Ireland: Days 1-3

(NOTE: Lots of other cool stuff happened between spring break and now, but I'm just going to talk about Ireland right now because that's what's presently going on, and it makes more sense to do that come back to the other stuff later.)

This is the first thing I saw when I came into Dublin. Appropriate to Ireland, I think, what with the leprechauns. And the rain, of course.

Being in Ireland after so many months in Scotland feels especially strange because it's very similar to Scotland in many ways, but still different enough that it's weird. I can't really describe it, but I feel like I'm still in Scotland sometimes. And then I notice something different, and I realize I'm not.

It's also a bit strange being on a four-day group tour with mostly middle aged and old people because almost all the tours I've been on up until now have consisted of only students, and on the others I was at least with someone my age.

When I first arrived in Ireland, I didn't see much except like two streets in Dublin and the inside of my hotel room. But when I was riding on the train to Cork the next day, I realized that Ireland is much flatter than I'd expected. A man on the train said that all the hills are on the edges of the country. I was actually kind of bored looking at the landscape between Dublin and Cork because it looked a lot like central Ohio, in a weird way. But later, on the way to Killarney, I looked out the window and suddenly there were huge hills like the ones in Scotland. So some parts of Ireland are oddly familiar, and others are definitely different. And there are also way more cows, as far as I can tell.

I also think there are way more American and Canadian tourists in Ireland than in Scotland. That doesn't seem very fair because Scotland is such an amazing place with a lot of qualities similar to Ireland's. I feel like it gets overlooked because it hasn't been glamorized in a ton of American movies like Ireland has been, and a lot more Americans and Canadians have Irish immigrant ancestors than Scottish ones. There's also this common idea among North Americans that we are all Irish or at least want to be Irish. It's just a shame that more people don't feel as passionate about Scotland, but I guess it's also good because it keeps Scotland from getting too touristy.

Anyway, Ireland is really awesome in its own right, and I've seen a lot of amazing things here. On my first day, my tour group went from the Cork rail station to Blarney Castle. Although its most famous for the Blarney Stone, the castle itself and its gardens are really beautiful and probably more worth the admission price. I did kiss the stone though, even though it seemed kind of silly how people were lining up to do it. I knew that if I didn't do it, I would have regretted it later. The first time I tried, I actually missed it because I didn't realize I would have to lie down on my back and lean over the ledge, and it freaked me out. It's kind of hard to describe how strange the process is, so here's a picture of someone else kissing the stone.

It looks really awkward, I know. It is awkward. You have to aim for that rock all the way at the bottom of the wall, which is difficult for short people like me. And it's disconcerting, even when you know there's a grate and a guy there to catch you. I honestly wonder who thought of doing this in the first place. 

I was disappointed in myself for doing it wrong the first time, so I went back and tried it again. The second time I was much calmer and managed to kiss the right stone, and I was really proud of myself for overcoming my nervousness.

Originally, the whole point of kissing the stone was to get the "gift of gab," which means becoming a really charming, eloquent speaker, like this politician who was somehow associated with Blarney. They also made sure you knew the difference between "baloney" which is "saying a 50 year old woman looks 20" and "blarney" which is "asking a woman how old she is in order to find out at what age a woman is so beautiful."

Besides the castle and the gardens, with their many scenic trails, there's not much else in Blarney besides this  tourist shop called Blarney Woolen Mill. It is the "world's largest Irish store," meaning it's the world's largest Irish-themed tourist trap. When I went in there, I found it hilarious how similar all of the merchandise was to the souvenirs in Scottish tourist shops, except everything was green with clovers on it, instead of plaid with thistles. The restaurant next door was really good, though a bit expensive, and I rather enjoyed that part of being a tourist. 

After Blarney, we drove to this lovely little coastal town called Cobh, pronounced "cove." It used to be a major port that a lot of Irish emigrants sailed from in the 19th century, and later it was used by many cruise liners. The White Star Line headquarters were there, and it's actually where both the Lusitania and the Titanic last sailed from before they sank. The Cobh museum talked all about its history, which was surprisingly interesting for such a small town. Annie Moore, the first immigrant to come through Ellis Island, also sailed from there, and she has a statue in front of the museum.

