Last Week in Ireland

I can't believe I'm writing my last blog post in Ireland... it's so crazy that the time has flown by this quickly and that I'll be heading to the airport in less than 12 hours! I am catching an 11:30 flight back to Boston, and I'll land at 1:50 pm EST, so it's about a 7 and a half hour flight. I'm waking up relatively early in the morning to make sure I have enough time to get to the airport, so I'll be hitting the hay really soon. Also the picture to the left is from a place near where I took my exams this week! I just loved the lights and had to snap a picture of them :)

This week was super relaxed... I really didn't do too much! I had an exam on Monday, my Irish exam, and I had an exam on Friday, my linguistics exam. Other than those two exams and writing my essay for my Criminology class, I didn't have too many responsibilities. After my Irish exam on Monday, me and a few of my friends from the class went to the bar on campus, and we got a couple of drinks. It was so sad to say our goodbyes at the end of the night... I've seen them three times a week for the past twelve weeks, and we've all gotten really close. Since we're mostly an international class, we're all going back home to different places after this- the U.K., Germany, France, and of course, the U.S. Here's a picture of us all on our last night! It was great fun to hang out with them and I was sad when the night was over.

On Tuesday, I woke up nice and early to catch a bus to Cork! As I said in my last blog post, I had wanted to go to Cork since coming to Ireland, but was even more excited to go once I did some genealogical research and found connections to County Cork in my past. I got there early, walked around the city to get a feel for it, and found a lot of cool little things! Cork is full of beautiful churches- I came across three massive old churches in the city and just loved how intricately they were designed. Below is the Holy Trinity Church, St. Fin Barre's Cathedral, and a little picture of the water in downtown Cork.

I wandered into the English Market, which is basically a big market full of food vendors. There were some cute shops off the side of the market to check out as well. When the Queen Elizabeth II of England took her historic visit to Ireland in 2011, she visited the English Market! So you can basically consider me the Queen of England now :) After that, I walked around some beautiful shopping centres and saw some other cute areas of the city. Then, I met some friends (who had to take a later bus) and we got some lunch at a really unique local pub. After that, we headed straight to Blarney Castle. Blarney was about a 30 minute bus ride outside of the city centre of Cork, but it was easy enough to get to. A 30 minute bus ride took us from a bustling college town to the middle of nowhere, which is always really fun. When we went into Blarney, we got to explore the gardens. They were these really cool grounds full of beautiful nature- funky trees, big rocks, interesting formations of things. There was a lot of history and folklore tied to the grounds at Blarney... we saw sights involving fairies, druids, witches, and even a portal tomb! Here are some pictures of the grounds below...

After a nice walk through the grounds, we eventually got to the castle. The current Blarney Castle was built in 1446, but castles have occupied the site since the 1200s. It was the home of the MacCarthy's, a branch of the ancient Kings of Desmond who were Irish nobility. Today it's mostly known for the Blarney Stone, which is a stone in the castle wall known for bestowing the gift of eloquence to those bold enough to kiss it! Famous people who've kissed the stone in the past include Mick Jagger and Winston Churchill, so if you've decided I'm not the Queen of England I'd settle for being one of its most famous singers or Prime Ministers. I kissed it, of course, but it was a lot harder to do than I thought it was going to be! One of my friends took a picture for me, and I haven't gotten the pictures yet. When I do get the picture of me kissing the stone, I'll share it here :)

The castle was a really cool place. It was definitely built for holding off intruders- there was a garden right by the castle full of poisonous herbs and plants, there was a hole above the main door where people would pour boiling water and oil on intruders entering in the front, and there were numerous windows and places for people to shoot from. I really liked it, and I enjoyed the trip to Blarney much more than I thought I was going to! Also, as an FYI, the Blarney Stone is in the picture below this text on the right. It's to the right of where the man is sitting. You have to lay down, reach back to grab some posts, and scoot yourself over a precipice in the wall in order to kiss the stone... quite an acrobatic feat!

After we got back from Blarney, we ate some dinner, walked around the city, and listened to some music people were playing on the streets. It was so fun to do a little day trip and to get to see more of Ireland! It was very bittersweet that it was my last trip, however.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I didn't do too much besides study and write my essay. On Friday, I got to hand in my essay and take my last final, which was such a relief! Yesterday, I started packing and cleaning up my room, I hung out with some friends, and mostly relaxed. Today, my last full day in Dublin/Ireland, I wanted to make the most of my time. I woke up early and headed downtown. I mostly just wandered the streets, taking in some of my favorite sites from downtown for the last time. I'm really going to miss this city, this country, and its people. It's truly been wonderful to get the opportunity to live here for four months. I met up with some friends downtown, and we went to Trinity College Library so that we could see the Book of Kells! The Book of Kells is a Gospel book containing the first four Gospels of the New Testament in Latin, and it was written in 800 A.D. It's considered one of Ireland's greatest treasures! It was pretty cool to see the book, but honestly, my favorite part was getting to see the "Long Room" afterwards. Does this remind anyone else of Hogwarts?? Below that are some pictures from my adventure earlier.

Later, we all met with one of our friends on campus. The four of us walked around campus, took some pictures, and just enjoyed our last night together. We came back and had a yummy dinner together and then we said our goodbyes! Here are some pictures of us from earlier.

And now here I am, writing this last blog post after packing up and cleaning up my room. As I said earlier, I'll probably head to bed pretty soon, since I have an early morning tomorrow. I have so much to say about my time here, but I need more time to write it. You can expect a summary of my time abroad, my reflections about being abroad, etc. up on this website within the next week or so. Thank you all for reading about all of my adventures, and I hope you enjoyed reading about them as much as I enjoyed writing about them! See you soon, U.S.A!