adventures in 'stab city'

Bunratty Castle--headed for the banquet

Bunratty

This picture turned out a lot cooler for everyone else cos they were tall enough to stick their heads out. thanks mom and dad.

Bunratty Castle

View of Limerick from King James Castle

King James Castle

So Europe has these really amazing things called 'Bank holidays.' Their purpose...who knows. The result...no school (and for some, no work). Awesome if you ask me. Discovering that we were going to have a long weekend, some of my friends and I decided that we wanted to leave Dublin. Our first choice was Galway, but due to a jazz festival (and the city's sheer popularity) all of the hostels were booked. Second choice, Cork, full too. Third choice, Limerick. We found a bus and a hotel (that's right, not even a hostel) for 20 euro a night and booked that little baby up. Soon after booking our trip we find out from Don (one of our directors--'God' as we like to refer to him) that little ol' Limerick is known as 'stab city.' Great. Everyone who we talked to about it said it was great 'crack' (irish slang loosely translated as 'fun') but just to be really careful, hold your purses close and don't go anywhere after the places close (like no food or nothin') and to just take a cab back to the hotel. A little worried we left on Saturday morning, fully prepared for anything and with no clue as to what we were going to do once we got there.

We got to limerick around 2, got to our hotel and found out that we couldn't check in yet (even though online said check in was at 11) so luckily 'Eddie Rockets' (yeah, you guessed it...Ireland's version of Johnny Rockets) was next door so we waited in there with burgers and oreo milk shakes. yummmm. It was really rainy the whole day so we were trying to decide what to do. We decided to stay in our rooms and chill out for a few hours before heading in to city center for dinner and 'pub activities' to follow. The rooms were really nice and there was a double bed and then a couch that had a mattress that pulled out from underneath--holding 3 people in each. A couple hours of napping/reading later we made quite the discovery. The back couch cushion was one giant pillow that made the most awesome flying contraption. Here we were a room full of 20 (and one 21) year olds jumping from the couch on to the bed sailing on a couch cushion. Much more fun than it sounds and I suggest ALL of you (no age requirement here) to try it out. We got some good pictures but they're not on my camera so I'm sorry but you guys will have to imagine. We got the 3 from the other room to come over and insisted they test it out. About an hour later--and after convincing ourselves we could not come all this way just to stay in and 'mattress dive'--we grabbed a taxi and headed for the city.

The Cab drivers were all really amazing and when they found out we had heard it was called 'stab city' they did their best to make us feel comfortable. The driver drove us to the main 2 streets that were safe and told us which bars were good and which place to eat at and he gave us his personal number to call if we were ever lost or needed a ride at any time. It was really nice and his suggestions were great! The club we went to after dinner was owned by his brother (or maybe his brother just worked there, who knows) and after we left we gave the driver a call and told him all was well and thanked him for his help and suggestions! It was just one of many many examples of the good nature people have over here and how willing they are to help and make you feel comfortable.

The next day (as seems to be the pattern) was absolutely beautiful and we were excited to get out there and explore. As recommended by our cab driver the day before, we started off by going to King James Castle. It was really nice and there was a whole little museum before hand that gave you a little history. Turns out King James never lived in the castle and only visited like twice or something weird. The view of Limerick was really pretty and it was a good way to start off our day. From there we decided we would go to Bunratty Castle, which the cab driver had said was more fun (but a little further out). We saw an advertisement for a four course medieval banquet that was held at the castle. Usually this kind of thing isn't really my style. I like more authentic experiences and often enjoy more of a local atmosphere but after thinking about it for a while--the money that would be spent on dinner and a night out as well as the opportunity to experience a huge meal in an old Irish castle--I decided it would be worth it. The promise of free flowing red and white wine didn't hurt either. So after some group collaboration we decided to call and make reservations for that too.

