It was seriously such an amazing day. Possibly my favorite day in Ireland so far. We started the day with a full Irish breakfast before boarding our tour bus and traveling around the Dingle Peninsula. 

Our first stop was the Beehive Huts which were historical sites, but I was particularly interested in the 2 week old lamb and the sheep. I may or may not have cried actual tears when I was holding the 2 week old lamb. It was a complete surprise that we got to hold them and I have been obsessed with all of the sheep since I got to Ireland. They really roam everywhere but we were told they were very skittish and would run if you tried to pet them but these ones didn't at all. They were so sweet and cuddly. I tried to pass the little lamb off to another girl once I had held it, but the lamb pushed away so I got to cuddle for a little longer, I definitely didn't complain about that. 

After this stop, we made our way to the beach Coomenoole. Amazing. There are literally mountains on one side of the beach. It was so nice to put our feet in the water and enjoy the beach. It was super cold but honestly I didn't care because we were at the beach!! I couldn't imagine actually swimming in it, but it was one of the warmer days and many locals swim at temperatures in the higher 60s which it was. 

After this, we stopped for lunch at Blasket Islands and went to a few more historical sites, and churches before heading back to Dingle for a free night. 

We decided to shop a little bit and get ice-cream at Murphys Ice Cream Shoppe which is the original location. I got some really cool jewelry for myself and sister.

Kaylin and I decided we wanted to get food at a food truck which is where we saw many locals going. We both ordered cod and chips and the cook showed us the fresh fish before he cooked it. It was so good too. And we decided to go sit in the harbor on the rocks to eat it. The weather was great and the views were incredible too. 

We went back to the hotel after this and made it an early night because we were all exhausted from a packed day. 

Sunday morning, we got on the bus to head back to Galway and just stopped in Adare, a little village town for lunch. 

There are only 10 days left until I head home. It is so crazy to think that I have been here for 35 days! While I'm not ready to leave this beautiful country, I am so excited to see my family and pups.  

We boarded the buses from school at half past 11 and made our way to Bunratty Castle in Limerick. We explored here for a couple hours. The castle was cool, but we have seen quite a few while being here so I was more interested in the animals. They had pigs and goats and they were so fun to pet. The pigs were my favorite (and were really muddy) but they were so fun anyway. 

After this, we got on the bus again and made our way to Dingle which is the cutest little town on a western peninsula in Ireland. We had the night free, so the five of us (Kaylin, Casey, Cameron, Oliva and me) decided we wanted to get dressed up and go out. We met up with three other girls in our group, Ellie, Alexis and Marissa for dinner at Murphys which is a local pub. We then went to O'Flaritys for a drink and real local music (like locals playing guitars, flutes, banjos and just making music...it was so different than what we have seen in Galway) before deciding to head back to our hotel/hostel for the night to prepare for an early morning. It was a very nice hostel (especially compared to Dublin ;) ). The bed was probably more comfortable than my bed in Galway haha. And there were only 3-4 people to a room so it wasn't bad at all!

I had class early in the morning, but our group decided we wanted to take a day trip to Spiddal which is a little village town about 40 minutes away from Galway. We all ditched out of class about 15 minutes early in order to catch our bus. Thankfully our sociology professor is all about experiencing Ireland and not just sitting in class, so he didn't mind us leaving early. When we got to Spiddal there was a small little craft village we shopped around for a bit which was super cute and then made our way up the street to the city.  We were all hungry so stopped for food at Supermac's which is a fast food like place here but it is super good and cooked well (not what we would think of as fast food). We took our food to go and went and sat by the beach. It was incredible. Ireland is amazing that you can sit by the ocean and have the ocean in front of you and the mountains behind you. It is incredible. 

After lunch and a fun little photo shoot lol, we went back to the main street to explore the rest of the city. Little did we know, we had already explored it all! We expected it to be much larger than it was, like at least a couple streets but it was only one and had very little shopping or things to do besides the craft village. It wasn't quite what we were expecting but was well worth the views and experiencing a little village town. 

We came back to Galway earlier than expected and did a little bit of souvenir shopping before heading home and having a group dinner at our place and packed for our weekend trip to Dingle. 

Monday was a relatively low key day, this week is midterm week so I had a lot of studying to do and had to write a paper. I had class, came home wrote my paper, did laundry, went to the store and Casey and I cooked dinner like normal but overall didn't do anything too special.

Tuesday was midterm day (and the fourth of July). It was so weird to wake up and it be another normal day here when it is a national holiday back home and everyone is off work, with their families. I woke up and went to the school to study (aka cram) for a few hours before class, then had class and then our exam. They are way more strict on exams than professors are back home. Its a much more formal setting and there are more requirements too. But overall the test and essay portion weren't too bad. 

After our exams, we headed home to get ready for the Independence Day celebration at the student bar, Sult. It is put on by the school and all American students, regardless of program are invited. They had burgers, chicken and other festive bbq food. It was a lot of fun. And while we had planned to go back to our place and have our own party at our place, we decided to go out for a night on the town. 

We started at The Quays for a drink and then made our way to The Front Door. We got there about 9:30 and a band was setting up to play, so we decided to stay. (We were going to go to Silent Disco but will definitely have to do that next week instead). We each ordered a drink and just hung out. It was me, Kaleyn, Oliva, Cameron and Casey which is a group of us who hang out quite a bit. The band started playing and they were so incredible. They started out playing pretty slow songs but still were so good. They played Chris Stapelton, Rascal Flats, Justin Beiber, James Taylor, Ed Sheeran, Darius Rucker.. basically anything you could think of, they played. We stayed for their entire 2.5 hour set and had a blast singing and dancing. We even met up with the service learning group from ISA and had so much fun hanging with them too. Hands down the best night I have had out since I have been in Galway and not a bad way to spend Independence Day, even though it was so strange not being in the US for an American holiday. None the less, Matt and Philip were so great to listen to and our group will definitely be going back to listen to them play. 

Today I had class and then had to finish my midterm essay. Then I took my bike to the bike shop to have a new tire put on because I woke up to it flat the other day. It was a chill day once again, we made dinner and then the five of us hung out in the kitchen for a couple hours just talking and laughing. It is crazy how much fun we all have together even just doing absolutely nothing but hanging out (and when we didn't even know each other existed two weeks ago!). We all have decided that next summer we are going to meet somewhere and do a long weekend trip together. So thankful I've met these girls, dang my heart is so full. 

We spent the day with NUIG exploring the biggest of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor. To get there we took a 45 minute bus ride and then a 45 minute ferry ride. Once there we all got a bike and rode about 4 miles along the coast to the base of a fort called Dun Aenghus and then hiked to the top from there (like an actual hike). It was sprinkling and actually raining at one point so the rocks were quite slippery but the hike wasn't too long. Once at the top we were able to look at the cliff, and it was amazing! Our island tour guide told us that if we wanted to look over the edge we could, but he encouraged us to lay on our stomachs and crawl to the end of the cliff and look over because if you just try to look over it from walking to the edge, the wind can physically push you off. None of the other tourists seemed to want to look over the edge but all of the NUIG students did haha. It was incredible. 

After this, we biked 4 miles back to the town at our own pace, but it was actually a super quick ride being mostly downhill. We shopped a little bit and got ice cream before waiting to board the ferry and head back to Galway. We were all exhausted after two full day trips and I managed to fall asleep at 930 (which was so nice). But the tiredness was well worth what we were able to see and experience. I clocked 23,000 steps and 11.3 miles yesterday which is the most I've done so far in a single day.