St. Patrick's Day Dance

Click here to watch the video of our St. Patrick's Day dance.

New London Pictures

I added an album of London pictures that I stole from Danielle and Caity's albums. I'm planning on writing entries about the Aran Islands, England, and St. Patrick's Day in the next few days, so check below the really long Rome post.

Roman Holiday

I LOVED Rome. I had the best week there, and it was so much fun. Marisa has been studying there all year, so it was great to see her again, and it was also great to be with people who know the city well. I was able to stay with her at the hotel where she lives. The week felt like an actual vacation. It was relaxing for the most part, the food was incredible, and I got to do a lot of sightseeing. I’m so glad I went for the entire week instead of traveling in other parts of Italy first like a lot of people did. I felt really settled by the time everyone else arrived, and I was able to see things in beautiful weather. The entire weekend was colder and very rainy.

The food in Italy is incredible. I heard that American Italian food is different from Italian food, and many Americans don’t like it as much. I loved everything I had. There’s a great restaurant right by their hotel called L’Insalata Ricca. I got Ravioli Butter and Sage, Gnocchi Sardi, and Bruschetta Bianca there, all of which were wonderful. I also got lots of pizza in different places which tasted like the pizza at Olive Garden or Cheesecake Factory. Also the gelato everywhere was sooo good. I already miss the gelato!

The only thing that I didn’t like about Rome was the creepy men everywhere trying to sell you things. They are very persistent and I heard stories that they try to pickpocket you also. It’s just annoying to see them everywhere and say “no grazie, no grazie”. I also learned a lot of Italian words, and it was interesting to be in a non English-speaking country since I never had before.

The second day that I was there Marisa had a presentation so Anthony and Ying took me sightseeing. We went to the Forum, Colosseum, Mouth of Truth, and the Key Hole. They were great tour guides - Anthony knows about everything and Ying makes up stuff about places being blown up in World War II. We accidentally tried to sneak into the Forum - apparently they charge for it only during Easter week. This Italian lady followed us in and yelled at us. You haven't been yelled at until you've been yelled at in Italian. I really liked the key hole – you walk up a hill and there is this door that has a key hole in it. When you look through it there is a gorgeous view of the Vatican framed by shrubbery. It was really cool and something I never would have seen on my own.

On Thursday, Kelly, Charlotte, and I went on the Archeobus tour. It was a hop on-hop off tour on one of those open roof buses. We got off at the catacombs stop and took a tour of the Catacombs of San Callisto. It was really cool. There are so many tombs in there. One of the rooms used to have the remains of 9 popes from the 3rd century. That was pretty amazing. We were also in a room that had the remains of St. Cecilia. It was funny because our tour guide was telling us how much of a maze the catacombs are. He said, “If you follow me the tour is 15 minutes, but if you get lost it can be for eternity.” After the tour we were trying to catch the last Archeobus back, and we ended up waiting on the wrong side of the road and running to the bus when it passed us. We were lucky to get back on that bus.

There were a ton of Notre Dame kids in Rome for the weekend because our Campus Minister, Andrew Hoyt, arranged a pilgrimage. We had lots of holy events to do starting on Friday. The first thing was going to Saint John Lateran. We went to see the Passion Relics – a piece of the cross, nails, thorns, and the inscription from the cross. It was pretty amazing to see. I felt bad though because we were waiting on line to go in, and this sweet Spanish-speaking monk was letting people in. These Italian people came and cut in front of all the ND people waiting in line, and they were pulling each other in. The monk was so flustered and felt so bad that we got cut. We didn’t really care, but I felt really bad for him. That’s one thing that I really learned this week – Italian people cut lines. I was cut many times in the short time I was there.

After the Passion Relics, we went to the Sancta Scala. The Holy Stairs is the staircase that lead to the praetorium of Pilate at Jerusalem, which were sanctified by the footsteps of Jesus during his Passion. It is tradition to climb it on your knees, and that’s what we did. It was much more painful than I expected, because they are covered in wood, and the wood is very uneven. I’m sure it’s purposefully supposed to hurt, but still, it was really hard to walk when we reached the top and my knees were bruised the next day. It was an awesome experience, though, because you pray on each step and there’s a beautiful fresco of Jesus on the cross at the top that you can see as you climb.