From Cobh, we took a train to Killarney. I was driven to a B&B there, run by this nice old lady. My room was really bright and homey and reminded me of a room you might stay in at your grandma's house. I was happy to have a double bed and my own bathroom, since I would be there for two nights. I decided to walk a few minutes down the road to get dinner at a hotel pub. They made a delicious chicken burger with bacon and blue cheese and lots of other good stuff on it. I also tried my first Carlsberg, and I liked it alright. It's not very flavorful, but not too bitter either, and it went well with the burger and fried potatoes.

The next morning, I got up early to go into Killarney and explore. It's very much a tourist town, but I found some cute locally-designed earrings and a make-up bag with a cool vintage Guinness ad on it. I've been trying not to buy too many souvenirs in Ireland though because  everything tends to be a little expensive, and plus I have so little room in my suitcase.

I really love my new make-up bag. I even got a matching mug that says, "Black goes with everything." They sell a ton of Guinness merchandise all over Ireland, so I've been able to figure out which stores are overcharging and which are reasonable.

Unfortunately, it was raining the morning that I was in Killarney, so I bought a really cheap umbrella at Dealz, which I think is the same as Poundland. A lot of  companies and chain stores in Ireland are the same ones that are in the UK, but with different names. Like Primark is called Penneys here, and Magners cider is called Bulmers.

Anyway, I found the tour bus in the center of town, and we departed to explore the Ring of Kerry. Of all the things in Ireland that remind of Scotland, the mountains in the Ring of Kerry are the most similar. It seems they are generally shorter than the Highlands though, which means they are somewhat older. But they are still amazing in their own right. I think I've grown used to the Scottish landscape, so seeing something similar in Ireland reminded me of the first time I saw the mountains in Scotland and how impressed I was.

The Ring of Kerry tour was worth it for the views alone, which got better as the weather gradually cleared up. But we made a lot of stops at tacky tourist towns. At least the tourists stops were located in scenic areas, so I was able to get away from them a bit and take some good pictures. And some of the stops were actually pretty interesting. I got to see a replica bog village from the 18th/19th century, which was overpriced and tiny, but still kind of cool. I didn't realize that some families kept their farm animals in a pen in their house in those days. I also got to see two adorable, sleepy Irish wolfhounds, which are my favorite dog breed ever, and a rare type of horse called a bog pony.

I also got to see a sheep-herding demonstration, wherein we learned about different sheep from around the world and how the dogs are commanded to herd them. That was my favorite part of the day, besides the mountains, and it made me want to watch Babe that night.

Basically every place we went on the Kerry tour made me feel like I was in an alternate version of Scotland, especially the last part when we saw landscape that seriously reminded me of the Isle of Skye. I didn't realize that Ireland had hills like that, and I'm glad I got see that awesome side of the country.

When we arrived back in Killarney in the evening, I shopped around some more and then had dinner in town at this traditional restaurant called Bricin. I got the "boxty," which they are known for, and it was basically a potato pancake with lamb stew folded inside it. It was really delicious, and I wish I had been hungrier so I could have finished it. I also had some great carrot soup and Irish brown bread with my first ever pint of Murphy's. The Murphy's brand is from Cork, and it's apparently Guinness's main rival. It's almost the same beer though, just a little bit of a different taste. I don't know which I like better, but Guinness is the one that's more widely available at home, so I guess I'll be sticking with it either way.

On my third day in Ireland, I had to get up super early for the shuttle to Limerick, so I slept most of the way there. I was wide awake after that first leg though because our tour guide that day was fantastic. He took us through Limerick and pointed out the road that Frank McCourt, who wrote Angela's Ashes, grew up on.  

