London-Saturday & Sunday

Saturday morning Hannah, Meghan, our friend Michael, and I took the Tube to St. Paul's Cathedral.  This is the cathedral where Prince Charles and Princess Diana got married.

We are pretty tiny in this picture but here is Meghan, Hannah, and I on the steps.  Just outside this cathedral was the very large Occupy London movement.

From there we walked across the Millenium Bridge.  You can see the Tower Bridge in the background.

Right across the river was Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.  This is the famous theatre that has hosted his plays since the 1600's.  The actual theatre has been burned down a few times and this most recent replica is the only structure in the city of London that's allowed to bypass city code and have a thatched roof.

From there we made our way to Chipotle, yes Chipotle, for a much needed burrito bowl, chips, and guacamole.  It was so delicious and tasted just like home!  We then went to Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.  When we went into Madame Tussaud's we figured it was just a wax museum and we were so wrong.  We first walked through rooms of wax figures of celebrities, athletes, and political figures.  We found it very uncomfortable and odd that they had figures of Hitler, Fidel Castro, and Saddam Hussein.  After that we were led into a haunted house, taken on an amusement ride which taught us the history of London, and watched a 4D movie about super heros.

Saturday night we met up with some British locals that Hannah had met earlier in her program.  We went to a pub in a part of town called Shortditch.  This was a neighborhood where most of the locals hang out and there weren't very many tourists which was very cool!

In London on Sunday's there are a ton of markets.  Hannah brought Meghan, Michael, and I to the Portobello Road market in the neighborhood of Notting Hill.  This market was huge!! There was everything you could think of: jewelry, leather goods, china, sweaters, crepes, toys, wooden figures, produce, etc.  Although the shopping was tempting I luckily only walked out of there with a scarf and an order of fish and chips in my stomach.

On our way back to the Tube we stopped at Hummingbird Cupcakes, supposedly the best cupcakes in London.  This carrot cake cupcake definitely lived up to it's title!

I'll finish the rest of my London trip in tomorrows blog post.  I'm off to bed.  I'm still trying to catch up on sleep from this trip.  Happy Valentine's Day to you all!

London-Friday

We have arrived safely back in Cork after a very busy weekend in London.  We had a jammed packed weekend and saw everything that we wanted to and then some!  When we arrived in London on Thursday night and it was snowing.  This was something I was definitely not expecting to see!  London was like 10-15 degrees colder than Ireland so I am sure glad that I bought a coat and scarf before I went!  Meghan and I became Tube masters this weekend and had no problem finding our way around London.  

While my friend Hannah was at her internship on Friday, Meghan and I probably walked like 20 miles going around to as many sites as we could!  Hannah was able to tell us which Tube stops to get off at for each place which allowed us to move around a lot quicker and find things faster.  It also helped that everything was so close together.  As you will see, I went camera crazy in London.  Here are some pictures of Friday's activities!

Phone booth and Big Ben:

Parliament:

Westminster Abbey:

The London Eye, and yes we rode it!

We then met Hannah during her Lunch break in Chinatown for an all you can eat buffet, yum!

After lunch we went in search of Buckingham Palace.

We ran into this guard on a horse near the entrance of Sr. James' Park which leads to Buckingham Palace.  Meghan and I believe that he overheard me telling Meghan that he was cute.  If you look closely in the picture he is smirking.  Yes, we made him smile for quite a bit of time which we thought was impossible!!  We feel pretty accomplished. 

Heading back to the palace after changing of the guard:

Buckingham Palace and Queen Elizabeth's Memorial:

The Summer 2012 Olympics aren't in the heart of London.  It was too far to go visit the site of the games but we found a countdown!

We were so tired and our feet hurt so bad when we made it back to Hannah's flat that night.  However it didn't stop us from going out on the town with some of the girls on Hannah's program.  We went to a pub called Monarch in an area called Camden. 

Off to London!

Meghan and I are catching a red-eye to London tonight!  The flight is only 1.25 hours which will be nice.  We have both managed to pack for our 5 day trip in our school backpacks so we don't have to pay for baggage.  Once we arrive in London we will be taking "The Tube" (subway) to West Kensington, the neighborhood where my friend Hannah's flat is in.  We are both inexperienced subway riders and we will need to make a transfer so it should be an adventure!  We will be returning to Cork on Monday night and I'll have a lot of pictures to share. I hope you all have a good weekend!

R&G Week

This week it's Raise and Give Week at UCC or "rag week" as the students call it.  It's something that students look forward to every year!

According to the university: Rag week is a week where students participate in a bunch of activities to raise money for a good cause.  There are also a lot of activities going on around campus like karaoke nights in the campus pubs, local jewlery and food vendors on campus, live music, competitions, and games.

According to the students: Rag week is a week where you don't go to class, drink all day, and drink all night.  Almost all of the pubs and nightclubs in Cork have drink specials and themed parties.

For all of my Cyclone readers out there rag week is essentially UCC's version of Veishea.  Here are some pictures of the more appropriate events going on this week.

Local vendors on campus...

Crepe stand, YUM...

Spicy beef Turkish kabab...

DJ on campus...

This is one of the fundraisers that's been going on this week.  These students all have their hand on this car.  They have been standing there, overnight, since noon on Monday.  The last one with their hand on the car gets the car for one year.  Anyone can stop by to put Euros in their bucket.  After they reach a certain amount of money, they get a few minutes to run into the student center and go to the bathroom or buy food.  There were still 3 people on the car when I walked past this afternoon!

Happy 21st Birthday Meghan!

