Irish rebellions that were imprisoned and some executed in the prison by the British and later in 1923 by the Irish Free State. There was no segregation of women, men, and children in the jail, and often children as young as 5 years old were imprisoned for something as minor as petty theft. The tour was interesting, and so was the architecture in rooms like the East Wind, shown below. This room has been a part of movies such as The Italian Job, Michael Collins, The Escapist, and a U2 music video was also filmed there. 

After the tour we had some free time and a lot of the group toured the Guinness Storehouse. Since it was such a beautiful day (a rare occurrence) some of us decided to pass on this and walk around instead, and tour the brewery when we're back in Dublin next week. In the evening we had a group dinner at the Brazen Head Pub, the oldest pub in Ireland, which was very good.  Later on we checked out some of the pubs in the Temple Bar area.

The view of the Four Courts from our hostel room window.

On Friday morning we visited the Hill of Tara, and archeological site with some ancient monuments. The site itself was a little boring, but the views of beautiful green fields surrounding the hill were really beautiful. 

Next we drove to Newgrange, which ended up being one of the highlights of the weekend for me. I wasn't expecting anything too exciting, but we had an excellent guide who was really enthusiastic about the history of the site and made it very interesting. Newgrange is a passage tomb that was built around 3200 BC, so it is about 500 years older than pyramids of Egypt, 1000 years older than Stonehenge, and also older than the Mycenaean culture of ancient Greece. We were split into two groups to enter the tomb, since it's actually a pretty small opening on the inside. We were all huddled inside and the lights were turned off making it completely dark, and then the guide used another light to simulate what is looks like on the winter solstice, when the opening of the portal is perfectly aligned with the rising sun and light fills the tomb. Being inside a 5000 year old structure, the oldest standing man-made structure that you can enter in the world, was a pretty cool experience.  

Newgrange

That night almost all of us signed up for an organized pub crawl, where we stopped at five different pubs. It was a fun way to get to a lot of places in one night, hear some good live music, and talk to other students from around the world who were also part of the group. 

Saturday we had a tour of some of the highlights within Dublin. We drove around for awhile while a guide pointed out some points of interest, then got out at Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells and the beautiful Long Room of the library. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside the library, apparently because George Lucas used photos of the library without permission when making Star Wars Attack of the Clones and used it as the Jedi Library, so I found a photo of what it looks like, it was pretty awesome:

The rest of the day was spend visiting St. Patrick's Cathedral, walking around Grafton Street, going to Christ's Church and seeing Strongbow's tomb and the crypts, and going to the National Museum where Br. Colman, our theology professor, met us for a tour. That evening was a little more low-key, and a group of us went to a free traditional music and dance show we had heard about. 

Trinity College

Outside St. Patrick's Cathedral

Grafton Street 

Outside of Christ's Church

Inside the National Museum

On Sunday Br. Colman led us to Clonmacnoise, ruins of an ancient monastery. It looked like a lot of the places we have seen already, but I enjoyed the beautiful weather while walking around, and thought some of the high crosses were pretty cool. 

There was an archway you could whisper into and someone could hear it on the other side, so here Charlie and Greg are testing it out:

As we headed back to Galway it started downpouring, as though signaling our time in the sunny east of Ireland had officially come to an end.