Failte

Last Friday we took a day out. We woke up not really knowing where we wanted to go except that we wanted to see the sea. The "we" were my housemates Dan and Jirina. Elyssa joined us at the bus stop to complete our quad. We started on Google and decided to walk the 20-30 minutes to the nearest DART station and took the train to a town north of Dublin called Malahide. It had a castle that was marked on a lot of maps, so we figured it had to be good.

Once we got to Malahide it was a short walk to the castle grounds, which turned out to be a massive park with winding trails, playgrounds, and even hurling grounds. After winding our way through some small forests, and asking a woman for assurance that we were indeed going the right way we turned a corner to an awesome stone castle that had been lived in all the way into the 1900s. We decided that it wasn't quite big enough to pay the 7.50 euros to take a tour of the top floors so we took some pictures of the outside, walked around inside where we were allowed and then began our trek back into town. Malahide is pretty busy with traffic, but still feels like a tiny village after being in Dublin for a week. We stopped into a pub where we got a meal. I had a Guinness as my main course, deciding to wait for a fish and chip shop by the sea I had built in my mind.

We took the train from Malahide to Howth, another small seaside town. I've posted some pictures to my Facebook for those of you that have access...it's hard to describe the feeling you get being in towns that seem to be straight out of the movies. We walked the harbor, sat on some rocks and watched the water for a while waiting for Dan and Jirina to explore the sea caves along the coast. Caught the next train back to Dublin, where I received a goodbye smooch from a very drunk Irishman. Yeah, I said man...a shock to the system to say the least.

I still haven't been to the Guinness Storehouse, which is starting to drive me nuts but I know I have plenty of time. Even on nights when I don't go out to the pubs, clubs and other late night places I find that I'm still up late talking to someone about various things. Finally Skyped with some friends from home which has helped with the homesickness a little. I hadn't been feeling it too much, but now that I finally have a little down time I can tell that I'm missing it a bit. I think what's bothering me the most is that I can't go to Kansas State football games. Every time I think about home, KSU is what comes to mind first. I think tonight I'll probably stay in and listen to the Kansas State vs Kent State game, which I believe starts around 10pm for me. Thank God for KSUHD...since ESPN360, Hulu, and Netflix don't work here. There is a bar on Parnell St that shows NFL games every Sunday so that will always be an option as well.

Tomorrow I get to go to a cooking demonstration in Temple Bar to learn how to do some traditional Irish cooking. I'm pretty excited...though that just means I'll have to cook something for my roommates soon after. I owe them. Also, in a couple of weeks I'll be going to a club for a hurling and Gaelic Football lesson with the team. That will be awesome, and I'm sure I'll embarrass myself more than a few times. Also on sports, I'm thinking about joining the UCD softball team just for something to do. Every time they hear an American accent they immediately start pitching for you to join.

There's so much for me to say every time I get on here. So many stories I want to tell. It's incredible here. Being here is making me even more determined to get into George Washington, and eventually end up back in Dublin or London. (It's hard to go to class here though, where I feel like I'm just wasting valuable time. It will get easier as I feel more settled, and get into the correct classes. Or I'll just have an extremely tough semester at KSU when I get home.)

Slan,

Nedwords