Ireland Finale-- Stuffed and Peeling Animals, Great Bands, and Awkward Bodies

Our last day consisted of site seeing around Dublin! This time all the museums were actually open. Laura and Derek set off to see Trinity College, which I had already seen. I made the trek to the National Museum of Archaeology and the National Museum of Natural History. The archaeology museum was underwhelming, but had cool Viking objects.. like these:

The natural history museum was a whole other can of worms. When most people decide to go to a natural history museum most people expect dinosaurs and saber tooth tigers and mammoths. This is what I was expecting. This is not what I got. It was a museum of death. The ONLY cool thing was the gigantic deer skeleton that was literally 16 feet tall that stood in the doorway to the rest of the museum. It would make a moose look small. 

The rest of the animals were displayed in cases that obstructed their view. The animals in those cases were stuffed and had various goofy expressions on their faces. I'm pretty sure I made people uncomfortable by being surprised by a goofy looking beaver or platypus and bursting out laughing. 

Oh hellooooo there!

I threw in a cool hippo skeleton for good measure

Now you might be thinking hey this is not bad at all. Emma is exaggerating.  I now give you the icing on the cake... A LOT of the creatures in there were made of plastic in varying degrees of decay, melting, and peeling. Take this poor shark for example:

After this museum, which I have renamed The National Museum of Plastic and Stuffed Melting and Peeling Museum, all of us reunited once again! Laura and I went to what may be the coolest and most terrifying, but fascinating museum I have ever been to. 

This was the Human Body Exhibit. For those of you who have no idea what this is it is a museum dedicated to showing the human body, it's organs, muscles, veins, arteries, and everything else inside of us. The catch? They use REAL human bodies that were donated to science. It can't really be described by words so here are some pictures. 

Yes this is freaky, weird, but fascinating. I cannot believe how imaginative a museum could be. They had every single bodily system on display in ways you wouldn't think of. The even had the entire body sliced into thin pieces so you could see a cross section. The section with the lungs was horrendous. They showed a healthy lung versus a cancerous lung and a smoker's lung. The last two were disgustingly similar. 

You never think about veins being cool, but holy crap! They had an arm on display that had no skin, bones, tendons, ligaments, just veins and arteries. I had no idea it would retain the shape of the arm. I can now see why people become doctors. The human body is absolutely fascinating and slightly horrifying at the same time. If you ever get the chance go to see this exhibit!

Part Deux-- Attack of the Killer Fart, Cows, and Nerdiness

Day 2: An Experiment With Barriers, Cows, and Flatulence

Some of you may be wondering about my sanity with that title. You'll understand why it's called that if you keep reading. 

When your day starts out like this:

You know you're in for a weird one.

We made a spontaneous decision to scrap our previously made plans to go to the Cliffs of Moher for the same trip for less money and also included more sites to see! The bus ride took us through Galway all the way to the mini cliffs before the actual stunning ones. The mini ones were just as terrifying and beautiful. 

 

As we traveled on the bus to the Cliffs I realized that bus drivers in Ireland are slightly insane. I also had no idea a HUGE bus could take sharp turns and corners that quickly without tumbling over the edge to our deaths. Props to them.

The first thing we saw as we climbed to the top of the hill was a castle just sitting on the edge of the cliffs and then we turned in the other direction and saw the famous cliffs. It was SO NICE that we actually had sunny weather. It was absolutely stunning.

For those of you unfamiliar with weather in the UK and Ireland.. this was a miracle.

There were signs all over the place to not climb over the stones blocking the people from the edges of the cliffs. Laura and I being rebels decided we would be safe and wanted to be different. So naturally we climbed over and overheard other tourists grumbling about our "idiocy". However we weren't in danger so personally I think they were jealous.

We also had great fun at the castle. We decided not to go up the castle because paying 2 euros to climb some stairs was not worth it. We already had a great video. Me being a parkour fanatic I decided to climb part of the wall. As I blissfully bounded to the doorway where I wanted to do this and old man set in his ways came out of the doorway and as he walked by me he let out the mother of all farts RIGHT ON ME. Needless to say I was not happy. Laura captured the moment perfectly...

But in the end I achieved the parkour stunt once the noxious gases subsided...

We decided to go off the beaten path and go along the cliffs where a few other people were headed. The views were amazing and completely worth the off road walking. We got views such as these:

 

Derek for some reason decided he had a new found love for cows. This is also calf season and mother cows are not the most welcoming during this time... He went into the field and harassed them all as a mother cow stared him down like he was about to take her calf to the butcher. He survived and felt the wrath of his fiance for almost getting trampled.

