Dublin evening: Old soliders never die, they simply fade away

Yesterday me and some Erasmus friends spent a lovely evening in Dublin. The city is 25k eastly, meaning one hour by bus (Slovenian speed;)).
But if you've ever been to the city of Dublin you know how lovely it is.
We went to check out the St. Patricks chatedral and enjoyed the eve song. Later we've walked around the chatedral and I noticed some really old flags. The tradition goes, that when the soliders return home from a battle, they hang their flags inside the chatedral (since 19th century) in the memory of their lost brothers in battle. The flags are then left to disintegrate on their own, as the saying Old soliders never die, they simply fade away by General Macarthur suggests. Cool, a?

Latter we walked around the Temple bar and finished up in McDonalds (of course). But I've still got one Dublin-goal: National Leprechaun Museum. The views on Liffey were amazing.

Photos by my friend Kerstin. :)

My morning run

Hey hey,

how are you doing?

I am starting to run pretty regularly, meaning two to three times a week, what is a huge step forward for me. I am thinking about accepting a challange and trying to run a half marathon by the end of the year (set date is 29th of Nov) ... but will see about that. For now, I'm just enjoying the sun and the pretty landscapes in Maynooth.
  
Here are a few pics frow my usual running path.

 

 

 All the photos are made by my lovely flat-mate, Vera. Thanks! :)

My school: National University of Ireland Maynooth

Hello everybody,

I thiks its time to tell you something about the beautiful town of Maynooth, where I'm currently living (click). With about 10,000 residents it's smaller than my home town Kamnik, but when the mid September arrives, the noumber of residents climbs up to 20,000. So as you can imagine, it's a realy a true university town. You get student discounts for EVERYthing, meanig food, gym, but also hairdresser and drugstore. It's a small and lively place, with one main street and pubs alongside. So far, we've tried three.

This is what my school looks like:

Welcome to the Hogwaths, riight? I'm in love with the looks of old campus.

And this ishat my lunch break looks like:

 

Starbucks on campus! :)

 Just enjoying the sun.

So as you can tell, I'm getting used to student life here and I'm loving it.

Indian summer

So we're having an indian summer here in Maynooth! (Meaning it hasnt rained since I arrived to this allways-raining land about two weeks ago - and I'm loving it.) So today I had my first lecture - nothing special, though, just an introduction and having one lecture a day is definitely the trend here, I have one or at most two lectures a day most days of the week. And tomorrow I dont have anything so I tought I would do some exploring. Will report how it goes.
So what Ive been up to these past few days? Nothing epic, but it was nice. Just hanging around with some Erasmus people (mostly theology students, surprisingly), walking around Maynooth, discovering some jogging paths, walking paths, frisbee-playing fields:), watching some gaelic football, going to mass on sunday, having a picnic at the campus ... It was a relaxed and enjoyable few days.
I am very lucky that I have two great girls for my room-mates and we are definitely planning some more adventures together. Will see where the path leads us! :)

I'm not sure you can see, but on the picture is our georgeous campus at the sunset. Really feeling like I'm living in a Harry Potter story!

Will write soon, love,
Urška
(Some people can ever pronounce my name correctly!)

Maynooth

So here I am, at the little room thats going to be my home for the next few months. Its small, but bright and the sun is shining in rignt now. My landlady, Mary is the best ever. And the girls Im living with both seem very nice and friendly.  The University campus is georgeous: it has the old part and then the new, vrey modern part. And the library is the most amazing one Ive ever seen - and anybody who knows me knows that makes me happy.
Žiga and Polona left yesterday morning and the orientation week is in full swing. So a lot of exciting things happening for me.
Stay tuned for more!

Killarney

Ive been wanting to write a post every single day we came to the hostel from a day trip, but something allways came up. So here it is, my first week in Ireland, my last summer holiday week and our adventures in Maynooth. To sum it us, it was an amazing week, full of adventures. We are leaving Killarney tomorrow and yeah, it will be missed. Oh, those carefree days, spent with the people I love.

So what did we do?

 




























Monday, 8.9.2014
Traveling day. We arrived to the Dublin ariport and caught the bus ride to the city of Limerick, Limerick. We stayed there one night, to avoid comming to our final destination very late and to see some more Ireland. We spent the night in a family home of one very nice Latvian-Irish lady, we talked raising kids and Latvian dancing and she even drove us to the city and back. Limerick is not a turisty city, especially on a Monday night, so since we were too late to go see the castle, we just bought some dinner and enjoyed picnic at the park and later on ordered our first Guinnes in an Irish pub. First must do crossed off the list!

