One Short Weekend in The Emerald Country

Hey friends!!

I had this song stuck in my head all weekend so it seemed fitting to include it!! I'm still exhausted from this weekend so this post is going to be mainly photos and a lot of typos so bear with me!! We had the best and worst luck with public transit, it was insane!! We almost missed our flight out to Dublin because the bus from Oxford took waaaaay longer than usual. After sprinting through the airport, Amazing Race style, we got to our gate like two minutes before the gate was supposed to close and found out that our flight had been delayed!! Thank goodness!! We also had a really late flight on Monday night to get back to London that got delayed. We didn't think we were going to make the last train back to central London, so we had to sprint through the airport, once again, and made it on about 30 seconds before they closed the doors. We got home around 4 AM and needless to say, we learned our lesson about booking flights that take off so late!! Ireland was really different. We had expected Dublin to be similar to London because it is Ireland's "cosmopolitan" city. However, we quickly found out that there really wasn't that much to do in terms of sight seeing.

Our first day we went on a day trip to the Cliffs of Moher. We got to stop at Belfast and a few other places along the way, but really none of it could live up to how magnificent God's handiwork of the cliffs was. This was by far my favorite part of the trip and the pictures really don't do it justice because it is truly breathtaking. As we were driving through Ireland we decided that like Oz, everything really was "grand and green"!!

 

After an incredible day at the cliffs, we were ready to hit the group running in Dublin. We started off the morning at the National Leprechaun Museum which was really really cute 'n' fun and we had a good time learning about Irish folklore! After that, we walked around Dublin and went to see the Book of Kells, an illustrated copy of the Bible that the Irish created to return the importance of Christianity to society... Thanks for the recommendation, Mimi!!. The colors were so vivid and beautiful and they had to import dyes all around the world to complete the project. After a lunch break and a trip to the sweet shoppe, we went on a walking tour that showed us many of the historical sights around town and our guide told us all about the history behind them.

The rainbow we walked through to get to...

The pot of gold!!

Leprechaun Museum!!

They apparently painted these lovely historic buildings vivid colors to remind the people of Dublin that they lived in a costal town... Interesting tactic!!

Trinity College 

Ireland was really really fun, but I'm super excited to get back into the classroom at the primary school I'm observing at and to London for the next two weekends!! They say distance makes the heart grow fonder, and that is 100% true when it come to me and my new favorite city!!

Until then my friends!!

xoxo 

SG