Moving on, our next stop on the way back to Galway was Poulnabrone Dolmen. It is a 5000 year old tomb. I was the only person on the bus excited about it. I was sitting at the very back of the bus and beat 3/4 of the people off the bus and literally ran to see it. Yes I am a HUGE nerd. But hey, it was COOL. 

I jumped around on the rocks after that and managed to twist my ankle. I also found a hole that "was made for my butt" according to Derek. After this I calmed down a little since my daily dose of nerd was satiated. We did stop at a scenic castle on the way back!

Stay tuned for part 3 the grand finale!

Pubs, Football, Cliffs! Oh My!

I've done it again! I went to Ireland. However, one thing is different. I went with my best friends and saw some really cool things I never got a chance to see. What's not to like? Well... it wouldn't be a vacation with me if weird things didn't happen. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one heck of an interesting trip play by play. Don't worry I won't sit you down and show you a slideshow of all 659 pictures. Phew!

Day 1 & 2: A Journey of Epic Proportions

Many of you may not realize just how complicated it can be to get from London to a hostel in Dublin. Here's what we did and what you shouldn't do since it's overly complicated (but totally fun)

1. Underground from flat to Euston train station. For the non-Londoners that means a LOT of stairs with suitcases.
2. Train to Holyhead, Wales (3 hours of sitting fun... separated from everyone else since we didn't get seats together). It also meant I passed out for most of it.
3. Bus to ferry lobby
4. Stairs to another bus which took us to the ferry. Redundant much?
5. Ferry that made Laura and I sick. BUT... drum roll please.... I saw a SHARK. Yes I freaked out more than I should have, but hey I was excited and it turns out extreme excitement can momentarily cure seasickness.
6. Shuttle to terminal and a taxi ride to hostel where the taxi driver got lost in the city he grew up in.

Oddly enough we were tired by the end of that. (sarcasm for those who didn't pick up on it)

However being the true English ex patriots were are we decided to go see the sites and go out drinking. We made the fantastic choice to follow the music. We ended up in a tiny 2 story pub that had live music every night. We heard one of the best folk blues bands I have ever heard. Those guys can play some guitar.

We even got to meet one of them!

The next day we spent exploring Dublin. Everyone else went to the Guinness Storehouse and had a blast. I spent the day attempting to find some sort of museum/attraction that was open. Absolutely nothing was. I spent the day walking around Dublin in a futile search. Needless to say it was not the best first half of the day.

That night consisted of transport to Galway which was much easier than the trek I described earlier. We got in the football spirit and went in search of a pub that was playing the Ireland Euro cup game. We joined in yelling at the tvs and the Irish spent the rest of the night drinking until they had no more feelings or memory of the sad loss. We had an early night because the next day was nothing short of EPIC.

Next stop: the Cliffs of Moher!!!         Stay tuned for the next blog update in 2-3 days! This will most likely be a series of 3 parts.

I walked to an Irish island... No big deal

"Friendship is held to be the severest test of character. It is easy, we think, to be loyal to a family and clan, who blood is in our veins." --Charles Alexander Eastman

The second half of my trip to Ireland I stayed with a good friend, Lindsey, who I have known since Kindergarten. It's sad to say that we had not seen each other in years, but I was extremely excited to catch up with her and just enjoy a few days exploring Ireland with her. She works as an Au Pair in Skerries, which is a very small beach town outside of Dublin. After making sure Kelsey got on the right bus to her airport I set out for Skerries. The only problem was finding the correct bus station. To give whoever is reading this a mental image of what I was carrying around the following picture should be good enough.

 I lugged all 30 pounds of this everywhere I went.

There are about 5 bus stops in Balbriggin where I searched for the bus station. I walked to one end of the city following someone's directions, while getting looks something akin to "Why in the world is there a tourist in Balbriggin of all places?" This look also followed me to Skerries. Meanwhile, the bus station I needed was directly on the other side of town... 2 miles away. Off I went albeit slightly perturbed.

I managed to get to Skerries in one piece and even found the street and place where I was meeting Lindsey on the first try. Everyone who knows me and my amazing lack of directional skills will know this was a feat worthy of an award. However, I had gotten there 4 hours before Lindsey was scheduled to meet me. I walked around getting odd looks and explored. Then I found what might possibly be the most fun beach in Ireland.

One of the coolest things about it was that in Ireland low tide really means LOW tide. There were a series of islands about half a mile off shore when the tide is in, but when it's out it's possible to walk to them. So I set off for one of them! It is such a weird feeling to walk to an island when something like that just isn't possible back home. The whole time I felt like I shouldn't be out that far, especially since no one else even bothered to walk there either. The picture should also be a good indication of how far from shore I was!

