EUROTRIP.

sorry about not blogging about my travels for awhile. we've been laying low, just around ireland, waiting for our BIG trip that we start exactly one week from today! so my americana friends and i booked our flights to and from Munich and rail pass around Austria for our midterm "study" break at the end of october. let me just fill you in on my life right now:

october 30th (sunday), we leave dublin and get to munich, germany. we're going to spend a day in the city, touring the sights. what are the sights? well, glad you asked. i didn't really have a clue, either. (look, we're going for cheap here, okay.) so i googled the best places to go:

Marienplatz

• Hofbräuhaus beer hall, one of the beer halls used by the Nazi Party to declare policies and hold meetings. Here, Hitler held his first meeting and many others, gave numerous speeches, and came regularly to socialize (FUN FACT: Hitler did not drink, eat red meat, or smoke). not to mention Mozart was rumored to have written his opera Idomeneo after frequenting the beer hall. Not to mention JFK, Thomas Wolf and other famous people who have visited. Can't wait to get a beer stein! Souvenir!
• Marienplatz, Munich's largest public square, where the Neues Rathaus (New City Hall) dominates the square. its central clocktower features a splendid Glockenspiele with medieval knights hold a jousting tournament and the townspeople dance afterward holding the city's banner aloft. the bells chime and the figures dance at 11:00 Am and 5:00 Pm.
• Munich Residenz, the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs. it's the largest city palace that's open to visitors. The first couple of buildings were built in 1385, and Maximilian I commissioned the entire West Wing and Court Garden to be built during his reign in the mid-1600s. the Winter Garden was commissioned by Ludwig II of Bavaria. After the king’s death in 1897, the Winter Garden on the roof was dismantled because of water leaking from the ornamental lake through the ceiling of the rooms below. Later, courtyards were built and much renovation were done inside the building. Albert V the house jewels of the Wittelsbach are today on display in the treasury.



Inner hall of Munich Residenz

• Deutsches Museum, one of the world's largest science museums. I. love. museums.  

Belvedere Palace

after we're done in Munich, we're going to take a train to Salzburg, Austria and begin our week-long rail-jumping extravaganza all over the country. freaking out, i'm so excited! we'd originally planned on a week-long, three-country trip to Poland, Germany, and Switzerland. turns out it's wicked expensive, country rail passes didn't correspond, and the trip was not really feasible for anyone. so after having dinner (Liz cooked pasta, Becca made the zalad, Anne brought apple pies, and Cat brought the drinks, of course), we got our thinkin' caps on, our computers out, and got down to business. (to defeat the Huns). SO we decided on Austria (at first, I was a little bummed, because i really wanted to go to Switzerland, but Austria's a pretty ballin' substitute, and they have Alps, so I'm content). a rough overview of what all we need to see:

inmates in Mauthausen

• Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. Since the trip was supposed to be a tour to all the major historical events in central Europe (then condensed to Munich and Austria), we decided that we absolutely have to go to a concentration camp. By the summer of 1940, the Mauthausen-Gusen had become one of the largest labor camp complexes in German-controlled Europe, and its death toll, while mostly unknown, is figured to be between 200 and 400 thousand. whoa. i get chill bumps just thinking about it...

• Vienna, the capital of Austria and on the River Danube. It has the 3rd highest quality of living in European Union. People from Vienna are called Viennese. The major religion of the people is Christianity. The major language spoken in Vienna is German. Surprisingly the voting age in Austria is only 16 years old.Vienna is known worldwide as the city of music and is home to great music hall with excellent acoustics. 

Sound of Music filming - East Alps

• Salzburg, the fourth-largest city in Austria and located on the Northern edge of the Alps. Salzburg was capital of an independent principality until the Napoleonic Wars; it became part of Habsburg Austria at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. It is famous for mainly four things: its Baroque architecture and general prettiness; as the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the world-class Salzburg Festival, a series of opera, concerts and theatre performances during the summer; and as the place where "The Sound of Music" was filmed. 

• Innsbruck, situated between the Alps

Salzburg Castle

• Bregenz, located on the eastern shores of Lake Constance, the third-largest freshwater lake in Central Europe, between Switzerland in the west and Germany in the northwest. The city is situated on a plateau falling in a series of terraces to the lake at the foot of Pfänder mountain. The first settlements date from 1500 BC. Celtic tribe named Brigantii is mentioned by Strabo as a sub-tribe in these region of the Alps.

•  Salzkammergut, a region in Austria. It is located near the Hallstätter See. allstatt is a village perched on the rim of Lake Hallstatt with salt mines that have been in operation since the iron age, 7000 years ago.