We drove from Limerick to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, which could have seemed like a really touristy place, like the bog village the day before, but our tour guide told us a lot of cool history and info about the stuff there which made it way more interesting. There was also a tearoom in the village that sold homemade scones, and they were still warm inside when you got them.

The castle was pretty cool too because they had everything set up like it would have been in the Middle Ages. There were some medieval tapestries and 12,000-year-old giant deer antlers mounted on the walls.

After the Bunratty, we went to Doolin, which is a little village with a really good pub where we had lunch. There was also a beach with some ancient rocks that had been sculpted by the wind and salt water to look really funky. I had never seen anything like them before.

The sights just kept getting better though because next we headed straight to the famous Cliffs of Moher. They were so breathtaking, and I took about a hundred pictures of them. I could have walked along them all day. The weather was perfect too, and our tour guide even said it was the best he had ever seen there. The sky was so perfectly clear and blue that I couldn't find any pictures online that made the cliffs look as amazing as they did in my own amateur pictures.

Not even this photo looks as good as the cliffs did in person.

I thought we would be done after the cliffs, but because we were ahead of schedule, we also got to stop at Burren, which is this really unearthly-looking rocky landscape along Galway Bay. It was kind of similar to the beach at Doolin, but on a much larger scale.

The cliffs were small, but still so cool.

From far away, it looks like the surface of the moon.

Our tour guide knew a lot about Ireland's history, and he told us some pretty sad stuff about their bad economic times and history of emigration. He pointed out that most of the ruined stone cottages were probably abandoned during the potato famine, and the plain stones lying in the old church graveyards were markers for poor people who died of starvation during that time.

On a lighter note, Galway Bay is remarkable, and I could not get enough pictures of it.

The last attraction was Dungaire Castle, which was restored in the 60s and 70s and is used to host banquets during the summer months. 

There could have been no more perfect ending to my day than getting to stay at the Radisson Blu in Galway. I don't think I paid more than anyone else for my tour, but I'm pretty sure I had the nicest hotel. After all of the hostels and tiny B&Bs and I've stayed in, having a fancy hotel room with a king-sized bed was ridiculously exciting. I even had some time to get dinner in Galway (Limerick ham panini, yay!) and check out one of the pubs where random bands just show up to play traditional Irish music, like they did in the old days.

So far, Ireland has been great, and I'm really glad I decided to come. I know I'm going to be returning to a final exam when it's all over, but when I think of all the stunning things I've seen, I don't mind at all. I just have to make sure to do some serious studying next week.

Song of the Day (because I ended on Galway):

Glencoe & Arran

So I realized that I don't have much to say about my day trip to Glencoe except that it was really fun, and I got to walk around Loch Lomond, Glencoe, Fort William, and Inverlochy Castle. I even made a friend, Anni, to explore with me. The great thing about the tour was that we were allowed to wander around and do whatever we wanted as long as we stayed safe and made it back to the bus on time. So I got to see a lot of parts of the landscape that were off the beaten path.
Our tour guide Gary, who runs Student Tours Scotland, was also really entertaining, and he told some funny stories and old Scottish fairy tales throughout the day. I enjoyed the tour so much that I decided to come to one of the free pub nights in Glasgow with Anni a few weeks later, and that was a good time as well. I hope I get the chance to take one more tour with the company before I leave Scotland, but sadly, I don't think I will have time.

Anyway, Glencoe was amazing and totally worth coming back to see.

Another big trip I went on was a weekend in Arran, organized by Arcadia. Arran is a beautiful island off the west coast of Scotland, and like many of Scotland's islands, you need a boat to get to it. On Saturday morning, we set out from Glasgow to take the ferry to Arran. When we got there, the thing that immediately struck me most about Arran was the palm trees. Even though it's not a tropical island, it still never gets cold enough to kill the palm trees, because of the jet stream. The town part of the island reminded me of the southern U.S., like Louisiana or something, especially because of all the summer homes we saw there. Arran is a very big tourist destination, but outside of the port town, it's still very remote and rural with fantastic hills and mountains.