That night we went to Stations of the Cross at the Colosseum. It would have been amazing had it not started raining as soon as we got there. We waited for 2.5 hours in the cold rain, then you could hardly see the Pope through all the umbrellas, and it was hard to follow along since it wasn’t in English and you couldn’t really read the booklet in the rain. It was a really cool experience, but it wasn’t really fun at the time. Afterwards Marisa, Anthony, Kelly, Charlotte, Angela, Caitlin, and I went out for hot chocolate, which was delicious (hot chocolate in Italy is like brownie mix).

The next day we had an early morning at the Vatican. I set my cell phone alarm for 6:20, but when my phone died the date got messed up, so I woke up on my own at 7:06 and we needed to leave by 7:30. Marisa and I got ready incredibly quickly, and we were only a couple of minutes late. We waited for probably 3 hours to get into the Vatican Museum, and it was raining again. Those creepy men that I mentioned were all selling umbrellas, and we really needed one. I asked Kelly to haggle for me since she has a New York edge about her. I told her to go for 2 euro, and they were asking 5. It was so funny because she was yelling “NO! 2 EURO!” to the guy. I finally got it for 3, which was well worth it.

Once we got inside the tour was great. We didn’t really like our tour guide and felt like we ran through a lot of the museum, but the stuff we saw was incredible. There are amazing paintings and sculptures in there, and we were in the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. The tour was over 3 hours long. It’s amazing how much art the Catholic Church owns.

The best story of the trip was Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square with Pope Benedict XVI. I brought a skirt for the mass because I think that if you’re not wearing a skirt it doesn’t feel like Easter, and I stand by that decision. I was surprised at the amount of people wearing jeans at the mass – I would never think to wear jeans to see the Pope. When we got there it was a little cold and cloudy, but it was a pretty nice day. We got there 2.5 hours early for mass, but it wasn’t bad waiting since we were sitting in our seats. We were 11th row center, which was pretty incredible. Unfortunately, right before mass was about to begin it started raining. And the rain just got worse and worse and worse. I kept thinking it couldn’t get any worse, but it always seemed to.

So, we got really, really wet. Marisa and I were under my 3-euro umbrella which began to leak (I’m proud of it for lasting as long as it did). Every time we stood for a mass part we tipped our chairs down on the ground so they wouldn’t get too wet before we had to sit back on them. Our skirts got soaked. Our shoes were completely soaked. I went to put my hood up in the middle of mass, which apparently had collected a pool of cold water, which immediately went down my neck. It was just a miserable, miserable time. And through all of the commotion, and due to the fact that there was no English and we couldn’t read our booklets, we got pretty much nothing out of the mass. I’m pretty sure there wasn’t even a homily, not that I would have known if there was. Kelly was sitting huddled in a poncho, and at communion time she didn’t notice that we were all going. She yelled, “It’s communion?! Why didn’t anyone tell me?!!!” Then on the way to communion when people were cutting Marisa, she turned to me and said “I can’t believe I just got cut on the confession line!” She didn’t even realize she said confession until I was talking about it later.

We took the bus back from the Vatican, and an old Italian man was laughing at us and tugging on his pants, making fun of the fact that we were wearing skirts. Then we went to the restaurant to get take out food to eat in our nice warm beds, and all of the waiters were making fun of us. We got back and changed, climbed into bed and ate our food while watching Love Actually. Then we fell asleep for about 2 hours and didn’t even realize it. We went out later with Anthony and Kelly for Easter dinner, which was great, then we went for our last gelato.

I was surprised at how sad I was to leave Rome. I’m usually ready to come back to Dublin - and it was definitely nice to come home - but I had such a great time in Italy. It was so much fun hanging out with Marisa, and it was cool that my ND friends and Dublin friends became friends. I would love to go back to Rome again some day.

Ciao Bella!

I just got back from Rome today which means that Spring Break is officially over. I absoultely loved the time I spent in Rome, even though a lot of the important parts were cold and rainy. I just added two albums, one of general tourist pictures, and the other of the Holy Week events that we did. I also added St. Patrick's Day pictures before I left, but I never put a link here. I'll add stories from break tomorrow!

St. Patrick's Day

In the middle of Spring Break, I came back to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. At first I was annoyed that it was right in the middle of break, but it was nice to come back and be able to do some laundry and repack before the next leg of break. Angela and her friend Caitlin stayed in my flat for the weekend as well as the majority of the ND London Programme. Our program had a lot of events planned for us, which was nice.

On Saturday we had St. Patrick’s Day mass in the city. Andrew Hoyt said the homily about McDonald’s shamrock shakes and children throwing nuts at him. Next was the main event of the weekend: our Irish dance performance. We had a much bigger audience than I expected, but it went fairly well. After that we had brunch. We were a little angry at the way they handed out tickets for the next events. It wasn’t organized and the people at my end of the table ended up not getting parade passes.