The castle was smaller than King James but BEAUTIFUL. There was a recreated village around it with shops and houses and farm animals. I can't stress enough how beautiful it was. It felt so much like fall and all around were amazing fall colors and fallen leaves. It was like Oregon only with a castle. The only thing i was missing was a cup of hot apple cider and capping the night off with pumpkin carving. We walked around for a couple hours and saw piglets, goats, Irish wolfhounds (freaking cute), ducks, chicken, a peacock and I'm probably forgetting some others. They were all sooooo cute.

The Banquet was really great. All the people working at it were in full medieval gear and said things like lords and ladies. We started with some honey-mead wine and Irish brown bread. Then came some delicious potato and parsnip soup. Then spare ribs. Then chicken and vegetables. Then this amazing desert. And, I can't seem to mention enough, red and white wine throughout all. Oh and to make it a truly authentic meal, we had no silverware just steak knives--our dagger. The people working at it stood up front and sang good ol' Irish folk songs during the meal and even included us in 'wild rover.':

(chorus)
And it's no, nay, never, (4 claps)
No nay never no more,(2 claps)
Will I play the wild rover (1 clap)
No never no more.

The meal was finished with tea and coffee and wine induced song outside the castle (journey and johnny cash would be proud their songs are sung so frequently outside pubs and even castles) as people headed for their cars (which now that I write that seems a little frightening) and cabs. It was a really great day and I was glad we decided to do the banquet. We left the next day, having survived 'stab city,' and learning that the greatest threat there may not be the stabbings but unlimited wine.

We leave for northern Ireland on Thursday which I am really looking forward to. I have spent so much of my time here learning about it, it will be cool to see the place where so much happened. As I realize that I only have 2 free weekends (probably only 1, realistically--as I still hope to meet up with Melinda) I am starting to stress out about all of the work and essays that I need to complete by the time I leave. A few of my essays aren't technically due until the 14th of January (because that's when their semester actually ends) but I am going to do my best to get them done before I leave--I know the last thing I'm going to want to do when I get home is write essays. We'll see how it goes. I've never been one to turn down an all-nighter and I don't see why one in Ireland should be any exception.

Hope you all have a good Halloween! (by the way--be excited for pictures from Halloween in northern Ireland. I hear they do it big up there and I have a mask that will make you proud)

sláinte!

more dublin sight seeing and finding home in the smell of b.o. and incense

Christ Church Cathedral

Christ Church Cathedral

Dublin Castle

natasha and I in courtyard of Dublin Castle

So i'm still here, enjoying Dublin life. Haven't really been doing much but this weekend i spent every day in the city exploring some more. There is this really great farmers market type thing around temple bar (the touristy pub central in the city centre) that is open every saturday and i have been the past two weekends. It's pretty small but i could spend all day doing laps around looking at all of the fresh, homemade foods and bathing in the scent of fresh produce (which i have come to find is a rare commodity in Dublin at least). My friend Natasha and i got the most amazing vegetable curry and rice (I got half curry and half some tomato based tofu thing). Afterwards we went to the Christ Church Cathedral and took the tour of both the chapel and the crypt underneath. It is the oldest church in Dublin and is really beautiful (needless to say though considering it's a European cathedral which, in my limited experience, are all gorgeous). Our tour passes were supposed to include a tour of the connected Viking/ Medieval Dublin life museum called, Dublinia but when we walked over they had closed 15 minutes before we got there. We were upset that the woman at the counter hadn't given us a heads up that it would be closing shortly when we bought the tickets so we decided that we would go back the next day and see if we could get in to Dublinia with our old ticket (prepared to put up a fight--the next day we were reminded of the laid back nature of Irish culture when the woman at dublinia hardly even looked for an explanation and let us right in). After that we went to the Dublin Castle. It doesn't really seem as cool as some other castles and we weren't in any great rush to pay for a tour of the inside so we just took pictures from the garden and stuff. Near the garden is the Chester Beatty library which is a building displaying some amazing art all donated by a man called Chester Beatty. There were ancient scripts and artwork from all over the world (especially the middle east and asia) and it was really neat to take the time to look at it all.

