Sienna Hurd: Week 7 – Hills, Hurling, and Howth

Only 1 week left in Ireland, and time is flying by! On Saturday, we left bright and early for the Celtic Boyne Valley Day Trip. We started off at the Hill of Tara, then we went to the Trim Castle, the Loughcrew Passage Tomb, and ended the day at the Hill of Uisneach before arriving back at UCD. It was a long day, but the scenery was amazing, and even though it was supposed to rain all day, we still got some sun, which made all of the views even prettier. On Sunday, my friend Grace was in Dublin with her family, so I met up with them for the day. We went to the Guinness Factory for a tour, which I enjoyed even more the second time! This time we went to the tasting room, got our faces printed on a Guinness, and enjoyed some Irish music and dancing! They also surprised me with an engraved Guinness glass with my name on it, which was so cool! Afterwards, we headed back to the city center so that we could watch the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. Unfortunately for us, we were rooting for Cork, who lost, but we still had a great time. The pub we went to watch the game had a lot of fans, so it was super fun to see how excited everyone got. I’m so glad I got to spend the day with Grace and her family, and I had an amazing time.

On Monday, instead of having class, we went to Howth. I was super excited for this trip because I had heard so much about all of the amazing views. When I found out it would be raining all day, I was super disappointed, but luckily, it did not disappoint! Later in the day, the fog started to clear up and it became more visible, so we got to enjoy the scenery along the coast. We started off our walk trekking through the woods, which I was a little skeptical about, but it turned out to be very worth it as we ended up in the beautiful field of flowers. We continued the walk on the path along the water before we ended up back in town. We grabbed a quick lunch, before getting back on the Dart to go back to UCD. Overall, I had an amazing day, though unfortunately, I can’t say the same for my formerly white shoes. I’m super excited for the free weekend coming up and definitely hoping that my last week in Dublin has some better weather!