I must have looked nuts because I bent down every few seconds and almost fell each time I did it since I was slightly top heavy from my backpack and I really didn't want to fall in the random puddles. For those who don't know, I have an obsession with macro photography. I really liked the random creatures and plants I kept finding because of their textures and positioning so I tried to take as many creative ones as I could. I'll give you guys a taste of it. I am by no means amazing, but I really enjoy it.

I also crawled all over some very slippery rocks and managed to neither wound myself or fall. This should also be considered award worthy. Here's some of what I saw that day. I was amazed by the colors. It was just too gorgeous for words.

After trekking all day I finally met up with Lindsey! We went to a really cool pub and then called it a night. See part 2 for the rest of that trip!

"Our memories of the ocean will linger on, long after our footprints in the sand are gone." --Anonymous

St. Patty's Day Adventures in Ireland 2012 Part 2

"St. Patrick is one of the few saints whose feast day presents the opportunity to get determinedly whacked and make a fool of oneself all under the guise of acting Irish." -Charles M. Madigan

Face paint and clothed in all green?

 Check!

Waking up at the crack of dawn to get ready and head to Dublin to see a parage?   Check!

Miraculously finding a spot where 2 short girls could actually see the parade?    Check!

One RIDICULOUSLY tall asian defying all stereotypes who stood up at the last second as the parade started?   Check :(

Our reactions?   

We got to see the tops of the floats... we later watched the mind blowingly creative parade highlights on tv at a local pub in Balbriggin.... better than nothing I guess!

We left the parade early and discovered that 11am is a good time to start drinking. We found a pub that was PACKED with nothing but German and French guys. Kelsey and I were approached by 2 of them and we started doing weird dances. I got picked up and flipped! It was sooooo much fun. Kelsey wasn't as lucky. He tried to do the same to her but ended up dropping her. It was absolutely priceless. The whole pub busted out laughing. These boys were also obsessed with our face paint since the Irish don't go all out like Americans do. They rubbed their faces on our cheeks to get paint on them. Such as weird experience.

That day we visited Dublin castle where I cut myself on the date and was entirely unimpressed with the interior which was almost all modern. No wonder it only cost 3 euros. Trinity college was much more impressive. The library would take your breath away! There were thousands of books that were hundreds of years old packed everywhere you looked. It was definitely worth a visit. I want a library like that! We spent the rest of the day and night celebrating in the Irish fashion... I'll let your imaginations take you where it will with that.

 Yes. That is a huge pint full of whiskey with a hint of coke. Great night :)

St Patty's Day Adventures in Ireland Day 1

"Take me drunk I'm home!"  This was plastered on the shirt of someone Kelsey (one of my best friends of 12 years) and I saw as we departed our plane from Leeds, England to Dublin Ireland. We decided to make the most of St. Patty's Day and venture out to Ireland to party with the best of the Irish. We arrived in Dublin airport by 730am after waking up at 4am. This was not a pretty site as I'm sure I looked like I was practicing for a zombie apocalypse movie.

Our plane ride was uneventful, however the man who shared my row was quite entertaining. He looked like the stereotypical gangster from old movies. He was short, stocky, had ridiculous gold bling on his fingers and tattoos all up and down his arms. I'm convinced he was a gangster. His stories about how he missed Ireland since he hasn't been able to get in the country for 40 years helped my thinking too. In typical Irish fashion he also told us we were going to fall in love with Ireland and that Guinness is better than anything else in the entire world.

By mere accident and a misleading website Kelsey and I ended up staying in a VERY small beach town called Balbriggin 30 minutes outside of Dublin city center. By small I mean the population was 300 at the very most.

As soon as we dropped off our stuff we made a beeline for Dublin. Taking Monsieur O' Gangsterhan's advice we decided the Guinness Storehouse would be the perfect place to visit first. Apparently that's what every other tourist wanted to do also. It was pretty impressive with 7 floors devoted to nothing, but processing beer. We even got a free pint and a half! When we first got there we saw photobooths and anyone who knows me will know that I never pass up a photo opportunity with friends. We learned that the Guinness Storehouse was trying to set a world record and make St. Patty's Day the happiest day of the year by taking pledges to be happy and do something nice on that day. Kelsey and I both signed up for this and got free pictures!

After that we ventured out and tried something new! We got a horse drawn carriage and we taken to Temple Bar where we had lunch. We toured the famous Grafton Street and took pictures in St. Stephen's Green. On our way from Stephen's Green we noticed a HUGE festival with Irish jigging going on. We immediately ran into the center and joined all the dancing for about 30 minutes. We probably looked spastic, but we had the time of our lives. We even got on local tv along with about 200 other people in the street. A professional photographer kept laughing at us and we got our own mini photoshoot. I can't wait to see those pictures. After that we went back to the hotel to relax and prepare for St. Patty's Day.

St. Patty's day toast:  "Here's to a long life and a merry one. A quick death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer and another one!"