Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice you've made it now. Falling slowly sing your melody I'll sing along - "Falling Slowly" from Once

That 6:00 a.m. flight took me back to DUBLIN! To the complete confusion and suspicion of Ireland Border Control I was back in Ireland just four days later after staying for just 36 hours a week ago. I got a tasting of what I liked! Or I’m smuggling peanut butter. Who knows but if you ask me one more time how to spell Elise Delmerico’s last name at 7:15 a.m. with 2 hours of sleep I’m taking the peanut butter back with me.

Alright shorter posts are in order with more pictures and less yacking so here goes SPRING BREAK PART 1 of 3: DUBLIN

These pretty girls.

Visit to Howth with London friends and Elise.

Ate the best fish n chips known to man-kind.

Hiking up the Howth hillside to get the most beautiful view of the big blue and my favorite: a 

lighthouse! Search for Irish whales begins.

Ireland v. England rugby at the pub with an Irish victory. Great way to spend an afternoon!! Starting to realize why the Europeans make so much fun of American football..

Back to the Porterhouse and other Irish pubs for a night out on the town. It was a day with a LOT of Bulmers Cider. Thanks Miss D J

Trip to Sandycove on the DART round two.

Sailboats, farmer’s markets and Irish yacht clubs = bliss.

Pancake dinner with Elise, Sarah O, other Elon kids and new Dublin/London friends!

An AWESOME visit to Dublin. Elise taught me well – trips to the ocean and hillsides by day and back to the city for drinks at the pub by night in Dublin. I loved it!

Off to Galway. See next blog post! How’s that for efficient blog-writing!

See I've travelled around, I've been all over the world, Boys I've never seen nothin like a Galway girl

SPRING BREAK PART 2 of 3: GALWAY

Headed to the West of Ireland to find Miss Erin Cavanaugh. Definitely one of my favorite trips ever.

Used my polished British dialect to keep an eager Irish man at bay. His response to my “Could you tell me where the station is sir?” --- “Oh you’re English” (walks away). Dear Great Britain, Thanks for being one of the most uptight, hated empires ever. I am in love with you.

Found that other redhead and went back to meet her apartment-mates. They were all so great despite not understanding how Erin and I survive off at least two peanut butter and JELLY (not jam and also not jell-o) sandwiches a day. Watch it.

The first day we explored Galway. It is so beautiful and had a real town feel to it. It’s right on the ocean, which is perfect. It reminded me so much of Cape Cod. Her campus in Galway is beautifully green. The doors of Galway were a big hit. And ANOTHER lighthouse!!!

Swans in the harbor - so many!

Beach in Galway

Houses of Galway

Ok back to list form:

Explored Shop Street and had the most delicious Farmer’s Vegetable Soup and brown bread for lunch.

Walked along the beach to the lighthouse.

Went gift-shopping for babies clothes from Ireland. I’ll let this one float.

Convinced Erin to eat a piece of chocolate. There was no turning back after that.

Hung out with her roommates, made gnocchi somewhat successfully for dinner and hit bed for our adventure the next day!

After taking a little too much time perfecting the pb&j sandwiches and losing my purse behind a window curtain….we booked it to the bus! Huffing and puffing we sat on the bus for 10 minutes feeling a little stupid.

Off to the Aran Islands aka the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. A ferry trip (still no whales) to the islands to rent bikes for the day.

Stopped into the Aran Island sweater shop and found a tweed-colored sweater to pick up later.

We spent the entire day on bikes riding around the island. The views of the ocean were beautiful, the people living on the islands were lovely and the cows and horses clearly live the high-life in Ireland.

We had a PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY (seeing a trend?) picnic on the beach.

Armed with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew provided by the nicest woman ever at a local safe and bars of chocolate we climbed up to the top of the cliffs. It was the most amazing view – I could’ve stayed there all day.

