We left Galway for Dublin at 9 am on Saturday morning. About an hour and a half into the drive we stopped to visit Clonmacnoise. We watched a short documentary on the site then grabbed a snack/late breakfast courtesy of the program. The cemetery was really cool to go through because it carried some of the oldest Celtic crosses that we have seen. Tom had warned me about the great pictures I’ll get here and he wasn’t wrong. It was filled with open fields lined with crosses and scattered with Church ruins. I even shared a few secrets with the Whispering Arch!  The coolest thing was a three sided glass structure at the bottom of the hill. Inside it guarded an altar, tabernacle, and a couple of chairs. There was a plaque of Pope John Paul II hanging here because he had visited and prayed here. I thought that was amazing and tried to envision the hundreds and thousands of people who would have gone to try to see him in person.

We got back on the bus to finish our drive to Dublin. We all fell asleep once we got on the highway. The drive was another 2 hours. I remember falling asleep with the sun shining in through the window then jumping awake probably an hour and a half later to the bus burning hot. Everyone else must have started feeling it too because we all began to get a little restless until someone couldn’t take it anymore and asked if the A/C could go up any higher. With a heave it turned on, but it didn’t do too much. It was like breaths coming out of the vents. The weather was completely different here. It was warm in the morning when we left, but now it was much hotter. And by hot I mean like 70s so just imagine the shock when we get back to the States. We were dropped off at Trinity, which will be our home for the next couple days. Once again we were surprised by the nice living conditions.  We got our own rooms, but no A/C or elevators which was lots of fun when you’re on the fifth floor. Trinity is absolutely beautiful and  I would love to stay here, but I can’t imagine what it  would  be like with tourists constantly coming  to look  at your  campus. There were always crowds of people walking in the main areas and we thought JMU was bad with all the tours. We had time to drop some things off at the new apartments and some people changed into more weather appropriate clothing. Then we were off for the short version of the tour of Dublin because we skipped lunch and we were all getting a bit hungry. The tour wasn’t necessarily a tour. We just walked Grafton Street (the main road) then split up for food. The 5 of us decided to do our own tour and set out to explore the city after we ate. Because it was such a beautiful day, we decided to go to the park. St. Stephan’s Green was filled with people tanning, finally able to enjoy the summer. We hung out here for a while before getting back to our short term apartments to plan our day tomorrow. I thought I would be going on this last excursion alone but Rachel, Ryan, and Stuart all wanted to go to the same place too! So we began to plan our last full free day.