Day 1-2

Reflect on the first 24 hours of the trip... Was it scary? exciting?

What are you looking forward to tomorrow?

Waking up at 5 in the morning was definitely something I didn’t look forward too today; however, when we got to North, said our goodbyes, and set ourselves for a long day of traveling, I couldn’t be more than happy to be going! Yes, I was pretty much half asleep, but I still had on me that smile of happiness and excitement! :) When we got to O’Hare, quite early, I’m glad we did… our tickets weren’t printing and check-in was taking forever! We spent an extra hour or so just waiting and then another chunk of our time going through security! We finally got through to our gate, boarded our plane, and were finally on our way to New York. Wooh! The flight definitely passed by faster than I thought it would! When we got to JFK airport, we had a 5 hour layover… it was long, but loads of fun! My friends and I decided to eat at Sbarro’s (I got a meat pizza- yummm!) and Starbucks (I got Iced Tea, yeah!), walked around endlessly, played a bunch of different card games, colored in coloring books, and listened to music. We pretty much did anything that would fill up our time! Finally, it was time to board our next flight and before we knew it, we landed in Shannon! Ireland, here we come…!

We immediately, being super tired and all, got onto our coach bus. We met our tour guide, Derek, and our bus driver, Timmy, and began our tour around Ireland :) We visited two castle remains, went to a small village, rode on horse carriages around town, and took a boat ride in a nearby lake. It was definitely a relaxing day! But it was quite hard and somewhat of a struggle to stay awake… even though I slept on the plane for more than 5 hours... As long as we did something, I didn’t have any trouble with this. Overall, we saw a lot of beautiful scenery! We even saw a rare species of eagle that no one really sees on the boat ride anymore… I’ve got to say, we were pretty lucky! I hope tomorrow will be loads of fun while we drive around the Ring of Kerry!

Later, we checked into our hotel... my roommates and I got stuck in an attic pretty much, but it was fun and definitely different :) We ate at the hotel not too long after we freshened up... We had chicken with veggies and potatoes, tomato soup, and ice cream! It was delish! Derek walked us over to a bar right after, which I wasn't too surprised about since the Irish people are very vig on pubs and hold them as a big part of their culture. We listened to a couple of songs, had a coca-cola, and then walked back to the hotel, after two loooooong days of travel!

 I will definitely remember the fun we had at the airport. However, what astonished me was the beautiful scenery of the trail we took in the carriage pulled by horses, leading to Ross Castle, and then taking the boat ride towards the end. It was a lot of fun and I hope tomorrow is even better!