Gaol Field Trip and Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Day!!

We hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving! Sam and I are sad to miss this time with family and friends but we are so thankful we have each other and can have our adventures in Ireland. Plus, we leave for London tomorrow so that helps too ;)

Last weekend we went Kilmainham Gaol with our Irish History class. It was a place where a lot of political prisoners were held during the Irish Rebellion in 1916, the War for Independence, and the Irish Civil War. Several movies have been filmed there including the Italian Job. It was an interesting field trip and Sam and I spent the rest of the day shopping all around Dublin.

Picture of the inside of the Gaol where the Italian Job was filmed

This week has been our last week of lectures so all we have left is finals! Next week is reading week so we are taking advantage and going to London and Malaga, Spain. After that, we have to hit the books for two weeks of finals and then head home. We have begun the final countdown :)

Tonight, we had Thanksgiving in the Global Lounge put on by the Study Abroad Office. We hung out with a bunch of our friends and enjoyed eating and drinking with them. Then, we all sang the national anthem to celebrate our American holiday haha

A mix of Ireland and America to decorate the tables

Miss and love you all! Happy Thanksgiving :)

~Emily and Sam

Weekend Adventures

This weekend was mainly filled with homework, but we did manage to have some fun as well.

Thursday after class Emily and I needed to do a little shopping so we decided to go to a big shopping mall south of campus that we hadn't had a chance to check out yet. The mall was way bigger than we thought and very crowded. It turned out that that night was "Rock and Shop" an event where a bunch of stores have really great deals to jump start Christmas shopping. Almost like a way more mellow and normal version of Black Friday. It was a little overwhelming, but we managed to get our shopping done pretty easily. The mall was already decorated for Christmas and it definitely put us in a Christmas mood a bit earlier than we're used to.

nicely decorated tree outside the mall

Saturday we had a field trip for our Irish Business History class to Belfast in Northern Ireland. It was a very early morning, but overall a good trip. We first stopped at a church in Drogheda where St. Oliver Plunkett's head is displayed. Lots of mummified people in Ireland. Anyway. 

St. Peter's Church

Then we went to Belfast and saw some lesser visited areas where there is still conflict today among the Irish and UK supporters. We went to the republican museum where they have displays and information about past political prisoners. 

We then went to Belfast city center and were able to hang out for almost an hour. There was a Christmas market going on and we walked around and looked at all the delicious food and crafts. 

We then headed to the Titanic museum in Belfast. The ship was built there and they have a really nice museum with information about the ship from the very start of designing and building it to discovering it on the ocean floor. 

view of the outside of the museum. made to be as tall as the actual Titanic ship.

After that we went back to Dublin where we grabbed some dinner downtown and checked out a couple pubs we had never tried before. It was a fun night and Dublin was all decked out for Christmas as well :)

Thanks for reading! 

-Sam and Emily 

Paris

Hey everyone!

Hope all is well at home! This past weekend Sam and I went to Paris from Thursday until Monday with our friends Bobbi and Lynda. We got there Thursday evening and after checking in at the hostel, immediately headed to the Eiffel Tower and took some wonderful night pictures. Then, we headed back to the hostel area and had a three course French dinner. Sam tried escargot and thought it wasn't too bad :)

Eiffel Tower on our first night

On Friday, we walked to Notre Dame. We really loved the gorgeous church and decided to go back for mass on Sunday. Then we climbed up a small curving staircase in one of the towers to get to the top. Even though it was cloudy and raining, we got some pretty cool pictures. After this, we headed to the Louvre and were excited that we got in for free :) We saw the Mona Lisa, Mary Magdalene, the three graces, Aphrodite, and so much more. It would have taken a week to actually walk the whole thing but we hit the highlights. We walked and had a chocolate croissant stop on our way to the Paris Opera House. Sadly, we were about a minute late to visit so we decided to go back the next day. We went back to the hostel to rest and then went out for Pizza since we were staying in Place d'Italia.

Sam and I in front of Notre Dame

At the Louvre

We got up early on Saturday and ran to catch the metro after figuring out our ticket situation (it didn't like all the change we were trying to use haha). Then we got to the Eiffel Tower and had our own little photo shoot :) We went all the way up to the top of the tower and got some more really cool pictures. At the top we spotted the Arc de Triomphe and decided to head there next. On the way, we found a cool little street market that had all kinds of fresh fish and produce so we stopped and got chocolate croissants and Sam got a loaf of brioche. We made it to the Arc, took some pictures and then grabbed the metro to the Moulin Rouge. We took some more pictures then walked up the hill to Sacre Coeur. We thought that was beautiful and the view from the hill was amazing. We walked down and through the shops on the way back to the metro. There was a cool chocolate shop with a model of Notre Dame made out of chocolate! We headed to the Opera House so that we could finally see it but it was closed to visitors that day. We were really disappointed so we asked at the ticket office if there were tickets for anything and, since Aida was on strike, we went to see a ballet later that evening. Our seats were kind of awful but they were cheap and we got to see a performance at the Paris Opera House so we were happy :)

Eiffel Tower photo shoot

Arc de Triomphe

Sacre Coeur

Chocolate model of Notre Dame

Paris Opera House!

