Blarney Castle

Day three in Ireland was my absolute favourite of the entire trip. We went to Blarney, which is about five miles outside of Cork, but the atmosphere is so different from the city! It's out in the country and it felt like we'd entered a fantasy land the entire time we were there. The main sight to see is Blarney Castle and its grounds. It was 10 euros to enter, and we ended up spending about five hours there!

First we went to see the castle, which is known for housing the Blarney Stone. There were remnants of the original fifteenth century castle rooms to explore, and some petrifying spiral staircases. I've never had issues with heights or claustrophobia, but that staircase was taxing even on my nerves! But there were fantastic views from the top, and then the queue to kiss the Blarney Stone! The other girls didn't want to do it, but I went for it! I don't think the gift of the gab has appeared yet, however :-p I was really happy to finally visit a castle after being in England for three months! As a medieval historian, I was geeking out, but so was Chantal, so it was all good!

View of the castle entering the grounds

View of the castle from the very bottom

Gollum caves in the dungeon!

That section at the very top open to the sky is where the Blarney Stone is- you have to hang upside down to reach it!

The remains of a great hall and the master bedroom

The evil stairs

The view from the top!

Chantal took a picture of me when I kissed the Blarney Stone! haha

After we saw the castle, we spent a lot of time exploring the grounds. There were so many gardens and this was definitely my favourite part of the day, even though nothing was really in bloom yet. First we saw the Poison Garden, right behind the castle, which was full of all kinds of interesting plants which have poisonous properties with information about all of them and their historical uses and effects! Next there was a garden of indigenous plants to Ireland, and a walk through some of the woods to the Fern Forest, which was my favourite! I wish I could see it in the spring or summer, but it really did feel like I was in Robin Hood or something. The pictures really don't do it justice.

Hellebore plant, it was one of the few flowering!

I think I just entered the closest thing to a Herbology class at Hogwarts I could.

The Fern Forest!!

There were many other buildings on the grounds as well, ruins from the old castle complex. Blarney House is also there, but it wasn't open when we visited. It is quite stunning though! We stopped for lunch in the refectory in the old stables- the tables were in the old stalls, it was great! And it was nice to regain our strength before we went around the rest of the castle grounds.

Blarney House from the side

Lunch stalls!

Next we went to Rock Place, which is a walk through a part of the woods which has Druid relics and a "magical history." Given my life-long fixation with Stonehenge and Druids, I was really excited about this part! There were some fun activities at some of the sites along the way as well, like the witch's wishing stairs- if you went up and down them backwards with your eyes closed and made a wish, it should come true within a year! And there's a stone which is supposed to be that same witch frozen in place. Some dolmens, caves, and druid circles are around and there are many winding paths through craggy rocks, by waterfalls, and through forests. It was quite atmospheric, as promised in the guide, and a lot of fun. There was a playground in the middle as well, and a fairy glade, and we ran about and took lots of goofy photos while we were there and the sun was out!

Chantal attempting the wishing stairs

The witch's kitchen, a very old stone structure that gave me some serious heebie jeebies when I was inside

The witch's stone- people leave "sacrifices" on the ground around it, mostly 1-2 cent coins

Druid Circle

Chiara sacrificing Silvia on the Druid altar

A bird in the fairy glade

Our final adventure was the Lake Walk, which was a route through the woods around the lake on the back of the grounds. It was absolutely lovely, despite the muddy paths! The views were incredible, especially on the sunny day. Seriously, it was stunning, and again, the photos don't do justice to the amazing atmosphere of the Irish countryside.

Staring out to the lake walk- this father and son were in the gardens when we were playing around, and I caught a picture of them walking ahead of us between playing with a rugby ball in the fields :-)

Seriously stunning

 

The countryside on the walk back

I also bought an Irish wool sweater while in Blarney! It's proven quite useful in the past few days with the bitter cold when I've been walking around London with my parents. Overall, if you get a chance, definitely visit Blarney or get out into the Irish countryside if you're in Ireland! I preferred the country so much more than the cities we were in, although those are nice and have lots to see and do as well.

St Patrick's Day in Ireland

(I tried really hard to cut down on the photos I post, but I took over 650 in five days so I'm sorry in advance) For the first trip of my five week Easter break, I went to Ireland with some of my Erasmus friends, Chantal from the Netherlands, and Chiara and Silvia from Italy. We left on Saturday (16 March) at 4.30 am, which was an early start since I didn't sleep at all before our taxi came to pick us up. Our train to Manchester airport was at 5.26 am, so we had a short wait before we left in the cold. We were some of the first people in the train station haha.

After grabbing some breakfast, we went through security, which was quite different from American airport security. First we waited in the queue for ages, and the bag sizes for the allowed bag of liquids are slightly different (yay metric system!) And you don't have to take off your shoes or go through quite as much of an ordeal. It just seemed quite different from what I was used to!

