City of Shamrocks

December sixth has come and gone and, as crazy as it feels, our time at Oxford has ended. Crazy because it’s over and crazy because it even happened in the first place. I can’t tell if I will miss it like crazy when I get home or if I won’t–simply for the fact that won’t be able to believe that it all happened. I spend three months running around England, studying with amazing students and tutors, buying hummus wraps and coffee at Pret a Manger. No, that doesn’t happen.

However real that was, I am now in the midst of my post-study abroad travel week which is really a scantily-planned adventure full of friends, foreign countries, and financial desolation, beginning in Dublin. Well, really the adventure began before Dublin because it included the hours of traveling with 300 pounds of luggage to London and through the London tube system (shoutout to my travel buddy and his far superior strength). Needless to say, the journey from our dorms at St. Catherine’s College to London City Airport was something I will not soon forget.

Dublin itself is a charming place which, weirdly enough, reminds me a lot of Copenhagen. I think it’s because of the generally small scale and the fact that it is built around water. In Dublin, we visited the Guinness Storehouse, the Jameson Factory, the Viking District, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. My favorite part was probably meeting up with a few friends from our IES program for one last hurrah in the Temple Bar district to listen to live music and generally spend time together. And then there was the day trip that we took to the Cliffs of Moher…which was so amazing. I so many parts of Ireland which I didn’t expect and some, such as the herd of cattle that momentarily paused our bus, which I had seen in movies but doubt actually existed. Needless to say Dublin was a great time and I would love to return to Ireland one day.