Hello :)

Today was pretty awesome. Our group went to Fergus (our tour guide from yesterday) and Sarah's (his wife) house near the coast, on the outskirts of Dublin. It was gorgeous!!! They call it Narnia - that's even how they get their mail! There is no house number, it's just "Narnia" haha. Hilarious! Even if I didn't really like those books...oh well. While we were there Fergus gave us a seriously in-depth lesson on the Ireland conflict from the Protestant perspective. Hello, 5 pages of notes! I had a migraine during his presentation, so I kept kind of nodding off and then the guy sitting behind me would smack me in the head with his notebook to keep me awake. Ow! I guess that was probably for the best though, since I was sitting on a REALLY comfortable couch in the very first row...snoring during a presentation is probably seen as offensive in Ireland. At least, that's my guess! (And NO, I do NOT actually snore!)

This is Fergus and Sarah:

After Narnia, we went to Malahide Castle, which is beautiful! (Fergus told us not to go there because it's "rubbish". I think he just has impossibly high standards.) It was amazing. We couldn't go inside because no one wanted to pay to get in, but the outside of the castle and the surrounding grounds were AMAZING - well worth the trip. Here it is :)

And a couple shots I love from the grounds:

My most commonly used phrase while we were walking around the grounds was "IT'S SO GREEN!!! I CAN'T BELIEVE IT, IT'S JUST SO BRIGHT GREEN!!!"

After we got back, we had "dinner" (reheated spaghetti, bread soaked in butter, wilted salad with some sort of vinaigrette - can you guess how much of that I actually ate?). After "dinner", me and a couple other people (Jacque, Stefan, Emily, Caroline, Hannah, and Chuck) went to a pub called O'Shea's and had real food. It was a fun place - it was pretty slow when we got there because it was only about 9:30, but by 10 they had live Irish music playing - and THERE WERE IRISH DANCERS! It was so fun to watch. I can't believe people actually do that, I thought it was just a stereotype! Awesome nonetheless :)

I ended the day with a great talk with both Mike and Andrea - I love them both! I can't imagine what I would do without them. Ireland is great, but honestly, talking to them was probably the highlight of my day!

I've gotta go, we have to be up by 8:30 and it's almost 2 here - whoops! How do I keep missing bedtime?! Oh right...pub life :) Love it!

Love,
Amanda