Saloni's visit

Hello all! This is probably going to be a rather long post, so grab yourself a cup of tea before beginning ;) To start things, one of my friends from UT, Saloni, visited me from Paris. She arrived Wed night and left early Mon morning and we had quite a few adventures in between.

Wednesday we didn't do much except plan out our trips/tourism and then go to bed. Thursday was rather interesting because I have class every other hour and so couldn't really do much except meet Saloni between classes and point her in the direction of the next place to go. Fatima was supposed to come visit as well, but she missed her flight Thursday morning :( It was very sad, but I get to see her this weekend in Paris! We started out Thursday by walking around Merrion Sq - the flowers have started to bloom and looked so pretty! Then we walked down the street to Oil Can Harry's, a pub in Dublin that's not quite the same as at home, and took pictures at it :P Then I had class so I left Saloni to go shopping in Grafton St where I met her an hour later to go get chocolate and coffee before more class and then lunch time. After lunch Saloni went to museums and I went to more classes but we met up again at the end of the day to go grocery shopping. We got home and made dinner then went to O'Connell St for more shopping/wandering. We went in a crazy tourist shop and laughed at the crazy stuff they have there... We then wandered around Temple Bar and had a drink before going home.

On Friday we went to Glendalough, a glacial valley in the middle of the Wicklow mountains outside of Dublin. There's one bus that goes down there, and hour and a half drive, so we caught it and had 3 1/2 hours to go exploring. We took the main trail to the monastic ruins (Glendalough used to be a monestary and a hermit lived in part of the valley) and then up to the lake in the valley. It was gorgeous there and we took lots of pictures, though sadly Saloni's battery died near the beginning of the trip. When we got to the lake we ate our picnic lunch on an awesome log and then hiked up a path past a waterfall and to the hermit's cell, which was actually just a sign telling us where he lived. We had a bit more time so walked around the lake and then back to the visitors center to catch the bus back to Dublin. We both napped on the bus ride home.

When we got back to Dublin we went to a Celtic whiskey shop to get some whiskey that you can't get in the US (aka, not Jameson) and the guy let us sample several that were pretty good, and they had tequila and triple sec on sale so I got some for margaritas (story to come) and we headed home to make dinner and get ready for the night. One of the guys on the frisbee team was having a birthday party that night so we went out with them. It was a fun night complete with dancing and Saloni finishing her 1 pint of Bulmers :P

The next morning I had Women's Intervarsities, so I left Saloni to do more tourist sightseeing and headed out bright and early to the pitches for some frisbee-ing. It was a great tournament, a lot of fun to play. Trinity did really well and got 2nd. The team that won (DCU) actually included most of the Ireland team (they didn't have enough girls to actually make a team and so picked up alumni, some of the best players in Ireland). It was all good fun though and not too bad of weather, for Ireland and Santry in particular. After the tournament me, Jen and Courtney were planning on going to a pub to watch the Ireland v England rugby match, but when we got to my apt never actually got around to leaving. Saloni and I cooked dinner and thought about going out, but decided we were both really tired and so just went to sleep.

On Sunday we ventured up to Howth. We took the DART up and when we got off found a market in the town center. It was super cute and there were lots of things that looked really tasty and we each got a muffin (mine was berry with white chocolate, mmm!). We walked across the peninsula to the Howth Hill and tried to get to the lighthouse but found that you can't actually walk up to it. We did get lots of really pretty pictures though, the sea and cliffs were gorgeous! We then walked back down to the village and went to the castle and tried to find the castle gardens, but apparently they are more along the lines of wilderness than actual gardens. We then headed back home and I went shopping for groceries while Saloni read Twilight (she's addicted).

That night we were celebrating Texas Independence Day (a day early) so I bought supplies to make enchiladas and margaritas. We made Conrad's enchilada recipe and then tomatillo enchiladas for the vegetarians plus rice and salsa and margaritas and iced tea. Sean, my room-mates, and a bunch of people from frisbee came over and helped us celebrate Texas :) It was quite fun.

The next morning Saloni had a 6 am flight so we went to sleep and woke up really early to get her on the bus to the airport. I said bye, but I'll be headed to Paris this weekend to visit her!