Stand Up and Fight.

I figured since Limerick is the 2011 City of European Sport, I should probably start taking advantage of the sports here. Limerick is a HUGE Rugby city. I mean HUGE. They are obsessed. It is home to Thomond Park Stadium, where the Munster Rugby team calls home, and they are kinda a big deal. (Munster is 1 of the 4 provinces of Ireland, by the way..)

Anyway, I am now a rugby pro (ha, I wish) since I finally got the chance to get to a game on Saturday. It was so cold and so fun to watch. Rugby is such a confusing game to just start watching, but thankfully, I had rugby pros to try to help me understand and it is actually a really exciting sport to watch.

The Red Army (Munster) played Edinburgh and won, of course. 34-17.


  

Scrum.

Irish Thanksgiving.

1 Thessalonians 5:18
'Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.'

I haven't really been homesick at all in Ireland, because 'home' is such a relative term to me. That is, until this Thanksgiving week. And then I wanted more than anything to be with my family celebrating Thanksgiving.  Instead of being thankful for what I have, I was just thinking about what I'm missing out on. But that's not what Thanksgiving is about.  God calls us to be thankful in whatever situation he has placed us in. I have been so blessed this year, from my experiences at Gordon, Wycliffe, and now in Limerick. I have so much to be thankful for.

So this Thanksgiving, instead of focusing on the traditions I was missing, I made my own. I have the most wonderful housemates, who helped me throw a Thanksgiving dinner. Since I am the only American, it was everyone's first Thanksgiving and we had a great time preparing and eating the food together. It was a great American-Irish-Australian-German-Swiss Thanksgiving!

Ciao, Italia!

Biggest impulse buy of my life: plane tickets to Rome. And not regretting it one bit.

My friend Ashely had a last minute opening in her plans to travel to Italy, so I made a spontaneous decision to join her and her friend Kelsey.  We met up in Dublin on Wednesday to fly out that night. Honestly though, longest flight of my life. I was so anxious and impatient, three hours felt like forever! I have been dreaming of visiting Rome since I knew I was going to study abroad, but for a couple reasons, hadn't been able to plan a trip. So basically this was a dream come true.

It is quite a culture shock to be dumped into a city, not knowing a lick of the language and trying to find our way, but we managed. We had found an apartment to rent, on Via dei Balestrari, right off of Campo dei Fiore (a cute plaza that was a market by day and surrounded with fire-lit wine bars at night). It was such a cute apartment in such a nice area. We met up with another friend of Ashely's who is studying in Rome and is fluent in Italian, which was a huge help. We ended up at some random place for dinner and I had the most amazing pasta and rabbit? and bruschetta (if you thought my life revolved around food before, just wait for this post!). Also, the wine in Italy- fantastic.  I realize I could write an entire post about how delicious the food was and write about everything I ate, but I'll refrain. Basically just the best pizza, gelato, cannoli, and pasta I have ever had in my life. 

Dark Chocolate&Rasberry +Nutella. BEST.

Bruschetta. mmm.

YUM.

Best Cannoli of my life.

Thursday started as a day of sightseeing, and we really did see everything. We started at the colosseum (surreal experience- kept thinking I was dreaming and that I would wake up in new jersey). But I didn't wake up. I find it astounding that something that old can be still standing. It was built almost exactly two thousand years ago. Amazing. We then headed off walking around the city, just enjoying every second of it. We explored the Spanish steps, Trevi fountain, Piazza Novana, Piazza dei Popolo, and everything in between, stopping for a couple gelato treats. My favorite part of the day was seeing the Pantheon. I didn't really know much about it until I went to see it, so I'll fill you in on what I learned. It was built a long long time ago as a pagan temple, but was reestablished as a Christian church around 600 AD. I just find it so amazing to see a building that brings to life everything Paul was writing to the Romans and his adventures in Acts.  It's crazy to me that he probably saw the same buildings when he was in Rome. I just can't get over how cool that was. 

Colosseum.

 

Trevi Fountain

Piazza de Popolo

Spanish Steps

The Pantheon

Piazza Navona

Friday we spent across the bridge in Vatican City (yes, I am counting it as a separate country) and it was absolutely beautiful.  BUT, I had no idea the city had a dress code, that apparently I wasn't following.  So Alex fixed me up a nice Pope-approved style with my scarf.  It was great.  Saint Peter's Basilica was just astounding and I think I have about 50 photos of just ceilings from the whole day, just because of how detailed and painted and sculpted each one was. I went to see the Sistine Chapel and the girls were able to snap some illegal photos of the paintings.  I could have sat in that room for days just looking at each painting.  We found out it took Michelangelo 6 years to paint the entire room, whereas the Colosseum took 8 years.  Its crazy to compare those two, but they took basically the same amount of time. We watched the sunset from the top of the Victor Emmanuel Monument, which is just this huge building, now a war museum, that takes up most of the city, although, to be honest, it took be about 4 days of being there to actually find out what it was... Anyway, we could see the entire city from it and that was my favorite part of the day.

Castel Sant'Angelo

Vatican City

Obsession with the ceilings in St. Peter's Basilica.

Illegal photos.

Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel

Monument to Victor Emanuel (first King of Italy)

Roman Forums

Piazza Campidoglo (Michelangelo designed it)

I woke up early Saturday to head to the train station and take a train an hour north to Orvieto to visit Kate and see the rest of the Gordon in Orvieto program.  It was gorgeous. It is such a quaint city, situated on the side of a mountain and you have to take a tram up to get to the actual city.  Probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever been in my life. I absolutely loved it and loved spending the day with Kate. I had the best pizza of my life in this little restaurant for lunch and amazing gelato. It was a great day and once back in Rome,    we just spent the evening outside in Campo dei Fiore enjoying the life. 

