I don't know what expression I was trying to pull; it must just be the magic of Howth.
Today, obviously, some friends and I took a quick day trip up to Howth (rhymes with both), a fishing town on the Irish Sea just a half hour or so DART ride north of Dublin. I'm sure it was once a tiny, quaint village, and in comparison to Dublin I guess it still is, but it's obviously quite an affluent and well-touristed area (more in the summer, though, I'm sure). We had some excellent fish and chips and explored a bit:
The island is called Ireland's Eye; there's a 6th century monastery on it (you can't really see it in the picture; I wish there was a way to make these truly reflect how beautiful this place was).
The coast:
That little speck in the lower left that I so obligingly circled is a seal; just trust me.
Tessa and I decided that we wanted to wash our hands in the Irish Sea, but the rocks proved far too slippery, so we just put on excited expressions and pretended we made it all the way down:
An old abbey we stumbled upon:
The town:
The ladies: Katie (one of my roommates), Johanna, and Tessa:
Yesterday we had an IES scavenger hunt, which proved to be absolutely miserable. We split up into groups and were given obscure clues that required a great many awkward questions ("Excuse me, sorry to bother you, but what is the name of your fudge shop, and is it inspired by an island off the west coast of Ireland?"). We also had to take pictures with a red-headed person (the woman we asked had a sense of humor, luckily) and a member of the Garda (police). Note: do not run around Dublin yelling about the Garda; people will think that you are actually in trouble, and will not necessarily think it's funny when you explain that all you need is a picture.
All of this would have been okay except for the fact that it was pouring out and incredibly windy, and the fact that my group was intensely competitive and basically spent the entire time running. I got blisters; my feet still hurt. However, we won first place, and IES gave us a 100 euro gift certificate to a nice restaurant in city centre. So I am currently well-fed and exhausted; it's a wonderful night.
2 comments:
Kayla- your pictures are beautiful. they are rarely ever as lovely as the real place or our memories. Also, I can see how that scaveger hunt was miserable...it kind of seemed to be bordering on offensive. Talk about creating the "American tourist" situations.
I, too, have been bowing to the Rick Steves shrine lately. He has to be the world's coolest geek. My suitcase was seriously only about 60% full cause his packing cubes were that awesome (and maybe I'm not as high maintenance as I thought I was).
From this angle, your shepherd's pie and potatoes kind of look like a praying mantis biting a hamburger. Okay, maybe I'm sleep deprived.
We will be on the same continent (but not exactly the same land body) on Sunday morning. I'm going to sleepwalk into my dorm that afternoon and take a 10-hour nap.
Have a great weekend!
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