After that, I had a really fun day with Kelly, Kelly, and Karla from my dorm at ND. We went to the O’Connell House where Lisa was giving tours. Next we went to Trinity to see the Book of Kells, which I hadn’t seen yet. Then we went to St Patrick's Cathedral. It was cold and rainy the entire day, which seems to be a theme of my Spring Break. We stopped along the way for some Baileys Hot Chocolates. Next we had dinner at a restaurant across from the Brazen Head. We then took a cab to Parnell Park where we were supposed to go for a GAA game, but when we got there we were told it was cancelled because the weather was so bad. So we paid for the cab there and back for nothing. I went back to my flat after that because all I wanted was a hot shower and warm bed after our day out in the rain.

On Sunday Angela, Caitlin, and I went to mass at a church north of the Liffey, and it was cool because the bishop was presiding. When I was going up for communion, the priest dropped a bunch of hosts a few people in front of me, and he got incredibly flustered. I think it was partly because the bishop was there. I found it interesting that the palms they give here for Palm Sunday look like evergreen trees rather than palm trees like ours.

After mass we all went for shamrock shakes with Andrew, and then we went to Merrion Square for the St. Patrick’s Festival. They had carnival rides, food, and entertainment, but I found it very strange that it wasn’t very Irish. There were Indian music performers most of the time we were there.

That night I went to see The Poet and the Piper at the National Concert Hall, featuring Seamus Dean, arguably the greatest living poet. It was a little bit boring to me to hear poetry read for that long, but I definitely appreciated the experience. After that Karla, Kelly, and I went to the carnival right before it closed and rode the Freak Out. It was one of the best rides I’ve been on, and it was weird to be swinging over the tops of Georgian Buildings in Dublin. Then we went back to Kelly’s room and hung out and had hot chocolate and digestives.

The next day we got up early for St. Patrick’s Day. When we got into the city the first street vendor we saw was selling scarves that had the ND leprechaun on it. Kelly and I had to get them as souvenirs. They’re not the prettiest scarves, but it’s cool to say we got an ND scarf on the streets of Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. We ended up getting a really good spot for the parade – right on the bridge over the Liffey. We had to wait a long time for the parade, but we decorated ourselves and had a good time. The parade itself was very, very strange – very different from American parades. The things they had didn’t make much sense. I took lots of pictures there because I thought it was bizarre.

After the parade we went to a pub for lunch. I got Beef and Guinness Pie, my favorite pub food. It was delicious. The pub had green water for St. Patrick’s Day, which was a little strange. After lunch, Angela, Caitlin, and I went to Ceil Mohr, an Irish music celebration.

At 3:45am I left for Rome.

Spring Break Pictures

I'm back home in Dublin for St. Patrick's weekend! I just put up my pictures from England. Here are pics from London, Stonehenge, and Bath. Much more to come, plus I'll be adding to the Aran album soon.

London Baby!

Traveling to London was the first time I traveled outside of the US by myself. I was very happy to get to the airport, check in, get through security, and get to my gate with plenty of time to spare. Just as I was thinking that, they announced that there was bad weather at Heathrow and my flight was going to have a 5 hour delay. The best part was they were boarding the plane and we’d have to sit there for the 5 hours, in hopes that being on the plane would speed up the time from air control. Since I only had 3.5 days in London, I was not happy about this delay. I walked around the airport and bought a book and snacks, preparing for the wait. When I got back they announced they would take the first 5 people who didn’t check luggage to get on an earlier flight that was leaving at the time ours was supposed to. I ran to the desk and was the second person to get on the earlier flight. It was actually exciting because they took us on a little bus to the other plane and rushed us on. I ended up landing at Heathrow at the exact time I was supposed to – just on a different flight.

I met Caity and Danielle at the Underground station at Hyde Park, and we immediately started sightseeing. It was cold and rainy so we were the only people at most of the places we went. We saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Harrod’s. We took pictures next to all of the guards, which was a little bit awkward. One actually laughed at us when we switched places to get Caity in the picture. I was carrying my backpack around the whole day, which kind of sucked after a while. We stopped for lunch at a good Italian place, and they had the most delicious dessert ever. It was a mixture between cinnamon toast crunch and a waffle with vanilla ice cream on top. Later we went to Queen Mary, where Caity is studying. Then we had a fried chicken dinner near her campus.

