Switzerland. Part I.

So, a few months back, Suzi and I decided that we wanted to take one more trip (in addition to London and Paris). We wanted it to be somewhere neither of us had ever been and also a place that we could get a flight to directly out of Cork. The city that fit these requirements happened to be Geneva, Switzerland. We left Cork Saturday, December 19, in the afternoon and arrived in Geneva a little after five. It was already dusk by the time we landed. We took a quick taxi ride to our hotel - The Hotel Residence St. James. I'm thinking it is the cheapest hotel that also happens to have a good location. It was nice enough for what we needed, but a pretty horribly uncomfortable bed. Other than that, we did have a kitchen which was enabled us to buy a few groceries and save money by eating all of our breakfasts and a dinner at our hotel.

After checking into St. James, we wandered around town to find a place to eat. We settled a cute little Italian pizzeria. It turned out to be quite an interesting dinner. First, three children came in dressed in costume and sang a song. After the song, they asked for money. Then, a large band of adults dressed in silly costumes came in blasting songs. They stayed for a good twenty minutes. After all of our entertainment and good dining, we headed back to our hotel. Before going to our room, we stopped in a small convenience store and bought some cereal, milk, and orange juice for our breakfast for the following few days.

Picture 1 - Holiday decorations in the park right next to our hotel.

Picture 2 - Dinner entertainment take 1 - priest, soldier with angel wings, and police officer.

Picture 3 - Dinner entertainment take 2 - ragtag band dressed for the holidays.

"Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such." - Henry Miller

Better late than never . . . Belfast Part II!

After visiting Dunluce, our next stop was the incredible Giant's Causeway. The Irish like to refer to the Causeway as "the eighth natural wonder of the world." Formed as a result of a volcanic eruption, Irish legend has it that the Causeway was created when the Scottish giant Benandonner fled Ireland and his Irish counterpart Finn McCool who, with the help of his wife, tricked Benandonner into thinking he was much bigger than he actually was. Believe what you will, but the causeway is really an amazing site to behold. It resembles in many ways a giant game of Jenga turned on it's side - with random slices of rock sticking out much further than others.

After finishing up our bus tour and returning to Belfast, we walked around the city some more. We got dinner at a fun local restaurant. After dinner, we visited a beautiful Christmas market that was being held in town. I got a crepe with Nutella, naturally. Tired from our long day of sightseeing, we headed back to the hotel and watched, interestingly enough, a documentary on the Obama campaign for presidency in 2008. Good stuff. After that, it was off to bed and up the next morning and back on a bus for 6 hours to return home to Cork.

Picture 1 - All of us girls with my new idol - Tim. He works for IFSA in Ireland and is extremely legit. He invented, to put in in his own words, "some thing which connects to telephone lines all over Europe." Like I said - legit.

Picture 2 - Giant's Causeway - truly incredible.

Picture 3 - Suz and myself (notice the Causeway behind us).

Picture 4 - Again . . . at the Christmas market in Belfast.

Picture 5 - Myself plus a giant Christmas tree in Belfast. Tis CHRISTMAS!

"Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." - Miriam Beard

Better late than never . . . Belfast Part I!

So - in a final attempt to get us to like them, IFSA-Butler took us to Belfast over Thanksgiving weekend. Since we are in Cork, we had the longest bus ride out of anyone. The driver picked us up in the morning and we stopped in Dublin to pick up Dublin and Maynooth students. Our bus ride in total was about 6 hours. We arrived in Belfast just in time to check into our hotel - Jury's (it is a four star chain of which for some reason the one in Cork is much nicer than in Belfast). After checking into the hotel, we walked about a block next door from Jury's to another hotel where we all went to the top floor where a special Thanksgiving dinner had been prepared for all of us. The food was alright, although the hotel is pretty famous for A) being the place that Bill Clinton once dined and B) is also supposedly historically the most bombed hotel in Belfast. Not scary at all. After surviving dinner, we walked around town some and then it was back to our hotels.

The next day IFSA had lined up a day long bus tour. We drove all along the Northern Ireland coast, even being able to see the coast of Scotland at one point, which was gorgeous. Our first stop was the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge in Antrim, Northern Ireland. At first we were all like "oh, how scary can a swinging bridge be," but to be honest it was definitely pretty freaky at the middle point of the bridge, especially when the person behind you decided to start shaking the thing. The cliff and water below did not look too friendly. After visiting the bridge, we stopped for a quick lunch and then continued on to the Dunluce Castle (seen in pictures 2 and 3).

Picture 1 - The whole gang after crossing the swinging bridge.

Picture 2 - The swinging bride.

Picture 3 - Five of us cramming into an oven in the Dunluce Castle . . . nbd.

Picture 4 - Sharlett, Lincoln, Jenna, and me enjoying Dunluce.

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." - Henry Miller