Monday, September 19, 2011

Hello!
We are finally getting into a regular schedule here in Dublin. Which means that a lot of my time is spent in a classroom learning about Irish history, culture, politics, economics and literature. Unfortunately, these classes get tedious when I sit in the same class for 6 hours straight. BUT, I'm not complaining... it's a small price to pay in order to be where I am. Last week wasn't too eventful, I spent time walking the streets of Dublin, meeting some new people... the usual for Dublin. All of us are anxiously awaiting our normal classes to start on monday so that we can start meeting some Irish youth.
Skipping over the boring week, on Friday, our program of 20 students went out to the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association) for a tutorial on the traditional Irish sports. We met a very cute trainer for the Dublin Gaelic Football team, who made us play Gaelic football and hurling. It was really nice to be playing a game on grass, for most of us, it was the first time in a while.
Then, on saturday, the girls and I went down to Bray. It's a town about 40 min from Dublin by train. We were planning on hiking up this mountain-
but we missed a turn and ended up walking around the mountain for a long time. Along the way, there were little plaques to tell hikers about the history of the views and the towns. At one plaque, there was a sharp incline right next  to it, obviously not something that had been taken by many people. It was extremely muddy and probably a bad idea to climb, but after walking on relatively flat land for an hour, I wanted some higher views. So, I talked the girls into veering off of the path to take this hill. We slipped and climbed up part of this mountain to reach a perch above the Irish Sea.

 After spending 2 weeks in Dublin and not getting the realest sense of being in Ireland, this was exactly what I needed. I couldn't believe the beauty of the nature that was surrounding me. It was absolutely what I came to Ireland to experience. On the way back, we tried our best not to use that narrow path as a slip'n'slide. On the way back around the mountain, we took some pretty good pictures, here are a couple.



And then there were a few novelty ones that I took thinking of some of you...



That pretty much concludes Bray, Of course, we stopped for a pint on the way back to the train, why not right?
Then yesterday was the all-Ireland Gaelic Football final. Dublin was playing Kerry. You should all know that  Kerry was certainly slotted to win, and there were a couple reasons of why it was such a big game. Kerry is considered the country, for those of you who aren't so familiar on Irish culture, and Dublin is obviously the city. Kerry has won the most titles in the history of the all-Ireland games. So its the country vs. the city and Dublin hasn't won in 16 years. What an intense game, anyone who's interested should look up the highlights because it came down to the last minute when Dublin took the cup. Absolutely insane in the city.
So, that was my week! I'll try to talk to as many of you as I can i the next week!

2 comments:

  1. awesome Jules - and you picked only the good photos... :)

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  2. "The whole world trashes the Irish, ah, but the Irish trash the Kerrymen."

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