We didn't go hiking actually, but this is what the mountains looked like in the distance. I would love to come back and climb some of them.

The first place we visited was Brodick Castle, which was more like a palace than a castle. The furnishings were really fancy, and the cool thing was that the rooms got older the further you went into the building. That was because the castle started out as a small military stronghold, and then its subsequent owners gradually added onto it so they could live there in comfort.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so here's one I found online.

After the castle, we stopped at a tiny museum about Arran's history, but it wasn't very interesting. So my friend Steph and I spent most of the time hanging out in the tearoom with Ty whom we'd previously met on the Borderlands trip. We had a good conversation, and I ordered some really delicious Victoria sponge cake.

From the museum, we had a long, bumpy ride to the hostel on twisty dirt roads. Everyone felt pretty gross, including me, and I rarely get carsick. Unfortunately, it was dinner time when we arrived, and nobody felt very hungry. But by the time we got sorted into our hostel rooms and ordered dinner at the restaurant down the road, we felt more like eating. The food was pretty good, and I had my first Belhaven Black, which I liked. Belhaven Best is one of Scotland's major beers, next to Tennent's. I don't particularly love the regular Belhaven, but the stout is better. 

After dinner, we watched this really goofy movie from 1949 called "Whisky Galore" about a whisky shortage in a little Scottish town during World War 2. Everyone in the town is really sad until a boat wrecks and dumps tons of crates of whisky into the sea, so the town takes it and has to hide it from the government officials. The moral of the story was literally "don't drink whisky or it will ruin your life." It was way funnier than anyone expected, and I think we all enjoyed it.

The walk back up the hill from the restaurant to the hostel was a real adventure because it was pitch black outside, and there weren't even any stars or moon in the sky because of the heavy cloud coverage. We had to use our cellphone screens as flashlights.

The next day, we visited some ancient standing stones, which are basically the Stonehenge of Scotland. I think they're older though, and way taller. The nice thing about Arran's stones is that, unlike Stonehenge, there are no crowds and you can walk right up to them and touch them. The only kind of bad thing is that you have to walk down a really muddy road for about a half an hour to get there, so we were kind of late getting back to the bus. They were my favorite part of the trip though, so it was worth it, and we still made it to the ferry in time. The road to the stones was also really misty and scenic and a few other people agreed with me that it was a perfect picture of what we had imagined Scotland would look like before we came.

The boat ride back to the mainland was much bumpier than the one to Arran had been, but at least I didn't feel sick. We were all really tired by that point though, so we sort of snoozed between conversations on the ferry. 

The second to last thing on our agenda was another lavishly furnished castle, this one from the Georgian era. Culzean Castle had a really spectacular seaside view, and apparently you can arrange to have your wedding there. I'll have to keep that in mind because I would love to have my wedding in a castle, and this one looked particularly perfect.

There are also some rooms in the castle that they gave to Dwight D. Eisenhower after World War 2, but we weren't allowed to see those.

The final stop on our tour was the Whitlee Wind Farm, which most of us were not very excited about. I thought it could still be kind of cool though, and it actually was interesting to learn about how everything worked. The wind turbines were way bigger than I'd imagined, and when you stood directly under them and looked up, it looked like they were slowly falling on top of you. 

In the end, the Arran trip was fun, and it made me want to come back someday and see more of the island.

Song of the Day (driving and walking through Arran made me think of this song for some reason):

A Very Belated Account of Spring Break

So I started writing this post about a month ago, and I'm just now getting to finishing it. I have a lot of stuff to recap besides this, but I'll keep this one post dedicated to spring break. Hopefully I can get to finishing my other posts soon!

