Gift of Gab

Today a few of us took a day trip over to Blarney (An Bhlárna). It's actually a lot closer than I thought, about a 20 or 30 minute bus ride at most. The Blarney Castle, and everything it includes, sits on a HUGE property on what I think might have been the outskirts of the town. It has the Blarney Castle, where the Blarney Stone is, the Rock Close, which is a trail with crazy rock formations, another trail (maybe around a lake), and a manor house and stables, which are only open in the summertime.

The castle was really cool to walk through. They had explanations of what each room was and you could pretty much walk anywhere that you wanted to. The stairways were SO narrow and steep, and some of the steps were almost too tiny to step on; combined with my fear of heights, it was a slightly scary climb to the top! When we got up there, I couldn't look too closely over the edge of the battlements. It did not help that when we first got to the castle, we heard some old lady yelling from the top when it was her turn to kiss the stone, and then again climbing the stairs on the way down. I looked pretty terrified while I did it, but I kissed the stone! Now I have the gift of gab (yes, ironic, I know).

We also got to walk around the grounds, on a trail called the Rock Close. It was beautiful, and it had everything from tunnels to waterfalls to evergreen trees. It was also fun to see some of the mythology of Ireland come out. There were stops on the trail where they said that witches come out at night, where druids lived, and where fairies fly around. It sort of matches up with stuff in my Celtic Mythology class, which was cool. The only sad thing thing is that we couldn't see the whole thing, since it's still winter. Definitely a fun day trip to make!

School is still going well, and I feel like I'm starting to slowly get used to the Irish system. And (small world) it turns out that my favorite professor (the one from Turning Points in History) actually was a visiting professor at NU a couple years ago! So Tatiana, my NU flatmate and I, got to talk to him about NU, Chicago, and Evanston after class for a little while. It's always funny to get a reminder of home when you least expect it!

And this week at UCC should be fun, it's Rag Week! I guess it's sort of a Dillo Day combined with DM, except it lasts for a week. There's supposed to be a ton of stuff going on all day, every day on campus, like sumo wrestling and DJ battles and that sort of thing, and somehow it involves raising money for charity. And then city centre is packed early every night! I think it might be something that every university does at some point during the year. I'm excited to do something that's so traditional for Irish schools.

And now we're starting to talk about where we want to travel. We've been throwing around Scotland and England as possible weekend trips, and Spain, Italy, and France as places to go for the monthlong spring break. And maybe Frankfurt. So many places I want to go!