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High School, International Trip

Day 9 & 10: Dublin: Trinity College and Farewell

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Day 9: Thursday, June 27, 2024

Day 9 our last fun day in Ireland. After breakfast at the hotel we gathered in the lobby at 9:00 am and started day with a walk to Trinity College. We met our Trinity guide at the Bell Tower in the Front Square for a Book of Kells Experience & Trinity Trails Campus Tour. The tour was broken down to three parts of the tour; the campus tour, Trinity Library, and the new Red Pavilion with the Digital Experience of the Book of Kells.

The first part of the our of the campus was lead by what the kids called a real life Sheldon from Big Bang, he was a Theoretical Physicist student. His tour also included a bit about campus life, studies and admissions.

Second part of the tour was self guided in the Old Trinity Library. Most of the books, including the Book of Kells, have been removed for a major conservation project. The library now features Gaia, the spectacular illuminated artwork. Gaia features 120dpi detailed NASA imagery of the Earth’s surface, showcasing the planet floating in three dimensions as it might be viewed from space.

Third part of the tour in the Red Pavilion was a self guided tour and a tour we were not really expecting. The Digital Experience brought artifacts and sculptures to life with stories motion technology. We were amazed with the technology and captivated by the stories. The Long Room from Old Library was recreated to see both the past and the future through breathtaking digital projections.

Brief look at the Digital Experience of the Book of Kells

Our tour of Trinity College ended at 11 am and we begun our walk into the Temple Bar area. Temple Bar is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin. The area is bounded by the Liffey to the north, Dame Street to the south, Westmoreland Street to the east and Fishamble Street to the west. The Temple Bar has a long history today its a cultural center, pubs, restaurants, night clubs, shops, art galleries, etc. We would spend the next couple of hours on own exploring the are and getting lunch.

At 2 pm we met in the Merrion Square for visit to the National Gallery of Ireland. The National Gallery of Ireland founded in 1854 houses the national collection of Irish and European art. The gallery has an extensive, representative collection of Irish paintings and is also notable for its Italian Baroque and Dutch masters painting.

At 3:30 pm we made our way Grafton Street for some high street shopping. The street is filled with best of Irish and international fashion to gifts to craft ware. Each winding street off of Grafton is filled with boutique shops, unique stores, restaurants and pubs. Not only is it a major tourist attraction it the main shopping area for Dublin.

From Grafton Street we wandered over to George Street Arcade. The Arcade is one of Irelands oldest shopping center built in the 1876. Its house in a Victorian style building with a eclectic stores, galleries, and eateries. A very unique shopping experience.

The group made its way back to hotel and freshen up for dinner. We met in the lobby of the hotel at 5:45 to walk to dinner at the Celtic Nights Dinner and Show. For our final night in Ireland we were treated a traditional dinner of Bangers & Mash, Irish Stew, or Fish and Chips. The highlight of this dinner was entertainment. The musicians played a traditional Irish tunes that may of our Fiddlers knew. We also learned that two of the musicians were heading to Muskegon in September for the Michigan Irish Music Fest.

Along with the music they also had world championship Irish dancers. They performed traditional ‘Sean Nos” old style Irish Dance and the famous Brush Dance. They also pulled a few audience members up tot the stage for quick lessons and to dance with the dancers. The lucky dancers pulled up stage was Mrs. DeRose and Parker DeRose (who is also a competitive Irish Dancer). It was a very entertaining night and a great farewell dinner.

We departed the restaurant at 8:30 for our walk back to the hotel. Interesting to see stores starting close up and the nightlife in Dublin begin. With the time change back in the US the video Portal setup with New York on the street was interesting to see. We learned the Portal shuts down at night because after a long night in the pubs shenanigans take place in front of the Portal on both sides.

The rest of the night back in the hotel was used to pack and get organize before we depart for the airport in the morning.

