Limerick City and beyond

Yesterday was probably the nicest day I have seen in Ireland! The high was in the upper 60's with a beautiful array of sun shine! It was sunny the WHOLE day, which was so amazing! Simone, Amy, Jordan and I decided to take advantage of this beautiful day! We headed to the market in town, where they have fresh fruits and vegetables along with many other things. We spent a couple hours walking around and checking out what they had to offer. After we took a little walk along the river in town. It was so beautiful because you could see the green hills in the background while looking over the river. Most of the time you could not see any of that because it was either to rainy or cloudy. 

We headed back around mid-day to campus. The other girls wanted to take a nap, but I decided since it was such a wonderful day outside that I was going to forgo the nap and take a little walk down along the Shannon River that goes through campus. This little walk turned into a hour and half walk, but was SO worth it! I decided to take my camera along the walk and thank goodness I did. I had never taken the path before, but every step I took it was so beautiful! There were cute little stone bridges, trees covering the path you couldn't even see the sun and Swans! It was soooo beautiful, everything about the walk was so calming and wonderful! God was definitely at work on that path! I was walking along and I saw this beautiful swan in the river in the distance, so I went off the path and walked down a couple of stairs to the river edge. This was the cool part though... and what does the swan do, instead of swimming away the swan swam straight towards me. It was a beautiful thing! It is like the Lord, if we stray off his path even a little, He doesn't run away from us, He comes right up to us and will be there with us no matter what. He will be there when we get back on His path and in good and bad times. Seriously God is so good and is at work all around us! We just have to open our eyes and see what He has for us! So seriously I just am in love with His wonderful creation! Some pictures to follow from my walk...

I decided to add on of my favorite verses, I felt it fit perfect! 

Until next time...

~Nicole

Bunratty Castle

This weekend I got the glory and honor to go to the Bunratty Castle. It was a gloomy day outside, full or rain and wind, but the inside was anything but gloomy. The Castle overlooks the Shannon River, this same river goes right through the heart of the University of Limerick campus. This castle was originally built by the Vikings on a little island surrounded by a moat. Then the Normans came and built the first stone structure in the 1270’s. The major castle that is still standing is the fourth or fifth structure to be built. The castle was built by the McNamara family in the early 1400’s. When we went in the castle, it has absolutely beautiful furniture, paintings and wall hangings that date back to the 14^th to 18^th century.

We walked around for a good 5 hours looking at the castle and the Folk Park that surrounds the castle. They have this park set up that recreates what some houses urban and rural life looked like back in the 19^th century. Unfortunately about 2/3^rd of the way through our adventures my camera battery dies…good one Nicole, but not before I got a picture of the garden (that one’s for you mom)!  A lot of pictures to follow!

Windy, Rainy...CLIFFS of MOHER!

Yesterday Simone and I went to see the Cliffs of Moher! We went through a bus company called Barratt Tours. A husband and wife own two buses and drive all around Ireland 6 days a week doing tours. They have owned this business for over 15 years. We had to catch the bus from our University to Limerick at a quarter to nine and didn't get back till half past seven (yes, the Irish all talk like that when talking about time, quarter to, quarter after, half past, it took sometime to get used to but now I catch myself saying that as well).

 Our first stop on the trip was to an old castle where we got to stretch our legs for about 2 minutes then we were off to our "actual" first stop, Cathair Chonaill Stone Fort. It was extremley windy, hence the picture to the left! We had about an hour to walk around and take a look at the old stone fort. Pictures to follow...

Once we made our way around the fort Simone and I thought it would be a wonderful idea to enjoy some delicious cheesecake...YUM :)

Our next stop we were headed to the Tombs of the Burren. The next couple pictures below are pictures of an ancient barrial tomb. There were probably around 30 people berried in this one tomb.

After we stopped at the ancient tomb, we had a forty five minute drive to our next stop right along the coast of Galway Bay in a town called Fanore. There was a gorgeous view of the waves crashing against the rocks. You could taste the salt on your lips from the mist that came up, it was so sweet to see the beauty of God's creation.

As we were driving along to our next stop, which was in a town called Doolin, the roads were extremely small, narrow and curvy. So as I mentioned earlier this couple does this together. The husband who was our driver, drives a 31 passenger bus, while the wife drives a 20 passenger bus. They had just purchased and received a paint job on the smaller bus 3 weeks ago and in total spent about 80,000 euro on this bus. Well the wife was a couple kilometers ahead of us. Apparently a car driving by clipped the smaller bus with its mirror and while they were pulled over collecting insurance information a RV clipped the smaller bus with its mirror as well. When the husband saw this he pulled over, you could tell he was super frustrated and my heart just hurt for them. No big damage was done and no one was hurt so that was good! It just sucked that this happened after 3 weeks of having that bus.

We finally arrived at Doolin around 2:15pm, both Simone and I were starving! We ended up eating at this place called O'Connors, they had really good food, but were extremely busy so it took a while to even find a seat. At this particular place they don't seat you, so it was interesting trying to finding a table because there were at least 20 others trying to find tables as well. Once we did get seated you had to remember your table number and then order your food up at the bar, and tell them your table number. The nice thing was that even with how busy it was our food only took about 10 minutes from the time we ordered to the time we had our food in front of us.

After the delicious food at O'Connors Simone and I decided to take a stroll down the street and we found this small town fudge store. Best decision ever! We ended up splitting a chocolate, caramel fudge bar, it was so yummy :)

 As we were walking down the street we found this Irish shop and look what i found...













Shaughnessy!! yeah i realize it says O'Shaughnessy, but close enough! So I thought that was pretty sweet :)

Next stop...CLIFFS OF MOHER!!!!

 When we first arrived there it was a bit cloudy and misty, but we had a few cloud openings where the sun came out! Once again I stood in awe of God's marvelous creation! It was so stunning to see such a beautiful thing!

Hello SUN :) It was an extremely windy day for the Cliffs of Moher we had sustained winds around 25-30mph and then gusts up to 45 or 50. Even with the crazy wind it was still beautiful to see!

Don't step to close, or...Goodbye!

Private Property, do not enter...to Simone and I that means ENTER! This is where i can hear my mom telling me not to, but me being myself still going ;)

Yep that's only a 700ft drop off, no big deal!







Overall it was an amazing day, with only a little bit of rain and A LOT of wind! Until next time...
~Nicole