The Arrival: Week 1

Well, we made it to Ireland. After about 22 hours of traveling (including the time change), we got through immigration, with almost no problems, grabbed our bags and headed to Greystones.

Greystones is in County Wicklow, south of Dublin, and about a 45 minute drive. It's a small coastal town and really beautiful (as you'll see from my pictures below. Hint: go ahead and skip to those now if you aren't actually interested in the details of my trip thus far).

If you don't know, I'm on the Irish Studies Program (ISP for short, get used to that acronym) through Taylor University. There are 31 students on the trip; 9 guys and 22 girls-- take that, Westmont ratio! We're staying at a really nice YWCA, which is more of a conference center than it sounds. So far we have explored Greystones a bit, gone to the Presbyterian church in town, and taken a hike!

On today's agenda was the hike. We took the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) from Greystones to Bray the next town over. From there we followed a path along the coast with a minor detour: up a mountain. We climb to the top to see a huge cross and face 35mph winds. Overall it was about 5 miles of hill climbing and hiking back to our home here. Below you'll see some of the pictures I took today and a few from our exploration of the town yesterday. Enjoy!

Whitney, Yeqian and Tammi (our director) on the beach in Greystones.

Deanna on Greystones' beacb.

Exploring Greystones.

About to start our hike from Bray to Greystones.

Bray.

The beginning of our Journey (Nico, Val, Jenny, Allie)

Fellow Westmonter, Katy, blazing the trails.

Whitney conquering the mud and enjoying the view of Bray.

TREES!

The cross. And the absolute windiest point of our hike.

The Dart railway and view of the lovely Irish Sea.

Can't beat this view.

Chelsea, Nathan and Kelly enjoying the view.

Gotta throw a shot of myself in. One of my favorite views of the day.

Deanna.

We all felt like it was right out of Lord of the Rings.

Snuck a peak of this great Irishman hiking up in the mountains. He also had a dog with him.

Pictures, of course.

Windy, like I said.

That's Greystones off in the distance.

Here's the mud we were dealing with. About 4-5 inches deep. Feet-sinking kind of mud.

And that's it for this post. Thanks for making it this far! I know it was a lot to read and a lot of pictures, but wifi is only available on the weekends (and sparsely throughout the week), so I made the most of it this Sunday night. That reminds me, we are 8 hours ahead of California so if you message me or anything, just remember I might be asleep already.

All that's left for tonight is the Superbowl starting at 11:30pm for us; yeah, the time change is just great. Hope you all have a great week! Hopefully I'll have an awesome blog post next weekend of our time in Dublin and Glendalough.

Until next time, 

Max