Lesson learned: even the desperately ungraceful can survive the Cliffs of Moher

    I've officially been living in Ireland for over a month now, and have survived four weeks of school.  The scary thing is that there aren't that many weeks left! I've been looking forward to my time here for months and months, and already 1/4 of our time in school here is over, and I feel like it's not even begun yet.  I don't know if I'll be ready to say goodbye to this place come June. 

    In other news, a few friends and I started going to this step-aerobics class that takes place every weekday night at the 'Arena' on campus.  We actually have to stay towards the back, and we have our own instructor because we're new, and we don't know the (at times extremely complicated) steps.  I'm learning, but my natural inability to maintain my balance is fighting against me.  I'm just not the most coordinated person.  But the real instructor is a super-energetic man with big curly hair and tight spandex outfits. He is the Irish's Richard Simmons. And my hero.

    I've finally got all of my schedule worked out, and I decided to drop my crazy German Lit class because I think it might have slowly killed me as the semester went on.  And it would have made it a lot harder to have actual fun, which is really the whole point of being here.  I mean, to hell if I'm going to just sit in my room studying all week when there's a whole country out there to see. 

  

    So now I am taking four classes: Consumption and Consumer Culture (a marketing class), EU Economic Environment, Government and Politics of Ireland (the class that instilled in me with the ability to spell terms such as Taoiseach, Dail, Fianna Fail, and Fine Gael without looking them up), and Traditional Irish Music (complete with an Irish Dance performance class, in which sixteen of us American girls all hop around in various formations, and I attempt to appear not completely hopeless and ungraceful). 

    Today we had a little adventure by going to the Cliffs of Moher.  The hour-and-a-half drive there took about two and a half hours because apparently our driver, James (who is the Irish house-mate of Kim, Lauren, and Katie), didn't think about google-mapping the route there or something.  But he asked for directions in some small towns, and finally found the place.  

   James then had a problem with the idea of paying €5 to park, so he just pulled over on the side of the road next to some gate into a farm.  We learned that being cheap doesn't pan out well, however, because when we came back a few hours later he had a parking ticket waiting for him.  Of all the possible differences in laws across the world, I'm glad to see that parking tickets are still handed out in mass quantities, even on little country roads in middle-of-nowhere Ireland. 

   The cliffs were really beautiful.  There was a spot where the official path sort of ended, because beyond it was too dangerous.  But since we're the brilliant people that we are, we hopped over the barrier like everyone else and walked along the edges of the 500-foot cliffs, with crazy strong gusts of wind blowing us about. 

Notice the people directly behind the sign.  And yeah, we joined them. Rebellious, I know. 

    Apparently it's one of the biggest places to commit suicide in Ireland.  I can't imagine jumping off one of those things, into the freezing water a million feet below. Not to mention the huge rocks in the water.  

The drop

   Not my ideal way to go.  But thankfully there were no jumpers on our visit. That might have put a damper on the beautiful views. 

"Give it a good pash then, girls!"

   Limerick is lovely!  I really adore the campus, I love my room, the people are great, and the city isn't too far.  

   Last weekend I went on a homestay to a small town near Kilmallock.  It was really relaxing and interesting.  My family owned a farm with about 50 cows.  The husband, Dom, was an ex-hurling champ (as in the sport, not the gag-reflex) who taught me about rugby and Gaelic football.  The wife, Doreen, took us shopping and made awesome amounts of delicious food.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time with them, and developed a very Irish weakness for tea and soda bread. 

   But this weekend, Kim, Katie, Lauren, and I decided to go explore some more of what Ireland has to offer by hopping a bus to Cork on Saturday.  It was a bit of a struggle on Saturday morning.  Kim and I had a sleepover (like the awesome 20-year-olds we are) on Friday night and ended up being late to catch our first bus, so we practically sprinted across campus to the bus stop.  A bunch of us had gone out on Thursday night to the Lodge and I hadn't really recovered sleep-wise yet.  I'm just not used to going to bed at three.  It doesn't suit me.

   After being on the bus to Cork for about 10 minutes, I was fully passed out - mouth hanging wide open, not a care in the world.  When we arrived, we navigated our way to our lovely little hostel which happened to be perched atop the HILL OF DEATH.  I swear, this street was at like, a 45-degree angle.  Poor city planning, if you ask me.  I had to lean forward like a hunchback to counteract the weight of my backpack, which was threatening to send me tumbling down the hill backwards. 

   After ditching our bags in the hostel's luggage room, we four walked back to the bus station and bought our tickets to Blarney.  This town is pretty adorable, and only about a 20-minute ride from Cork.  When we arrived, we followed the über-tourist-friendly "This way to Blarney Castle" signs to the Castle grounds.  The whole place - from the crumbling castle, to the green fields, to the little stream running around it all - was absolutely gorgeous.  I don't know how people can live or work in such a beautiful place everyday.

I mean, this is just ridiculous.

   We wandered around the castle for a bit, taking pictures of just about every blade of grass, and then turned into the castle.  From here my memory gets a little hazy, due to my fear-inspired adrenaline poisoning caused by climbing the super-tiny, winding stairs all the way up this huge castle.  I felt like I was going to fall backwards and tumble down all the stairs, or that maybe after hundreds of years, the stones in the wall would finally give way and would come crashing down to the ground.  And it really didn't help that the castle was made for Hobbit-sized olden-days Irish folk, because 5-foot 9 me was too tall for half the passageways in this ancient death-trap. 

   But we did make it up, followed by a couple of patient (but by then, probably also hard-of-hearing, thanks to the high-pitched panic of Lauren, Kim, and I) Australians guys. When we reached the top, the view was pretty amazing - not that I got exactly close enough to the edges on the battlements to look down and around all that often.  My sight was predominantly aimed downwards, towards my feet, in order to avoid tripping over anything that might cause a sudden and unavoidable fall to my death.

   Kissing the Blarney Stone was kind of the most terrifying experience ever.  I think the Australians were trying to ease the situation for us idiot-Americans when they told us to "give it a good pash then, girls."  I had no idea what this mean - but thanks to urbandictionary.com I have come to know that is is a kind of abbreviation for "passionate" and basically means to french-kiss.  In order to kiss this piece of rock, which is sticking out of the BOTTOM of the battlementy-thing in the wall, you lie on your back, hold onto two rails while a guy helps you slide back- and downwards. 

   Oh, and right below you is a gigantic drop that would end your life.  Never.  Again.  And then when I got up I tripped and almost fell down into the castle.  The camera-guy steadied me and had a good chuckle at my expense.  And I had been so careful.

   We then wandered the grounds some more.  I became obsessed with the trees here, climbed a few, frolicked across a grassy knoll, and saw the gorgeous Blarney house.  

   Eventually we went back to Cork, wandered around the shops, and ate a delicious meal at a little restaurant we found.  Then, because we were basically exhausted from the day, we went back to our hostel and were all passed out by 10 PM.  Yeah, we're livin' the life.

Our cute room.

The view by night, before we went to bed atrociously early.

   This morning we wandered around Cork some more, going to see the old Elizabeth Fort-turned-Garda station, along with Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral.  

Cork Street

   We shopped some more, wandered aimlessly for a while, then got back on a bus to Limerick.  It's good to be back, and it's really started to feel like home.