The next morning we woke up very early because we had to be at London Bridge at 7:30am. Danielle and I went on a tour of Stonehenge and Bath since Caity had classes all day. It was a really great tour and it was cool to see things outside of the city. I really liked Bath a lot. It’s a beautiful city, and the Roman Baths were very cool. My favorite part of the day was when Danielle and I got baguettes for lunch and we were sitting on a bench people watching. There was an adorable little boy that I noticed because he was on a leash. His mother was jewelry shopping and not watching him at all. There was a dog near him, and he expanded the leash so the dog could run far away. The dog was jumping on a woman who was eating and the leash blocked the entire sidewalk so no one could pass. The mother didn’t notice anything. Then the woman yelled at her, so the clueless mother got the brilliant idea of giving the boy the dog. The dog went running away, dragging the boy with him, who fell on the ground. It was great lunch entertainment.

When we got back to London, we decided to hang out in the central part rather than go back to Queen Mary. First we went back to Harrod’s to explore some more. Then we tried to find a place for dinner. Who would have guessed that would be so difficult? We wandered around for a long time and could not find any food places open, and it was only 8pm. In New York we would have passed lots of pizza places and McDonald’s. We ended up eating at a Friday’s, which was ridiculously overpriced, but very good.

The next day Danielle and I rode on the London Eye, which was very cool. Then the three of us went to Greenwich and saw the Prime Meridian line and the museum with the time ball on it. Then we went to Canary Wharf, and did our own movie tour. We saw places where The Bourne Supremacy and Love Actually were shot. Then we went to the Millennium Dome, then back to Caity’s for pizza. After that we went to a giant toy store, then got Cadbury Creme egg McFlurries at McDonald’s, which were good.

The next day was my last day in London. Danielle and I went to the Fashion and Textile museum. If you’re thinking about going there don’t go! They only have about 5 dresses there. The rest was pictures of pinstripes. When we saw that was a bust, we took the tube to the Victoria and Albert museum, which was much better. It had a fashion section that was 20 times bigger than the Fashion museum.

After that I took the Underground to Heathrow, which took a long time and I had to stand with my bag. When I got there the security was crazy because there was a terrorism scare there earlier in the day. When I finally got to my terminal I was shocked at how small and crowded it was and how few seats there were. I was expecting Heathrow to be much nicer. My flight was delayed because of the terrorism, and there were annoying American girls there singing loudly the whole time. I was very happy to get back to Dublin that night.

Trip Out West

Our trip out west to the Aran Islands seems like a long time ago, but I remember being on the bus ride back thinking about how much it enforced my love of the Dublin Programme.

The first thing we did was drive to Coole Park, where we learned about Lady Gregory and WB Yeats. Then we went to Yeats’ house and saw his home and tower. After that we continued to Galway where we had free time to get lunch. Kelly and I went to the McDonald’s there, and it was the first time I got McDonald’s in Europe. It was strangely comforting to eat McDonald’s French fries. I loved how there was a “Failte McDonald’s” sign when we walked in. After that we did a little shopping, and I bought Celtic cross earrings from a cute little market that we found. I also bought postcards because I’m collecting postcards from everywhere I visit to make a collage.

After Galway, we went on a ferry to the Aran Islands, which are just off the west coast of Ireland. The ferry was crazy – the water was extremely choppy. The entire boat was rocking from side to side. It was like one of those pirate ship rides at an amusement park. You’d look out one window and see only water and the other side only sky and then it would switch. A few people got seasick. When we got there, the locals said that a storm was coming and it was unlikely that the ferry would run the next day. That made us all worried since we had flights booked for Monday morning.

When we got there we checked into our hostel , then walked to the restaurant where we were having dinner. Of course, it was cold and raining. It was actually a long walk there too. We had a great fancy dinner then went to the pub that was attached. Kevin Whelan wanted us to perform at the pub so he made Joe play the fiddle and some girls sing. It was funny because he was trying to hush the people there when the girls were singing, but that’s not how pubs work.

When we got back to the hostel it was one of my favorite moments. We looked up at the sky and there were millions of stars. We were so far away from any cities that you could see every star in the sky. It was absolutely beautiful.

The next morning we got up early for an Irish speaking mass. It was cool, but I have definitely decided since there and Rome that I like my masses in English. There’s not much of a point to them if you don’t understand anything. After mass was the part I had been dreading for weeks, the 5 hour hike/cliff walk.

