Prague and Belfast

So today is my last official day in Ireland. Tomorrow I am taking a 3:30 (am!!!) bus to Shannon and will be arriving back in CA at about 1pm. It is SO weird to be going home. On the one hand, I am ecstatic to see friends and family again (plus actual warm weather will be really nice) but on the other hand, I will definitely be missing Ireland. I feel like I have had so many experiences here that really can't be duplicated, and it will be so odd not to be able to walk down to Salthill in the afternoons, or go to the market on Saturdays.

On a lighter note (all the reminiscing makes me kinda depressed...) I just got back from a trip to Prague with my friend Jenni. We also spent a night in Belfast since neither of us had been to Northern Ireland before and wanted to go there before we left. Prague was GORGEOUS. The weather was fantastic, and we actually could walk around at night without being cold ( a novel concept!!) One thing I noticed is that is there are so many more people there who spoke English than in Germany, which was kinda funny, but also nice. We stayed at a hostel and were booked for a 7 person dorm, but by some accident, no one else was in our room the entire time, so we had a huge room to ourselves, which was nice.

When we were actually in Prague, we went and saw Prague Castle, which was really beautiful (we rented an audioguide...but since we were poor, we only got one, so I narrated it, and we learned all about the amazing cathedral and surrounding area of the castle, including this story about a saint whose tongue miraculously re-grew in his mouth after he died...only it was really his brain.) and the Charles Bridge, and the astronomical clock, and basically just wandered around taking pictures of everything.

One of my favorite things that we did was go to the opera. Le nozze de Figaro (the marriage of Figaro) was playing at the Prague National Opera and we decided to splurge (since center box seats were actually really cheap) and go. It was SUPER. My favorite part was seeing Figaro army-crawl under a blanket of leaves, and the characters have a cake-fight onstage. It is a great opera.

In Belfast, we'd booked a 22 person dorm because it was only 5 pounds to stay there, but in an oversight, someone had taken my bed, so we got moved to a smaller room with only 2 other people for the same price! I think God definitely had our backs in the living situation! Belfast is fun, but more like a big city. The accents there are so crazy...and kind of hard to understand. We mostly just walked around there...we saw the St. George's market, The Belfast Wheel (very similiar to the London Eye), The Botanical Gardens and Queens University, because at this point we were basically broke. Still it was a cool trip.

So now I am back in Galway, packing things up. I hope to continue blogging (probably under a different title) but will probably add another entry about my last night here. Town is crazy now though because of the Volvo Ocean Race being here...Cheers!