Day 10: Thursday, June 28, 2024

Day 10 was our travel day home. We started out with our last full Irish breakfast, the Taylor Swift buzz was in full effect from discussions in the lobby, breakfast area, on TV, etc. Tonight was her concert night. Our big concern was the AerLingus Strike, all of the pilots on AerLingus basically shutting down the airline. We had been monitoring the strike since we got to Ireland and we assured we would get home today. Two days ago AerLingus was going to keep a few routes open NY-Dublin and ORD-Dublin would not be affected.

We need to be done with breakfast on the coach by 8:30 am to arrive at the airport by 9:00 am and our flight was at 12:05 pm. We needed to be early for a few reasons staffing and the strike was a unknown, we needed to go through security, US Immigration & US Customs before leaving. Going through the Homeland security is a bit of a pain but made it supper easy when we landed and didn’t have to wait in a huge line at O’hare. We did have a huge line through security, they made the students pull all everything including instruments on their instrument cases to be hand checked. Joe was there and I think he gave each everyone us a hug goodbye. Super nice guy and very proud to show off Ireland, we were lucky to have him.

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Exploring Ireland: Day 7, Blarney Castle & Rock of Cashel

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Day 7: Tuesday, June 25, 2024

Day 7 is a travel day to our final destination city, Dublin, with two stops on the northeast route first being the Blarney Castle and then the Rock of Cashel with a performance. We grabbed an early full Irish breakfast in the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs so we could depart about 8:30 am on the bus from Cork. 

The 30 minute bus ride to Blarney Castle and Gardens got us to the castle as it was opening and beat the possible crowds. The current Blarney castle was built in 1446 on the site of previous destroyed castle. Blarney Castle is now a partial ruin with some accessible rooms and battlements. At the top of the castle lies the Stone of Eloquence, better known as the Blarney Stone. Tourists visiting the castle may hang upside-down over a sheer drop to kiss the stone, which is said to give the gift of eloquence. We are able to walk the grounds, kiss the Blarney Stone, visit one of the many gardens like the “Poison Garden” or the rock formations Druid’s Circle, Witch’s Cave and the Wishing Steps. We were on our own to wonder the grounds and get lunch before our 12:30 pm departure. 

We set off for about a 90 minute drive to the Rock of Cashel. The Rock of Cashel, iconic in its historic significance, possesses the most impressive cluster of medieval buildings in Ireland. According to legend St. Patrick himself came here to convert King Aenghus to Christianity. Brian Boru was crowned High King at Cashel in 978 and made it his capital.

Link to the performance:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?ref=watch_permalink&v=2323229671361188

One of the main reason for our visit to the Rock of Cashel was to perform The Fiddlers original tune The Rock of Cashel. The acoustics within the ruins of the cathedral was amazing. People throughout the castle and grounds came in for the impromptu mini concert. The group was able to perform approximately 20 minutes to a group of 50+ people. 

Including the performance, the time we spent was about a hour at the Rock of Cashel. It was long enough time to explore, take pictures, and a bathroom break before our two hour trek to Dublin. As our journey progressed we slowly watched the landscape change from farmland to suburbia to the busy city of Dublin. 

We made it in to Dublin and ready to check into Holiday Inn Express City Centre around 5 pm. It was at this time we Flan would no longer be our Charter Bus driver. We said goodbye to Flan as we would now be chartered around by a local bus company. 

With the hotel in the heart of the Dublin City centre the lobby was not as spacious as we had gotten accustomed to but a very nice hotel. Because of its size it took us a bit longer to get up the stairs to the elevators and to our rooms. We had enough time to check in, freshen up before we met in the lobby for dinner. We met at 6:30 for a short walk to Beshoff on O’Connell Street for either a Fish and Chips or Chicken Strips and Chips dinner. The was great but we all agreed the chips were some of the best we had on the trip. 

After dinner we walked back to the hotel for the night where we all made it back in time to catch Euro Cup Soccer game of the night. A early night to bed for a full day of walking and enjoying the sights in Dublin the next day.