We were told ahead of time that it would be an “intense physical hike” and since I thought the hikes that Kevin said were easy were difficult, I was worried. The hike was actually amazing and I loved it. The part I hate about hiking is climbing straight up a mountain, but this was a relatively flat hike. The challenge was more the uneven surfaces – climbing over rocks, streams, stone fences. I found that much easier and more fun. Our tour guide Mickey was amazing, and we saw the most beautiful sights. We hiked pretty much all over the island, and he kept saying that we saw things that 99% of the people who go there never see, which is really cool. The cliffs were absolutely amazing. We stopped in the middle for tea and sandwiches, and it was really one of my favorite days after I had been dreading it for so long.

The ferry ended up leaving on time which was great, and we got back at 11pm when I had to leave for London at 6am.

Aran Pictures

Pictures are up from my AMAZING trip to the West this weekend. I don't have time to write about it now because I have a 6am bus to the airport for London tomorrow. I'll just say that today I saw the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, and I loved every minute of it (even the 5 hour hike lol). Today made me feel so blessed to be experiencing all of these things, and I can't believe that I'll be in London in hours, here for St. Patrick's Day festivities, and in Rome for Holy Week. Just thinking of that on the bus made me so thankful for this time here.
I hope you enjoy my pictures, even though they don't give the views justice in the slightest.

City Day/Crepe Night

Today I went shopping in the city centre with Kelly. I bought two new bags for 11 euro total! It was Daffodil Day for the Irish Cancer Society, and people were selling daffodils everywhere. One man was dressed completely in daffodils, so we got a picture with him. We also went to Ray's New York Pizza for dinner, which was surprisingly good. I added all of the pictures from today here.

At night our friend Sophie from Paris invited us over for crepes because her friend, Helen, from France was visiting. The crepes were really good, and she even taught us how to make some. They were much better than the ones we get at North Dining Hall. It was cool to have a French experience here.

We're off to Aran Island tomorrow morning, so I better get some sleep! Hope you like the pictures!

I'm on Spring Break!

I'm now officially on Spring Break! Let the traveling begin! I just came from Marketing class where we did a presentation on Australian wine companies. It somehow seems fitting that the one bit of work I've done here is about a wine company.

I've been busy this week with Irish dance lessons. We're performing on St. Patrick's weekend, so we've had practices for an hour and a half every day this week. Hopefully it will come together. I think everyone will like it - at least the songs we're doing are good. We start off with Lord of the Dance, then Low, Sexyback, Cecilia, and finish with the beginning of Siamsa, a cool Irish song.

Tonight Peggy Weber, the ND lady who does our orientations, is taking us to the Gaiety Theatre to see Blood Brothers. I'm excited for that.

On Saturday morning we leave for our trip to the West. We're going to Coole Park and staying overnight on Aran Islands. We get back late Sunday night, and I'm leaving for London early Monday morning,

Doing an Irish dance... hey!

The Elders came to Dublin, and I saw them!!! Last Fall, this Irish group called the Elders came to Notre Dame and performed at the DPAC. It was a Friday night before a football game, and I went with Rob, Gary, and Angela. Rob and I bought two of their cds there, and I've been listening to them ever since. I shared them with my parents, who now also love them, and my mom informed me that they were touring in Ireland this month. I looked it up and got tickets to see them at Whelan's. I had heard Whelan's is great (they even mention it in PS I Love You) so I had wanted to go there at some point anyway.

So Kelly and I just got back from the concert, and it was AMAZING! I liked them even more now that I know all of the words to their songs. I took a ton of videos - they're not the best since I was singing/screaming/jumping/trying to hide the fact that I was taking videos at the time. I just uploaded the pictures and videos.

After the show Kelly and I got our pictures taken with our two favorite guys. They were really nice. I told the fiddler I saw him at Notre Dame, and he said that was one of his favorite gigs. I hope they come back next year!

OMG! You Killed Kenny!

Thanks to the influence of my brother, everytime I heard Kilkenny, I thought of South Park.

Today I went on the Junior Year Abroad Quinn School of Business trip to Kilkenny - the Marble City. This sweet old lady, Dorothy, runs trips on the weekends for American business students, and this was the first time I've been able to go on one. It was a 2 hour bus ride to Kilkenny. When we got there we took a tour of Kilkenny Castle, had a delicious lunch at a pub (coffee with Baileys included!), then took a tour of the city. It was a lot of fun and it was all free, which makes it even better. Eight of us from ND went and we all hung out together. I added pictures here. Spring break starts next weekend, so lots of traveling will begin soon!