Saturday, March 30th

Since, I had turned in a paper the day before, I spent most of Friday being lazy and waiting until Debbie arrived at around midnight. She stayed over at my flat for the night, and we got up fairly early the next morning to catch a train to Glasgow. I had only been to Glasgow once before for the subcrawl tour, so I was eager to see other parts of the city.  We decided when we got there that we should hop on the double-decker tour bus so we would be able to see all the highlights in the little time we had there. We sat on the open top because it was surprisingly sunny that day, but whenever the bus moved, the wind it generated was freezing. It was still a really good tour though, and the guide told some hilarious jokes. There's so much to see in Glasgow, and I'm really excited to go back and check out all the things that they showed us. I think Glasgow might actually be my favorite city in Scotland, next to Inverness.

Here is a map of the route we were on:

We got off at the Glasgow School of Art so we could take a tour of the main building, which was designed by the famous architect Mackintosh. The tour was very unique because it focused on the artistic elements of the architecture, and I think that made it more interesting than visiting a regular museum. The cool thing about the building was that it looked fairly modern and even kind of art deco for something built in the 1890s and early 1900s.

My favorite part was the old library, which is now used to house the special collections.

After visiting the GSA, we did a little shopping, since Glasgow has the best shopping in the UK, outside of London. They have one of the only Forever 21 stores in the country and even a Tiger, which is a Scandinavian company that Debbie said is all over Copenhagen. I went to Greave's Sports and bought an official Scotland rugby jersey, which I've been wanting for ages.

Unfortunately, since everything in Scotland seems to close at 5pm, we weren't able to do much else. We decided to walk to the Glickman's Confectionary, Glasgow's oldest candy store. They had some really fantastic tablet and macaroon bars, and the nice lady there even gave us discounts.

After that, we had to catch our train to Inverness, and we arrived at about 9:30 at night. Everyone in Inverness seems to be ridiculously nice, which is one of the reasons I love it there. Some random guys asked us if we needed help when they saw us standing outside the train station with our map, and they directed us to our B&B. The guy who ran The Quaich B&B we stayed at was also extremely nice, and he stayed up late to let us in and give us our room key. He even gave us a map with restaurants that were still open for dinner. Then, when we were eating at a Chinese Buffet, a guy at the table next to us struck up a conversation, and we talked to him for a while.

But the best part of Inverness was the Hootananny pub. Every night, they have a traditional Scottish band on the bottom floor and a rock band on the top floor. The band upstairs was called the Imagineers, and they were good (the lead singer sang with a great Scottish accent), but the band downstairs, the Mad Hatters, was AMAZING. There were two fiddlers who played and switched off so effortlessly, and their songs made great dance music. I could have listened to them all night.

However, I was still really glad to come back to the B&B. Our room was super cute and cozy, and I fell asleep pretty quickly.

Sunday, March 31st

On Easter morning, we had to get up rather early for breakfast. The great variety of food was kind of like an Easter brunch, and the B&B owner and other people eating with us were fun to talk to. I love that they do their eggs sunny-side-up in the UK because restaurants in the US don't like to do that for health reasons, and it's nice to have eggs a different way than scrambled, for once.

After breakfast, we walked to Inverness city centre and got on the tour bus that would take us to Isle of Skye. It was a smaller bus than I'd anticipated, but I got used to it. It was a perfect blue sky day, so Loch Ness was especially beautiful as we passed it. We even got see Uruqhart Castle in the distance.

Omg, da monstah!

The next stop was the public restrooms, which wouldn't have been exciting if there weren't two Highland cows in the field right next to them! These were the first Highland cows I got to see up close, and the tour guide gave us food to feed them. Even though they're pretty gentle animals, the cows were difficult to pet because they kept swinging their heads around, and we had to avoid getting hit by their huge horns.

The ones we saw were black like this. The black ones are a rarer variety than the red ones because when Queen Victoria first visited Scotland and saw them, she said she liked the red ones better, so people only bred red ones until the black ones almost became extinct.

After visiting the cows, we went to Invermoriston, which had a really pretty little creek with a bridge over it. We threw sticks into the water and chased them to the other side to see who "won" the stick race.

You can rent cute little cabins here. I want one.