We had a bit of a wait in the airport, and at one point there was a flaming plane through the window, which was quite concerning, but it turned out to be a fire safety practice ground, so all was well. I also had my first RyanAir experience, which was also rather different from American airlines! You're only allowed one carryon item, so you have to fit your purse into your suitcase or dufflebag, so that was a struggle when packing! And there aren't assigned seats, you just pick one out once you get on the plane. There is a full menu of food and drink served on the plane, and they sell all kinds of goods as well. It was all very strange to me, but the flight was 50 minutes so we were soon on the ground in Dublin! Customs was quite simple, and I now have a green stamp in my passport from Ireland :-) And the airport was decorated with balloons for the holiday.

The flaming plane- it was a far larger fire, but I didn't have my camera out

Welcome to Ireland!

We had a few hours in Dublin before our train to Cork, so we explored city centre after the longest bus ride ever from the airport. Fair warning to anyone who goes to Dublin: the 16 bus (from the airport to city centre) stops at nearly every stop the entire way, so it can take an hour or more to get from one place to the other! We walked through Trinity College, although there was a MASSIVE queue to see the Book of Kells so we didn't stop for that, and it started to rain. Instead we went to the National Gallery of Ireland, and I had some major art history geek moments- there was a really great selection of artists represented. Caravaggio, Vermeer, Rubens, Titian, Monet, Picasso, Poussin, Velazquez and Van Gogh- there were pieces I'd studied in my art history classes in Wooster hanging in the gallery, so I definitely freaked out, despite being EXHAUSTED. We stopped in some book shops and grabbed lunch, and I decided I officially hate tourists. Especially American ones haha, I heard more American accents than Irish ones in Dublin, and there were just so many people who were rather rude. I know I shouldn't stereotype but tourists are so annoying and disrespectful. Chantal got an earful from me throughout the trip about American tourists :-p

Trinity College Dublin 

We had a three hour train to Cork, and I finally fell asleep after being awake and on the move for over 24 hours. We stayed at Sheila's Hostel in Cork, which was about 10 minutes from the train station and up a rather steep hill! We checked in, and went up to our room. We were in a 14-bed dorm, which was completely full of people visiting from across Europe for the holiday- there were some German girls, Spaniards, and some loud Americans on the floor below us haha. We grabbed open beds and got ready to pass out for our full day the next day!

We woke up around 8 to get ready for St Patrick's Day, although really we'd woken up around 6 when the first of our roommates got up. After breakfast at McDonald's (we're cheap and the porridge and tea were decent), we set off to find some festive accessories. Carroll's gift shop was a success- we all got hats of various sorts to wear for the day, and then we wandered around the city to orient ourselves and see the activities that were going on for the day. There was a market and live music in the streets, and then we found places for the parade! We bought some Ireland face paint in a pound shop and I drew some shamrocks on our cheeks while we waited :-)

Cork's river on the way to city centre! 

Chiara, Chantal and I

Walking through the street market with some ominous clouds behind us

Before the parade started, there were people handing out flags, both Irish and American. I was so confused why they were handing out American flags on an Irish holiday, and of course, the guy gave me one instead of the Irish flags he handed to my friends! I was quite put out, I can get an American flag any time! An Irish flag from St Patrick's Day is something special. But such is luck, and the irony was not missed by any of us haha. We were very near the stage where the announcer was, and it turns out San Francisco is Cork's sister city and the mayor and an American contingent were present at the celebrations, hence the flags. So even though we went to a smaller city, we still didn't escape the American tourists!

I was very unhappy about not getting an Irish flag!

The parade was great fun, although it was long and we got quite cold. I especially liked some of the art communities' floats and performances, and there were some international groups present, showing off parts of their different cultures. And of course there were military groups, lots of bands- including pipe bands!- and dance and sports teams. I took a ton of photos, but here are a few of my favourite parts (this took a lot of narrowing down since I took like 200 photos during the day):

Let's play spot the American mayor: hint, he's the one wearing cheesy St Patrick's Day garb and isn't in a red robe

There were some really cool floats in this series by the Cork Art Community

These dancers were part of it, one of the floats rained on them while they performed!

Grease, Irish style :-)

Gangam Style is literally everywhere

St Patrick chasing some snakes

The Chinese community

They were so cool but I'm not sure where they're from!

Pipe band :-) 

Belly dancers who followed the "Pray the Rosary" group 

Another cool interactive float!

Polish community, what a cute little girl!

