I was really worried about my birthday being so soon after we got here, I was afraid that I wouldn't have good friends to celebrate with but that is definitely not the case! I have been blessed with all these wonderful people to experience this journey with. This is a picture of my bed and some of the goodies they surprised me with. I miss you all from home and wish you could be experiencing this with me! God has given me a peace about where I am right now and the banner that hangs in my room here says "Love Your Ground" which I encourage you all to do as well!

 Earlier this week on Monday we left for Kilkenny. This is the hotel that we stayed at for the night. Well, the girls stayed there and the boys stayed at a hostel.

 One of the round towers outside of a church in Kilkenny - Beautiful Celtic influence.

My favorite place I've seen so far: Hooke Lighthouse in County Wexford. My camera died right after I took this picture so it is the only one I have. No pictures would do this area justice. To the right of the lighthouse is a rocky coast where Brian (our bus driver) grilled hot dogs and hamburgers. This is the oldest lighthouse still in operation and is about 800 years old.

 After our scavenger hunt in Dublin we stopped by the once a year Tall Ship Festival (sail boats). Throughout this past week there have been races by boats from all over the world!

Part of my scavenger hunt team (Katie to my left and Mikayla to my right) on the Haypenny bridge. We ran all over Dublin today looking for sights such as the biggest coffee shop, Bewleys. Our team won the scavenger hunt!

Today was another beautiful day, with a little rain of course. We had Foundations of Christian Thought and all shared our testimonies today. This took about 3 hours and was an amazing and emotional time. I felt like it was a good 10 steps forward in building relationships with all these wonderful people. My heart was broken hearing their stories. I went to a coffee shop, Costa, with Kinsley today and it was wonderful. Before dinner every night we watch the Irish news then after we watched The 13th Warrior and wrote a paper comparing it to Beowulf.

Yesterday was an amazing day. Each person in the group shared their testimony and it was very emotional but extremely inspiring. The picture above is from the hike to Bray. It was about a 3 mile hike to the next town over. The train in the picture is the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transport) which we took back to Greystones. Tomorrow we will be traveling to Glendalough, hiking, and seeing the Monastic City.

BFF Kinsley.

The flight and everything today went smoothly. We arrived in Dublin around 8:00 AM and then took a bus to Greystones. We got the chance to unpack and eat lunch then took a walking tour of Greystones. I spent this evening after dinner at the ocean with a small group and talked. It has been great getting to know everyone here. We joke about it as "extreme speed friending" but we really have and will continue to become a family. Tomorrow starts class here and we'll have a little more free time to explore Greystones. I'm not sure what the wifi situation/schedule will be from here on out but I'll be posting some pictures hopefully a few times a week. Goodnight from Ireland!

The BEAUTIFUL coast right in our back yard. Some of the guys went swimming even though the water is freezing. Today we took a walking tour of Greystones and I already found some great thrift stores..of course. It's a cute town with lots of coffee shops!

These are my roommates for the next 3 months, Kinsley and Kaitlyn! The building behind us is where our rooms are, the place is beautiful!

These were my roommates for the week we were at Taylor, Amanda and Lauren. Such sweet girls! I had a great time with them this week. We all ended up in different rooms in Ireland, but I'm looking forward to getting closer to them throughout these next 3 months. My roommates for the next few months will be Kinsley Koons and Kaitlyn Jameson, so excited!

Hey everybody! I created this blog because I decided to deactivate my Facebook profile for the next 3 months. I'll be posting pictures and stories throughout the trip to keep everyone updated. This is a picture of most of the group playing Ultimate at Taylor!