I inched, on my stomach, my way out to the edge of the cliff and then inched my way back. I was a little shaky.  It was worth to look for the whales. No whales reported.

We made a message in a bottle, chucked it off the cliff and booked it back down to the ferry – 30 minutes for a trip that took us 3 hours but we made it!!!

The ferry ride back with the sun setting over the hills we had just climbed was serious bliss. However there were still no whales.

We ate our fish n chips dinner on the way home so fast that I needed a break from fish n chips for at least 2 weeks post-dinner. I finally saw the movie Once – a movie about two people meeting on a street in Dublin and forming a two-person band. I can’t tell you the rest due to 5 hours of bike riding and a really comfy blanket.

The next day a train ride back to Dublin then off to Paris!!!

Despite my classes Mom and Dad were fully equipped with a meticulous schedule. I found it crumpled amongst Rolaid wrappers and Guinness Factory napkins in Dad's pockets later. Regardless they made it to the Tower of London successfully. They were  (un)fortunate enough to witness the execution of a pigeon by one of the White Tower raven. Long Live England!

After class I made my way to Leicester Square to pick up Billy Elliot tickets for the night! Unfortunately I couldn't join because of an Art midterm but we had a Bella Italiano dinner outside the theatre before. They loved the show! I have seen the show once and loved it - much better with a British audience...they crack up at all of the homeland jokes while you're still trying to make out the garble that just came out of their mouths.

The next day I had the morning free so a bus tour was on the schedule. Unfortunately Dad for reasons unknown (chocolate, Guinness and heavily-cheesed pasta) was very sick in bed. Mom and I got on the Original Tour Bus (highly recommended for visitors!!). The tour guide was British humor to the tee. We were "Boston" the entire tour and the two, sweet old ladies next to us were not only the "gangsters from Churley," but also the former Bond girls from earlier films.  I was not forgiven for wearing a bow the height of Big Ben's tower on my head either. The tour was wonderful - it was rewarding filling my Mom's ear with small facts I had learned and pointing out some of my favorite parts of the city. If it wasn't already abundantly clear: I am in love with London and all it has to offer.

I left Mom to tour Westminster Abbey with specific instructions to plot a sneaky entrance for the Royal Wedding. 

After Art I met up with Mom and Zana to do see Buckingham, Horse Guard's Parade (more below) and Trafalgar Square including the National Gallery and a quick trip into the National Portrait Gallery to see the new William and Harry photograph. We got Mom's picture by the Lions and saw the Olympic countdown for the first time.

The Queen is in!

2012 London Olympics Countdown

We stumbled upon the  Horse Guard's Parade changing of the guard. History gets a good laugh from some of the military and royal traditions, but this was bizarre - a mix between Mom checking to make sure everything is buttoned and neat to praying the horses don't down one of the guards or chew through their reins.

The next day I got more time with Mom and Dad so had breakfast and then buzzed over to the Imperial War Museum. We lost Dad for the entire visit - his mistake as he also missed the entire WWI and WWII exhibits downstairs. Show a man a life-size airplane and u-boat and he's entertained for hours apparently.  Mom and I meantime hit the heart of the museum in the ground galleries of WWI and WWII. Definitely my favorite museum so far in all of London. So much to explore and a really good insight to why London and Great Britain are how they are today from major changes in the last century.

The great distractors - Imperial War Museum 

After my actual history class we visited St James' Park and Buckingham with Dad and Trafalgar for HIS picture with the Lions and then went to Harrods. There may or may not be a Harrod Rewards card with the Clancy name on it. We can't be sure of these things. Souvenirs for hosts in other countries and two Harrods plastic bags later we were off. Dad had a bed to be reaquainted with but Mom and I had a St Patrick's Day to celebrate London-style....fish n chips and too much cheap wine! We sampled some overcrowded, rowdy with very cute Irish men who couldn't wait to drunkenly whisper (shout) "Americans" behind our back after leaving because of no food. The more responsible thing to do would have probably been to ask them to join us...their stomachs could have used a food lining.