Still pretty full from our amazing lunch we stopped by a small pub called Peader Kearney's and had a pint. ((side note: i got a pint of Bulmer's hard cider which is really popular here. I think it's kind of funny that it's really common to see a burly man drinking a pint of cider and nobody even glances twice. I feel like at home if some lumber jack looking man ordered a hard cider--at least i--would think he was a little lame. not in Ireland. guess alcohol is alcohol here.)) The bartender told us that later that night they were having reggae night downstairs which we were pumped about. He also told us about an italian restaurant down the street and we decided to check it out. AMAZING. The pizza was soooo good and everyone working there was italian which said something. We shared an appetizer of Parmesan asparagus, a bottle of wine, a 4 formagie pizza and then while Natasha was supposed to be in the bathroom she told the guys it was my birthday so later they brought over terimasu with a candle in it. Although apparently De Pino's is no TGIF or Red Robins cos we still had to pay for the desert even though i was the birthday girl. It was a really great meal and we kept commenting on how it made us fee like real people and not lousy college students.

Reggae night was a lot of fun. As one would expect--we discovered Dublin's hippies. The bar had incense burning and the people smelled of body odor and patchouli. mmmm...home. Any one of them could be taken out and placed in Eugene and felt right at home which i really appreciated. We closed that place down a little after 2:30 all swayed out and decided we would hit this place up again.

I was talking to my friend melinda last night (she just moved to London) and trying to find a time to meet up in Scotland. I realized that from here on out my time is going to fly by. Looking at my planner I realized that i only have about 4 free weekends before heading home which is really strange. The weekend of Halloween i'm going to northern Ireland with my group. I'm currently looking for a trip to book for the weekend of november 6-10 because that week is "reading week" (a week of no classes to catch up on non existent reading--the Irish really know how to do school here). A bunch of my friends are going to Florence and Rome but their flying back on the 11th which is when mom gets here so that isn't going to work for me (and there aren't really flights coming back on the 10th). I found a cheap flight to Brussels and also to this place called Alghero (google it!!) and i'm hoping to be able to go to alghero cos it looks incredible. November 11-that monday mom is here. That following weekend i'm going to Paris with my friend Natasha (30 euro round trip!) and then december 5-9 (i think) i'm going to barcelona with a group of people. I'm so excited for it all! Ryanair has super cheap flights all over europe and is such a great way to travel. I think it's amazing that such a thing exists and really aids Europeans in being so well traveled which Americans could use. I heard a rumor though that with the heightening gas prices and stuff Ryanair is in danger of going out of business. It would be a really big deal and a shame for sure.

I've been having a lot of trouble sleeping lately which i'm not sure why. I almost am wondering if it could be some aspect of culture shock or something. Every night i lie in bed wide awake until like 2:30 and then throughout the night i am woken up by the slightest noise (drunken kids singing a lot of the time or fire crackers one night). As most of you know, i usually have no problem sleeping so it's really weird. During the day i can nap for hours which is good and bad. good cos then i get some well needed sleep but bad because i miss out on the day and it probably makes it harder to sleep at night. oh well. i can sleep when i'm dead right?

next entry i will try and take some pictures of my apartment/dorm and stuff and let you know more about my living situation as i realize i have not done so.

Hope everyone is soaking up Oregon's fall for me!

Getting settled in Dublin

Dún Aonghasa

The Aran Islands

County Mayo

County Mayo

Enjoying my free pint at the sky bar of the Guinness Storhouse

The main Hall of Kilmainham Gaol

Dia dhuit mo chara! (jee-ah gwitch muh khara which means hello my friends in Irish!)

