Dublin Pictures

Here they are, finally! Took a while to get them up, but here you go:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning with little sleep so we checked into our hostel and took a quick nap and then headed out into town. It is such a confusing city or maybe we just have a terrible map. But the city is gorgeous, the buildings are fascinating; streets and canals are abundant throughout the city. We walked throughout most of Amsterdam and checked out Dam Square. We then went across the city to the Van Gogh Museum. It was awesome to check out all of his work and read his story, especially since Dadó loved him so much. Afterwards we went to the "I (AM)STERDAM" sign and took some typical tourist pictures. The city is littered with bicycles, absolutely littered! People fly past you on them. Most people use their bicycle here rather than a car. Also scooters roam the streets and many boats along the canals. We went to check out the bustling Red Light District. It's insane that there are so many women sitting in windows; there are a tonnn of them!
On Wednesday, we went to the Anne Frank Museum, where she was hiding out. It was crazy! A great tour. Really glad we made it over to that. Makes me feel bad for Margot Frank, Anne's older sister. She was keeping a diary as well, but it was never found. Afterwards we walked along the city some more and then checked out the tourist attraction of the coffee houses. Amsterdam is packed with them! Then we witnessed a woman get hit by a scooter! Was wondering if there are many accidents because everyone is flying around either on a bicycle or a scooter. She was fine though. Met up with Pablo at our hostel and hung out. Went to the train station in the morning and found a train that went to Berlin. In Berlin now!

Busy, busy, busy

March has flown by with all my visitors, the finishing up of classes, and the beginning of my Euro tour. Had my roommate Nick, girlfriend Rachel, and Darlene come over for St. Patrick's Day. Tried to do lots of things between something them Cork, going to the Jameson factory, and going to Galway for the Cliffs of Moher. Second time up at the cliffs and it's much different nowadays. They've barricaded most of the edges of the cliff to prevent people from falling off. They also have a grave for all the souls that have unfortunately lost their lives off of the cliff. So pretty though! Galway is unbelievable. Finished up the majority of my courses. Finished with classes and have the next two months off. Only have a final and a paper due in early May during finals month. Damien Reidy came down from Dublin to visit in Cork. It was great craic. Met up at about 2pm and went to a pub and did an unplanned pub crawl to our surprise. Made it to about 9 pubs and that was pretty much the entire day/night. We went to West Cork the next day to Baltimore. Damien was telling me about the story from when Baltimore was sacked by Algerian pirates and the whole town was taken back to North Africa as slaves. Pretty wild story, the whole town was completely taken away and became a ghost town. It was beautiful though. We found these cliffs that were stunning. Damien has some pictures up on his facebook of the view we had from the cliffs. Currently writing this in Amsterdam. Flew out this morning to begin my Euro trip. So far the trip is planned to go to Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Munich, Venice, Rome, Spain, and France. I'll keep updating as I go along! Sorry for the delay! Still have a ton of pictures to post, but haven't the time to develop them all, maybe soon though.

St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to everyone! Sláinte! Went to the parade this morning in Cork. Then to grab an Irish breakfast with all of our visitors and the to a few pubs, drinkin Murphy's and some green beer! Hope everyone is enjoying their days!

Updates!

Last weekend, I went over to Kitty Hendrick's house in Cork and met her son Eoin and Sean. Nieve and her family were visiting from Colorado and came over after a day of traveling. We headed over to a pub and Fionnula and her sons Aaron, Aidan, and Greg were there as well. Also met Kitty's sister-in-law and her daughter as well. It was a great night full of eating and drinking. There were so many of us in that pub! It was nice to finally meet some more family members. I enjoyed the craic a lot!

The Big Smoke

This past weekend I ventured up to Dublin to check out the scene. Much different from the rest of Ireland. Actually, I didn't even feel like I was in Ireland. I guess there has been a large number of eastern europeans immigrating into Dublin for the past few years. We got there on Friday night and found a nice hostel. There were two guys staying there that we met on our Ring of Kerry tour the week before. We went out in Temple Bar and checked out a few pubs. On Saturday, we had a delicious Irish breakfast and then went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells, which was amazing! The detail of the art was incredible. Headed from there to a micro brewery, The Porterhouse. Sampled a few of their ales, stouts, and seasonal beers. Then we made the hike over to the Guinness Storehouse to do the Guinness Tour. Made it to the top of the Guinness Storehouse which has almost a 360 degree view of Dublin and you receive your complimentary Guinness. The view was tremendous and relaxing with our pint! We then went to a Cathedral on the walk back to our hostel. At night, we went back to Temple Bar and after a few weird bars, we found a pub playing trad music. So we sang songs and then a céilí dancer grabbed me to dance (did the best i could)! On Sunday, we had an Irish breakfast again and went to see the GPO where the Easter Rising took place. Around that area, there were statues of various people, including James Joyce. Then we grabbed the next bus back to Cork. All in all, we cracked out a lot of tourist spots in Dublin. Pictures should be up soon!