Dingle!

Hello all! I am sorry it has been so long but the last couple weeks have been very busy as I had my first two assignments due (yes I have been here two months). One was a long philosophy paper and the other was a European Politics paper both worth fifty percent of my grade. The classes here are very different in that you are only graded on one assignment and then the final. It leaves not much to do as far as daily work goes but can tend to be a bit stressful when there is something to do because a lot rides on how well you do on it.

Last weekend I went with a few other people to Dingle, a city on a peninsula on the west coast of Ireland. Despite the goofy name and the all too easy jokes that can be made about it, it was really a cool town.  We got there on friday night and after a wonderful dinner at a Indian restaurant, we checked into our hostel. The hostel was run by an Aussie from Melbourne who was really a great guy and we talked a bit about how my parents had lived there. The Dingle Pub was the establishment of choice on Friday and we had a good time relaxing and listening to some great Irish music.

An ancient oratory

Saturday we got up early and rented bikes so we could bike all around the Slea Head which is the peninsula. We rented our bikes from a place named "Foxy John's" which is a hardware store/pub/bike rental place. Needless to say this place had character. Unfortunately there was a lot of fog which really limited what we were able to see of the beautiful views. The biking was a lot of fun though and we got to see a lot of ancient Gaelic houses, churches and other structures.

A celtic beehive hut

At the end of our 6 hour ride we were really tired and our legs had been put to the test. We decided to have a celebratory pint at Foxy John's amongst the tools and hardware supplies. That night was a lazy one as we were exhausted from a long day of work. The next morning before we had to leave to head back to Cork we went on a short little hike up a hill in Dingle that had a great view of the whole city and the harbor.

Foxy John's Hardware store/pub/bike rental

I am looking forward to this next week and St. Patrick's day in Ireland. I am not sure what to expect but have heard that it is not as big or as crazy as it is in the United States. The rest of this month should be really busy with more assignments due and hopefully I will find some more time to post on here. I am not sure that tales of me writing papers and studying, although very important, would really be all that interesting to read but hopefully I will be able to write about St. Patrick's day! I am sure I will.

A picture of UCC, my school!