Is Mise Meiriceanach (I am American)

I'm sorry that I suck at life and that this took so long to write!
However, I did have an essay due at midnight on Tuesday and I had to catch up on all the reading I missed whilst writing the paper, so really, you can't blame me!

The West of Ireland was so much fun!
The whole group (all twenty of us, not including the driver) departed from DCU at nine in the morning on Thursday.
We drove across the country (all of sleeping) until we hit Strokestown House in Strokestown, a little more than halfway between our destination and Dublin.
[This house was owned by landowners who abandoned the week tenants of the land during the Irish Famine (aka. An Gorta More). The owners left the house in 1957, completely furnished and in tact. It was like the lady packed a suitcase for a trip and never returned.]
[Taken from the foyer.] [Fireplace in the library.][One of these books could pay for my entire college tuition. An example is a first edition 'The Jungle Book', oddly with a swastika below the title on the spine. They kept this unlocked with completely baffles me of how trusting the Irish in the countryside are!][A celestial globe. When the other students started looking at it, they were, "Um, this doens't look like the world." It was hilarious.][The desk in the children school room (located right next to their bedroom; they were rich enough for them to have their own tutor). Note how the chair is stations (permanently) to the lef tof the chair so the children would have to right with their right hand. I personally, as a left-hander, find this cruel.][The baby carriage left in the children's bedroom.][The wine cooler for the Lady of the household. My kind of women in that aspect. However, she was so cruel to her servants, making them use a tunnel underground as to not see them while they were working.][The chinawear in the kitchen. My favorite part of the house.][This kitchen is well-preserved from the 18th Century! The last Lady of the house requested a modern kitch and architect thought this was stupid (didn't quite use those terms) and built new walls in front of this kitchen to build the modern one. When they were restoring the house for visitors, they found this kitchen exactly like this!][The beautiful gardens on the grounds.]
[Some of us tried to do a large pyrimaid.]
[It lasted for a good two seconds...]
We then stopped at the National Museum of Ireland: Country Life. We learned about the folklore, clothing, professions, bog-life, houselife, and much more before the famine period.
We arrived at Westport, this small town on the west coast, and had our first three course meal of the weekend. I won't lie to you; while I enjoyed it immensly the first two days, I dont know how women did it in the olden days while still having to wear a corset!]
The next day we took a tour of Achill Island (which isn't an actual island, it's the coast.)
[It was rainy and foggy and freezing for the better part of the day.]
[Please note our hair. lol.]

[More scenery...]
[One of the many An Gorta Mor memorial sites.]
[And another.]
[See? Rain!!!]
[Rest stop before taking the ferry over to the Aran Islands.]
[That night we arrived at one of the two hotels on the island, probably taking up half of it ourselves. Then we woke up to take a tour of the Island, Innish Mor.]
[Cemetary we stopped at.]
[Dun Aengus (The Fort of Aengus). A half circle of stone around a 300-ft drop cliff dating back from 3000 years ago!]
[View from inside the fort, near the cliff.]
[Me, standing near the cliff. Well, as close as I would get...for the time being.]
[My girls!]
[I'm in the middle, taking pictures. It took me a while to get there...]
[These are those pictures.]
[Some of the whole group.]
[Cute coffee shop at the end of the hike back down.]
After our tour, we were given a Gaelic Language lesson (actually, its called Irish, Gaelic is more of the Scots-Irish). Two lessons for you:
Hello (God be with you): Dia duit (Jee-ah vitch)
(Repy to Hello: God and Mary, Etc.): Dia 's Muire duit (jee-ah mwirravitch)

Then, we were free to venture for a few hours. So we went "into town"; which consisted of a small grocery store and two woolen sweater shops... Then we went to the beach and had some great craic before my roommate for the weekend, Janelle, and I took a nap before dinner.
[Cute dog we played with. We never truly found his owners.]
[Las tres amigas.]
[Our Hotel: one of the two on the Island.]
[After our last, praise Jesus, three course meal, we listened to Irish music. The guy on the left had the most amazing voice and I got to sing a short lullaby with him! The guy on the right is my future husband, even though he's just from Chicago. (Don't worry, dad, that's not REALLY true.)]
[On our way back to Dublin, we stopped by Galway, where I was to discover that I still am so in love with the city.]

Ireland Fact of the Blog:
These poor children were not raised with Sugar Cereal, Kraft's Mac and Cheese, Cheeze Its, Goldfish, OR Cinnamon Rolls!
However, they do have Nutella fully in stock and not at some small, expensive "AJ" stores, which could be a small, but acceptable trade-off for Cinnamon Rolls.