Tuesday, 9.9.2014
Our journey continued. Destination: Killarney. The first day we had a cup of coffee, went to a walk by the national park and explored a beautiful abbey in the park. We finished the great day in some Killarney pubs.

Wednesday, 10.9.2014 <3
We had something special pland for that day. We rented bikes in the town, drove down to the Ross castle and rented a boat ride there. The boat driver took us across all the three Killarney lakes, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery and even saw an eagle. The amazing boat ride took 1,5 hours. We landed next to the beautiful cottage, rested a bit and than headed up to the Gap of Dunloe - we wanted to follow the  the north shore of the lake back to the Killarney. However, the road was pretty steep and the jaunty ride parties kept on overtaking the road. The scenery was amazing though and we got to fully appreciate it on the top of the gap - truly breathtaking views. And an amazing ride down the hill I might add!

Thursday, 11.9.2014
Time for the day trip! Destination: The Dingle Peninsula. It was the day of fun, spent at the beach. We met two lovely German (and one of them was half-Bosnian) girls who took us in their car and we were laughing and talking all the way. We stopped at this beautiful Inch beach where I get to go swimming in the ocean (If you ever get an opportunity to swim in an Irish ocean, I advice you, not to. I took home a terrible cold.) And there there was a picnic on the beach and a delicious meal in Dingle restaurant (Deep fried snickers. Just imagine.). A lovely place, all in all.

Firday, 12.9.2014
On Thursday we woke up super early because we had a  great adventure planned. We had to get a ride to the Portmagee, because thats where the boat ride to the Skellig islands takes off. Yeah, the Skellings! We were very lucky with the ride, because the lady that picked us up drove us directly to the Portmagee (I guess she was the only person going there, because its a really small village.) and was also very friendly. So, after a fine breakfast, we were of to go. The sea was a bit crazy, but we survived. And it was super worth it. The small Skellig is uh-mai-zeeng. We could not capture it in the photos, but the sight of all the birds nesting was simply breathtaking. And we landed on the big Skellig (Skellig Michael). There are some fine ruins of an acient monastery on the top of an island and your imagenation goes wild, staring across the wild waters of the Atlantic.
When we arrived back to the mainland (Well, bigger island:)), we did a little free tour of the Ring of Kerry - a little sightseeing of the cliffs (climbing on the top of the hill, so we didnt have to pay), walking througt the Irish bog and Polona ruining her shoes and finally a slow and pleasent ride towards our home Killarney by two very kind German tourists. The sights were great. The only thing that was not so great was my cold, getting worse. :(

Saturday, 13.9.2014
After all the travelling and adventures, a relaxing day was in place. We slept long in the morning, made some breakfast and then the gals went shopping! (I love me some Pennies, anytime.;)) Žiga was left at the hostel and super happy about that. We arrived back, mad some lunch and then went to check out the Muckross mansion - the one we wanted to walk to the first day but were too tired. We were too late for the tour, but surroundings were beautiful nevertheless.

Sonday, 14.9.2014
Our last Killarney day. Polona was rooting to go to Cork (like the whole week, really), but we decided it was too far and opted for a closer and very lovely Kenmare. So to the sunday mass (a funeral one, strangely) and then we made some lunch to go and went standing on the sinde of the road for somebody to pick us up. And we were lucky once again. The guy that stopped his car was not even planning to go to Kenamre, but since we were having such a great time driving together, he offered to take us all the was (aditional 10k). Irish people are the best, really! The town was lovely, a lot of cute little shops and bakeries, a really photogenic one. We loved it. We spent the last nignt out in a pub - had to make the most of it - and it was really fun. I can still hear the song: Some say the devil is dead ...

Monday, 15.9.2014
Time to say goodbye to Killarney, unfortunately. So we hopped on the train and headed to the city of Dublin. 

Leaving for Ireland

Dolgi most, 4.44, Ljubljana, Slovenija.
Siting in a parked car, trying to sleep, since we arrived to early to the place where the minibus is going to pick up to take us to Venice, Airport. Its still one hour to go and then me, my boyfriend and my sister are leaving for Ireland. So excited and scared at the same time. Firstly we have nine days of holidays planed together in Killarney, Kerry and then my exchange program in Maynooth starts for real.

Ive wanted this for a long time, but still its kinda nerve-wrecking because I dont know what to expect. Its the first time away from home for me. But I love Ireland and I love discovering new places and meeting new people. So it should all work out great. Keep your fingers crossed!

The bus is about to come, gotta go.

Love, Urška