In the Land of the Irish

Ireland was everything I didn't expect but always imagined. I saw both its faces: the land of myth and mystery, and the land of friendly smiles, green hills, and cheerful accents.

Despite several travel issues (I spent the night in the London airport, but let's not dwell on that), I finally arrived in Ireland on Thursday morning and was met by my friend Kayla, who is studying in Dublin. She fed me pancakes, let me take a shower and a nap, and then we headed out to explore.

She and Pat took me hiking near the city, at Bray. It was cloudy when we set out, but a rainbow indicated our good luck. The sky cleared as soon as we had climbed the first hill, and after that, it was all glory.

The next day, Kayla and I went to Howth. We hiked for at least five hours, and near the halfway mark, we decided to climb down a very tall, very steep cliff to check out the beach.

This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. And unfortunately we shared the same attitude - "Well, if I'm this far down, I might as well go all the way!" Right. Except you have to climb back up the cliff to escape.

To put it mildly, we nearly died several times, but in the words of Kayla, "You only live once." Our jeans weren't so lucky:

That evening, the rest of my PLS friends arrived from their various locations across Europe. I have been missing these people so much; we really are like a family. To be reunited in Ireland was perfect, and I kept reminding myself how lucky I was to be in Europe with these people, discussing politics, books, philosophy, and religion - you know, the usual.

We made dinner together, talked, laughed, and went out for some Guinness (which I like, surprisingly).

The next day was Dublin city.

We watched a rugby match in a pub while chatting with some guys from Galway, Kayla and I went on a Church crawl, I saw the Book of Kells, we wandered around Temple Bar, I saw the Liffy (which was exciting because I recognized the word from an Irish song my mom used to play, but I never knew it was the name of specific river until now), and I ate a lot of good food.

First, fish and chips.

These were supposedly from the best place in Ireland, and I'm not arguing. They fulfilled every literary description I had stored up. They were even wrapped in greasy, brown paper. We ate this while sitting in front of Christchurch.

Then a ginormous cream-filled pastry that Kayla and I split while basking in the park by Saint Patrick's.

Then dinner at O'Neil's. We had Guinness stew, with every kind of potato and vegetable imaginable. Here's a shot of all our plates:

I spent the last day in London, which was fun but hurried. Impressions of London include lots of Digestives, beautiful buildings and parks, Big Ben, and hanging out and cooking in my friend's "penthouse" flat.

Monday morning I took the Eurostar back home to Angers, since I had class in the afternoon. For the uninformed, that means I took a train under the English Channel. How exciting! Actually I slept through the whole experience, but that in itself should tell you something about the quality of the trains here.

Overall, a highly successful first trip!