Fall 2007
Kristen Dillane
Jackie Heffner
Ireland
After
a few weeks of adjusting to our new London lifestyle, we had our first
weekend free to travel throughout Europe. While most of us decided to go
to Dublin, Ireland, others traveled elsewhere around Europe. Earlier this
week, a group of us booked our trip through the Student Travel Agency –
STA, not realizing how early we would have to leave for the airport on
Saturday morning. Waking up at 2:30 AM, we walked to the nearest bus stop
in Kilburn Park. It was a little scary waiting for the bus especially
since it was over an hour late and two buses drove right by us! We called
the transportation helpline to figure out if we needed to take a cab or if
a bus was on the way. 15 minutes later were so relieved to see bus N28
coming our way. We finally arrived at the airport and made it safely to
Dublin.
All the girls were nervous to see our
hostel because we didn’t know what to expect. To keep it short, it was
definitely our first hostel experience. The hostel ended up working to
our advantage because it was in a great location to explore Dublin.
Since we all had been up for such a long time and were starving, we
decided to eat at The Hairy Lemon, a traditional Irish pub with delicious
food. Later, we were going to take the Hop-on Hop-off bus tour but
decided it would be cheaper and easier to do it ourselves. Studying our
map of Dublin, we made a few wrong turns but eventually found our way to
Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Christ Church Cathedral, Bank of Ireland,
and ending in Temple Bar.
Sunday morning we worshiped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Not only was the
service wonderful and grounding, but also the architecture of the church
was phenomenal; however cameras were not allowed. In the afternoon, we
walked along the Liffey River to the heart of the St. James Gate Brewery
where we took a tour of the Guinness Store House. The highlight of the
tour was the Gravity bar where we received a complementary pint of
Guinness and enjoyed the 360 degree breathtaking views of Dublin.
Monday’s
adventures consisted of a day trip to the countryside of Ireland. We were
picked up by a small van which gave us the advantage of traveling in a
small group to places larger tours can not. We drove through the
beautiful, scenic mountains and valleys and saw some of the famous film
locations from the movie “Braveheart.” The tour stopped on the mountain
tops, looking down into the Guinness lake, and shortly after we found
ourselves at a spectacular waterfall. Our final destination was
Glendalough, a monastery from the 9th century which survived numerous
Viking attacks. Once the day tour was over, our group made our
way to the airport and arrived back in London safely.
Our trip to Ireland was a great success and very fun. We can’t wait to
travel more around Europe and have fun adventures.J
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