The Beginning of the End

This last weekend was spent in a Gaeltacht! It wasn't nearly as terrifying as I expected it to be and we had an incredible time. We were staying in a little village called Corca Dhuibhne where UCC owns a house, but Jenna, Kelly and I were actually staying in a B&B outside of the village because there were 3 too many people for the house. That was pretty fun. We spent most of our time at the house with everyone else and just went out to the B&B at night to sleep and have breakfast in the morning. The people that ran it were awesome and were native Irish speakers so that made things interesting, but I feel like I really got a feel for it.

Left to right: Naomi (from Iceland), Laura, Me, Jenna

Nicolas, Aline, Cecile, Nadia and Vanessa (all from France).

Carolin (Germany), Alessa (Germany), Caroline (America), Sjoukje (Germany), Sean (America) and Jason (America).

Jenna in our room at the B&B reading her (actually, I think that one was mine) Irish dictionary.

Sheep!

Laura and Kelly taking pictures of the scenery near Dún Chaoin.

This is actually not really an old Irish building. It is part of the set of the movie Ryan's Daughter that was filmed on the Dingle Peninsula. It was the schoolhouse.

This was taken from in front of the schoolhouse.

Again, in front of the schoolhouse.

The bus we toured around on. We only had it for about 2 hours on Saturday.

This is the path that leads down to the pier where the send out boats to the Blasket island.




Look for the hazy shadow out in the distance. That's the Sleeping Giant (one of the Blasket Islands).

Me and Naomi

This is pretty much all we saw of Dingle (the town) because we only had a 20 minute stop here.

This is the last standing rectangular dry mortar beehive church in the world.

Going for a walk down to the beach before the big storm hits.

This is Addison. He's from Texas.

Laura dancing on the beach.

Me jumping off of rocks.

Kelly step dancing on the beach.

I am and will always be a beach girl at heart.


We left the beach when it started raining on us and headed back to the house. We started a fire and drank tea.

We were on kitchen duty Saturday night.

The chicken looked like someone had attacked it with a hacksaw so Matt was trying to salvage what he could.

There were still feathers and innards. Jenna got the job of ridding the chicken of those.

I made the mashed potatoes.

Laura made the pasta.

After dinner we were all bored because there was a raging storm (wind/rain/hail) and we couldn't really go anywhere so we stayed in and made our own fun. It started with crazy hair styles.


Then we moved on to the white board. This is how it started. Take note of the bunny.

This is how it ended. (it says: Dia dhuit dhawg! Is as Compton dom. Which means: God be with you dawg!! I'm from Compton. (Dia dhuit is how you say hello in Irish, even though that's not the direct translation))

Since it was so gross outside our teacher arranged for us to do Céilí dancing in the dining room!


On Sunday when Marian (my Irish teacher) picked us up from the B&B she played tour guide a bit on the way back to the house. At one point she pulled over to show us a standing stone and told us to get out to get a better look. She came with us and asked if we noticed anything off about it...then she knocked on it. It was plastic. It's a leftover prop from Ryan's Daughter. Pretty convincing though!

On the drive home.

Snow in the mountains! We actually drove through some snow, but none of those pictures came out.


That was my weekend in the Gaeltacht! It was awesome. We had so much fun! I really got to know a lot of the people in my class that I never would have known well otherwise. A definite highlight was when we were cooking dinner and Matt brought his computer out and we all were cooking and singing and having a blast! It's too bad that it happened at the end of the year.

So, this was the beginning of my crazy last few months here! After this next up is St. Patricks Day (bank holiday so we get the day off from school!), then a final next Thursday, then 2 more finals the next week, then the excavation, then Eurotrip, then a cluster of finals, then Britt comes, then a final, then Andrew comes, then Laura leaves, then I leave 4 days later. The longest break in there is 9 days. CRAZY!!!