Ireland

So this weekend we went to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day. Although there weren't really that many celebrations. See, the date was changed from the 17th to the 15th so that it wouldn't conflict with Holy Monday, but the Irish are still celebrating on Monday anyways. But, for all technicalities, we were in Ireland on St. Patrick's Day!

Well, we got there Thursday night, and didn't really do much other than going to bed. When we woke up on Friday we took a bus out to Killarney. We went to the National Park there, and walked the trails and saw Ross Castle. The place is beautiful and a lot of fun, even in the winter. We tried to walk to the waterfalls there, but we walked around 5 miles, and then found out it was 4 more miles, and we still had to walk back. So we just walked back. But it was such an amazing place.

On Saturday we woke up and went out to Blarney, and saw Blarney Castle. I got to kiss the Blarney Stone, (being a Communication major...this could be a good thing!) but my camera didn't work. However, a friend got a picture of it, so I'm going to try to get her to send it to me. We walked around the Castle, explored the caves and dungeon, and the Rock Close (garden). It was wonderful.

When we got back to Cork (where we were staying), we walked around the market on St. Patrick's Street (a fitting thing to do on St. Patrick's Day), and I got a wonderful Nutella Banana Crepe from a guy from Paris. After going back to the hostel for a little while, we had some dinner, played some card games, walked around town for a little while, and then went to bed early.

We woke up at 4:30 am to catch the 5 o'clock bus and get to the airport to check in. However, the guy traveling with us couldn't find his passport, so he went back to the hostel to get it. Problem: he didn't make it back in time for the flight. He doesn't have a cell phone, so we don't know if he found his passport or not. If he found it, he should be on his way back. If he didn't, he's gonna have to go to the embassy in Dublin. No good. Hopefully everything works out okay with that.

Oh, and also, over the counter drugs are very expensive in Europe. I've been sick all weekend, and spent almost $4o in medicines. First I bought some cold and flu medicine from a grocery store, but later I found out it didn't have anything to help my nose. What kind of cold medicine does nothing for your nose? Well, then I went to an actual pharmacy (chemist), and he gave me some drugs that helped a lot. However, possibly due to the cold/sinus/whatever's wrong with me, my ears had a terrible time on the plane, and they wouldn't pop. So for the first day in Ireland I could only hear out of one side. So I also had to buy some ear drops from a different pharmacy to regain my hearing. And each of those was 7-8 euros. That's like $36. Yuck.