Ireland/Villa Savoye/Spain/Pictures

Hello

Sorry for the delayed blog post. It's been a few days since I've been home from Ireland, but none the less my memories are still clear as ever. This weekend was so perfect...

Friday afternoon after class my roommates and I ventured out to Charles de Gaulle airport to catch our afternoon flight to Cork, Ireland. Unfortunately due to passport troubles, one of my roommates, Mihee couldn't make it to so it was just me and Priyanka headed to the land of lucky charms and leprechauns.

Arriving was so euphoric as we were already surrounded by the Irish pastures and green patches of land. The sky was so bright and blue, it was perfect.

The hostel we stayed in was pretty nice. It was called Shelia's hostel, and they were very hospitable. They knew just where to go and where to lead us, probably due to the massive amount of tourists. Priyanka and I stayed in a room with 3 bunk beds, with about 3 different women. Our room was right next to the bathroom too so we heard every detail of plumbing go on too, but that's okay. Oh and one of the older women in the room snored soooo loud! Good thing we only had to deal with her 1 of the 2 nights...Needless to say BOTH of us were tossing and turning even with our headphones in all night.

The first night we ventured around the town of Cork, which was very cute and small. We probably circled the city central a couple of times, that's how small it is. We stopped into a pub, had ourselves a Guiness, Murphy's and Bailey's. You can't go wrong with the most Irish drinks in an Irish pub in Ireland. The pub we went to was called An Brog, and it played some pretty awesome music (Kings of Leon, MGMT) so it's good to know the Irish have a good taste in music too.

Day two came around and we were up and ready to head to the famous Blarney Castle and Stone. I cannot tell you how giddy I was still, to be in Ireland. The first moment we were in the town of Blarney, Priyanka and I ran into a gift shop to buy ourselves new sterling silver claddagh rings. I have barely taken mine off since I got it, I'm completely in love with it :-)

Next stop of course was the Blarney Castle. It was a pretty amazing place, I don't think I've ever been in a castle before. EVERYTHING was made out of stone, and the spiral staircases are narrow and steep, and just got more extreme the higher you went. I was too excited to really stop and observe every room, only because I was about ready to kiss that stone. We finally got up to the top (I don't do well with heights by the way, but my excitement distracted me) and there was of course a long line. They definitely know the efficient system of getting through people though...People kneel down, turn on their back, the guy grabs on to you, tells you to grab the handle bars, you kiss it, get up, grab a photo ticket, and you pretty much have to move out of the way for the next person. It's very fast paced. None the less I did kiss it, and it is one more thing I can say I've done in my life!

Around the Blarney Castle premises there are many walks you can do, around the lake, to see the Blarney house, and of course Priyanka and I headed out to where the arrows pointed. This was truly my favorite part of the trip. For a couple of hours we basically just walked all around random meadows and trails and through the woods of Blarney, Ireland. We saw probably 238947 different shades of green, and it smelled so natural everywhere. It smelled....Green. There were your classic sights of cows in the pastures, and we took many pictures of us in the green fields just running around. We rarely encountered anyone. It was as if people came to kiss the stone and then left Ireland immediately afterward. It was such a perfect experience, and it lived up to everything I thought it would be.

On our way to Blarney on the bus we drove past a sign that said 'Waterloo'. At the store with the Claddagh rings we asked the woman what was up there and she mentioned how there was a small 'town' with a pub and a church. When she discovered my last name was Waterloo (thanks to Priyanka) she was more than happy to recommend me to go check it out. After our long day of walking around the meadows, we decided it would definitely be worth it to check out Waterloo...come on! Waterloo, Ireland? I had to...

It was probably 2 miles when we were beginning to wonder if we were going in the right direction. We came across an old lady, her daughter and grandson (with the most adorable Irish accents) and asked if Waterloo was up the road. Luckily it was, but they said it wasn't a town, and that it was literally just a pub/inn and a church. 20 more minutes of walking and we finally made it. By this time we were both famished, exhausted and ready to sit down. We tried going into the pub, but for some reason the door was locked, yet there were people inside....We walked around to the back of the Inn where there was a restaurant called "Dal Capitan". We asked the guy if the restaurant was open, and it unfortunately wasn't. We were up a creek...each minute we got more hungry and couldn't imagine walking back to Blarney on an empty stomach and sore legs. A few minutes of flustered "what do we do now?"'s later, the guy came outside and asked us if we wanted him to cook something up for us; he said he couldn't give us a huge menu of options, but came to work early just to check over a few things. Our stomachs of course decided yes for us, and he brought us into the restaurant, and cooked us a delicious meal of ricotta and spinach ravioli with a lemon sauce. It was soooooo good. We couldn't believe how nice and hospitable he was (along with every other Irish person we've met). He gave us a discounted price and we tipped him generously, and told him to lead us into the Waterloo pub. We both got a Heineken just to say we had a drink at the Waterloo pub in Ireland. What an interesting evening that was.

Eventually we headed back to Blarney and had to wait a couple of hours before our bus back to Cork came around.

Since I hadn't eaten much earlier that day and burned about every calorie I had in me, I was still starving. We had a few more things to do on our "Things to do in Ireland" list, so we headed to another pub/restaurant and ordered Irish coffees. Priyanka got Bailey's cheesecake and I just had to get the shepard's pie. That was it; we did everything we wanted to do in Ireland:

Have a Guiness, have a shot of Bailey's, get claddagh rings, hear some cute Irish accents, kiss the Blarney stone, walk in Irish pastures, drink Irish coffees, have shepard's pie, and I even met someone who had the name Sinead... I'm so glad to have opportunities like this to look back on. I am also definitely going back to Ireland in my life.

landed in Cork

our hostel

Guinness/Murphy's

2 lasses in Ireland

Our claddagh rings!!

meadow/hill

ahhh yeah!

I couldn't help myself but run free

the sign to Waterloo

Irish coffee!

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Villa Savoye

Yesterday our class took a trip to Villa Savoye, in Poissy, France. I have been getting so giddy about trips like those lately, because it's so brilliant to see these buildings in person. I wasn't sure how I felt about LeCorbu, but the way he played with the space in this house was perfect. We also manage to capture trips like these on the most beautiful sunny, blue sky days, so I'm going to just post some pictures and have them explain it better than I can.

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Spain

YES! This Saturday I am headed to Barcelona, Spain, and I will be there until Monday the 12th. I. am. so. pumped. I have been to Barcelona before, but I am all the more excited because I already know how wonderful it is. On Sunday and Monday our class will be in Valencia doing a charette with an architecture school there. Apparently they're all really excited to meet us. I am too! They've been trying to match us up with people from their school, in terms of groups/partners. I wonder who my partner/group will be! Tuesday through Friday is when our class here actually takes the tour of Barcelona. I just spent all day today working on our project; we had to make an itinerary for our trip one day, the theme for our group being the wonderful architect Gaudi. I will attach the picture of the map we put together for everyone. We had to include history of the buildings, times, the route, and a map. It's going to be a looong walk, but seeing Gaudi is worth everything. The weekend after our class trip is over, a couple friends and I decided to stay in Barcelona to soak up those beaches and take our own time around the city. I'm still in shock this is part of our curriculum...

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Pictures

I have FINALLY uploaded pictures and actually organized them into folders, so please please, go check them out if you're interested. Just a warning though, there are a ton, but hopefully the folders should help you remember which ones you've seen so far. I actually had to buy more memory storage today since I met my quota. It's only been a month! Oh, and happy October almost! I can't believe it...where did 2009 go?

Here is the link!

http://picasaweb.google.com/oolretaw

Take care

Becca