'Cause her hair was black and her eyes were blue

Well, well well.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Ireland!  Irish people are so friendly and fun...maybe it's because they like to drink so much and so we get along just splendidly haha but seriously I met so many nice, helpful and fun people this weekend in Dublin.  Our flight was somewhat late on Thursday (St. Patty's Day) so we missed the parade and the all day drunkfest but the flight was surprisingly fun!  Tons of people dressed up in green and excited to celebrate St. Patty's so we met a lot of people on our flight...2 of the people we met were 2 Americans studying abroad in Utrecht (about 30 min train from Rotterdam) and we ended up meeting up with them Thursday night again and then Friday for dinner before they left for Scotland.

Car bombs of course

I went with my friend Sarah and our friend Kira was already in Dublin with her best friend from home.  We all met up together for a bit on Thursday but Kira and her friend ended up going their own way and Sarah and I stayed with our two new friends at a pub for the night.  Somehow we managed to find the only people not speaking english and ended up hanging out with 5 Dutch guys for the night.  I was told by 2 guys from Florida that there was just no way that I am American and that I was doing the worst American accent so I definitely wasn't American.  Interesting...

My camera battery died within 5 minutes of starting our day Friday so I will have to steal Sarah's pictures of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin Castle and Christ Church Cathedral.  St. Patrick's Cathedral was really pretty outside though..it had a big lawn with ponds and lots of benches.  The weather was GORGEOUS!  We have been so lucky with the weather the past few weeks...it's been in the high 50s so it made it even better sight seeing.  Then we met up with Kira and Brittany and went to the Guinness brewery.  The line was insane but luckily we made friends with the Americans behind us and they bought our tickets on their smart phones so we could skip the line!  Friday night we met up with the 2 other girls and our 2 new friends for dinner.  We went to this place called Flannagan's for some Irish food!  All but one of us got the Guinness Pie which was soooo good!  Sadly, the sauce ended up upsetting my stomach a little while later but regardless it was delish.  Our two new friends (Becky and Sam) were going to Scotland in the morning so we said goodbye to them and then the 4 of us headed off to a different part of the city to try and avoid the crowds of tourists.

We ended up at this pub which was not crowded but we were the only girls it seemed.  At some point Sarah and I went to the bathroom upstairs which was next to the upstairs bar where there was a birthday party.  In the bathroom were these 4 girls dressed wicked trashy in dresses with cut outs and whatnot and all their rolls hanging out. Gross.  Then next thing we know they are snorting coke off the counter...Later on some guy came downstairs and invited us all upstairs...they were celebrating graduating university and had no idea about the birthday party but heard there was going to be a stripper.  So we hung out upstairs for awhile...eventually the stripper comes and she was quite disappointing.  I mean what kind of stripper doesn't actually take off her clothes?!  Happy 21st birthday dude but sorry you don't get to see anything tonight.  So after that disappointment we decided to head off elsewhere and we ended up running into the same Dutch guys again and then went back to Temple Bar (the most crowded, touristy area in Dublin).  Found a cool pub with Irish music upstairs, the other 2 girls left and Sarah and I stayed and hung out with two Irish guys.  Met another Dutch guy who was in love with me...thought I was Dutch so we talked in Dutch for a bit until he started just making faces at me because he was so drunk I don't think he could make coherent sentences anymore.  When he spoke English he didn't really make sense...."do you enjoy Rotterdam with me?"  ummm I don't know what you are asking me..are you asking do I like Rotterdam or do I want to hang out in Rotterdam with you? or something entirely different? and he would just scrunch up his nose and nod his head at me.  Cool see ya later.

Saturday we woke up and I wanted to go see Howth Head which is a peninsula outside of the city.  So we looked up how to get there and it was about an hour bus ride.  We figured that was fine with us since it looked beautiful and we didn't have a whole days worth of sights to see again.  We took the bus up to the summit thankfully or else it would have been almost 10 km I think if we did the full hike.  At the top there was a lighthouse and then one part on the side of the cliff you could climb down.  The water was really blue and the weather was perfect.  Plus, I love hiking so I was in heaven.  Then to get back to the village there is a cliff path all the way around the outside and we went the long way it turned out...I think over an hour later and we were still nowhere near where we wanted to be.  We ended up finding some random road and cutting down off the path to the road and then walked at least another hour.  Finally we got to a place where we could catch the bus back and rest our feet which was amazing after the day of walking.

