and her heart it is in ireland: reeks ridge and st. patrick's day

wow!! what a weekend.

with clubs and socs on thursday, the epic reeks ridge hike on sunday and st. patrick's day on monday.

so saturday after the horrible rugby loss, my housemate aoife and i sat around watching horrible tv and kinda doing work and talking.

sunday i was up nice and early for the last official uccmc hike. where we would be hiking the reeks ridge.
it is the hardest hike the club does all year and the 2nd longest.
it was a pretty nice day, mostly cloudy but most importantly it didn't rain or wasn't windy! yay!

there was about 27 people there and we broke into 2 groups and it was great fun.
conor's group did benkeeragh up while the one i was in did caher up to

carrauntoohill.
lots of talking and laughing, sam and i are becoming good friends, which is nice because we both kinda understand each other and we talked about out respective sororities a lot. had lunch at the top of carrauntoohill, then continued down, to only go up and down.
beasted ourselves up the hell mountain (i don't even remember its name) before doing the ridge, which was great fun.
i was wearing big red though, so it made my knee awkward and huge, so scrambling had some added fun. plus looking down and knowing if you fell you would fall far = go slow. but it was class.
had 2nd lunch at the grotto.
which was built because some guy was innappropriate with a sheep. seriously.
don't know why he built a grotto on a peak in the reeks about 950m up... but he did.
then ran our way down and up and down again. finally ended at the bog before stracheen, where it was nearing dark. but we were going to do stracheen, the stupid hill it is, even if it is 1.5 km across the bog to it. i walked with jack and catriona just laughing the entire time. seriously i felt as if i was drunk, but it was such a epic and fabulous day!
YAY!
finally got down to the bus and kate kearney's at about 8pm. seriously never so glad to see the bus :)
changed into comfy clothes, took off the knee brace and went and enjoyed a nice hot drink and dinner with everyone.
some halfhearted singing and then a little nap on the bus.
finally got back to cork about 11.30. where i was just wrecked.

but it was such a fabulous day, and YAY for the reeeeeks ridge!

monday i got to sleep in (yay for patrick's day being a national holiday) and it felt soo good. i was so sore, like my knees were done and it hurt to walk, and i was bruised alll over. but it was totally worth it.
met up with kara to experience a cork, st. patrick's day.

it was hilarious.
there is a parade in the city centre and it was interesting to say the least.
every minority group in ireland was represented (except the americans in ireland) and then the weird circus like things....
there were only like 2 marching bands and bagpipes, a few irish dance schools, a few soldiers and fire departments, totally not what i was expecting. but it was still fun.
everyone was covered in green and the tricolour and crazy irish things.
then kara and i went for a pint and caught up on our fun weekends!

didn't really do anything in the evening, most people i knew went out sunday night, because no class on monday, so just relaxed in front of the tv with my housemates and ice cream :)

i've been at work all day today, because no tuesday class, so i've caught up posting pictures, looked at all my crewies spring break photos, i miss it so much. looking at all the pictures and the banana river, the boats, the hands, the dinner at the in-laws, the beach, team dinners, the pool, funny night and even the bridges. florida was always fabulous.

can't believe tomorrow is my last class for a month, then i have to hand in my paper (better get started), and my last 2 official classes for my masters in april, then it is just my thesis!

omg, this morning i received the funniest thing ever from amy. seriously. i saw the post as i was getting out of the shower, and there was a small envelope to me from amy... in it was a pair of silver hoops with the funniest postcard ever. i laughed for a good 10 minutes straight. it made me excited because i was sad i misplaced those earrings.

and YAY for march madness starting thursday. i made my bracket up and i'm excited, even if i'm 3000 miles away from it, and will be in donegal/greece for most of the tournament. oh well.