The first week in Dublin, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Every time we spoke to someone they would tell us how lucky we were because apparently they had the wettest August in like recorded history or something. The first couple of days--well actually the first week really--we had a lot of orientation stuff and our group took a few tours of the city which was helpful. Our CIEE program is pretty separated from the rest of the study abroad group which actually was pretty nice because we were able to get to know each other better and our two directors are really great. Don is probably one of the smartest people i have ever met and and as the trip goes on we have been discovering that he is also one of the funniest people. He has lived all over the world and has seen and done some really great things. Brian is coo too, he is originally from upstate New York but has been living in Europe for a few years now i think. He also looks like Emile Hersch (the guy from Into the Wild) which sure doesn't hurt anything ha. They both have been really helpful and have made things a lot easier.

The city center--downtown Dublin--is about a 15-20 minute bus ride from campus which isn't too bad, but it would be a lot nicer if it was in walking distance. Our group did a bus tour of the city and also a walking one led by Don and Brian where we learned all the good places to go and which areas to avoid because they are overpriced and geared towards tourists. The city is really great and holds a lot of history which is neat to see. There are statues all over showing leaders from the rebellion and other important historical figures and one of the statues at the end of O'Connell street has bullet holes in it from the Easter Rising which is really cool to see.

One of the first days we went and saw Kilmainham Gaol which is a historical prison that held many of the leaders of the rebellions over the years and was the place of execution for some of Ireland's most important people. The jail was really incredible to walk through and has also been the setting for many movies and in the main hall, bands (including U2) will sometimes play concerts or record albums because the acoustics are so good. We took the tour before i really knew anything about the rebellion or the people who led it and so now that i am learning the names and roles of people throughout Ireland's past it is cool to think back and remember seeing graffiti and stuff left by them in the jail.

Another cool thing we did was a group of us went to the Guinness Storehouse...a must while visiting Dublin. The museum was really interesting but the best part was reaching the top where there was a 360 degree sky bar where we were given a ticket for a free pint of Guinness to enjoy. The day was absolutely gorgeous and so you could see everything. It was such an awesome experience to be sitting up so high, listening to good music and enjoying an AMAZING pint of Guinness made right there. We all kept looking around at each other and asking if this was really happening. And just so everyone knows, it is really true that the Guinness here tastes much better in the states. You wouldn't even believe how smooth it is. Mom, when you come here i will take you to the storehouse so get ready.

My classes here are fairly easy and I only have them monday-thursday. On mondays i only have Anglo-Irish Lit: The novel and short story from 2-3 pm. Tuesdays i have Politics & conflict resolution in N. Ireland from 9-11 and then Intercultural Communicative Competence from 2-4 and Crime and the Media from 5-6. Wednesdays i have my crime and the media seminar from 1-2 and then my core class (with just my CIEE group) from 2-5:30. I'm excited to have a long weekend because it will allow me to have a flexible time for traveling (even though most of my friends have class on thursday so most traveling wont be done until friday anyways).

Last weekend my group took a bus over to the west of Ireland. On the way to our hotel we stopped by and got a tour of an old British estate house where a landlord used to live and govern over hundreds of Irish peasants. The house was cool but seriously one of the most hanuted places--if not the MOST haunted--I have ever been. People lived there until '79 and the guy who bought it left it exactly how the last woman (Olive) left it. There were pictures all over and even the woman who gave the tour was extremely creepy. After we left everyone was talking about how scary the place was and even Brian went to open a door cos he heard something behind it and when he looked he realized there was nothing there. It was scary and i was glad to get the heck and the heck out of there!

Our hotel was in the town of Westport in County Mayo which was a really nice town. Our hotel was pretty fancy and we were treated with the best food we had had yet (if you haven't heard...the food here is pretty bland and consists of a lot of potatoes)! It was a 3 course meal and we felt pretty special sitting there and being waited on. The price of alcohol in Dublin is pretty ridiculous and as the night goes on, many pubs increase their drink prices by a euro every hour (convenient right?). In westport it was nice to find cheaper drinks and consistent prices! a group of us went to this place called M.J. Hanahans or something like that and we were just about the only people in there and so we chatted it up with the guy who owned the place for a while and had a really great time. During the day we went to many places that were major places that the great famine--(An Gorta Mor) affected. County Mayo was the place hardest hit and so there were many memorials and homes that were still there that had been deserted by people during the famine. We have been learning a lot about it and it is truly amazing how much, even today, mentality formed during the famine still affects people's daily lives. The land out there is truly breath taking and is the kind of scenery you imagine when you think of Ireland--green green green.