Trinity College

Saturday night we went out to another pub.  More live music which was awesome.  A lot of the pubs had one guy playing a guitar singing Irish songs and lots of popular songs as well.  It was lots of fun to sing and dance along to and we ended the night with the most amazing pizza ever!  Sunday we had just a little while before we had to catch the bus back to the airport.  We headed to Trinity College.  The Book of Kells is in the library there.  It is an illuminated manuscript in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament and is the world's oldest book.  We didn't actually pay to go in and see it because I am cheap and broke duh.  That was all we had time for Sunday because the buses on Sunday don't run as often and so we ended up with an extra 3 hours at the airport. BOO :(  Flight home was uneventful....some of the same people as on the way there, including a guy from SUNY Geneseo who is a 'Cuse fan (yuck) and then the same Dutch guys we kept running into.

I can't wait to go back to Ireland again sometime.  I really want to go to the other side and see Galway and the Moher Cliffs.  I really can't wait to plan another trip too...anyone with suggestions of places to go see let me know!! I have nothing planned until the first week of July so far.  I am really hoping to go to Edinburgh, Galway, Rome and Prague.  Barcelona would be nice but I am going to Madrid in July so maybe I will do Barcelona next year (that is banking on everything working out with grad school here!).

It's crazy to think I have been here for over 7 months now!  Almost time to go back home but I am really itching to go home.  I miss everyone a lot so as much as I am enjoying it here and I love traveling and seeing new places, I definitely am in need of some time back home.

Sooooooo last Saturday was Carnival!!! In the Netherlands it is mostly celebrated in the south, below the rivers.  The farther south you go, the crazier the party gets.  Me and 3 of my au pair friends (Kira from Oregon, Sarah from Virginia and Tiff from Australia) went to Breda which is only about a 30 minute train ride from Rotterdam.  We met up around 11 on Saturday and had to plan our costumes..totally last minute.  Kira fit into one of her kids Jedi costumes so she was set, Sarah had a masquerade mask and Tiff and I had nothing!  My only idea that seemed plausible with such little time was a toga and Tiff ended up buying a sailor costume.  In the end, all the costumes ended up being pretty good.  We couldn't show up and be the only ones not in elaborate costumes!  Some costumes were hilarious..my favorites were these 4 guys dressed as the Jackson 5 (obviously now only 4...) and pushing around a coffin they had made that said "R.I.P. MJ" on the side and had a little black baby inside. 

It was a big street party.  And so so so much fun!  I wish I could go back in time and do it all over again.  We made so many friends just walking through the streets.  Everyone was drinking, old and young.  We ended up splitting up in the end, 2 of the girls went back home at 8 and Sarah and I stayed until around 10 or 10:30.  We weren't really up for staying out all night which was alright, we had a good day and I came back to Rotterdam.

Monday night I went to the Taylor Swift concert in Rotterdam.  My host parents had given me two tickets for Sinterklaas in December.  My friend Sannia (from South Africa) went with me.  We were shocked at how many guys were there alone and not with girlfriends or other girls.  It was crazy!  And a bunch of older men as well.  I kept thinking there is no way these guys are actual Taylor Swift fans but sure enough as soon as she started playing they busted out their cameras and started singing along.  It was really funny and I spent a good amount of the time laughing at them.  Plus, this one older man was dressed like an American cowboy from a lonnng time ago and he just kept bouncing around dancing like a crazy man.  It was a good concert and a fun Monday night.

It is almost time for Ireland now!!!! I can't wait to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Dublin!  I am going with my friend Sarah and our friend Kira is also going to be there with her friend from home.  I cannot wait to see Ireland!  Then aside from that I am hopefully planning a trip with Kira to Rome and we are going to camp outside the city! Should be pretty sweet if we can work that out. :)