Too cute to not add these guys to the post

St James' Park..Spring is here! 

Disney World of London

Any department store that dedicates an entire section to chocolate knows what they're doing

The Harrod's police bear with his two favorite shoppers

We finally settled on a typical fish n chips solely joint and had girl talk into the wee hours of St Patrick's Day over two bottles of wine. Rough life.

Well rough life for those of us who needed to be up at 3:30 a.m. to catch a 4:00 a.m. bus for a 4:30 a.m. train for a 6:00 a.m. flight. Ouch. And for those of us who were not packed, printed out or entirely sober. So much for those meticulous agendas.

Lovely Day for a Guinness

 "Why is American beer served cold? So you can tell it from piss."

LOOK WHO CAME TO LONDON!

Introducing: Mom and Dad - the Tube still doesn't know what hit it. Or if that guy works here.

These two.

After flying into London around 10:30 p.m. we hopped on a flight to Dublin the next a.m. for a quick excursion to the Emerald Isle to see Erin, Elise and UNH co.

View of Ireland from the plane!

Following a quick lunch of delicious farm vegetable soup, brown bread and ham we bee-lined for the Guinness Factory. We paid 13 pounds for a FREE Guinness...it also came with a tour, but somehow the gift shop saw more of us than the tour guides...Regardless the view from the top of the Guinness' Gravity Bar were well worth it. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were serenaded by Jack Clancy's version of "Whiskey in the Jar" at least three times. Possibly four. We're not sure...we lost him for a solid hour between the bar and the gift shop.

View from the top of the Gravity Bar over Dublin

Mom, Erin, Megan G, Elise and Caroline at the Factory

My perfectly shamrocked Guinness top

The (un)hired entertainment

We ate at the Brazenhead, the oldest pub in Dublin (fish n chips+Irish stew+Guinness). For any of you who were concerned we wouldn’t possibly be able to find a dinner location in Dublin, never fear. Dad made a reservation. Complete with his own email confirmation. Ireland knew the Clancys were coming.

Next stop was the Porterhouse. Great Irish trad music, great (strawberry) beer and great people. It was a craic (Elise can edit for correct use of that word.) 

Brazenhead Pub

For our second day we had exploring time minus our tour guides. Well plus our tour guide texting us during her classes because despite Dad’s purchase of 3 Dublin guide books, which he studied diligently during his lunch breaks at work, none of us remembered them. Or a map. But Dad could name every pub and bridge along the Liffey! Note to anyone abroad or in a new place: maps are always worth the investment. There’s only so many times you can ask the same already (or still) drunk at 11 a.m. pub-dweller where St Patrick’s Cathedral is.

But we found it! First Christchurch and a small photograph museum depicting upper class Dubliners from the 1800’s. Christchurch was beautiful – the sun came out just as we were leaving and paired with newly flowered gardens, it was very stunning. Especially for those two with me who have been sitting in a bowl of 2 feet of snow since December., My favorite was definitely St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Christchurch seem much more worship related, whereas St Patrick’s had a lot more of the history of Irish wars and conflicts as well as the history and figures of Dublin. Obviously Paddy and his snakes were littered all over the church – the stained glass window in green and blue was my favorite.

Christchurch just as the sun came out!

Inside St Patrick's Cathedral

Man of the Hour: St Patrick

Another favorite trip was to Trinity College. The campus was beautiful (it reminded me of the inner-city campuses of Yale and Columbia that are a step away from the outside city). We did visit the Book of Kells (not that impressive) but the library also provided in the tour was fantastic. There was a computer system to look up ancestors, but our best connection came with one of the statue busts who had the last name Wall (my mother's maiden name)! 

Campus of Trinity College

It was time for me to leave after a quick trip to Phoenix (hey Elon!) Park, but Mom and Dad stayed for the night.

Off to London - see next post!!