Thursday May 26: This morning we woke up bright and early to leave for Ireland! After a short night of sleep everyone was dragging. 4:45am alarms! We left for the Brussels Airport on a 6:00 a.m. bus from Antwerp and then arrived to find out that it was too early to check in for our flight. So with an hour to waste a few of us went to find some breakfast. We ate a English breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon, sausage, and bread rolls. It was very good, except for the sausage!

Well after we had finished our breakfast it was around 8:00 am and we were then able to check into our flight, head through security, and then sit and wait once again. Our flight left for Dublin, Ireland at around 10:00. Once we landed in Dublin we had a whole day of activities. We left the airport and walked outside and felt like we were at home since the wind was blowing just as hard as it does in Fargo! It was a blistery 45 degrees outside I believe. When then got on a bus called the Paddy Wagon that will be driving us around for our stay here. It is a cool bus and very comfortable for our adventues! We then drove to the city center of Dublin to grab a bite to eat. Melanie, Kailee, Bailey, Lindsey, Andrew, Casey, Adam, and I all went to eat at a small little pub while the rest of the group went to eat at Burger King. Who comes to Ireland and wants to eat at Burger King!? Silly kids! At this pub the chairs and tables we all small and low to the ground! They looked like they were for small children!

Hi, its Melanie writing now. Adding to our morning adventures: It was indeed an early morning but a pretty good flight (much better than the one over here). I was exhausted and tried to sleep but no such luck but I did have a window seat and an empty seat next to me. It was basically an empty flight so most of us had rows of three to ourselves. I got some awesome pictures of the coast coming into Ireland from the plane. It is gorgeous here! My first dining experience was at a small pub and was a burger with a tomato sauce dressing. It was very good. Then it was back to the Paddy Wagon and onto the Guinness Brewery tour.

The Guinness Brewery tour was interesting and took a couple of hours. We walked around and got free beer and then were able to get access to their sky bar which has an unbelievable panoramic view of all of Dublin. We spent some time at that bar enjoying the view and some good old Guinness (this is according to Michelle. I had a few sips of it and thought it was extremely disgusting but most of the others seemed to enjoy it. I even had a contest to see which guy could chug there first free big beer first and then they won my big beer I had gotten but not drank…ha Ridge won.

After the Guinness tour we got back on the bus and headed to the city center of Dublin. This is where my day got extremely long. Combined history, with a 2 hour walking guided tour in the rain when you have not slept for two hours and not drank one glass of water all day….let me tell you, I faded fast. I enjoyed the architecture and the scenery but I am sure I would have enjoyed it much better walking around on our own and visiting the places we thought were interesting but I have to earn a grade for these classes somehow so I sucked it up and was a very happy person when It was over. Ps. The weather here is the most bi-polar thing ever. It goes from 60 and sunny to pouring rain and 45 in the matter of minutes and then back again. It's very very strange!

We checked into our hotel which is very nice. We are staying at Best Western Premier Academy Plaza Hotel (http://www.academyplazahotel.ie/). I am roommates with Michelle of course and we got a very nice room. We were so tired but decided to meet a few people downstairs for the Chinese buffest the hotel was having tonight. It was close, pretty good tasting and quick. After hanging out for a while we wandered down the street to find a fun place to have a drink. We ended up at a fun place with a live band very close to our hotel. After that Kailee and I went to a pub for a drink before calling it a night (we are both running on about 2 hours of sleep). Some of the others headed about a mile away to Temple Bar which is a main street with a bunch of bars and restaurant and pubs. I am sure we won't see some straggle home until the sun comes up like always but it is going to be an early morning and a long day tomorrow. We are all doing a pub crawl on Sunday night on temple Bar for our last night in Ireland. Pictures to come soon! We already have tons! Goodnight!