Lola's Wanderlust: February 2009

Ireland December 2007-January 2008

The following are pictures from my trip to Ireland. I went as part of an Agnes Scott College Global Connections group. We traveled all over Ireland on a bus visiting locations immortalized in Irish literature. It was one of the most amazing and enlightening trips I have ever taken and it was spent with some of the most intelligent women I know. On that note I would like to state that Maggie Greaves is by far the best person to visit IRELAND with!
I could not have taken the trip without a generous scholarship from the Department of International Education at Agnes Scott College and the generosity of my mom. Thanks again!

Random shots...

...out and about in Ireland.

with a heavy hitter W.B. Yeats

reading Patrick Kavanagh poetry to a statue of the man himself

Only would yours truly visit Ireland and drink cider at a pub. In my defense my throat was fussy nearly the whole trip

At Waterford Crystal I won the Superbowl.

This is supposed to be a two way street

The River Liffey in Dublin

River Liffey

In Dublin

River Liffey...AGAIN!

The Political Murals of Belfast...

are extremly revealing and highly insightful.

The Bogside Murals...

The murals, created by the Bogside artists, capture the events of "the Troubles" during the 1960's and 1970's. The Bogside is an area outside of the city walls of Derry, Northern Ireland.

Newgrange...

is a prehistoric tomb in County Meath. During the winter solstice the sun shines through the passage inside the tomb. Photos were not allowed inside the site thus all my photos were taken outside Newgrange. I was able to take a photo of the special triple spiral motif.

aerial shot courtesy of the Newgrange brochure

Triple spiral

Coming out of the tomb

Looking at Newgrange with the lush Irish landscape behind us

Giant's Causeway

I spent my 22nd my birthday exploring Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland. Giant’s Causeway is an area of 40,000 interlocking columns. The legend is that Finn McCool built the causeway to travel to Scotland and fight his enemy Benandonner. Similar columns can be found in Scotland. Maggie and I chose to walk all the way down and all the way up to see the causeway and in true fashion we turned the visit into an “Ireland’s Next Top Model” photo shoot!