From Westport we went to the Aran Islands. We had to take a ferry out there and again the weather was beautiful and made for a really nice sunset ride. The Aran Islands is one of the places where Irish (that's what they call it here--not Gaelic) is still spoken as the first language. Although, something i learned here is that everyone knows how to speak Irish due to the cultural renaissance that took place after the famine to try and revitalize Irish culture and traditions that were lost in An Gorta Mor. The Island is very small and feels like a different world. There are like 700 residents native to the island and everything revolves around the ferry times. The hotel we stayed in was also nice and the bar in the lobby was really great and had live music playing which was amazing. Sitting and enjoying a pint on the Aran Islands listening to Irish folk music made me feel like i was in a movie or something.

The next day the weather wasn't so great, which was really awesome considering that was the day we were going to hike up to the Dún Aonghasa rock fort. It is on the top of this limestone cliff with amazing views. luckily it was clearer at the top than we had thought it would be. The whole time Don and Brian were warning us to be very careful on top and to stay away from the edge and to not carry a backpack. The winds up there are incredible and apparently a few years ago some French kid flew off the cliff cos his backpack got caught up in the wind and he didn't let go. oops. Leave it to the french right? After our hike we went back to the hotel and took a Irish language class. It was really interesting and we learned a lot of cool things.

Another week of classes was finished off in probably the best way for me on wednesday night...i saw coolio. that's right, the guy who sings "Gangsta's paradise" live at this night club in Dublin. It was absolutely hilarious and he kept going on about how he was 45 years old and could be our father...which i don't know if he was bragging or complaining. Instead of a head full of crazy braids he only had a little hand full of them sticking out the top of his hat (which we decided, due to balding, was probably just attached to the hat). He was supposed to play at 10:30 but didn't get on stage till 1:30 or so--cos why? he's Coolio and he thinks he can do that. It was a super fun night and increased my cool points by like ten fold. It probably even increases yours knowing someone who was front row at his show. hah

i'm officially out of laundry. officially have been putting it off for a couple days. officially a major dirty kid. (don't get me wrong, i've been hand washing the essentials)

I hope everything is well at home!

Sláinte! (slawncha which is cheers/health in Irish)

London

(reading in hyde park)

(tower of London)

(tower bridge)

(big ben, parliament, london eye)

(windsor castle)

So after almost a month away from home--which I can't believe--I'm finally sitting down to write my first entry and catch everyone up. Get comfortable though cos these first few entries (especially this first one) are going to be pretty long.

So, September 13 I set off for my adventure. My flight was scheduled to leave portland at like 11:30 am but we didn't take off for about an hour after that due to bad weather in chicago (surprise surprise--o'hare sucks). Although i knew that i was going to have to switch planes in Chicago (only finding that out while in line to check my bag however) i didn't think anything of it because the flight was the same so i didn't think it would be possible to miss it. The pilot kept talking about how all of the flights were being delayed so most people wouldn't miss their connections and blah blah blah. We get to chicago and i check the monitor to make sure my flight hadn't left and what do you know...it had. Luckily i saw that there was another flight to Heathrow that left like 4 hours later so i went up to the desk to see if i could get on it. They told me that i was guaranteed a seat on the flight that left the following day at 5:30 pm. Trying not to jump over the counter and strangle the smug woman behind the counter, i asked if there was anyway to get on the 9:30 flight (just later that same evening) and she said i would have to wait until 8:30 to stand in line and try and get on stand by and then wait for the plane to be fully boarded to see if i could get on. 4 hours, a phone call home and a corned beef sandwich later i found myself boarding the plane and finally on my way to london!

