Dublin x2!

Hi everybody, Happy Easter!!

I am counting down the days to when I come home, time is absolutely flying by and there is so much I am trying to fit in before I come home in one month from tomorrow! It is a very crazy feeling, and school work is getting in the way of finishing all of my plans haha. One thing that I hadn't done yet until very recently was go to Dublin, and since last week I have been there twice! It is definitely not one of my favorite cities, it is kind of dreary and boring, but it was great being there and experiencing the capital city of my country!

Last week Wednesday-Friday I was invited to go spend three days in Dublin with my friend Alexa's family who was visiting from home. Her parents, older sister, and aunt and uncle were all here for ten days and I spent the last three with them. On Wednesday we got up early and took a train to Dublin and got started right away by finding our hotel then headed to Trinity Collge. We saw the book of Kells and the AMAZING library. It was so beautiful, that is my dream one day to have enough books to need a ladder to get to them all, and this was definitely that big. Very Beauty and the Beast. It was a beautiful day and we had great weather, which was so great for them to be able to see more! After we walked around campus a little bit we walked around Dublin and saw Christ Church and Dublin castle from the outside, then found our way to Temple Bar area. We had a drink in Temple Bar, something everyone has to do if they come to Ireland. The atmosphere was great, and there was a musician playing traditional music which is always fun. After some relaxation time we had dinner then went on a Literary Pub Crawl! It was so cool, we traveled to four different pubs and around other parts of Dublin with our guide telling us stories about famous writers in Irish history then acting out a few of there pieces. Totally worth it, probably my favorite thing in Dublin. Our guide was hilarious and knew so much about literature and Irish history, very refreshing.

Thursday we woke up and made a bee line for the Guinness Factory. Alexa's dad brews his own beer so was VERY excited to go, and it was so much fun. The whole experience is very well laid out, and even though it is a self guided tour it is more like a museum and I learned so much. You get to taste a half pint at one of the stops, then learn the art form of pouring your own pint on another floor, which is pretty intense. Even though I am not the biggest Guinness fan it was somehow much easier to drink sitting in the factory surrounded by all of the history. The brewery was opened 250 years ago and has been super popular since, very cool. After the factory we went to Kilmainham Gaol, the prison where many of the supporters of the 1916 Uprising were held and killed. It was a very creepy place full of Irish history, but very interesting. After that we just had a low key night and went back to the hotel since it was the last night for them to be together. It was SO nice to stay in a hotel and be with a family, I think sometimes just seeing a new face is very very helpful.

This weekend I was having a tough time not being home for Holy Week, it is my favotire time of the whole year and I really did not like being away from St. Ambrose for all of the masses, but the Cathedral here did it really well and it was nice to celebrate it. My friends and I on Easter dyed eggs then played games outside because it was absolutely BEAUTIFUL out, then we had tacos for dinner haha. It was a nice low key day. The best part was my parents brought the computer to our family Easter and I got to talk to my grandma and all of my wonderful family. It really really brightened my whole week and I cannot wait until I get to see you all in person!

Yesterday my friends and I got up at 4am and took a very early bus to Dublin to do a bus tour of Wicklow National Park, called the Wild Wicklow Tour. It was a very very rainy day so we didn't get to see everything that we would have liked, but it was a very cool tour. It is a family run business and the tour guide was totally goofy and crazy. he cracked jokes about everything, but was also very knowledgeable about Dublin and its surrounding areas. We got to see where PS I Love You was filmed, where Braveheart was filmed, the Wicklow Mountains, Bono's house, and some other very cool things that I would have never seen if I hadn't taken the tour. It was a great day tour and gave us something to do while waiting for our exams to start!

I have one and a half papers and two exams left and I am totally done, which is so exciting. Next week will be pretty low key, but the week after I have two exams and it is my last week in Ireland! After that I have two weeks in Italy then I am home, which is totally surreal. I CANNOT wait to be home, but there is so much I want to do before I leave! I have made such great friends here, and leaving them is going to be so hard, but I am trying very hard to live life to the fullest these last 30 days! I love you all so much, update me on life and write me when you get the chance please!

All of my love and prayers coming your way