We celebrated Meghan's 21st birthday this weekend in Galway.  On Saturday evening after walking around all day we went to a Chinese restaurant called Ming's Garden and had some spring rolls, sweet & sour chicken, and fried rice!

After dinner we came back and took a well needed nap.  When we were getting ready for the night I surprised Meghan with some essential and tacky 21st birthday decorations.  For those of you who know Meghan, you will understand when I tell you it was a struggle to make her put them on for this picture.

We then went to two different pubs recommended by my roommate's friend.  They were called The King's Head and The Quays. They were so packed inside.  You couldn't even move!!  When Meghan was getting birthday kiss offers from men our dad's ages we figured it was time to move on...

After a selection of free drinks we made it to a night club called Central Park (or CP's as the locals called it) to go dancing.  We had a great night!  When we got back to Cork I had a birthday cake waiting for her from a baker in the English Market (singing candle and all...).

Even though the drinking age is 18 in Ireland and 21 has no significance to them, the Irish celebrate 21st birthdays just like Americans!  It's the weirdest thing.  My roommates say that girls go all-out! We asked them why they do and their response "well that's what the Americans do...". Funny!

The Flickr photo stream that was on the top of my blog stopped working for some reason.  Until I figure it out here's the link to some more pictures from Galway: http://www.flickr.com/photos/73478881@N03/

Galway

I'm home from my trip to Galway! We had such a great weekend.  It was so beautiful there and I would love to go back some day.  We left for Galway at 11am on Friday.  The coach bus that we took was really nice!  The ride was about 3.5 hours and it was so beautiful!  I got to see the Irish countryside, a bunch small towns, cottages, castles, and an occasional field of horses and sheep.

The hostel that we stayed in was called Sleepzone.  The hostel was very nice and clean! It had free computers, wi-fi, a full kitchen for us to use, and free towels!  We stayed in a 10 bedroom all female room.  We met a girl from Spain who works as an au pair for a family in Dublin and a group of girls from Sweden.

After dropping off our bags at the hostel we went walking around the city.  Here is a picture of the Medieval Quarter.  The Medieval Quarter is blocks of cobblestone streets lined with shops, pubs, and restaurants.  About every 50 yards there was a different street performer.  There were acoustic guitar players, a man dressed up like the devil, an old man playing the accordion, and fiddle players. It was so cool!

Meghan and I also visited the Galway City Museum, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and Eyre Square, the heart of the city centre.  We learned that Eyre Square is dedicated to the American president JFK because he visited Galway just before his assassination.  There is also an outdoor carousel in Eyre Square.  It was our hope to ride this at some point during the weekend before realizing that it probably wasn't the best hangover activity.

On Friday and Saturday we had a lot of time to walk along the Irish Sea.  Here of some pictures of us by the mouth of a river, the marina, and the Irish Sea!

Galway was so beautiful and it was great to be by the water and to see a different town!  I felt like I was walking around in post card pictures.  In the next couple days I'll add more pictures to the top of my blog from the weekend.

Meghan had a great 21st birthday!  I'll make a post tomorrow to talk about that.  It's midnight here and the Super Bowl just started.  It plays on a TV station that we have in the apartment but I am wiped out from the weekend.  Good night all!

Hurling & Cafe Mexicana

Last night Meghan, my roommate Elaine, and I went to a Hurling match.  Hurling is another popular sport in Ireland.  If I were to describe it using sports that you all know it would be soccer but instead of kicking a ball you hit a tennis ball with a baseball bat.  It's really intense.  It is a 3000 year old sport and it's the second fastest-moving sport behind ice hockey.  The players are constantly running.  It was pretty difficult to follow the ball around! Click here to watch a pretty good YouTube video that my Irish professor showed us about Hurling.  I tried to take a video myself but the field was so big that you wouldn't be able to see much.  We played UCD (University College Dublin) and they were no competition!  The final score was 38-8.  Here are a couple pictures that I got.

Tonight Meghan and I took my roommate Laura and her boyfriend Johnny out for mexican food.  They had never had mexican food before.  This blows my mind.  Given that mexican is my favorite kind of food, I was so excited to take them to Cafe Mexicana.  Cafe Mexicana is a mexican restaurant in Cork that we stumbled past one day.  It is the only Mexican restaurant in the whole Cork county. Ridiculous?!  They had never eaten a taco before, had never heard of sour cream, and thought that margarita was only a type of pizza.  We ordered a pitcher of margaritas, nachos, and chimichangas.  They loved all of it!  They were big fans of the refried beans.  We decided that next week we are going to make them fajitas at our apartment.

One mistake that Meghan and I made tonight:

Unlike in America, you do not get free chips when you sit down at this mexican restaurant.  After we ordered our margaritas we asked the waitress if we could have a basket of chips so Laura and Johnny could try out the sour cream and different salsas.  This is what we got...

A basket of french fries.  I guess we felt out of our Irish element when we were in that Mexican restaurant. It slipped our mind that "chips" here means french fries.  Shoot.

Well tomorrow morning Meghan and I are off to Galway!  We are so excited.  This will be our first trip out of Cork.  We have packed a couple things in our backpacks to make the trip a little more budget friendly.  These things include: 4 bottles of wine, 2 packages of instant pasta, 2 mandarin orange cups, 1 tube of Oreos, 1 can of sour cream and onion Pringles, and 1 package of chocolate muffins.  Give us a break...it's kind of hard to eat healthy when nothing can be refrigerated.

I won't be taking my laptop with me for fear of something happening to it in the hostel.  I'll be updating you all on Sunday afternoon when I get back to Cork.  I'm sure I will have lots of pictures to share!  I hope everyone has a good weekend!