Ten hours later i'm watching the luggage belt go around and around hoping that the one freaking bag i packed will somehow magically appear. I see everyone else who is waiting in my same position head over to the delta airline desk to find out where in the world their luggage ended up and decide it's hopeless and follow. Thanks to the handy-dandy notebook full of paperwork put together by mom, i was able to fill out a luggage claim form with my hotel on it and left for my hotel bagless and damn near ready to pass out. I got there at around 1 and although check in wasn't till 2 my room was ready and i didn't have to try and find something to do to occupy my time. Originally the plan was for me to do some site seeing around windsor that first day but without ANY of my stuff (except my computer, plane entertainment and wallet) i decided the best choice was just to sleep... did i ever....i slept right on through from like 2 pm to 6:30 am only waking up to grab a side of "chips" from the hotel bar.

The next day, still no luggage, i headed for windsor. This was the day that i found out that my public transportation skills weren't so hot. I missed my stop and ended up just getting off at the place where everyone else on the bus was getting off which was a big shopping center. Figuring i was in no hurry and had no idea where the hell i was going i thought i would just look around for a little while and grab some coffee. After asking someone where the main bus station was (the place where i was supposed to be) i found out i was actually really close which was nice. Got on what i hoped was the right bus and decided that i would just get off at whatever stop the asian tourists got off at--let's be honest, everyone knows they know whats up when it comes to tourist sites. It ended up being a good decision cos, as i had expected, that's exactly where they were headed. Point one for racial stereotypes working in my favor. Windsor castle was absolutely beautiful and I took the audio tour and stuff and got some good pictures. It was weird to think that royal events still take place regularly there and i found myself glad i didn't have to be a part of it all. The town wasn't as big as i had thought it would be (although later i found out that there is a lot more just a little outside town) but I spent all day there wandering the streets and picking up things i had forgotten to bring (i decided it wasn't so cute to lug around a travel alarm clock as my only sense of time so i broke down and bought a watch at claire's for the equivalent of too-stinking-expensive...the price you pay for diginity).

I got back to the hotel thinking that my bag would have been delivered (considering the guy at the counter told me that there was a good chance my bag would be delivered around 11 pm the night i got in) and i could finally change out of my gross clothes and put some make-up on but alas, life is never so easy and i headed up to my room with a bottle of wine and drank my sorrows away to cheesy british music videos.

Day 3, same clothes, same naked face, no bag still. I was meeting Jackie at the airport at 3:30 in the afternoon so when i went down to check out at noon and found that my bag still hadn't made it, you can imagine my frustration. I called delta and they said that it was going to be delivered in about an hour and for me just to wait around until it did. awesome. I went to try and get on the computer in the lobby--side note: i tried to plug in my laptop to the power converter in my room but found out that it didn't work so i had no lap top either--and when i went to pay for the internet it said my card wouldn't work. Thinking that it was just the computer i just sat and waited for my bag which finally came at like 2:30. I went to go get cash out to pay for the shuttle to get to the airport and again my card wouldn't work. So here i was, finally with my stuff but with no way to get to the airport to meet jackie and no way to get a hold of her to tell her i would be late. The stupid bank operator put me on hold for like 15 minutes and then i had to tell my story to two different people before finally getting it all settled and my card fixed. It took me WAY longer to get to the terminal to meet jackie than i thought it would and with all of the craziness that took place that morning, i was a half hour late meeting her which i knew was bad considering we were just crossing our fingers that we would even be able to find each other. The happy ending to those 3 miserable days is that i met up with jackie and we headed to the hostel with all of our luggage and the thought that it can only get better from here!

