London, England!!!

For all of you who didn't know, I just spent a wonderful week in London, England with one of my close friends, Carolyn. Also for those of you who didn't know.....I have been DYING to go to London forever!

Ok so day one.

After my bus to the airport being late and a horrible take off and landing on my flight...I finally touched down at Gatwick Airport, in the amazing city of London (well, slightly outside the city to be more accurate), around 3 pm. I was a little worried for a moment because there was a slight issue with communication between us. I thought she was meeting me at the airport and she thought we were meeting at Victoria Station. But I was able to get everything figured out and settled and took a train into Victoria Station where I finally met up with Carolyn.

We decided to walk around for a while instead of taking the tube to her place. The first thing we came across was Westminster Cathedral (yes there is a Cathedral as well as the Abbey everyone knows about).

 It was so beautiful inside. We then continued walking and catching up until we came across Westminster Abbey.

We didn't go in because it actually costs money if you aren't going for services, but the outside was very impressive. I can't believe that just a few short years ago, the Royal Family was in that very same place for the Royal Wedding!

Right near the Abbey was the Houses of Parliament building and...BIG BEN!!! (Fun fact, Big Ben is the name of the bell inside the clock tower...not the tower itself)

After taking many many pictures of Big Ben we crossed the street and took turns posing for pictures inside the red telephone booths!! Yeah...I was totally a tourist that day.

We then picked up some sandwiches and crisps for lunch on the River Thames. Yup, not even there for 2 hours and already picnicking on the Thames. We had a lovely view of the London Eye (which I most certainly did not go in...sorry Hannah) and part of the city.

After our late lunch we walked to, and then through, St. James Park; which was absolutely, breathtakingly, beautiful. There were so many flowers and colors, huge trees to sit under and weeping willows, and little ponds throughout the park. I can only hope my future backyard looks half as nice as that park.

Then we walked over to, wait for it.....Buckingham Palace! That's right, I can now say that I have been to Buckingham Palace. It was amazing. I mean, of course we couldn't get too close due to the gate...and all the guards, but I was still close!!

We then walked on down to Trafalgar Square. We passed the National Art Gallery and a good portion of  West End (English version of NYC Broadway) and we just walked around a little.

Finally, after all of that; Carolyn and I got on the tube and made the trip all the way out to her flat. By the way...the tube was actually really cool and fun to ride. And it was surprisingly easy to figure out how to navigate the lines and stations after the first few days (not that I ever went on it alone...I'm not that stupid). We then dropped my stuff off in her room and made our way back out to the grocery store, Tesco, where we bought all of our food for lunches and dinners during my stay.

At around 9 pm we finally had time to start cooking our dinner. Carolyn made a delicious Chicken Parmesan. We then sat around and relaxed after our busy day. We talked and caught up with each other until we both decided we were really tired and should get to bed.

And that was only day one of five! Stay tuned!

I Took a Stroll Down the Old Long Walk On The Day I-ay-I-ay....

....I Met a Little Girl And We Stopped to Talk On a Grand Soft Day I-ay.

First, if you haven't heard the song Galway Girl before (Mom? Dad? I'm looking at you :D) then listen to this before you continue reading. 

http://mp3.li/index.php?q=Celtic%20Thunder%20-%20The%20Galway%20Girl  (first mp3)

And here is a video of the same group (Celtic Thunder) singing the song live! I love Celtic Thunder!!

http://vimeo.com/47715493

Ok, now that we have all heard the wonderful song that I honestly thought everyone knew, we can continue on with my trip to Galway!

We didn't spend too much time in the actual city of Galway sadly. We stayed in a hostle in Galway sure, but the majority of our time was spent elsewere. Our first day was spent mostly on the bus getting to Galway and making stops along the way. We got in at around 7 pm so there wasn't much time to do anything in town.

The next day we spent on the lovely Aran Islands. It was so beautiful that day! It was nice and sunny and not too hot either; just perfect. A small group of us went on a bus tour for the majority of our time on the island. It was really cool to see all of the sites on the small island. We stopped off at some cliffs (not as high as Moher but still rather high up). We all had a great time that day.

Afterwards we all did a little shopping at the woolen shops and bought some cute sweaters. Then we all just walked around and enjoyed the island and each other's company. That night we all got back and had a delicious feast created my Carmel herself. It was amazing.

The next day we had to pack everything up and head back to Dungarvan. It was a nice weekend trip I just wish it hadn't gone by so fast.

Sheep!!!!

One of our other stops during our drive to Galway was to a sheepherder's farm where we got to see a demonstration of sheep herding and sheep dogs. It was pretty cool.

Here a re some pictures of the sheep dogs and the sheep! So cute!

It was pretty cool to see how it all worked and how the dog just knew what to do. We learned how they are trained first by voice command and then by different whistle patterns in order to know what the farmer wanted. 

After that we got to walk around his farm for about half an hour and it was nice and peaceful. We were all just really happy that after seeing sheep everyday we finally got to see them up close and pet them. :)

That was the last stop we made before arriving in Galway.

Hello, My Name is Inigo Montoya...You Killed My Father...Prepare to Die.

So our last trip as a whole Mercyhurst group was last weekend. We traveled west to lovely Galway! Not only that but Tom Keith and his lovely wife Carmel came with us too.

