November in a Nutshell

Hi Everyone!

Its been so long since I’ve written but you haven’t missed out on too much! November came and went without too much excitement.  I had a wonderful birthday weekend!  I went out with Ioana and Martina the night before my birthday in Balbriggan, which is another town about 5 minutes from Stamullen.  Balbriggan has more than one bar (unlike Stamullen) so it was a great place to go out without traveling all the way into Dublin.  We drank a lot of Bulmer’s and enjoyed the live band!  

 

On my actual birthday Ciara invited up Ioana’s host family (Ciara’s sister-in-law) and we had a Mexican fiesta!  Well, we had nachos, fajitas, and lots of beer so it was as close as it gets to a fiesta in Ireland.  She even made not one, but two desserts for the occasion! I was very thankful to be surrounded by my surrogate family since I couldn’t be with my own.

Other than that, I went into Dublin and met up with Hailey quite often.  We’ve been busy planning out our Christmas extravaganza.  Since we can’t go home, we’re going to London the weekend before Christmas and going to PARIS on Christmas Eve!  I can’t wait to have three stamps in my passport instead of just my one, lonely Irish stamp.  We’re even spending Christmas Day night at the Eiffel Tower! It’s kind of the only thing open on Christmas Day, but hey, we’ll be in Paris so it doesn’t really matter!

Today, I got up at the crack of dawn (8 am) and walked to the bus stop in the cold (I could see my breath) to go back into Dublin to explore some Christmas markets!  It’s a big thing in Ireland and around most of Europe to have huge Christmas markets where vendors sell, gifts, foods, and other crafts in the weeks leading up to Christmas.  The one I went to today happened to be here:

Look familiar?  That’s Christ Church Cathedral.  I posted a picture of the outside after one of my very first trips to Dublin.  I haven’t been back since until today when I found about a Christmas Market that takes place here.  And it just so happens the market is IN the CRYPT!  Pretty cool, especially since the market was free to get into so I got into the Crypt without paying the usual 6 euros and almost everything was on display like usual.

The Crypt

Book of Common Prayer from 1622

Missing a mummy?

The Tudors did filming here and these were some of the costumes used in the show!

Gilded Communion Plates. That's a lot of gold.

 

Christ Church Christmas tree

Ruins on the church grounds. Of what? I'm not sure.

After leaving Christ Church, I decided to go find St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  In my six months I’ve spent taking day trips into Dublin, I still hadn’t seen it yet.  I was so surprised to find a beautiful park right next to it.  I didn’t go into the cathedral yet since I plan on doing that with MaryClaire, Erika, and Hillary when they come for New Year’s but the outside of the cathedral and the park itself was a beautiful place to spend some time!  Unfortunately, Google has decided I exceeded the number of pictures I can post to a blog unless I buy more space so you'll have to look on facebook for pictures!

I only have two weeks until I leave for London and then its on to Paris!  Between planning for those two cities and planning what we'll be doing when Erika, MaryClaire, and Hillary arrive in Dublin I've got my hands full the next two weeks.  When I get back you can all look forward to multiple posts about my Christmas abroad!