Our hostel was super nice and jackie and i shared a room meant for 3 people so it was really big (and mom...it was blue). Jack and i were champs and never once used public transportation to get around and instead walked everywhere (which probably ended up being like 8 miles a day at least). We saw all the big sites and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time! One night we bought tickets and went and saw the musical Billy Elliot which was amazing! We bought food at grocery stores and just basically picnic-ed it for our meals and saved our money for things like a tour of the tower of london (which was super cool) and stuff like that....and drinks at night, come on.

One of the nights we went out we went to this pub called London Pub--full of study abroad kids at the local university--but the place closed at like 12. We asked the bartender where another cool place would be for us to go that stayed open later and he told us this other place which when we got there was closed too so someone told us to go to the spanish bars because the spanish stay up late. Out of pure luck we found ourselves walking behind a group of three spanish women and seeing as how much luck i had with the asian tourists we decided to follow them. All of a sudden, here we were near Oxford street and the bars seemed to be open. Two points for racial stereotypes working in my favor. We met this group of people (Alex, max and Amanda) in this bar and they took us to this really fun dance club type thing called Metro. They played really good music (all rock) and the drinks were cheap and we all had a lot of fun. Jackie and i were so proud to have made friends on our own and the three of them were so nice. They left and we met an other group of people who we hung out with for a while until they left and then we met ANOTHER group. I think we talked about it from there on out about how awesome we were for meeting three sets of friends. On our way back to the hostel we ran in to two guys from iceland who were asking for directions. They taught us how to sing "she's a lady" in icelandic (hoon-a cone-a) and were seriously crazy. We talked to them for waaaay to long about the stupidest stuff and they didn't really even speak english (they wouldn't believe us that we weren't from london) and finally we made our escape back to the hostel. We refer to that night as the night we made 3 sets of friends and 1 set of not friends.

Another night, the night before jackie left for spain actually, we decided we would go out again and found ourselves at this tiny little spanish bar down a side street. We met a really cool guy named Tom there who worked for the BBC and he and his friend invited us to another bar with them for their friend's birthday. They paid for the taxi and when we got to the club it was some swanky place that had a guest list and stuff. We stayed for a little while and everyone was really great. When the club was closing they invited us to this lebanese restaurant (it's like a gyro/kabab place) and Jackie decided that she should head back considering she had to leave for the airport at 5:30 am. --brace yourselves family--I decided i would be adventurous though and that i only lived once and that i would go with them. Again, they paid for the taxi and we went to this place that everyone called "Helen's." It was in a heavily lebanese populated part of london and the food was amazing. I think we were the only white people there and two of the people we were with knew helen by name who was this small firey woman at the cash register who seemed like quite the character. Everyone was outside smoking out of hooka pipes so we sat down and ordered some mint tea and smoked mint sheesha and i almost felt like i was in lebanon ha. They kept talking about how random of a night it must be for me and i couldn't agree more. I was really proud of myself though because i normally wouldn't do something like that by myself and i really felt like i was experiencing london life and not just being a tourist.

I got home safe and sound and the next two days i spent exploring hyde park and kensington gardens. The weather couldn't have been better and it was absolutely amazing to just lie around reading in the middle of it all. In Hyde park there was this area where all of the roller bladers got together and they showed off all their tricks and played old school music like michael jackson and danced/ skated around. It was pretty funny to watch and i felt like i was an extra in some corny movie made in the early nineties.

My plane left for Dublin a little before nine and it took an hour to get from the city to heathrow so i had to hop on the tube at like 6 am and luckily (although time got tight there for a while) i made it up to my gate on time and had an hour flight to dublin where i was greeted by my bag (thank god) and then by Don, one of my program directors and a few other kids in my program who had just arrived.

So i really loved London and i was glad that my hostel was right in the city and everything was accessible by foot. The people were friendly and i was soooooooooo glad to have Jackie there with me for most of the time. Probably my favorite thing i saw there was the tower of london, the tour was super interesting and it was really beautiful despite it's dark history. Although my first few days were a little rough, the week i spent in london was amazing and i learned and saw a lot of great things. It left me so excited that it was all only the beginning of this 3 month adventure.