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Exploring Ireland: Day 6, Cobh / Cork

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Day 6: Monday June 24, 2024

Day 6 started off a early with another full Irish breakfast in the Clayton Hotel Silver Springs so we could have a 8:20 am bus departure for Cobh. We had roughly a 30 minute foggy drive from Cork to the southeast coast where Cobh is located. The fog was thick as we were basically following the River Lee to the East bay where Cobh is located. 

Cobh’s name changed from Queenstown in the 1920’s during Irelands war of independence from England. It was a major port for the Royal Navy, it was the launching site for 2.5 million of the 6 million Irish people who emigrated to North America between 1848 and 1950, and it is also the final port call to Titanic before she set sail across the Atlantic. 

We arrived at Cobh out of the fog from the north end of town and it was St. Colman’s Cathedral that was the first striking landmark with a view down this very steep hill to the bay. The bus made a westerly turn parallel to the bay as began to descend to the bay where we were able to get a great view down the street with “Deck of Cards” houses. The streets had a few tight turns as the bus made it to the bay. Even with the fog we arrived at the city center at the bay a bit early for our 9:15 am tour of the Titanic Experience. The bus dropped us off at The Promenade of John F. Kennedy Park where we would wait for our tour and meet up before our departure. 

Our group was a too large go on one tour of the Titanic Experience so we broke into two groups. The tour was in the building where passengers departed for the Titanic. Unlike the movie passengers did not walk aboard the Titanic from port, but bored boats that shuttled them to Titanic, it was too large to dock. We were all given White Star Line passenger tickets with actual passengers names on them and at the end of the tour we would find out if they survived and what happened to them. Inside the building they had rooms that replicated the cabins of the different class size cabins that were offered to passengers. Combination of the stories of passengers, the cabins, historical artifacts, etc. on this guided tour made it a very entertaining and enlightening experience. 

After the Titanic Experience we gathered outside the building where we began our guided walking tour of the city with Joe. The tour started out at the RMS Lusitania Memorial which was in the city center and across from the Titanic Experience. From the memorial we walked up the steep hill on West View Blvd. to West View Park along the road is also the “Deck of Cards” Houses and finished the tour at the top of hill with St. Colman’s Cathedral. We were are on our own from the Cathedral to explore the city and get lunch before we departed back to Cork. Many of us found our way to SuperMacs for lunch. 

After lunch we departed back to Cork. The 45 minute drive was needed rest after climbing the streets of Cobh and full bellies. The bus dropped us off in the city center of Cork at the Merchants Quay Shopping Centre along the River Lee. We had the next 90 minutes to explore and shop Cork. 

We met up as a group again at 4pm to make the walk for dinner at Luigi Malones Cork with stops along the way. Our first stop was to the English Market. The English Market is a cover market that has been selling and trading locally grown and prepared organic food since 1788. A very unique shopping experience. Our second stop was at the Crawford Art Gallery. The art gallery had made interactive displays that everyone was able to do while we waited for our reservation time slot at the restaurant. At Luigi Malones we had the choice of Chicken Tequila Fettuccine, Lasagne, Cashew & Tofu Stir Fry, Chicken Caesar Salad, BBQ Baby Back Ribs, Hamburger or Pizza. The food was again was amazing and we all debated who selected the best dessert from the three options of Fresh Strawberry Pavlova, Caramelized Apple Crumble, or Toblerone Cheesecake.

After dinner we walked across the street to Emmett Place Opera House where our walking Ghost Tour of Cork begun. We were lead on a tour of horrible histories, ghost stories and hysterical shenanigans. To say this tour was lively would be a understatement. We had one tour guide that told us the stories and a young actor who played several characters or ghosts. The actor would hide, pop up along the tour, and then run off with a costume change before the next hiding. The ghost tour was a highlight not for the day but for the trip. We ended the tour and headed back to the hotel about 8:15 pm.