Midterm Break

Hey folks,

After traveling around for a week I got home safely and want to share some of the great memories with you in my 100th post. (Since there was a teacher union on strike we're off school for today).

In Ireland there is one week of midterm break in October and one in February. Then they have two weeks of Christmas and many many months of summer holidays :D

Anyways, the last week was a great chance to travel around the country and make use of the (so far) really amazing weather! Lena, who is an assistant in Tralee, and I have been planning to travel together and we were both really excited about this trip.

Technically, my vacation started on Thursday. Since there was a day of striking (again), Paul, a teacher, who plays Rugby, and Siobhan, my flat mate, took a trip to the Skelligs Chocolate Factory, where they make really really good chocolate!!!, drove around Cahersiveen, Portmagee, Kells and other places and had a nice Thai dinner close to the beach in Kells.

You can try loads of chocolate and then buy it all :D 

We had a good laugh at this one!

Look at this huge "forest"

Usually I'm off on Fridays but since Kathleen had been out for the whole week I went to school for a few classes to talk to her. Then in the afternoon, Lena came down from Tralee, we went for a walk/hike towards Beentee, a mountain behind the house from where you have a great view over Cahersiveen. In the evening Anthony, a teacher at my school who lives in Tralee, Steven, another teacher, Shane, my other flatmate/teacher/landlord (btw I love the word landlord!), Siobhan, Lena and me went out for a good dinner and then we had a great night out listening to live music and meeting other people. After arriving home around three in the morning Lena and I were introduced to Irish set dancing (which Lena is really good at!) and early in the morning we finally went to bed....

Anthony, who had been the first to go to bed on Friday, was so nice to bring Lena and me up to Lahinch on Saturday, which is very close to our first destination Doolin. He wanted to go surfing with his friends (something I'd really love to try before I leave!) and offered us a lift. So we spent a nice day at the beach there and went to our hostel in Doolin afterwards (in which Anthony and his friends were staying too... after a few weeks in Ireland you start getting used to funny coincidences).

Lena and Anthony;)

Lahinch Beach

Doolin Harbour

"Excuse me, where's the bathroom please?"

Sunday was the perfect day to hike to the Cliffs of Moher! They are just so breathtaking and beautiful. And of course the weather made it an even better experience! (With a proper and expensive camera the pictures would be even better) While having breakfast we met a Canadian guy who ended up going all the way to the cliffs with us which was nice. The almost two hour hike (including taking hundreds of pictures) was great and the views from there were amazing! In the evening we went to a pub close by where they had great live music on! From little children playing the accordion to an older man singing at the top of his lungs. Have I mentioned yet how much I love the live music here????

Say hi to Shayan

Look at the sunrays!

On the way to Moher ;)

Sooo steep. At this point the long stone was kinda the only thing you could step on...

What? Steep? :D

Halfway there ... :) 

Doolin is waaaay over there....

They're in sight!

Finally there!!! :)

Beautiful view!!!

There they are in all their glory

And on the other side they are fairly steep as well

Aren't they cute?!?

We were very excited about going to the Aran Islands on Monday because we heard many rumors about the people on the tiny islands, who apparently don't speak all day on Halloween and wear masks so nobody would recognize them. Unfortunately this was mostly a rumor. People didn't come out with their costumes until eleven o'clock and everyone was speaking. Buuut we met at least one guy in a scary costume who hasn't taken off the mask all evening. And after eleven the pub was crowded. Anyways, our day started off great since we saw dolphins while we were on the ferry! We turned into little children and were super excited about them swimming next to the ferry for a good while! During the day, Lena and I rented a bike and took a tour through the biggest of the three islands, Inis Mór. Following a hiking trail, our way ended at a huge stone field which we couldn't have crossed with the bikes so we went all the way around it on the main street. We went up to Dún Aonghasa, an old and rather big stone fort with great view on the sea and cliffs.

DOLPHIN!!!

Hanging out at Dún Aonghasa...

... where there are nice cliffs as well...

...and a great view on the sea!

