So this is it..........................
We have made it to the final day of the trip and looking back it was more than amazing. Every second of this trip was life changing and came with new challenges. I couldn't have asked for a better trip.
And I couldn't have asked to end the trip on a more beautiful day. This morning bright and early we got up ate breakfast and headed out for the cliffs. I have been looking forward to this part of the trip the entire time, and it didn't let me down one bit! It was breath taking. It was one of those places that grab your attention and make you sit and admire it for everything its worth. No photo I took could honestly depict how amazing and truly awing it was. It was by far the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
We went to a Medieval dinner as our last supper together. It was hilarious and fun filled. Between the food and Bobby G singing I couldn't have asked for a better way to finish off the trip.
Everything here is imprinted in my mind as an amazing moment. I can't pick just one thing that will stand out because this trip for me is a trip that is engraved in my memory.

Free day in Killarney!
It was a very nice relaxing day here filled with shopping and photo shoots. My day started with Mmmmm another very filling, fantastic, Irish breakfast. The breakfast was simply incredible, I couldn’t ask for any other way to start my day off.
After breakfast I got ready and went shopping with some of the other girls and Zach. It was a great time to venture around town and explore. This town is filled with shops and restaurants so it was over all an easy day to blow money.
We had a fantastic lunch of sandwiches and such in the park across from our hotel. After lunch we spent the next hour and half having photo shoots. (HAHAHa) It was amazingly fun to just waste the day like that. It was a much need relief.
Later we had a lecture from Mr. Malone who is the group editor for The Kerrymen newspaper.
I finished the day off with a great dinner, with great friends.
Tomorrow is the cliffs; I have been waiting this entire trip for this part. So I’m sure tomorrow’s blog will be well worth reading because I am so excited.

What a long day! It was the first real day of bad weather since we have been here. Although I feel blessed in this aspect, I also feel like Oh come on we could really have used the nice weather for today. It was the day for the bus tour through the Ring of Kerry; this is one of the best sights in all of Ireland. It would have been an amazing photo opportunity, but the rain held us back from all our award winning photos.
We got to see this sheep herding thing. It was really cool and the dogs were fantastic. It made me really miss my dog. ( Shout out to Kay!!)

The rain basically held our day back from all the greatness we could have seen and expierenced, but I think it was still a great day.

After our bus tour we had dinner and a show at Danny Mann Lounge. It was authentic music and dancing. ( if the video would work on here I would love to show everyone some, but for whatever reason I can't.)

Thats all for today.

this video is late, but as my mother says " better late then never." So this is us at our old apartment with no hot water.

Cobh has been beautiful!!

Quick side note before the real meat of my blog. Here in Cobh they love to ring church bells, at all hours of the day/night. In the beginning I loved it, but it quickly faded after about hmmmm two times. So imagine just a constant ringing over and over and over...................

Also as a quote from Chelsea Prestia " Our bedroom is like an orphanage." I'm in a room with three other girls and the way our bedroom is lined up looks just out of sorts. Also sleeping and waking up like this was creepy. HAHA thank goodness I love these girls!

So today I opened the morning with a fantastic traditional Irish breakfast. MMMMmmmmm girl! It was amazing! My plan was to take a picture of it, but once it was placed in front of me there was no stopping me. So today I have no food pictures.

After my wonderful breakfast. We headed out to RedFM radio in Cork. They are the local radio that is geared towards 15-35 year old, so basically they play only current pop music so I had no idea what was going on for the most part. It was still really interesting to find out that Ireland still loves and appreciates radio! We had a few people come in and talk to us and we got a nice little tour around the place. The coolest thing I noticed was how happy people were to work there. It seemed like a fun and creative atmosphere for everyone.

Then we headed to Blarney Castle, you know to do all the touristy things like kiss a bacteria infested rock. Hahaha I'm just messing with everyone, I fully appreciate the whole aspect of it.

We walked around the ground for a little while and everyone got their chance to kiss the stone. We also got to do some much need gift shopping!

Once we got back we have been having a pretty relaxed evening. A couple of us went down to get dinner by docks. But what we didn't really realize is that once you climb down this mountain, you have to climb back up it. That was an interesting adventure!!

That's all for today!! Tomorrows adventures take us down to Kerry!

I'm looking forward to it!

I will do a quick recap of yesterday and today for everyone.

But first I would like to do a quick shout out our tour guide Rachel. She had to leave the group early for personal reasons, but the group is falling apart without her. It's just not the same we could have really used her today!!!!!!!!! So Rachel if your reading this you are greatly missed and I'm the last person that would acknowledge this because it would give you a big head! hahaha

Yesterday ( Saturday) was our free day in Dublin and also our last day. I wanted to just take the day as a regrouping day, so I slept in and didn't roll out of bed until noon time. It felt amazing to just relax and not feel rushed in anyway. After getting my act together Kristen, Bethany, and I strolled around the city and layed in the park for a little. It was a beautiful day, so basically it was just a really calming day. That was much needed!

Saturday was just my lay around day. I fully enjoyed every second of it.