Sunday morning, we went to mass at Notre Dame. The mass was in Gregorian Chant and, being the music nerd that I am, I absolutely loved it! There was a children's chorus to sing all of the mass parts and it was easier to follow the Latin than the French. The only sad part is we have no idea what the Homily was about but other than that it was absolutely amazing. After this, we headed to the Bastille district and found a huge street market. We all had crepes which were delicious and then we just wandered around for a bit. That evening, we headed back to the hostel, past a huge antique street market, so that Lynda could get her stuff and head back to Dublin. After we said goodbye, Sam, Bobbi, and I went for pizza again and our waiter tried to teach us some French haha

Batille district

Paris market

Monday was our last day in Paris. We wandered around the city to the Art bridge and the love lock bridge before crossing Pont Neuf. Sadly at this point, Bobbi's phone was stolen by some gypsy girls but we didn't realize it until we had already walked away. At that point we were ready to be home so after contacting her family, we stalled by shopping for a bit then headed to the airport. All in all it was an absolutely fantastic trip that I'm sure none of us will ever forget. We all felt really lucky to be able to see this beautiful city on our travels and cross a lot of things off our bucket lists :)

Love lock bridge

Shout out to Lynda for being our fearless navigator the whole trip!!! as well as being the only one who could pronounce French haha

Sam and I will be busy for the next few weeks with end of term and final projects and papers. We will try to update before we head to London the day after Thanksgiving for Sams 21st Birthday!!!

Missing you all at home!
Love you lots,

~Emily and Sam

parents' visit!

My parents got into Dublin on Wednesday. We met up by 10am and spent the entire day out and about. Luckily we had great weather, not too cold and it was even sunny. We went to the Jameson distillery, the Guinness brewery, Dublin castle, and then, when it got dark and we couldn't see anymore sights, we went to a traditional Irish dinner at the oldest pub in Ireland, the Brazen Head. We walked for hours and saw half of the main city sights that first day. We went back to the hotel and had a drink, mom discovered her new favorite drink is Jameson and ginger ale with lime :)

Thursday we got up super early and headed to the train station to take a rail tour to western Ireland to see the Cliffs of Moher. We also saw Bunratty Castle and Galway city. It was a very very long day but it was sunny and only windy at the cliffs. We ended the night with another round of mom's new favorite drink and then headed to bed for our next early morning. 

cheesin at Bunratty Castle 

cliffs 

Friday we went on a bus tour to Southern Ireland to see the Ring of Kerry. It was another beautiful day and it made the impressive sights there even better. The tour was a little unorganized and long, but we made it through and we did see some beautiful sights. 

Saturday we opted for a later morning and took a tour to Malahide castle just outside of Dublin. It was a pretty cool castle and, until recently, had been in the same family for about 800 years. After the castle we went to the Dublin suburb of Howth and mom and papa had some tasty seafood. We were back in Dublin by the late afternoon and did a little shopping and had Emily meet us for dinner. We went to a pub and had more traditional Irish food. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and hung out for a bit.

Sunday was the earliest day. We were up by 3am to head to Scotland, Emily joined us as well. We landed in Edinburgh by 9am and had a full day around the city. We saw Edinburgh Castle which was very impressive. We saw churches and just walked around and looked at the great architecture  of all the buildings. We saw everything we could before the sun went down. Papa also did a little digging into his family history and discovered some new aspects of the ancestry he did not have any idea about, for instance, we may not be Scottish after all. For dinner we went to a pub called Jekyll and Hyde and had some traditional Scottish food. 

Monday we had another full day in Edinburgh. We went to the registry to look up more details on the family. We walked the royal mile and saw the Scottish parliament building. Unfortunately they were not debating that day so we didn't get to see any action. We also went to a huge museum with artifacts from Scotland's past as well as things from around the world. We went to an art museum as well and saw some cool paintings. We went to Edinburgh dungeon, which we thought might be some educational museum type place about the awful events of Scotland's past, but it ended up being a scary historical Disney type attraction. Papa was not amused and mom and Emily and I were a little afraid to walk around the corners. After that our stress levels were high and we decided we needed some food. We searched for this pie place from mom's guidebook and had some savory little pies for lunch. We did a little tourist and regular shopping and had a mid afternoon drink. Then went to the hotel to have some rest before dinner. We went to dinner at a pub called the rose and crown and papa had some traditional Scottish haggis, which we are still not entirely sure what it is. After dinner we went to an old pub called dirty dicks and had an evening drink before heading back to the hotel. 
We were extremely lucky in Scotland and only had to deal with the cold and a some wind on the first day. 

Tuesday we left Edinburgh in the morning and spent mom and papa's final day in Dublin checking out the south city center. We saw Trinity College, Christ Church Cathedral, St. Patrick's Cathedral, and did more tourist and regular shopping. Emily met us for dinner and we went to a pub with our friends Claire and Kendra and Kendra's parents. We had a nice family dinner. Sadly Emily had to get back to school for her SMC Skype class, but the rest of us headed to another pub to have a final drink with the parents.

I think overall mom and papa thoroughly enjoyed their visit, I mean they got to see me so we know it was great :) They had pretty awesome weather for Ireland, papa had his daily Guinness, and mom discovered she likes whiskey, which papa was excited about too. 

They leave Wednesday morning and Emily and I leave Thursday afternoon for Paris! 

Hope everyone is well and enjoyed reading! 

-Sam and Emily