Adios

This morning we take off for the west side of Ireland (again) to visit the cliffs of Moher. we will see those later today and then start hiking south along the coastal region until we don't want to hike anymore. We are hoping to make it back to Dublin in time for St. Patricks Day, and then we fly out of the Dublin airport for Barcelona the night of St. Pats. I will try my best to keep you all posted throughout this escapade.

The West Side

This last week I have been staying on the west side of Ireland in a smaller town called Westport. My whole study abroad program went for a required 'class trip' to learn more about the legendary potato famine of the 1840's. We stayed in a really nice hotel where everything was already paid for, so it felt like we were getting a free breakfast and dinner everyday! Food was incredible too, all local products used in the cooking. We left Wednesday morning, stopped at the Strokestown Manor (a huge house where a landlord lived during the famine) on the way out there and got into the hotel just before dinner. Thursday we went on a sight seeing tour of Connemara (that was the name of the area we were in). WE saw some famine monuments and memorials, walked to the base of Croagh Patrick (Mount Patrick, Ireland's holy mountain), and made some stops at national parks along the way. Friday we set out to Achill Island in the morning and stopped at one of the few remaining famine-era farms. The guy who owns it collects things from that era and takes people on tours through his family's old home. The group left on Saturday morning, Isaac and I stayed back to climb the mountain we saw two days earlier. We made out way out there in the morning and took a good part of the day climbing it. It was a perfect day up for it! It's not very often that you get a day in Ireland when it is that clear. We got back into town a little early and met a bartender from Chicago who had moved out there! He was really interesting to talk to and hear his story. Then we almost didn't catch the train back into Dublin. It was an amazing week, a day of rest was much needed.

Galway Climbing

Galway was such a blast! I would love to make it back there again before I leave. The city is a bit smaller than Dublin, and feels much more like home. There are tons of small little mom and pop shops (and pubs). We got into Galway Friday night, found our hostel, and joined the other climbers at the host school's on-campus pub. The rugby match between England and Ireland was on (it's a pretty big deal), so we watched that and everyone was getting really into it. When you get a room full of climbers, things start getting climbed, in this case it was the bottom of tables. Hahah, it was crazy. All day Saturday we climbed in the competition. It was set up in 15 walls. Each wall had two routes, A and B. If you climbed A you got 20, 19 or 18 points, depending on the number of tries. If you climbed B, you got 10, 9 or 8. The only difference was that the B routes had some additional holds thrown in. I started out doing pretty good, mostly 20's and 19's. Once the afternoon came I started burning out and in the end I was struggling to even finish the B routes in 3 tries. I guess climbing 3 times in the past 2 months doesn't help much. However, I did end up being the best climber from my school, DCU. On Sunday we spent the day in town, finding cozy places to catch the Celtic vs. Rangers game, and then Aston Villa vs. Manchester United. Very relaxing. We caught the bus home at 6, and got back to campus somewhere around 9:30. Tomorrow is my first day of interning; I have to go in really early, 10:00.

Kylen the Intern Goes Climbing

Three weeks into school, I finally managed to find me an internship that will hopefully fit into either of my majors. I will be working at a place called The Sanctuary. From what I can gather, this place exists in the middle of Dublin to give a sense of peace to people through different classes and relaxation methods. (check it out online: www.sanctuary.ie) It is a small organization, which means I will be able to do a little bit of everything. They have a big event coming up this summer, they sounded pretty excited when I mentioned that I could help promote it. They seem to be great people, and they already told me that I can take any time off to go travel Europe. I hope this will be a worthwhile experience.
Tomorrow at half three (thats Irish for 3:30) I will be leaving to Galway (West coast of Ireland) to participate in a climbing competition with the DCU climbing club. I have never done a competition, so this will also be a new experience. I will be back on Sunday and I will let you know how it went!

Pancake Tuesday and a Relaxing Weekend

This past Tuesday (known to Americans as 'Fat Tuesday') is called pancake Tuesday here in Ireland. Why? I have no idea, other than the fact that instead of the traditional mass consumption of sweets, they instead eat loads of pancakes! However, pancakes aren't common here. You can only buy small bags of pancake mix in the stores, and it isn't even cheap! So some of us decided to make pancakes for Pancake Tuesday. We made some wholewheat strawberry pancakes, banana pancakes were attempted, and of course, we made potato pancakes. The rest of the week went by pretty normally, I went climbing for the fist since I've been here, and got invited to go with the club to a climbing competition this weekend. Still not sure if I'm doing that yet, some other plans are still in the works. This last weekend I was supposed to go with some friends to a hurling match (like lacrosse but with clubs, and bigger goals... wikipedia explains it nicely) on Saturday, and then we were planning on taking a smaller day trip on Sunday. When we got to the arena on Saturday (45-50 minute walk), we were informed that the game was in fact on Sunday. The person who had the tickets (she is interning at the GAA, the athletic club who sponsers the match) forgot to see what day the match was on. So no more day trip on Sunday, because we were determined to see this match. We walked back to the arena on Sunday, only to find that 1 inch of snow is enough to completely cancel a match! Needless to say, we got in a whole lot of walking this weekend!

"We just hiked a marathon in Kilometers!"

Well the weekend has come and gone! Isaac and I took a bus just about as far south as we could go, a small town called Enniskerry, where we had scoped out a Youth Hostel. We got dropped off, and then had to hike down some back roads for 45 minutes until we found the hostel. They gave a few words of advice and showed us the Wicklow Way. We hiked a few hours down the path until we found a nice place to camp. It was tucked at the bottom of a valley right next to the river that dropped off into a waterfall a few hundred yards down. AMAZING!!! We ate some spaghetti with potatoes and pepper, very tasty. We went to bed early in order to wake up early and hike the next 15 miles, all before 4:30. We had to catch the last bus to Dublin out of Glendalough, or we were spending the night... So we tried sleeping, but it got very cold and neither of us got much sleep. At 8 we woke up and tried getting some blood back into our fingers. Luckily for me my toes were kept warm by a fresh pair of knitted socks (thanks mom!). We hiked all day, saw some beautiful sights, even some deer up there. We made it to town in time, despite a collapsed bridge. We crashed for an hour or so in a hostel and caught the 90 minute bus ride home!

Interview @ PCC

I had the interview at PCC earlier today. They work mostly with non-profits doing their advertising and public relations work. PCC themselves are not non-profit, they just work with them. Walking out of the interview I didn't really know what to think. He asked a lot of questions about what I want to do with my future and what kind of similar work I have done in this area. I told him the best I could, the last thing I wanted to say was that I have no idea. Overall, I think we had some good talks, we talked about school and my involvement at Hope. He wanted to know why I came to him directly too, I guess most people get to him through their study abroad programs. I explained my situation and told him that I was on my own on this one. He seemed to understand. Aslo, he had mentioned that there are a few other people also applying for this internship, so we will have to see. I am hoping to hear something from him towards the middle of next week. I will keep you posted.