After the parade, we explored Cork some more, went to Penney's (Primark in Ireland), and found a lovely place for dinner, Uncle Pete's (we ended up eating there every night we were in Cork because it was so delicious and cheap!). We wanted to have a drink in a pub to celebrate, and after much searching for one that wasn't overflowing with drunk Americans or overpriced, we found Dan Lowrey's on the street parallel to our hostel. I seriously love that place- it was full of locals, not rowdy tourists, and had such a wonderful atmosphere. And the music wasn't too loud so we could sit and chat for a while. I was a wuss and had hard cider instead of Guinness (I'm just not a fan of it haha), although the other girls stuck to the Irish traditions and had that. Overall it was a lovely day, and now I can say I've been to Ireland for St Patrick's Day!

My cider (with Chiara and Silvia in the background haha)

The interior of Dan Lowrey's so you get a sense of the cosy atmosphere :-)

Britishness Update 2

So I thought I'd do another fun update that isn't full of a million pictures of me seeing different monuments in England!

First and foremost, English. The language  As I've been told on a weekly basis, English is from England, and in America we speak American English. There's differences in how we pronounce things, and what words we use for different things. This video is a pretty accurate representation of a number of conversations I've had since I've been here. I still can't get over fizzy drinks haha, just makes the soda vs pop argument completely invalid!

I've started picking up some of the pronunciations though, on random occasions, like status, and tomato. Though zebra is still ZEE-bra not ze-bra, and aluminum is NOT a-lu-min-i-um! And 'z' is zee, not zed :-p And there are still times when I'm like "what's _____?" and everyone thinks it's hilarious haha.

A general guide to British English:

• hoover = vacuum
• lift = elevator
• toilet, not bathroom
• toilet tissue, not toilet paper
• bin = garbage/trash can (I've been corrected on this one a few times, and I've adopted bin to my daily vocabulary haha)
• you have a shower, you don't take a shower
• but you take drugs, instead of do drugs
• hooned = wasted, as in drunk haha
• tomAHto, not tomAYto
• but it's still potAYto
• pah-sta, not pAHsta, bah-sil, not bAYsil, but stAYtus, not stAHtus
• colour, favourite, honour, neighbour, etc.
• organise, prioritise, etc.
• car park = parking lot
• pavement = sidewalk
• subway is an underground walkway, not a train!
• sport without an s
• but maths has an s!
• fizzy drinks = soda/pop
• biscuit = cookie
• ready meal = frozen dinners
• till = cash register
• jumper = sweater
• pants = underwear, not trousers!
• aubergine = eggplant
• rocket = arugula
• courgette = zucchini
• washing up = doing dishes
• washing up liquid = dish soap
• dinner is sometimes called tea
• but this isn't a perfect guide, just what I've observed and learned so far!

And accents. Dear America: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BRITISH ACCENT. It's either English, Scottish, Welsh, or Irish, and a regional variation within that, but never British. I still can't recognise regional accents perfectly, but I can tell between those four and Northern and Southern English accents. Northern accents are generally heavier and can be harder to understand, but I like them. And there are far more variants of accents than the few that are used most in shows and movies we see in America- we usually hear really posh London accents or Cockney accents, and there are many more than that! (And people will laugh when the only version of an accent you can put on is a really poor Cockney accent).

Finally, here's a fun article about drinking tea :-) It's been heinously cold out the past few days and you would not believe the difference having a cup of tea will make!

I'll post soon about my trip to Ireland for St Patrick's Day and the first few days of my trip with my parents!

Adventures in Oxford

This post is long overdue, but I've had exams and essays this past week that have taken priority. And I apologise in advance for how photo heavy it is.

On 2 March, I took a trip to Oxford with the ISA (International Students Association). It wasn't an organised tour or anything, but it was 17 for the bus there and back, which is cheaper than getting the train on my own, so a few of my Erasmus friends also got tickets. It was an early start- the bus left at 7.15 (well, it was meant to leave at 7.15 but it was closer to 7.30 by the time we actually started moving). I sat with my friend Chantal and we had a lovely chat for the start of the three and a half hour bus ride. It turns out she's had a class in Utrecht with one of my favourite youtube beauty vloggers, Loepsie!! So that was the exciting discovery of the morning :-)

The bus ride took longer than I expected, but we were on the ground in Oxford by around 11.30 I think, if I remember correctly. We headed straight towards Christ Church as our first stop. It was originally a very grey, dreary, windy day, unlike the sunshine in York, but the town of Oxford is still quite lovely.

Look who we met in the coach park?

Christ Church was far larger than I thought, and it had what I imagine will be lovely grounds once it's spring again! There was nearly no queue to get tickets to go in, so we went in once we got there, even though the Great Hall (from Harry Potter) wasn't opening until 2.30 pm. It's 5.50 for student tickets, and the tickets were valid for the whole day so we could come back later and jump the queue to go into the Hall. The buildings are lovely, and it was amazing to see the famous courtyards I've seen in a billion different tv shows and movies.

The first view when you enter the gates.

Please note the lack of a queue in the garden! 

