more from my day in a postcard

Day 4 (continued)- so after we finally got back in the van, we continued up the mountain (in Wicklow Mountains) to Loche Tay or 'Guinness Lake.'

it got it's nickname because (as you can see) it is black and has a sandy beach resembling the head of a pint of Guinness.

difficult to see in this picture is that after the clearing, tucked into the mountain and the trees there is a house, owned by a member of the Guinness family (the clearing is their helicopter pad).

our tour guide

was all too eager to tell us that Tiger Woods has stayed there as well as Michael Jackson (while he was on trial).

<- Tracie and I were blown away by the

views...and the crazy wind.

after taking pics, we enjoyed tea and coffee with chocolate biscuits- perfect Irish picnic :)

we stopped a few more times before eventually getting to Glendalough.

our tour guide took us through

the Monastery and told us all kinds of incredible stories about the city. we saw the Round Tower, St. Stephen's Kitchen (which is actually a church) and St. Kevin's Cross.

local legend has it that if you can wrap your arms around the cross and touch your fingers together, all of your wishes will come true.

i did it! yay!!

after the tour, we hiked to upper and lower loch in Glendalough (remember, 'glen of 2 lochs')

both were incredibly beautiful. this was by far the best day of scenery we've had.

<- this is the lower loch. you can walk right up to it.

once we arrived back in Dublin, almost all of us went out to dinner w b.love. we had some in depth conversations with him about student social life at UT and gained an insiders perspective to politics within the UT prof community. it was a good talk lol

all in all, it was a fantastic day. <3

A different kind of country

Day 4 - today we went to GLENDALOUGH - pronounced 'Glen-da-lock' and spelled 'Gleann Dá Loch' in Irish. it means "glen of two lakes."

just telling you that it's beautiful is not enough, so here we go....

this was our first stop on the tour. it only took about 20-30 minutes to get to this point from Dublin. my camera does not do this view justice.



our next stop was lower loch bré (pronounced 'bray').

it's 40 meters deep, always crazy cold and sort of tucked into the countryside. the water is a dark, almost black color that sparkles in the sunlight. Gorgeous!

i'm super brave, so i felt the water.

in case you couldn't tell, it was pretty windy.

on our hike back to the bus we saw two guys in wet suits walking towards the water with their stand-up paddle boards.

i said "it's a bit cold."
one replied (in an Irish accent, of course) "eh, this es mild, you should see it when its snowin"


the colors of this photo are a bit off because it was taken from inside of our tour bus, but it was important to include because you can see the bogs pretty well AND it's the valley that Braveheart was filmed in :) !!







and now, the moment you've all been waiting for......

the bridge from P.S. I Love You (lol)

this is where Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler first meet in the movie. we spent a lot of time here - more than our tour guide appreciated. it was a pretty bridge/area to enjoy even for non-movie fans.








i was under the impression that if you just walk down this road, a cute Irishman will appear from nowhere and you'll fall in love.

damn it Hollywood, you've let me down again.






Gerard wasn't under the bridge either...












Anyway, that doesn't even cover half of the day, but it's 1am and we're moving into the dorms tomorrow, so i'm going to sleep.

Don't worry, more pics from Day 4 to come...

i'll leave you with a funny Irish proverb that i heard today:

"An Irish man loves his girlfriend the most,
his wife the best,
but his mother the longest."

Did I mention that it's cold here??

Day 3- i've held back from complaining about it so far, because we've been blessed with really good weather, but Ireland is cold. at least, every 20 min or so. the temperature changes drastically when the sun goes behind the clouds - that whole 'dress in layers' thing is Not a joke. also, it's rainy. by this i mean that almost every day there is at least a spattering of drizzle. all Irish people that we've talked to about the weather quickly follow this statement with "well we need the rain to stay so green!".

Anyway, this was the first day that it Really rained, but i'm getting ahead of myself.....Picture time!

This was a day filled with food.

Irish style French toast with maple syrup and berries?? yes please!!

we've been ridiculously spoiled with breakfast choices at this hotel. i'm not really excited about going from 4 star hotel options to nutrigrain bars, lol.





After breakfast and some MusicBox (did i talk about this already?) with Hillary, we met up with the group in the Drawing Room to head to our Official UCD Welcome Lunch.

the colors in this pic are pretty distorted, but this is my roommate Hillary and I in the Drawing Room of the hotel.

Note: dark and ugly day seen out the window is depicted accurately.




Our Welcome Lunch was held at the oldest pub in Ireland! i had a bowl of tomato soup and brown bread, stuffed chicken covered in gravy with mashed and roasted potatoes and bread pudding with tea.










DE-licious meal. Thanks, University College Dublin, i feel very welcome :)

After lunch, we walked around and did a little bit of shopping. this was not the greatest activity because 1. the weather was bad (i think i mentioned the cold and rain) 2. it was saturday and the area/stores were PACKED 3. all of my cash is reserved for alcohol, travel and food - in that order (jk, mom&dad).

What's the best activity for a rainy day? the movies!!! a bunch of us went to see SATC2. it was a little too cheesy for me, but it was def pretty.

*Spoiler Alert* the definition of awkward? 5 American girls sitting in a theater of Irish women watching an American movie that plays extremely stereotypical Irish music every time an overly written 'Irish nanny' is on screen.

