An Irish Easter

     One of the fun things about being abroad for a year is getting to celebrate holidays in different ways and in different places. There’s also new holidays to be celebrated, such as Pancake Day, an English holiday where you eat pancakes! Anyways, for Easter weekend I was in Dublin visiting my friend from home Maggie who lives there now. I hadn’t seen her in a year and had never seen her new home, so I was super excited. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday she and I were madly playing bass and baritone to Mhondoro together and now she’s married and living in Dublin and I’m studying in York. I’ll admit I was worried that both of us had become all serious, but that was definitely not the case and we quickly returned to our silly ways. We spent a lot of time walking around and letting me see the sights of Dublin. Being the amazing host and friend she is, Maggie made sure to take me to the best ice cream place, Murphy’s. We took a day trip up to Howth to see the seaside and eat at this incredible restaurant that has beds that you can sit on to eat your meal. Naturally, we spent a good 4 hours sitting in bed eating lunch and drinking wine. Then, it was time to prepare ourselves for our Easter celebrations, which had three main components. 1) Chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream for me, and chocolate soy popsicles for her 2) Watching Kimmy Schmidt on Netflix 3) Making paper bunny ears for the large mushroom we discovered creeping through the floorboards (it has since been removed, R.I.P). Other than our fabulous little Easter celebration, that weekend was also the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, which was an Irish rebellion against British rule. Though it failed, after many more rebellions a few years the later, the Irish finally gained independence from the UK. Maggie and I tried to go see a bit of the parade for it but it was way too crowded to see, but a fun and historic experience nonetheless. Then, we took the train down to Cork to visit there for a bit, since her husband there for the weekend. Cork is the next biggest city in Ireland but it is still way smaller than Dublin. We drove to Kinsale, a costal town with gorgeous cliffs, beaches, and ports. Afterwards, Maggie and I speedily made our way to the train station to head back home to Dublin. I wish the weekend could’ve been longer, but it was time for Maggie to go back to work and me to meet up with meet up with my mom and continue my travels.

 Restaurant lunch in bed in Howth

Our Easter Mushroom