Hey everyone! Hope all is well back home!

Well, since I last wrote I have been all over the place and busy since I got back from London! Last week was a lot of fun. We only had 4 days of classes due to our extended weekend, which I spent in Dublin, Ireland!

Last Monday we got the chance to play soccer against some of the locals and other schools from the US studying here. My team did fairly well, surprisingly, placing third in the tournament. We tied Exeter College (Oxford) and lost to UVA. Not bad for a group of guys with very little soccer experience! It was a good experience for sure. Tuesday, we got the chance to teach our British collegues a few American drinking games down at the pub, mainly Beer Pong (my fav), and Beer Jenga. It was a good reminder of home as was fun to share something new with our British friends. On Wednesday we had the opportunity to go to Horse Races!!! This was an awesome experience as well (I had never been before). We all got dressed up and went to Kempton Park. I didnt win either of my 2 bets, but a few people came out ahead which was good. I would definitely love to go again back in the States.

Thursday was our departure day for Dublin. I've got to say, Im getting tired of traveling, but I was excited to see what Dublin had in store for us. We stayed at a very nice hotel in the main street in downtown Dublin. Overall, I liked Dublin a lot more than London. The people were very friendly and there was a lot of live music which was very good. On Thursday night, I met up with other fellow Nebraskans at the Temple Bar (Dublins most famous bar). Everything I envisioned about an Irish Pub came true as soon as I set foot in it. It was a great atmosphere and we all had a great time listening to Irish jigs and drinking GUINESS!!! Its true, the Guiness in Ireland is wayyy better than anywhere else. Friday was our day to tour the Guiness Brewery. There was a lot of cool facts about the brewing process as we made our way up 7 stories to our final destination on the tour, The Gravity Bar. The Gravity Bar is at the very top of the brewery and is a glass bubble that gives a 360 view of the city while serving the best Guiness in the world! Afterward we hit up a live music performance in the Temple Bar area.

Saturday we decided to go on a 7 hour bus tour that took up into the Wicklow Mountains, north of Dublin. This was some of the most gorgeous scenery I have ever seen, and I hope my pictures captured some of it. First, we stopped a Monestary that was built in the 1200's. Between the architecture, the rivers, lakes, mountains, ect it was a great place to visit. The next place we went was the small town of Avoca, which held the first cotton mill in Ireland. It was a quaint little town with, surprisingly, a lot of palm trees! Palms were everywhere in Dublin as well! When we got back from the mountains, we went on a MUSICAL PUB CRAWL! There were two musicians who played tradtional Irish music for us and explained to us the basics of Irish jigs ect. They were awesome musicians and were hilarious as well. At one point they had the crowd of 73 sing something to them, so all of the Nebraska students sang the fight song (of course). Sunday was a chill day in the city, but we did go see the Dark Knight to pass the time before our flight left, and I must say, that is one of the best movies I have ever seen!

Monday I got the chance to play tennis, which was fun even though I was playing with people way more talented than myself. Tuesday we got a chance to tour the Oxford Castle, which was turned into a prison, and is now a hotel of all things! It was a good view of how the town started. Today I went to High Tea at the Old Parsonage Hotel. The food (especially the scones) were delicious as well as the tea.

Tips:

1) Visit the hills and valleys in Ireland....wow.

2) Go to the Bad Ass Cafe in Dublin, great food and a great name.

3) Do the musical pub crawl. Seriously, its worth the 10 euro.

Thats all for now....only 8 days left.....

Cheers,

Nick