Part of the hiking trail we biked :D

Our genius costumes

And the man in the mask

Having the choice of taking the ferry at 8.15 or 17.00 we decided to take the later one on Tuesday and started the day with a nice bike ride towards the other end of the island. The weather was great! Blue sky and so much sun! So we were even more impressed by the island. In order to see more of it we joined Noel on a bus tour. He was born there and is one of the many many bus drivers that take you on a 3 hour tour around the island for 10€. A nice American couple joined us and among many things we learned that there are 900 inhabitants on the island and in between June and August/September there can be up to 2000 tourist per day!!!! The day ended with a stunning sunset when we were on the ferry to Galway.

Blue sky, blue sea, green grass, are we seriously in Ireland???

Dún Aonghasa again and this time even more beautiful views!

What a fancy catholic church they have

If I remember correctly there are three cemeteries and you get buried at whichever one you live close to. This one is right next to the sea!

And this is the other one on in the area "The seven churches" without seven churches

Thank you for the great time, Inis Mór!

And thank you for this beautiful goodbye!

Galway, which seems to be the favorite city of most Irish people, showed itself from a good side on Wednesday. We went for a walk down to Salthill, along the promenade and went into the Atlanaquarium where we learned a bit about fish and sea animals close by. We also saw Dori and Nemo and held star fishes in our hands :) Our walk went on northbound past the beautiful cathedral. It doesn't seem tooooo impressive from the outside but is stunning from the inside. In the afternoon we went shopping (I was very bored by my limited choice of clothes by then and buying something new was very satisfying :D ) The evening was amazing! We asked an American (from Alasca) to join us for dinner and a live session which sounded very promising. Sitting in the pub, we met a girl with her family from Stuttgart, who studies primary school teaching and is doing an internship in Galway at the moment. The funniest coincidence was that we bumped into Nadine, an assistant from the Sauerland, who is working close to Dublin. So the four of us had good craic (in case you haven't heard about it yet: it is THE Irish word for fun) and we even saw one man step dancing! After that we started our own little jam session with a guitar and a keyboard in Nadine's hostel, which stopped after a few songs because we realized we neither knew the chords nor the correct lyrics etc.

Ähm, we took a wrong turn somewhere ... :D

Salthill :) 

Up north

On the streets of Galway. That and people singing on EVERY corner! <3

Chris, Nadine ans us. Not very sharp unfortunately ...

On Thursday we had to go different ways. As Lena travelled to Clifden I took the train all the way up to Belfast. And the long journey was worth it because I finally met up with Vinona again, a very dear friend I've been to school with years ago. It was so great catching up that we didn't go to bed before 3.30 on Thursday and Friday! In between we walked through the streets of Belfast, got delicious food at Nando's (it's a chain where you can get very tasty spicy food), went to a café for cake and to a pub with live pop-music in the evening. My first quick impression of Belfast is nice old buildings next to modern new ones that can be very nice as well or not so nice and lots of arts... Anyways, I liked it very much and the University is cool!

So great to see you <3

Part of Queen's University

Study room for the postgrads! I'm a bit jealous

Old and new :)

Cool building!

Art on the street!

For those of you interested in GOT ;)

Hot chocolate and cake! <3

The City Hall at night

Saturday I met up with Paul and some of his friends in Cork after crossing the island from north to south by bus from 11.00 to 18.00. In the evening there was a very important Rugby match on. Ireland played New Zealand, who had been unbeaten for 18 games. Ireland hasn't won a game against them in 111 years. And on Saturday Ireland actually won! (Article here if you're interested: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/rugby-union/2016/11/05/ireland-33-new-zealand-29-irish-end-111-year-wait-to-beat-all-bl/). You can imagine the good atmosphere everywhere. So from this bar we moved to the city center to another pub/bar and in the end to one of the night clubs in town where the music was actually very good! It was a funny evening that didn't end until 3.30 (see a pattern? ;))

Super crowded and everyone is excited!

So on Sunday all there was left was getting lunch and driving home. In the car they guys were quoting it so much that I got the task to watch Father Ted, which is a super famous TV show from ages ago and is apparently very funny. We had a nice dinner at Frank's and ice cream for dessert. A great way to finish the great week full of highlights, amazing landscape and good fun!