"Great Craic"

Okay, okay. I know I said I was going to blog about my travels and this is terribly over due. I have been extremely busy with crazy European adventures. But here you go, my fair readers, this is the much belated post on my week in ireland. 

"Great craic," by the way, is an Irish phrase which means "great fun" -- I believe it sums up my week in Ireland.

(Cavan, Ireland)>>

<< (where we stayed in Cavan) So Ireland! It was absolutely phenomenal. Ireland was probably my favorite week of the whole semester thus far. I traveled with my friend from high school and three of her friends, now my friends too J, from Franciscan. We all flew out of JFK together and then attended a retreat in Cavan, Ireland. It was a Direction for Our Times retreat, which is Anne the lay apostles organization. It was a wonderful way to start off the semester. The retreat was for Franciscan students so I met a fair amount of people there before coming to Gaming. At the retreat our days were filled with prayer and we were blessed to hear Anne speak to us, twice. She is such a humble and beautiful woman. We also got to experience the culture and see the country a bit. The first night we were there we went into town to a “Flaeh,” which is an Irish music festival. We ordered our first beers abroad, and for most of us, our first “legal” beers. 

<<At the festival the streets were just lined with people playing traditional Irish music. It was a blast and from what I’ve heard you don’t usually get to experience the traditional culture of Ireland that often so we were lucky. We also had time in the day to walk around the town and on the way into town they had this exercise park. It was so funny. They pretty much had exercise equipment such as elliptical and treadmills and even a massive “Bop-It” ^^ which was pretty much a way to get kids to run around. Ireland does it right – making exercise fun. (Haha.) 

On the retreat we also went to Knock and actually attend Mass there on the anniversary of Knock. It was pretty fantastic. I wish I could remember what the place was called but my memory has failed me, but we also went to this cemetery right outside Knock and it was really beautiful. Everything was green and there were Gaelic crosses as grave stones all over. The retreat was a really beautiful couple of days and I’m really happy to have started the semester off that way.

            

(Knock)>>

After the retreat I traveled Galway, Doolin, and Dublin with my friends I traveled over with – Ann, Mary, Brian and Sean. First we went to Galway and shopped and site saw and even did a pub-crawl. We ended up doing the pub-crawl on, I think, a Wednesday night so it was pretty lame but I learned I am an excellent beer pong player. (Haha!) We also had our first night in a hostel and the guys ended up getting kicked out because we broke the quiet hours rules by our exponentially loud laughter and we had one too many people in our hostel room. Lets just say we were “ugly Americans” that day. You live and learn, you know? We also went to the Cliffs of Moher and rode bikes to them from our hostel in Doolin. (If you ever go to Doolin stay in the Rainbow Hostel – they’re very hospitable and it is such a cozy place. They also have fresh scones around the clock and the best jam I’ve ever tasted.) The bike ride was tough because it was a couple miles long, mostly up hill, but it was such a beautiful ride. Also my friend Mary and I were hanging behind so we bonded as we struggled. It was such a good way to bond. The cliffs were stunning. I don’t think I’ve ever taken so many pictures in one place! We also prayed a rosary at the top of the cliffs, which was so beautiful and wonderful.

     << (the Kelly's, the family we stayed with, property)       One of the coolest parts of Ireland was, thanks to Sean, we stayed in an Irish family’s home right outside of Galway. They lived on an Irish farm down this tiny Irish dirt road, which, believe it or not, was a major road. They made us a traditional, massive, Irish breakfast and we took a walk around their property. They told us about Irish sports and beauty competitions and all the great places to go in Galway and Dublin. They were such wonderful people and it was such a blessing to stay with them.

            Our last night in Ireland, we were able to stay in a retreat center in Dublin (also thank to Sean). On our way from Galway to Dublin we took the longest bus ride, with every stop imaginable and then ended up missing our stop on our stop by a long shot. After a stressful day of tedious travel we decided to pop open the bottle of hard cider we bought the previous day and it ended up fizzing out all over the floor of the bus. It was just enough comic relief to nurse us back to happiness, not to mention the cider was pretty delicious. When we finally got to the retreat center, we made a dinner together and sang and played the piano that was there. It was nice to stay in a place just the five of us because we were able to completely relax. They also had a little chapel were we were able to pray together in. I actually ended up staying up later than everyone and I sang praise and worship, which I later found out Brian heard me. It was funny.

            The next morning we made our way to Dublin and spent the whole day there. We saw this ship festival and we went to the Guinness factory with two Franciscan guys we ended up meeting up with in Dublin. We also went to trinity College and saw the book of Kells and their library. It was so beautiful and oh my goodness I loved their library. That evening we did a bit of pub hopping. We met up with a great group of Franciscan girls who had been traveling Ireland that week as well. We went to the pubs with the girls and had a blast. At one pub this random American man ended up buying us all a round of Baby Guinness shots – so yummy! We closed the night by going to this very relaxed pub and listening to this young, Irish guy play music. It was a really enjoyable time and nice to just sit and enjoy ourselves as well as get to know the girls. After the long and exciting day we went to the lovely Dublin airport and slept until our early morning flight to Vienna, Austria. And thus concludes my week in Ireland.

            Well that’s enough for now…I’ll separate my posts in order to make reading about my travels bearable.

Food for Thought: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain