Ronan O'Gara, You Are A Legend

For those of you who don't know, Ireland had a huge victory on Saturday.

For the first time in 61 years, the Irish National Rugby Team clinched not only the Six Nations Championship but also the Triple Crown and the ever-elusive Grand Slam!

Six Nations Tournament: A tournament comprised of six European nations - Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, France, and Italy. In the spring each year, these six teams compete in a tournament to determine which country has the best rugby in Europe. This championship is not based on one single game, but rather a points system based on wins and losses. Whichever team has the most points at the end of the tournament wins. This year, in winning the Six Nations, Ireland has become more recognized as among one of the best rugby teams in the world. It was their first championship win since 1985.

Triple Crown: The Irish team won all of their games against the other three teams competing for the Triple Crown - Scotland, England, and Wales.

Grand Slam: Probably the most distinguishable award of the tournament. Ireland went undefeated in the tournament for the first time since 1948.

For all of you rugby fans out there (Calvin), I'll give a quick rundown of the game.
Wales came out with a 6-0 lead in the first half off of two penalty kicks, and Ireland remained scoreless until the first minutes of the second. Halftime did the Irish well, as they came out of the gates flying and scored two tries and connected on both kicks to make the score 14-6 (one try was off a beautiful kick to the wing and the other off a steal from the Wales backline). Wales clawed their way back with a series of penalty kicks (stupid British sir) to make the score 14-12. Wales couldn't miss; they were scoring from at least 45m every time...one kick was even 57m!! Then, to Ireland's horror, Wales scored on a conversion with five minutes left to take the lead 15-14. Ireland kicked off, regained possession of the ball, and advanced the ball with crashes by the forwards for several phases. FINALLY, with just over 2 minutes remaining, the ball swung out to the backs and none other than Ronan O'Gara scored on his own conversion, regaining the lead for Ireland at 17-15. Just when we thought Ireland was safe, the sir called a (pardon my French) BULLSHIT penalty at the 48m in the center of the field and awarded a kick to Wales with just ten seconds left in the match. Galven Henson hesitated, and missed the kick short by about a foot. The uproar in the pub was insane; even I was jumping up and down and screaming with everyone.

It was definitely one of the most memorable moments I have ever had in Ireland so far.

Paris and Paddy's Day

Hello all! I'm finally back from Paris (well, I got back at about 1am on Monday...)

Let me say first of all that there is no way in hell anyone would ever be able to cover even all of the main attractions of Paris in 4 days. Even though Annie and I started our days at 8am each morning and ended at 2am each night, we did not even come close to seeing everything, but we certainly did see a lot. I will give you a day-by-day breakdown of what happened:

Thursday: Upon arrival in Paris, we immediately found our hostels. Well, Annie found hers right away, and then we spent an hour or two looking for mine because it was on some tiny unmarked side street. After check-in, we made our way down to Cafe Luna for dinner and then up to Avenue Clichy to see the Moulin Rouge and the rest of the sex district. After our tour there, we attempted to make our way over to the Arc de Triomphe. I should mention here that if you ever go to Paris and you run into women who are asking you if you speak English, you should either ignore them or look confused and shake your head. If you answer yes, they will hand you a card and hound you for money. I was advised of this before I went, and I'm glad I was because the place was swarming with them. Anyway, back to the story: Being the cheapskates that we were, we didn't want to take the Metro everywhere so we decided to walk. It turns out that Paris is an extremely large city and the distances on the maps are deceiving. Not only that, but we had a really hard time navigating around that area so it took us a good three hours to finally find it, take pictures, and walk back. We finally returned home with plans to wake up at 7.
Total walking time for Thursday: 7 hours

Friday: After waking up at 7, falling back asleep, and getting up at 8, we took our time getting out of the hostel and finally left at 10am for The Louvre. This meant taking an hour stroll to the Arc de Triomphe, taking daytime pictures, and then walking down the Boulevard de Champs to the museum. On the way, we ran into some really awesome structures, such as a monument reminiscent of the Washington monument, but with heiroglyphics on it (turns out it was a gift from the Eqyptians, as we would later learn) and a fountain. We took more pictures and then proceeded into The Louvre, which consists of walking through a pretty large park before actually getting there. We then spent 9 hours exploring paintings by the Italians and French, as well as sculptures by the Egyptians and Greeks and other artifacts. I was able to see such famous works as the Mona Lisa, Orphan Girl (for all of Motter's Philosophy students out there!), and the Nike of Samothrace. We also had the opportunity to see a few paintings by Monet, which were absolutely breathtaking. It was unfortunate not to be able to read about any of the works, as everything was in French. That being said, The Louvre was the experience of a lifetime. Even though we spent so much time in the museum, we really only got to about 1/4 of it (if that) but the things we did see we were able to explore fairly thoroughly. After leaving The Lourve we went to dinner and did some more exploring around the city and then back to my hostel, where we again arrived at 2am.
Total walking time for Friday: 11 hours

Saturday: After waking up nice and early yet again, Annie and I left the hostel at 9 because we had big plans for the day. We ate breakfast outside at a little cafe (very French of us) and then made the long trip to Notre Dame, stopping along the way at the Republique. The walk to the Notre Dame ended up being about 2 hours, as we got sidetracked for about 20 minutes at some little shops. When we got there though, the walk had been well worth it. We were able to take a free tour through the massive cathedral, which was just amazing. I'm not sure if I can put into words how incredible that church was. I suppose I'll let the pictures do the speaking for themselves. Post-tour we decided to stay for the 6:30pm mass, which was all in French, but being raised Roman Catholic I was able to follow along reasonably, so that was cool. After mass we took a walk along the Seine looking for boat tours for the next day, and then headed to the Eiffel Tower. I would like to be the first to say that I have a weird obsession with it, because I must have taken 50 pictures of the tower alone. It really is glorious at night though. We had the chance to see it do its little light show that it does every night. We only took a quick visit at the tower before taking the two-hour walk home, since we wanted to have some energy to go up it the next day.
Total walking time for Saturday: 8 hours

Sunday: Sunday morning we met up at 8 at the Moulin Rouge and took our last visit to the Arc de Triomphe before our tour of the Eiffel Tower. We only had to wait in line for the tower for about 20 minutes (I think we just got there early enough) and took the elevator up to the second level. We were disappointed that the very top was closed due to construction, but I was secretly happy because the second level was definitely high enough for me, and we weren't even halfway up. Looking out into Paris from the tower was probably the highlight of my trip. The city stretched on for forever and there was so much to see. I think that one of the cool things about Paris is that it lacks the skyscrapers of the American cities; instead, you can see out for miles and buildings just kind of pop up in random places. It really is a sight to see. We spent about an hour up on the second level taking pictures and then decided to take the stairs down instead of the elevator. That scared me more than anything even though we were caged in. I had previously described to Annie that being on the second floor of the Eiffel Tower was "cartoonishly high" and that it wasn't as scary. However, upon climbling down the tower, I found myself gripping the rails tighter and tighter because I realized just how high up we actually were. Needless to say, it was a relief to step onto the pavement. We then took some pictures in front of the tower and headed down to the Seine for our boat tour. It was alright, but we realized we had already seen everything that they were showing us. We did enjoy being able to sit back and relax on the boat, although we both ended up a bit sunburned from it. After the boat trip we hopped on the Metro back to the Le Palais des Congres de Paris in order to catch our shuttle to the airport. After a hellish trip home (not something I would like to relive on this blog...) we finally made it back here.
Total walking time for Sunday: 6 hours

Total walking time in Paris: approximately 32 hours

Yesterday was Paddy's Day, as you probably all know. Whoever said the Irish don't do Paddy's Day was an absolute liar, because I have never seen a crazier celebration. I won't go into much detail unless asked to, but essentially the day boiled down to us getting up at 7:30 for car bombs and beruit (the other Americans here call it beer pong but that's wrong, obviously. There's an ongoing debate about it.) and then the parade at noon. Though the parade was unimpressive, the Irish definitely took the drinking part of the holiday seriously, as did we. Post-parade I went back to bed for a bit, woke up around 4, went back out to some random party, came home, drank like 3 liters of water, did an assignment, Skyped my family (I was sober), and went to bed. It was a long day.

Anyway, that's about it. I have 4 albums from Paris up if you want to check them out.

Album 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010347&id=1083330009&l=8687117449
Album 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010350&id=1083330009&l=757e5146dd
Album 3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010363&id=1083330009&l=6e4a00960e
Album 4: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2010365&id=1083330009&l=6ef7a602d3

Belfast etc.

This past weekend was our IFSA-Butler sponsored Northern Ireland trip. After piling on a bus and taking a 5-hour drive north, we arrived at our destination of Jury's Inn at Belfast. Post-unpacking we headed downstairs for a nice (free) dinner before the pub. We drank in mine and Megan's room for a bit before heading out to a pub called Robinson's down the street for some traditional music. The band was a lot of fun, and it was a good time dancing around while all of the old women stared at us (crazy Americans).
On Friday morning we got up nice and early for a bus tour. After getting out of the city, we drove into the countryside; it is insanely gorgeous, with the green rolling hills and the mountains looming behind them. After stopping in a small town in County Antrim to look around for a bit we drove along the coastline to Carrick-a-rede. The Northern Ireland coast road wound us around the Irish Sea so that we could see both the water and The Glens (mountains in Co. Leitrim) and valleys. The sights were nothing like I imagined Ireland would be, but they were nonetheless amazing.
Once we arrived at Carrick-a-rede, we took a hike up the coast to the famous Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. The walk up was breathtaking; everything was green and lush (as it should be in Ireland) and the ocean was the green-blue that you only see in movies. The walk itself is a tourist attraction, and for me it was one of the prettiest things I have seen thus far in Ireland. The rope bridge is suspended 30 meters over the water and connects the mainland to this tiny island just off the coast. Being that I am terrified of heights, it was a huge accomplishment for me to walk across. After coming back across the bridge, we walked around a little more and as we were leaving we saw a beautiful rainbow over the sea. No trip to Ireland is complete without one.
After lunch at the Ramada hotel in Portrush, we went off to Dunluce castle. The castle, home to the McDonnells in the fourteenth century, sits on a cliff overlooking the Irish waters. While much of the castle was destroyed, we were still able to see what the basic structure of it was, as many of the walls were still standing.
Our last stop of the day was at the famous Giant's Causeway. Legend has it that the stones were created by an Irish giant known as Finn, and that there had once been an entire causeway that stretched all the way to the coast of Scotland (which you can see from the causeway). The story is that a Scottish giant (whose name escapes me) came across to Ireland to fight Finn, but then saw Finn's child and how big he was and ran all the way back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he ran. Scientifically, the stones on the causeway are explained by three lava outflows that were subjected to accelerated cooling, resulting in columns of hexagonal rocks that taper off into the ocean. By the time we got to Giant's causeway, the weather started to take a turn for the worse and we were hit by rain and wind. This being the case, the waves on the coast got much bigger, resulting in more than a few people getting soaked. As intense as it was, the causeway itself was amazing.
Friday night the group from UL (my group) and a group from the University College at Dublin ended up hanging out in the hotel for awhile before getting in trouble with security for "being too loud," so we decided to go to Robinson's again. A small group of us ended up at some really sketchy club somewhere in Belfast, and we weren't there for more than an hour before the boys we were with got freaked out by the guys at the club who were following around, so we decided to call it a night.
On Saturday we took our time getting up in the morning and went to St. George's market, which is this great indoor farmer's market in Belfast. We must have spent at least three hours there, looking around at the different crafts and sampling all types of food. I had a GREAT cheeseburger while I was there, which was awesome because I had been craving one for awhile. After the farmer's market we stopped at the mall for a little bit to kill time before our Black Cab tour. There was a fashion show going on, so we watched that and then went back to the hotel.
Our Black Cab tour started later that afternoon. Apparently, it is the only way to see the real Belfast, and having taken that tour I can now see why. Our cab drivers took us in groups of six not to see the "touristy" sights, but to see and explain the Troubles between the Catholics and the Protestants. The first part of our tour was on the Protestant side of the city, which seemed to make our cab drivers not too happy. (Although they said that their job was not to be biased, we could all pretty much tell they were Catholics.) They took us to a townhouse complex on the Protestant side, where there are giant murals painted on the ends of each building. One we saw was for a man known as "Top Gun" who died in 2000, who was allegedly a serial killer. It is said that he killed one Catholic per week for 4 years before he finally died of a cocaine overdose, but in the Protestant community, he is a hero. Other murals depicted historical figures such as Oliver Cromwell, who believed that Catholicism was not a religion but a political power and should therefore be crushed. Once we left the townhouse complex, we were driven to the memorial garden, where the names of Catholic soldiers and civillians who were killed by Protestants were listed. The tour guides showed us the giant rubber bullets that were used in the killings of some of these people, which was very eerie to me. Down the street we went to see a mural of Bobby Sands, who was the leader of one of the hunger strikes as part of the Republican Movement. There was also another mural dedicated to other men who partook and died in those hunger strikes. We also visited the wall that separates the Catholic side of Belfast from the Protestant side, known as the Peace Walk. All of us had the opportunity to sign the wall in hopes that some day the groups will see the support that is behind peacemaking. The final stop of the Black Cab tour was at the international mural wall, which contains several murals about Americans and George Bush (shown in my photo album). There isn't as much anti-Americanism right now, however, because Obama has come into office and the Irish are very optimistic about his time in office.
That night a few of us went out to a pub at the Botanic Gardens Hotel for a few drinks. Nothing really special happened, except for some Irish boy around our age puking in a pint glass. I thought it was funny, but I decided to try to play mom and got him a glass of water and then another empty pint glass. It didn't really do much though because he got kicked out about five minutes later.

I have put two albums of pictures on Facebook from this trip:
Chapter 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009821&id=1083330009&l=d4a54
Chapter 2: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009824&id=1083330009&l=65fb9

This weekend I am off to Paris, so I will let you all know how that goes when I can!

I've saved this best picture for last:

This is the view of the Irish Sea from the walk around Carrick-a-Rede.