Today (Sunday) we got up around 9 and headed to Cobh. We headed through Wicklow Park it was filled with magnificent mountains. We also visited Glendalough and St. Kevin's Monastery this too was amazing and interesting.

We had a long ride from Dublin to Cobh but it was very scenic, good thing I slept through the majority of the trip!

Cobh is beautiful it doesn't even feel like we are in any part of Ireland, it feels more like a seaside country.

We got a lovely tour and learned the history of the city and about the Titanic it was very informative, but I will say Abby's research paper was much more interesting!!

That's all for today!

Friday was a crazy filled day that I don’t even know where to start for this one. It was a packed day filled with trains, bus tours, lectures, and a Belfast dinner.
Friday was our Belfast day which meant a long train ride to Northern Ireland. The train was pretty comfy, but I had to sit across from our 7ft tall Grad student, Andy. It was a long ride of tangled legs.
After the train ride we arrived in the industrial Belfast. I felt like it probably hasn’t changed for a decades. We took a bus tour of the city which was really cool because we got to see how the Catholic and Protestants fighting really affected them.
The bus tour also brought us around to some really cool murals, cathedrals, and city sites. It was really informative and overall a great experience.
We also got to go to a great lecture at the Belfast Telegraph. This was interesting to find out how much Northern Ireland uses the Internet. Basically the entire country has broadband.
After that we got to eat dinner. I enjoyed muscles, chicken, and apple crumble desert. It was amazing.

O man what a good day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was finally photo day and I loved it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well I’ll start from the beginning this morning we got to sleep in because we didn’t have any lectures until 2pm. It was so nice to finally sleep in and just be able to lie around for a little time. The girls and I decided to just get some take out for lunch and eat it in the room. We ordered sandwiches from O’Briens the nice place we ate the other day. After a lovely brunch we headed down to get ready for our lecture.
Our first lecture was about the use of internet in Ireland. We went back to Dublin City University to meet with Roddy Flynn. He explained how Internet isn’t really used in Ireland.
After our lecture we headed to Photocall a photography/ PR company that is a smaller version of Getty Images. This was an amazing opportunity for the photography and photojournalists of the group. We looked through images Eamon the owner shoot. He put together some great slide shows about the rise and fall of the economy, the riots about divorce, and riots about abortion. Eamon explained a little about his daily duties and how his company is slowly growing larger. Eamon brought in two other photographers that work for him and they explained some of their daily assignments. It was really cool to just see people at work. They all told us to just keep striving to be whatever we want to be because at some point it will all fall into place.
Then the photographers got a private session with Freelance photographer Paul Kelly. This was a great and educational session for us. He does more commercial photography but it was great to meet someone who is making it in this cut throat industry. He showed us some photographs from his portfolio and gave us a challenge to win one of his prints. We have to take a photo that describes Ireland to us. He will choose the winner and they will receive one of his prints. This was really cool challenge because it gave us something to work on and not just take the normal photographs here. I know everyone is pretty siked to be competing for this print.
Overall today was great, I’m sad to say I don’t think I took any photos today but it still was a great day. We have a free time tonight to relax and get ready for our 5 am wake up call. We are traveling early in the morning to Northern Ireland.

Hey everyone, Sorry for the late post yesterday was a packed day that didn’t end for me until 2AM. So I will start from the beginning. On Wednesday morning I got up and got ready pretty quickly because we had an early start for breakfast. We got to have breakfast with Rosita Boland from the Irish Times. This has been by far the best thing we have done so far. She is a feature writer who puts a lot of detail in to her story and she emotional connects with each person she writes about. We had a question and answers session with her where she explained that the key to journalism is having curiosity.
After an amazing morning with Rosita, we got to meet Dan Rooney the ambassador for the United States. This was another amazing experience because not many people get to say they meet Ambassador Rooney, let alone in Ireland. He was a kind, sweet man who took a picture with us and gave us Irish American flag pins that I know everyone will cherish forever. We only got a few minutes with him though. The biggest thing at the embassy was the tight security though. We were only allowed to bring in one camera which made my life crazy as a photojournalist. It was cool to be on American turf for a little.
We had another lecture at Dublin City University later that afternoon, but first we had some free time to explore the university. The university was huge! The thing that really got me though was their athletic department and how amazing it was. All their facilities were huge I think the athletic department there was about the size of the entire Point Park University. I was just in awe about the whole athletic department. After an amazing tour of their Athletic Department we had a lecture with Helena Sheehan about Irish TV, mainly soap operas. I didn’t realize how much soap’s depict Irish life. I wish I had a job where I could watch soaps all day too!
We came back had a quick meeting to recap the day. I tried to nap for a little but I was just excited for the free time we had that night. We went to a really nice Irish Italian Restaurant where I enjoyed chips and Irish style lasagna. (There is no picture for this meal because I forgot to bring my camera, but just picture French fries, lasagna filled with sausage, and good Varity of vegetables.) We had a great waiter named Casper who opened that restaurant about a year ago.
After that we basically did our own bar crawl all over the city. I won’t be able to go into much detail about that for obvious reasons. That’s all I have for now we have a pretty easy day filled with lectures and photo opportunities.