Hallstatt

never trust the leprechauns.

this weekend was so good in so many ways! erika, mariah and i decided to hang out for mariah's remaining days in ireland. so after my classes on thursday (and a quick nap), mariah and i took a train to dublin and walked to erika's house. wouldn't you know, that lady had been cooking up a storm the entire day for our belated birthday dinner. it was the cutest thing ever. earlier that day, she went to the store and picked up some birthday plates, a banner, wine, a bottle of coke, and made spaghetti. it was wonderful. mostly because she made it with love and a dash of honey. ha. that night, we finished off the wine with her roommate, safia, and had the neighbors over (two intelligent, charismatic, charming and cute Spaniards).

the next day, we slept in until around ten, only to wake up and find that it was a downpour outside. now, we're used to ireland being rainy and mildly chilly, but this was an awful rain, cold and wet. so we scrapped our plans for the day (a couple museums, a trip to the park, tea) and opted to stay inside. i ran across to fresh, a local grocery nearby, and loaded up on breakfast essentials for brunch while erika booked our Galway tour and mariah took a shower. we cooked brunch (it was delicious - rashers (bacon, not a fan), eggs, toast, jam, and juice) and then lay around watching the best episodes of Grey's Anatomy while it was a constant downpour outside. i wasn't complaining. sometimes you just need those days to catch up on sleep, lay around, play on pinterest and be all-around unproductive. it's good for your health.

on saturday, we got up early to catch a bus to Galway, about three hours away from Dublin. we finally got to Galway, off the bus, and to the city centre around 2:30 and we were starving. so we grabbed some food and headed for our B&B/a little shopping.
Galway has the cutest little city. all old buildings on a cobblestone path with a fun atmosphere and bustling city centre. we stopped in a toy shop (can't resist, life of a camp counselor), grabbed some hot chocolate, drooled over engagement rings, and erika bought a Claddagh ring, a traditional Irish symbol for love, friendship and loyalty, for herself and her sister. we are such girls.
afterwards, we grabbed a taxi and headed all of three minutes to our B&B (we had no clue it was so close), but, unfortunately, were told that they didn't have our reservation. i don't know how, but we didn't spend anymore time arguing with the old Irish lady about it. so we started walking, hoping to find a sign for availability or a hostel or a cardboard box. just something to sleep in for the night. finally, a couple streets over and in a random house with a purple door,
we found the Delta B&B and basically pleaded with the lady to let us have her last double room for the three of us. "we love to snuggle!" we said, nodding a little too cheerfully. there's no clue what she was thinking as three American girls in their early twenties stood in front of her, giving her a sob story about a misplaced reservation and pleading to all sleep with each other. but we won her over, apparently, because she gave us the room with 20 euro apiece.
so we took a few minutes to put our bags down, relax, plug my phone in, and we headed to find the beach. in the cold rain. well, we found it. it was beachy. with a nice view of the atlantic, the entire 20 feet we could see in front of us. then, we took a taxi back into the city centre, went to dunne's stores, bought scarves for the next day, and went to go find an authentic Irish pub. but our hunger got the best of us and we took a slight detour to an Asian restaurant that looked like something we'd find at home (anything that reminds us of home, we are such suckers for). but after that, we found a pub with local Irish music, got bulmer's and enjoyed our night.

the next morning, we woke up and took a tour through the Burren National Park and to the Cliffs of Moher. the word "Burren" comes from an Irish word "Boíreann" meaning a rocky place, with the largest karst landscapes in Europe. there are more than 90 megalithic tombs in the area. the major portal tomb we visited was Poulnabrone dolmen, dating back to the Neolithic period, probably between 4200 BC to 2900 BC. excavations found that between 16 and 22 adults and 6 children were buried underneath. personal items buried with the dead included a polished stone axe, a bone pendant, quartz crystals, weapons and pottery. with its dominating presence on the limestone landscape of the Burren, the tomb was likely a centre for ceremony and ritual until well into the Celtic period or it may have served as a territorial marker in the Neolithic landscape.

what we should've seen...

what we saw...

unfortunately the Cliffs of Moher were covered in a dense fog (apparently the first in months, just our luck). so, no big deal, we just stood on top of the eighth wonder of the world, hung out for a little while, and left. didn't see anything. thanks a lot, weather. but the cliffs of moher rise 390-702 feet above the Atlantic, varying in different places. it is possible to see 300 million year-old river channels cutting through, forming unconformities at the base of the cliffs. FUN FACT: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and The Princess Bride, to name a few, had scenes filmed here.

thankfully, our tour guide, a flirty, little old Irish man who kept going on and on about leprechauns, took us to "baby" cliffs, which were much more clear and visible. we were able to get some good pictures and the entire time at the cliffs wasn't a waste. all in all, it was such a fantastic weekend. pearl and honey convinced me to stay Monday, too. (whoops, about class...) and we did a little shopping, hung out, and then i caught a train back to Maynooth. so now for my normal life to start.. it's been great.

until i shoot the craic another time,

 FMS and the little leprechauns.