As many of you may have already seen, Jason surprised me with flowers on Valentines day. AND they arrived while we were on face time talking with each other! How he managed that? I'm not sure, but it was the best surprise I have ever received. Over the top Jason! Missing you dearly, but so glad we could share some vday chocolate over love letters from each other :) Thank you for making it a special day!
As I mentioned in last weeks post, I went on a tour of the Ring of Kerry this weekend! There is a lot to say, but I will try to keep it to the most important things.
This tour was arranged by our university, UCC, and we did this one with most of the group from CSB/SJU with only one person missing so that made 14 of us going together! We joined up with about 30 ish other international students from UCC who were mostly Americans. So each of us paid one fee for the weekend which included transportation, food, hotel and touring and entrance fees for any of the places we visited. It was well worth our money thats for sure!
We left Friday afternoon and headed to the Crag caves in Castleisland in County Kerry. These were on the way to the hotel so it made sense to stop. They were very cool and they were huge! I think they were at least a few miles long? But only a small part of it has been made for people to see. Anyways, I hadn't seen anything like it so it was interesting!
We got to the hotel a few hours later and they had dinner waiting for us. Let me tell you that one, having food made and delivered to me was a beautiful thing and two, this food was reeeaaalllllyyy good. The first night was my favorite and I chose salmon with vegetables and baileys cheesecake for dessert. YUM. We were all struggling to move afterwords which was not really in our favor and you'll see why. After dinner we had a talk about gaelic football and the history behind it. It was cool to hear this from a famous former player of the game and he talked with a lot of passion, you could see why he played for so long! One thing that stuck out to me about this is that the high competition teams don't get paid and the fans from both teams will celebrate before and after the matches, no matter who wins or loses. It is more of a celebration of their culture and for the fun of the game than for rivalry, which I really thought was neat.
After that we all learned how to Irish step dance! Which is why it was not so great to be sooo full! We learned three different dances and they were actually very similar to square dancing. It was fun because we all were making fools out of ourselves and we didn't really mind. It was our workout for the day though we were all breaking a sweat!
The next morning we headed out after a buffet style breakfast. The first stop was Valentia Island, which is a small island in county Kerry in the Atlantic Ocean. It is famous for being the place where the transatlantic cable was laid to get to North America, and the cable ran from here to Newfoundland. We were incredibly lucky with the weather and the sun was out pretty much all day! Compared to some friends who had to sit in the hotel most of the day in previous weekends we were sweating and taking layers off at some points.
First we stopped at a viewing point on the Island where you can see the Skellig Islands in the distance. Skellig Michael is where one of the UNESCO world heritage sites is located. It is an old monastery built into the side of a rocky island and monks lived there for many years. In the summer months many people take a boat out to the island and climb the hundreds of steps to get to the top and see the monastery and the view. The closest we got was to watch an informative video about it and see the island from a distance, but it was very interesting and a beautiful view! It sparked my interest of maybe going there in April? Maybe!
We walked/hiked up a hill to the top where we could see the Fogher cliffs and views of the rest of the Island. Our guide gave us about an hour and a half and it was about 1% of the time I could have spent here. It was so beautiful! The hike up to the top was filled with picturesque irish countryside and sheep were everywhere! This was probably one of my favorite things that I have done in Ireland, right up there with the Aran Islands. The weather probably had a lot to do with it, and we were all saying "what country are we in, this can't be Ireland!" We headed back for lunch after that, of which I indulged in a fried brie cheese salad. Mom, you would have loved this! Apparently fried brie is a thing here so we will have to get that while you are here!
Next we went to see two stone forts called Cahergal and Leacanbuiale. They were both circular stone forts and they also had amazing views of the Island and the town. We spent some time there learning more about the forts and taking pictures. In one of the forts, there were stairs that went back and forth all the way to the open top so of course we took advantage of that as well to get a better view. We headed back to the hotel after this for some free time, which most of us spent doing homework, and then we had dinner. I took advantage of the fish this weekend and got beer battered fish with veggies and apple pie for dessert! So good. After dinner we were taught some Irish traditional songs by a local performer and then we had a trivia game that was put on by the leaders of the trip.
Flowers from Jason :)
Baileys Cheesecake!
In front of the Skelligs- Photo Credit Nicole Pagel
Fogher Cliffs- Photo Credit Megan Favorite
Sheep!
Steps of the stone fort
Sunday was probably one of my favorite days in Ireland yet! It was just a very unique day, with a little bit of everything. This day was also full of things that Jason would absolutely love so that made it extra special. We hopped on the bus again after another very yummy breakfast and checking out of our hotel rooms. The first stop was Derrynane beach in Caherdaniel. Beaches are actually one of my favorite things. It is funny to think that I have been on a beach in Virginia on the other side of the Atlantic too! We had about an hour here and again, it was like less than 1% of the time I could have spent there! It was a weird feeling to be on a beach all bundled up with the wind keeping you nice and chilly but I very much enjoyed looking for shells and walking along the sand and smelling the sea :) And of course skipping a few rocks (or attempting) into the water for Jason.
Next we drove through the rest of the Ring of Kerry which included Killarney National Park. It was amazing! When I think of Ireland I don't normally think of mountains, but there they were! We drove right through them and some of them were even snow capped. It was a very beautiful bus ride. We stopped for a picnic lunch at a spot called Ladies View, which had an amazing view of the mountains and some of the sea. Definitely one of the most beautiful spots I will ever eat lunch in! We kept on driving through the national park for a bit and stopped at the Torc Waterfall.
Torc waterfall was not too far from Ladies view so we got off the bus again to go walk around the river up to the waterfall. The pathway and the trees were all covered with moss. It honestly looked like something out of the Lord of the Rings! The waterfall was beautiful and it was fun spending some time playing on the rocks and taking more pictures! Our last stop was Muckross house and gardens. It was this big old time mansion that had a view of mountains and a lake right out the back door. We were all dreaming of living somewhere like that someday :)
All 14 of us that went on this trip! Photo Credit -Bridget Foley
Derrynane Beach
Ladies View- Killarney National Park
Torc Waterfall
Playing on the rocks!
Not sure what is on the agenda for the upcoming week, but I'm in Ireland so it'll be grand :)
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