The best part of the movie experience (because i'm a Huge nerd) was that before the film, the theater played a PSA from the HSE (the organization that we're going to be doing a project for while we're here. Oh! and while we're on that subject, we found out that our topic is going to be HPV awareness. more details to come on Tues!

we finished the day with some Italian food, then went to bed early in preparation for GLENDALOUGH!!

Good/relaxing day :)

"Hey there stranger, give us a wave"

Day 2 - i decided to play it safe and order scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast. before i leave the hotel, i'll go for the traditional Irish one (i'm really brave).

we took a 3 hour tour (a threee hour tour...) of the city today! our tour guide was epic! he was an Irishman named Garbhán (pronounced 'Garvan'). We started at city hall, then went to Dublin castle, Temple Bar (which is an area similar to 6th street), Trinity College, the Parliament Building (which inspired the design of The White House), lots of mueseums and churches and ended at St. Stephens Green. the entire tour was an incredible (and epic), abbreviated history lesson.

this is me inside Dublin Castle - which isn't very big. notice the "Record Tower," at the very top, which is the oldest part of the castle. this is called the Record Tower, it sits between the main part of the castle and the chapel.

more of Dublin castle from the inside

this is next to Dublin castle. it used to be where the water from the river - used to fill the moat around the castle - would pool. it was called "the black pool," which translates to Dubh Linn in the Irish language. you guessed it - this is where Dublin got its name.

looking at Dublin castle from the outside, you can see several different styles of architecture. Garbhán lovingly referred to this style as "Lego influence"

Christ Church Cathedral. this church is in the middle of the area that the Vikings originally settled when they "blew in" off the coast. it has suffered through Ireland's hard times, once operating as a bar...and then a brothel.


this is a hotel in Temple Bar. it's across the street from a pub where a band called Feedback got it's start.

Garbhán told us the story - after the band had won a big contest, they went to celebrate at the closest pub, which was across the street at this hotel. since they were dressed like a grunge punk band in the 70s, the bouncer told them to "feck off."

this made the lead vocalist of Feedback very upset and as the bouncer chased him off, he yelled "one day i'm going to own this hotel, and i'm going to kick You out!"

....and he was right, except, the band changed it's name to U2. more impressed now? ((this hotel is also mentioned in Gilmore Girls. when they go on their Europe vacation, they spend 2 days hanging out in the lobby of this hotel waiting for Bono :) ))

this street in Temple Bar is named after Rory Gallagher and this is an Exact replica of his guitar (he's Jimi Hendrix's favorite guitarist)

Also notice, all street signs are written in Irish and English (with the Irish on top, of course)

this bridge was designed by the same men that designed the Titanic. most famous bridge in Dublin.

"this pub is older than our country" - this is where Garbhán brought us after the tour for a pint

with Hillary and Tracie, enjoying a traditional Irish meal (fish&chips) at the end of the tour.


Random fact of the day: Vikings (who play a large part in Ireland's sad history) never actually wore helmets with horns on them. it makes complete sense, but was a little disappointing.

a few of us decided to have a low key night to fight the jet lag. we tried to go see Sex and the City 2, but EVERY theater was sold out, so we ended up walking around Dublin for about 2 hours, picking up a couple bottles of wine and heading to the hotel.

on the way home, we saw an ambulance collecting a woman who was the victim of a hit and run. ironically it was right after we had a convo about how Brad was being paranoid about the crosswalks and no one ever got hit. the strangest thing about the scene was that random ppl were walking up to the police, paramedics AND the victim and asking what happened and offering condolences.

it's been a looooong day. Hillary and I have been up for 19 hours straight, so we're going to sack out.

hope you enjoyed the pics!

EU passport holders only

Greetings from DUBLIN!

Quick overview of the trip so far -

the journey - not nearly as good as the destination :) i barely slept on the plane, but watched a lot of movies - nothing great. on the trip from Houston to Newark i spent most of my time watching the guy next to me watch Avatar for the first time, which should NOT be done on a tiny airplane screen (don't worry, i told him)!

arrive in Dublin - i walked into the wrong customs line (note: the title of this post), but once i found where i was supposed to be the customs guy only briefly glanced at my passport and said "Are you well today, ma'am? enjoy your time in Ireland" (in an Irish accent, of course) - perfect greeting.

Day 1 - a bit of wandering around with luggage in tow, but i found the hotel. we hung out in the Drawing Room (with Colonel Mustard) until the whole group showed up, then Professor Brad Love (to be called 'Brad' for the rest of the blog) took us on a "death march" around the city to help fight the jet lag. we walked through St. Stephens Green and had some coffee on Grafton Street. highlight of the day - we saw this incredible band, Mutefish, playing on the street (they sound even better live)

got back to the hotel around 7 pm (Dublin time) and planned on a quick nap then the pub, but after 28 hours awake, we slept through the night. Hillary and I woke up at 4am and I video chatted w/ some Texans (skype me! rmq327), we laughed at some Irish TV, then went to breakfast in our pajamas (which the staff of the hotel just loved).

have to get ready for Day 2! More posts (w/pictures!) to come...

From Ireland with Love ((totally stole that from Hillary)),

Rachel Q