Day three was our AD/PR day. I really enjoyed this day because it was a great opportunity to learn about someone else's major and why they enjoy it. Its great to see the inn's and outs of everyone else's majors on the trip.
We started the day very early which was really hard since we got home so late from Frontline last night. Gerry Davis was our first speaker, he was really laid back and easy to talk to which I really appreciated, especially since it wasn't a topic that I know to much about.
The second speaker was at Ogilby Mather which I found really cool. Joe Wood showed us some of their recent projects which included such things as Heinz's Ketchup which I found amazing. She told us what she does on a daily basis and how she works on a project. It was really interesting and the ad's they have done were really amazing!
For lunch I had fish and chips it was really great mmmmm.
For the highlight of my day I got to see some of my family. It was a much needed visit! We had an amazing home cooked meal along with a good conversation, and drinking. It was an overall very enjoyable evening.

Second day in Dublin and things are looking up. A little bit of sleep goes a long way! I slept soundly last night which was exactly what I needed. This morning was a beautiful morning and the weather was nice. I started my day with a nice run through Dublin, a tasty banana, brown bread with jam, and a lovely cup of tea. It was great start to the day.
On a quick rant before starting with my daily activities for everyone to enjoy reading I would like to comment that my roommates and I have not had hot water to shower in! (hahahaha.) So picture this four girls using the same shower is hard enough now picture four girls having no hot water and need to take two minute showers in the limited warm water we have. This situation is getting a little out of control I won’t lie I have been calculating how long I could go without showering. We are all trying hard to be positive but as you will probably see, hear, or SMELL things are getting a little funky (if you know what I mean.) So stick around to see if we have any updates on our situation.
After breakfast we took the bus to Dublin City University. We heard a lecture from Rodrick Flynn who explained Irish media to us. It was a great lecture filled with information regarding mainly print newspapers and a little broadcasting thrown in. We learned the difference between the Irish Times and The Independent and how they are basically geared to two different crowds. Also the major sensory issues they have over movies and ads.
We got free time after the lecture which I think is always nice because then we get to really experience the city on our own. My roommates Chelsea, Abby, Kristen and I all got lunch at a place called O’Brien’s. We had lovely soup and sandwiches that filled us right up! Throughout the day it has gotten colder and a little rainy but we still got to go on the bus tour of the city. It was really nice to see all the highlight places of Dublin on the trip.
After the bus tour we got to walk around the city, a couple of us headed to Temple Bar area. It was really cool; it was filled with bars and colorful stores. I had a fantastic crepe for dinner.
We also got to be part of the live audience for RTE’s The Frontline. It was really intense and full of information about the country’s growing problems and different solutions that four journalists came up with. One journalist suggested that they redo the Irish form of the constitution. I found this really intriguing especially the part where in Ireland they have a law of good name, which is basically a ban against people ruining someone’s reputation. But with this things can get fuzz in the media this issue runs right up against libel. This is a big issue for the Irish people. That obviously needs to be fixed.
That’s all for today I’m beat and we have an early morning!

Day1
MMMMMMmmmmm this was the amazing dinner we had at Brazen Head Pub.

This was at the mansion we were at its some kind of construction thing they are doing, but it was wierd how people threw coins in it.

This was the outside of the mansion we were at, with beautiful blue skys.

David Kelly on his birthday in the mansion.

I just enjoy this photo!

This is the coat of armor I explained in my blog.






9:20pm and it’s finally time to unwind from 16 hours of traveling. To start off I’m beat, but in the most amazing way possible. We made it Dublin early this morning with no problems; at least I had no problems sleeping on the lady next to me on the plane ride. Other than that things have slowly become the trip I have been looking forward too.
We started the day off with a couple of hours of free time to roam around in Dublin. We got lunch, walked around a beautiful park, and watched street performers. (Mainly I was enchanted by the man dressed up as a leprechaun posing for pictures with tourists.)
After getting used to the city for a little we got the opportunity to visit Trinity College which has the Book of Kells in it. I hate to say that I was not that intrigued by the book itself (although I really tried to be!) But the greatest moment of the seeing the whole book of Kells was the upstairs library. It was amazing rows and rows filled to the top with old looking books that I just wanted to touch and take pictures of! As David Fabilli said “it was a Harry Potter Moment,” Which is exactly how I would categorize that moment.
After that we got a walking tour of what is called a castle but really it’s just a mansion that the government uses for things. It was really interesting and full of historical things. The thing I found most intriguing is that each president gets to make their own coat of arms. Mary Robinson the first woman president of the United States used this crazy looking cat for hers.
To end the day off we had an incredible dinner at Brazen Head the oldest Pub in Dublin. It was so unbelievable good! It started out with a Greek salad and brown bread, then we moved to beef stew, and to finish it all off bread pudding. Now if you know me at all you can imagine how I was acting threw out this meal. I was ecstatic over every bit I had!
It was a great day or I mean a mixture of two days!

These are just a few random video clips from our first day in Ireland. Just trying to give the readers a feel for what we saw and what we did throughout the day.