On our way to Skye, we drove past some beautiful mountains with a large loch in front of them. I didn't know it at the time, but I think the mountains were the Five Sisters of Kintail, which are supposedly the most beautiful mountains in all of Scotland. I agree with that claim because they were the most amazing thing I saw on the whole trip. I tried to take pictures, but they really don't compare to reality at all. They were one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen in my life, even more than Glencoe (which was another great trip I will describe in a later post).

The reflection in the water was so cool.

Next, we stopped a loch which I think was called Loch Duich. We wandered around there a bit and placed out orders for lunch at a little bar on Skye. The loch wasn't far from Eilean Donan Castle, which I was really excited about because it's one of the most famous castles in the world, and the one that I'd most wanted to see. It wasn't as isolated in person as I'd imagined it would be, mostly because of all the tourists coming in and out all the time. But it was still very scenic, and the interior was pretty cool. Apparently the castle was mostly destroyed a long time ago and remained that way until the early 1900s, when a family bought it and rebuilt most of it so they could live there in the summer. It still belongs to that family, but they let people tour it, and it was kind of interesting to see a castle that people actually live in.

You can see a bit of scaffolding on the back where they were renovating, but most of the castle was still tourable.

After Eliean Donan, we finally moved on to the Isle of Skye. I had heard the landscape was really cool, and it definitely was. There were some amazing hills, like the Red and Black Cuillins, and a little beach with a great view of Bla Bheinn off the shore.

We headed back to Inverness after that, and had time to stop for some tea and biscuits at a nice hotel. Also, in the tour bus quiz, Debbie won a Highland cow poster, which she really loved.

Once we arrived in Inverness, Debbie and I dropped our stuff off at our hostel and had dinner at an Italian restaurant. When we got back to the hostel, we found out that the people who were originally going to stay in our room had moved to another one.  So we got the room all too ourselves, which was helpful because we needed to get up at 5am to catch our train.

The next morning, I had enough time to show Debbie Stirling's campus and take her to the Thistles mall before she head to leave for Edinburgh airport. In the end, we agreed it was a really perfect, problem-free vacation.

The Student Radio Association Conference

In order to keep this post from getting any more eternal, I'm just going to focus on highlights. I went to the conference in Leicester, England, with Lauren, Craig, Fanny, and Leigh, who are all full-time Stirling students on Air3 Radio, Stirling University's student station. They were all really fun people, and I'm glad that I got to know them as we traveled, hung out, and attended the conference sessions together. The conference itself had some good information, but a lot of it was pretty straightforward, as well. I did learn some things, and it was cool to hear about the ways in which UK radio is different from US radio.

There was this one guy who gave a lecture about international radio, and he totally slammed the US, so it was sort of awkward and hilarious at the same time. He clearly didn't realize there might be an American present. Craig tweeted at him about it and the guy tweeted back something like, "haha sorry, I hope she understood why I said that." I actually didn't understand his particular reasons, although I do think American radio has its problems, just not anything he identified. But it was still a pretty funny situation overall, even though he pretty much degraded my entire job market. I guess I just have to make some awesome American radio to prove him wrong.

It was really cool to be part of a student radio station at a conference, since WDUB doesn't do anything like that, and I'm glad that I went and had the experience.

However, the part of the trip that I found the most fun was just hanging out after the conference was over. Our train bookings got messed up and were really late at night, so we ended up going to dinner at Wagamama and seeing a movie, Jack the Giant Slayer, together. Afterward, we hung out at a pub and then got on the train at midnight. We had a crazy 3 hour layover in Sheffield, so we hung out a McDonald's full of drunk people. Even though we were all dead tired, I think we still had a lot of fun, as we played some games to pass the time, like the one where you stick a paper with a name to your forehead and have to guess who you are. I don't remember much after Sheffield though because I was either asleep or basically sleepwalking, and I'm pretty sure we all went straight to bed when we got back to Stirling.

So that's most of my spring break. I also went on a day trip to Glencoe at the very end, but I'll save that for my next post. I promise it will come much sooner than this one did!

Song of the Post (because I have been a long time gone, sorry):