Ireland (Éire, Iwerddon)

Hello again.
on Monday, my four-week break ended, and the real world started up again. but before that, I went to Ireland. I spent three weeks there, and went around the whole island, beginning and ending in the same place: Rosslare, where the ferry goes to and from Fishguard, in west Wales.
my first stop was Drogheda - north of Dublin, to Brú Na Bóinne, ancient burial chambers and mounds (older than Stonehenge, even!). I went to Newgrange, which is the biggest and most popular site. on the Winter solstice, the sun creeps down the passage and lights up the chamber. while I stayed in Drogheda I also went over to the Hill of Slane, which is famous for being the place where St Patrick introduced the shamrock.

Newgrange

The Hill of Slane

After Drogheda I headed up to Newcastle, which is very nicely situated in Northern Ireland between the Mourne Mountains and the ocean. I took a day and hiked up Slieve Donard, which is the highest mountain in Northern Ireland (although not the highest mountain in all of Ireland, taking second place there). it was extremely foggy for 3/4 of the hike, but the view on the way down the mountain was gorgeous.

Slieve Donard

after Newcastle I spent a day in Belfast before heading up to Portrush, Ballintoy, and the Giants Causeway. Portrush has an amazing beach, Ballintoy is very close to the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge (a rope bridge across a gorge to a small island with amazing views), and the Giants Causeway was really interesting (and also very beautiful, but I have the feeling I'll be overusing that word in this post).

The Belfast Wheel

Portrush Beach

Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge

The Giants Causeway

from the Giants Causeway I went over to Derry for a day, before heading southward to Achill Island, on the west side of the Republic of Ireland. it was extremely windy and cold on Achill Island, but it was also very pretty and diverse - beaches and fields and mountains and ghost towns and lots of rain.

One of the Bogside Murals in Derry

abandoned house on Achill Island

Next I went to Galway for a few days - I took a ferry to Inis Mór, the biggest of the Aran Islands, and rode a bike around the island all day (with absolutely perfect weather). I also spent some time just wandering around Galway, up and down streets. Galway has a very interesting feel - it's becoming a modern city but it still retains that old-school Irish village charm and feel. I had a lot of fun in Galway.

Inis Mór

After Galway I went over to Ennis, which is a cute town in County Clare, southeast of Galway. while I was there I took a bus over to the Cliffs of Moher. the day was pretty foggy, very windy, and a little rainy, but the Cliffs were absolutely stunning and completely worth the high winds. From Ennis I headed down to Dingle, in the Dingle Peninsula, for a night. the town and the peninsula are gorgeous, and the weather was also starting to clear up and get warmer by this time (which was very nice).

The Cliffs of Moher

Dingle

after Dingle I went over to Killarney, which is right next to Killarney National Park and the Ring of Kerry (famous for its beautiful drive around the peninsula). my first day there I rented a bike and (in perfect weather again) rode around the National Park. the next day I took an organized tour of the Ring of Kerry, which did live up to its hype - it was a beautiful drive, and the tour guide had some interesting tidbits as well.

Muckross House

Torc Waterfall

The Ring of Kerry

my final leg of the trip was Cork. I spent a couple days just wandering around the streets, seeing the sights. I walked over to Blackrock Castle, which also functions as an observatory, and went through the exhibits they set up. the weather was wonderful - sunny, warm, and with the occasional soft breeze, so I spent most of my time just wandering around. and it was pretty perfect.

Blackrock Castle-Observatory

from Cork I went back to Rosslare, back to Fishguard, and back to Swansea. I had a couple days to relax and readjust before classes started up again on Monday. this week I've got a couple books to read and a paper to write. before the semester ends I have another paper to write and an exam to study for, but when that's all done, I plan on heading to Norway and Denmark, Austria, Spain, France and Scotland, hopefully with a friend who is planning on coming to visit. I have a couple months between my exam and my plane ticket home, so hopefully I'll have enough time to go everywhere I want to.
I'll update again, when I've got a better plan of what I'm doing. hopefully this ash cloud that's hovering over all of Europe will go away, and I'll be able to fly places that are really far away (like Norway and Austria).
thanks for reading, everybody.

Mumbles

Hello all,
I apologize for the neglect. I haven't done much traveling since January. I've just been hanging out in Swansea. Last week a friend came to visit, and we went down to Mumbles for the day.









Tomorrow I head to Ireland for three weeks, during our "Easter Break". I'm going around the edge of the island, and I'll post loads of pictures when I get back.

the December Adventures

Well, it's been a while. a rather hectic, rather fun while.
My parents got here on the 10th of December, and after taking them around Swansea, we headed over to Cardiff for the night. I showed them the bay, and then the next day we hopped on a train to London and then took the Eurostar from London to Paris.