It actually was 2.30 for today

The staircase from Hogwarts in the first two films! Chantal snuck past the closed sign to snap some photos :-)

No Peel door

Oh hey, that looks familiar

Just pretending I got to Oxford, no big deal

I really enjoyed the Cathedral as well! It had really interesting bays in the ceiling, and nice stained glass, although it's quite small compared to most cathedrals! I looked for graves of people who I might know, since some famous historical figures are meant to be in Oxford, but the only one I could find was John Locke, right by the entryway to the cathedral.

SO COOL

While I was in the courtyard, my friend Wyatt from Wooster called and thus began a long game of phone tag and hide and go seek in Oxford's tourist spots as we tried to meet up. He's studying abroad at Oxford in St. Catherine's college. Chantal, Kelly (another American studying at York), and I ended up going to the covered market to find some lunch, and finally Wyatt found us there! We had some lovely pasta from an Italian pasta shop, and then went to a special hot chocolate/chocolate shop for dessert. I got Irish Cream flavoured hot chocolate, which was delicious, and there were other odd flavours like gingerbread.

The covered market

Henry the Hoover cupcakes! Hoover = vacuum, for my American friends, and we have one of these in my hall :-)

Such a delicious lunch!

Chocolate shaped like pringles???

Wyatt and I

After that we wandered around the rest of Oxford. It was finally sunny and a bit warmer, which was nice! First stop was the Bodleian Library and the Radcliffe Observatory. There were some odd street performers about as well, including a Mad Hatter tour guide and a fire juggler just chilling by a college. There was an awesome free exhibit at the Bodleian about depictions of love in Persian manuscripts, which my history/art history/Middle Eastern nerd side FREAKED about. Sorry to Chantal, Kelly, and Wyatt who were subjected to my babbling on about manuscript production, Arabic calligraphy, and illumination techniques, but I did just take Islamic Art last semester in Wooster. (And this exhibit may have sparked a new I.S. topic idea, although who knows, that changes on a monthly basis).

Me in front of the Radcliffe Observatory

Bodleian courtyard

Just chillin with my fire throwing friend

Mad Hatter tour guide in the Bodleian

The gift shop was a great success as well, I got gifts for some of my Wooster friends (with some input from Wyatt haha) and a book about Germans and WWII plans relevant to my Junior I.S. in case I do continue down that path next year- it's a translation of a copy of the book in the Bodleian, of which very few survived WWII. And I also bought a TON of postcards, some with Alice and Wonderland characters, others with J.R.R. Tolkein related images, and some from the Persian exhibit, some of which are decorating my room and others are for messages home :-)

After that, we went to the Ashmolean, which is a super amazing museum, and I'm sad we only got to stay in there for a little while. We went through an interesting exhibit about restoration and preservation of different object types, and how museums work. There were lots of interactive aspects, and we went to town trying to figure things out and playing with them. We then wandered around Oxford, looking for different sights, like the Bridge of Sighs, and other colleges to look at. There are 38 colleges in Oxford University, and nearly all of them were closed to visitors for the day, so we saw a lot of really cool doors and crests, but no interesting interiors and historical locations.

Ashmolean Museum 

Bridge of Sighs

After that we parted ways with Wyatt, so he could go back to his college and we could return to the Great Hall in Christ Church. When we got there, there was a HUGE queue to buy tickets! We jumped the line because we already had tickets, and went striaght to the Great Hall staircase, but there was yet another HUGE queue- it went up the stairs, through the entryway out about halfway down the huge courtyard. So we got in line, and waited, although there were some issues with queue-jumpers and others holding up the queue and just all kinds of cultural differences appearing between Americans, English, and Asian tourists (and I've never said queue so many times in one day, wow). But the queue moved along quite quickly, and soon we were in the Great Hall! It seems smaller than I thought it would be, but there is definitely a resemblance to Hogwarts :-) There was a lunch party going on, so the poor students ended up being in everyone's photos while they were trying to eat haha. Afterwards we went to the Christ Church giftshop and there were Harry Potter wands for sale! I didn't get one though, since i have one back home from the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and if I'm going to get one in England, it will be from the studio tour in London.

The massive queue after 2.30 to get tickets

Hi from Hogwarts xx 

The Great Hall with the tables set for dinner :-)

Creeping on the lunch party 

Finally, we wandered around town a bit before we had to be back on the bus. There are some really lovely buildings all around Oxford, and there was a hot air balloon randomly flying through the sky. There was also a graduation ceremony somewhere in the afternoon for Christ Church, so I was creeping on the students in their robes and stoles whenever they showed up haha.

Graduating students in the courtyard

Overall it was a lovely, although exhausting day. I passed out on the bus ride back! I'd like to go back and see more of the colleges that were closed to the public, as well as see more of the Ashmolean if I can manage it. Thanks for reading through all of this, if you did! There were a ton of photos, I'm sorry, but I take ridiculous amounts of photos everywhere I go!