Duomo de Orvieto

 

Our flight didn't leave until later Sunday night, so Kelsey and I just spent the day exploring and enjoying the city.  Had lunch around Piazza Navona, did some shopping in the markets, and met the friendliest people.  It was great.  The entire trip is so surreal to me, but I am so glad I have the pictures for the memories. I would so go back to Italy in a heartbeat.  

Okay, and seriously, someone in Rome has a sense of humor
because these signs were everywhere and I was dying.
So funny.

Stumbleupon Ulster.

20 hours on a bus. That was my weekend. But oh, so worth it!

After a chaotic Friday morning involving a history paper, down pouring rain, and an early morning fire drill, I left Limerick to head up to Northern Ireland. Seven hours on a bus, five rainbows and a magnificent sunset later, I met up with Ashley (American from Galway) in Belfast. There isn't that much of a difference between the Republic and Northern Ireland when driving up there- no border patrol or anything like that. Just subtle differences you start to notice on the fifth or so hour drive. The signs are no longer in Irish, they use miles instead of Kilometers, and sterling instead of euros. Other than that, it was just more Irish countryside (which of course I loved). I'd take sitting on a bus watching rolling green hills over driving in PA any day!
By the time we finally got there, it was already dark (because it gets dark at like 3pm. well, not really. but it feels like it is that early) so after we found our cute hostel, we explored the University area, got some bad directions from reception, and happened upon this really cute pub in the middle of no where with cheap food and drinks. It was perfect! (Ye Olde Eglantine Inn- if you are ever in Belfast!)

One of about 500 churches in the city.

Belfast&Blue Doors 

Saturday morning we hopped on, yet another, bus to tour around the rest of the country. We drove out to the coast, which was absolutely gorgeous, saw Scotland in the distance, and made a stop at Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. This was supposedly one of the main attractions in Ireland? though neither of us had actually ever heard of it. But it was fun to cross the bridge and take pretty pictures!

 


After that stop, we traveled up to the Giants Causeway. This is an area along the coast made up of basalt columns of rock. It was mind-blowing to think that this wasn't actually man-made. God is so creative!

 

Dunluce Castle (1200AD) aka I wish I lived here.

From there, we headed up to Derry/Londonderry. It seriously does have two names. Derry for the Catholic/Irish and Londonderry for Protestant/English.  This city is known as the walled city because it is the only remaining walled city in Ireland.  They were built in the early seventeenth century to protect from the English and Scots. It was gorgeous to walk around on the walls at sunset and explore the city. Derry is full of Irish history, being the site of the siege in 1688, and the beginning point of the Troubles which the event of Bloody Sunday. There are eleven murals painted on buildings to depict the Troubles in Derry that we could see from our walk around the walls. I loved the town. I could so live there!

The 'Bogside' with Murals

A day wouldn't be complete without ice cream.

 

Titanic Museum. Or what is there of it so far..

Sunday we woke up with every intention of joining some walking tour. But after getting to the Titanic Quarter too early, we took our own tour by ourselves and decided it was too cold and windy to walk with a guide for two hours. The Titanic was built in Belfast exactly 100 years ago. Until recently, this has been shameful for the community because of the blame that was placed on the men who constructed it. However, now, a Titanic museum and entire gallery is being built to remember the men that built it and those that lost their lives. OF COURSE, I am five months two early, because all I got to see was construction. The museum is opening in April. So we were stuck just looking at dirt and construction equipment. Not that exciting of a tour... But while passing the Odyssey Arena (a week too late to see Selena at the Europe Music Awards here), we decided to stop in and see the mall. Found out it was a movie theatre and took a break to see The Lion King in 3D. So worth it. Maybe my favorite part of the trip. On our way back into town we came across a Titanic boat tour. We figured it was more fitting to learn about the Titanic on a boat rather than on land.

Our Boat Tour!

Titanic Pump House

And then, another LONG ride home to Limerick with a two hour layover in Dublin. But no matter how many misadventures we had, this weekend was one of my favorites. I am so in love with Northern Ireland. 

Bye Belfast!

In Dublin's Fair City.

St. Patrick's Cathedral (not the one in NYC!)
Largest Cathedral in Ireland on the site where
St. Patrick performed his first baptisms in Ireland.
 

I have been DYING to get to Dublin these whole two months I have been in Ireland and I finally went! For those of you who don't know Irish geography, it's pretty much directly on the other side of the island than Limerick and a pain to get to. So, to be honest, I was waiting for a free train ticket and free housing to go, which I got through my program having another weekend together. I caught the train Friday night and met up with the other Americans from my program in Dublin.

Guinness Storehouse!
Found out all about how Guinness is made and advertised since 1759
when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease on the factory.
(We still have plenty of more years to look forward to Guinness!)

Then, we became full-on tourists, exploring the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Temple Bar. It was a full weekend of adventures and I just enjoyed wandering around the city. I would go back to Dublin in a heartbeat. I love it there.

 

Free pint of Guinness at the end!

The view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar.

Ran into the filming of the new show 'Blood and Steel'.
Look for it. I may or may not have snuck into a scene.

Apparently I chose the wrong side of Ireland to live in.
Dublin: always sunny and gorgeous.

 

Collins Barracks from 1702.
Now the site of the Decorative Arts and History Museum.

Found the leprechauns. 

Christ's Church. Founded 1028AD. Pretty old. 

Dublin Castle. 1204 AD. Not as old but still.

Temple Bar.
Don't actually know the history, BUT biggest
tourist bar ever. Very different at night..

Trinity College. Founded 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I. 

Gordon in Ireland!

On Sunday I met up with the only other Fighting Scot in Ireland, Alana, and browsed around Trinity College, stopped at an AMAZING crepe place for lunch, and did some great shopping before heading back to Limerick.