Millenium Centre at night.

We only had one day in Paris, so we stuck in as much as we could. We went all over the place--the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, down the river to Notre Dame and to see the Louvre, up to the Moulin Rouge, and then back to the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees to the Christmas Market (which was packed). by this time our feet hurt, so we headed back to the hotel.

Arc de Triomphe

Tour Eiffel

Notre Dame

Inside Notre Dame

The Moulin Rouge

The next day we hopped on the Thalys (a super-rad high speed train) that went up through Brussels over to Cologne, and then down to Bonn to meet our distant-relative cousins, who were wonderful. They showed us all around Bonn, which was really fun. Occasionally there were complications with the language, but everybody did really well.

at the Beethoven Haus

this is where Beethoven was born.

After Bonn we headed over to Berlin. We had three whole days and we saw a lot, but we didn't even put a dent in the city. The first day we went to the Brandenburger Tor, then walked through the Tiergarten to the Siegessäule (the Victory Column) and climbed up it (280 or so stairs--my legs are still sore). After that we walked over to Potsdamer Platz and then to Alexanderplatz to the Christmas Market to wander and eat dinner.

Brandenburger Tor

Siegessäule

The second day we started out at the Berlin Wall, then went down to the Ampelmann store (the little green man on the walk signs in East Berlin). We wandered down to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, then up to the Holocaust Memorial and walked down the Unter den Linden to another Christmas Market.

Berlin Wall.

Holocaust Memorial

The third day we went to the Zoo in the morning, which was really fun, and then we wandered over to the bombed-out church, then to the Potsdamer Platz again to the Museum of Musical Instruments, and then back to the Christmas Markets for dinner again.

the Elephant Gates

After Berlin we stopped at Prague on our way to Munich. We had about five hours, but I showed them all the good spots--the castle, the astronomy tower, the bridge, etc. Then we hopped on a train to Munich and got in late.

Prague in the winter-time

We didn't spend a lot of time in Munich other than sleeping--on Saturday we hopped on a train to Rothenburg ob der Tauber (which I've actually been to before, with the High School) and wandered around the city. It was freezing but really pretty.

Rothenburg ob der Tauber

Sunday we took a castle tour up to Linderhof and Neuschwanstein, two of the castles built by [Mad] King Ludwig II. It was really cold, but also really pretty.

Linderhof

Neuschwanstein

After Munich we took a train to Zurich and spent the night, and the next day we headed over to Chur, where we would catch the Glacier Train to Zermatt. It was gorgeous--everything was white and mountain-y, and when the sun shone it was so bright you had to close your eyes. Zermatt is a cute ski town right below the Matterhorn, although for a car-free town it's pretty dangerous in terms of motor vehicles almost running everyone down. We got in after it was dark so we couldn't see the Matterhorn, but we found dinner and walked around. The next morning there were clouds over the Matterhorn so we didn't actually get to see the mountain (which was unfortunate) before we left for Geneva. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Geneva, keeping it low-key and playing a lot of Euchre.

Zurich

on the Glacier Express

what we could see of the Matterhorn

Lake Geneva

On Boxing Day (the 26th) we headed to the airport and flew from Geneva to London. We went to Westminster that evening and saw the city at night, then went back the next morning to ride the Eye and see everything in the daytime. When we were done with that we went down to London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London, then found our way up to the Zebra Crossing on Abbey Road. there were a lot of people at first, but it was a large group and they left. It was strange, to see all these people find this precise zebra crossing simply because four people took a picture there a long time ago. After Abbey Road we went over to Hyde Park to the (still ongoing) Christmas Fair, and the next morning mom and dad left (and from what I hear, had a great time flying home, after the Christmas Bomber). I'm really glad they came to visit. It was fun times all around.

The London Eye

Platform nine and three-quarters

Westminster Abbey

View from the Eye

Tower Bridge

Abbey Road

I hung out in London for a couple days after that and went to see Peter and the Wolf live (it was amazing), then went over to Canterbury for a few days over New Year's. I just hung out and wandered around the town a bit. From Canterbury I went to Oxford for a couple days and wandered around there, then came back to Swansea.

Peter and the Wolf

Canterbury Cathedral

I've spent the last week writing my second essay for Genocide, which I turned in today. Next I write an essay for my Picaresque class that's due on Thursday. After that I think I'll just rest in the in-between time and read a few books. Classes start on the 25th. This semester I'm taking Welsh again, the History of Propaganda, and Contemporary American Fiction, and I'm looking forward to all of them. Like last semester, I have classes on only Mondays and Tuesdays, which leaves some weekends open for (hopefully) a lot more travel.

also: I apologize for the super-long post. in retrospect, I suppose I could split it up, but now I'm too lazy.