On our long bus ride out to Galway we had several interesting stops. The best stop was at the famous Cliffs of Moher! They were absolutely beautiful and yet terrifying. I am no fan of heights and so I was a little freaked out about the 800 foot drop down to the water and rocks below.

Aside from the fact that these cliffs are amazing and gorgeous, there are also a couple awesome Hollywood moments that were filmed on these cliffs. The first few pictures (excluding the tower picture) are of the left side of the cliffs. On this side a part of the sixth Harry Potter was filmed. Yup, I got to be where Harry and Dumbledore were!

The other pictures where they seem a bit sunnier (including the one with me in it) are of the right side of the cliffs. It was there that a scene or two of Princess Bride were filmed... Inconceivable! We spent a good deal of time at the cliffs just enjoying the scenery.  A few friends and I went and had lunch there as well and we had the closest thing to a real butter beer outside of the Harry Potter theme parks...ginger beer! 

After lunch we wet back out to the cliffs again and just walked along the edge on the path and talked and enjoyed ourselves. You have to be very careful up there though because the winds were up to 50 miles an hour while we were there and that's why they have a railing now, because people have been blown off the cliffs before due to wind. 

Some people were idiots and climbed over the railing and went right up the edge of the cliffs. I couldn't look because I thought any minute they would be blown off the edge. 

While we were up there walking around it started to down pour for about 10 minutes and we tried to keep our hoods up so that at least part of us didn't get wet but the wind just wouldn't allow that. So eventually we gave up and just ran around in the rain like a bunch of 3 year olds. It was pretty fun, not gonna lie!

After a few hours we all piled back onto the bus and continued on towards Galway.

Spring Break in Berlin (part 4)

On my last full day in Berlin I did a few exciting things.

First, a large group of us took the S-bahn all the way out to it's last stop outside of Berlin. What were we doing there you may ask? We were headed to Sachsenhausen; a concentration camp of WWII's Nazi Germany.

Walking through those gates, knowing what had gone on inside their boundaries, was certainly an experience. While an incredibly interesting site this was also a rather upsetting one. Once we were all there we were allowed to walk about on our own and take everything in at our own pace. 

The first place I had walked into at the camp was the Infirmary Barracks. There wasn't much left inside the rooms beyond the pictures and information that was provided. It was all so eerie because, even though most of the equipment was gone, you still kind of knew what had gone on there. Everyone has been taught about the Holocaust to at least some extent in school, so it's probably not hard to imagine on your own what type of stuff had gone on in these barracks. 

My next stop was even more upsetting than that had been...the Pathology Building and Cellar Mortuary. It was here that all of the autopsies were performed on the prisoners who had died in the camp. At first it wasn't so bad. Just like the other buildings the rooms were pretty bare for the most part. It wasn't until I went to the basement that things got upsetting. 

There were rooms that looked as it they had been mostly untouched since they had been in operation. The tile and concrete tables where autopsies had been performed on the victims of the camp were still in place. The cabinets that held all of the tools were still on the walls; everything was just so real at that moment that it was too much. 

After that I saw many other things in the camp including the prisoner barracks. I'm sure many, if not all of us, have seen a movie about the Holocaust sometime in our lives right? Imagine back to that movie; the Hollywood provided images of the tightly packed, ill equipped barracks that housed the inmates. Got that picture? It's most likely not far off from what I saw.

 Many of these barracks had been torn down, leaving the camp looking much more open then it had during the Holocaust. All that was left were metal frames of where the barracks would have been. All of which were placed very close together.

After spending a few hours walking around in the camp, a few friends and I went to grab a late lunch before catching the S-bahn back to Berlin. We all then went back to museum island where we all split up to do our own thing.

I went to yet another museum. (Are you really surprised anymore?) The museum I chose to visit was the Pergamon. This museum is a bit different from most museums. Mainly because instead of having tons of rooms filled with artifacts and descriptions, the Pergamon took actual architectural structures from ancient times and displayed them as well as recreate similar structures as part of the room itself. I know that probably was not a very good explanation so hopefully these pictures will help a little.

 This was the first room you came to inside the museum.

 This was an entire wall of the second room that led to the third room. Over 60% of this recreated gateway is made up of actual fragments of the gate it is mimicking!!

 One of the two mosaics covering 90% of two of the walls in one of the rooms.

Did those help? I hope so. Along with this unique feature, the museum did have a great collection of artifacts from ancient Rome, Eygypt, and Middle East. It was over all a great museum and well worth going to.

After that I made it just in time to meet up with my friend Carol in front of the Berliner Dom so that we could catch the U-bahn to the Berlin Opera House. That's right ladies and gentlemen...I went to go see an opera in Berlin!!! And not just any opera either. I just so happened to be lucky enough to be in Berlin while my favorite opera, Georges Bizet's Carmen, was playing!!

Here is the view from our seats!

It was absolutely fantastic! The sets were amazing, and the cast was phenomenal! The whole company was amazing and did a great job. I loved every minute of it.

And then Carol and I made our way back to the U-bahn station to take the train back to our hotel and we called it a night. 

The next morning we all woke up bright and early to make our was back to the airport and say goodbye to lovely Berlin. While I miss Berlin so much, I am glad to be back in Ireland.