so!  i'm finally sitting down to write about ireland.  it's been a busy week!  it's crazy how much i always have to do when i hardly ever have homework.
anyway.  so i got home monday morning from ireland after pulling an all-nighter in order to avoid paying to stay in a hostel for 4 hours.  it was actually kind of fun.  we hung out in a restaurant in paris until 5 in the morning, which was surprisingly busy considering the time.  however, i'm still recovering.  ireland was great though.  it was cool because it was exactly what i pictured it to be.  the trip started off a little poorly though.  we took a train to paris from rennes friday afternoon, which went very smoothly.  our train from paris to the airport, however, was a half an hour late, and we had timed the train to shuttle to airport perfectly, so by the time we got the the train station the shuttle was long gone.  so we called every single taxi number we could find, but we couldn't get ahold of anyone who would take us.  so finally a random car pulled over and the guy offered to drive us to the airport--kinda sketchy but we figured it was okay since there were so many of us.  the only problem was that he wouldn't take more than 4 people--and there were 5 of us.  so we have about 15 minutes before check-in closes at the airport, and if we miss it, we're stuck in france.  so we split up and the 3 of us got the airport barely on time.  luckily the other 2 found a ride with a really sweet girl and her boyfriend and also made it to the airport--2 minutes before check-in closed.  so we were pretty stressed out, not to mention already exhausted.  so we go get some soda and sit down to wait for out plane to start boarding.  we're waiting in line for a while and it seemed like they were boarding pretty late.  finally the name of the destination comes up on the computer for the line we're standing in--and it's the wrong place!  so we run to another gate, where out plane was actually boarding, and run to the plane.  so we almost missed our plane--twice.  i still can't believe that we actually made it to ireland.
the plane ride was actually fun.  we were sitting by a huge group of irish guys, who were reeeeally rouwdy.  then we got a little rowdy too.  basically the entire plane hated us by the end of the trip.  but it was fun.  and on our flight home, guess who welcomes us on board?  none other than the flight attendant who flew us to ireland.  so he pretended to be all upset.  but he secretly liked us.  anyway, we flew into shannon, dropped our stuff off at the bed and breakfast where we were staying, and went out.  it was pretty uneventful though, but still fun.  the next morning we woke up to the most amazing breakfast.  it was an irish breakfast (sausage, bacon, eggs, cereal, toast, coffee and orange juice) minus the potatoes.  fantastic.  then we headed over to galway, dropped our stuff off at the next hostel, and headed out to explore the town.  it was really cool.  and it actually reminded me a little bit of rennes.  we didn't have anything planned, so we pretty much just shopped and explored all day.  for lunch we went to this awesome pub where they were playing a football (soccer) game and ate fish and chips with traditional irish beer.  it was soooo good.  that night we went to another pub, where i had my first real guiness, and got to hear a traditional irish band.  it was so cool!  it was also really weird too, because the majority of the people at the pub consisted of really overdressed girls.  they were all wearing really fancy dresses and high heels, and it was so out of place because we were at this normal, unfancy irish pub. 
the next day, we got up early and got on a bus that took us on a little tour of the irish countryside.  two of my friends and i only got to do about half of the tour because we had to catch an earlier flight than our other friends.  it was really cool though.  we saw some old buildings and a lot of the countryside and ended our tour at the cliffs of moher.  the only bad thing was that it was realllly foggy, so we could hardly see anything.  i wasn't too upset though, because i realized about halfway through our trip that i would need to do ireland again and stay for a longer period of time.  i definitely want to go back.  so we ended our tour, took a cab to the airport, and stayed up overnight in paris.  it was a lot of fun.  i'm actually really excited though because i'm taking a little break from traveling this weekend and actually staying in rennes.  it's been a long time since i've done that, but i'm really looking forward to it.
well, that's all for now!