All this Beauty

This past weekend all of the exchange students here at Ulster were invited on a walk along the beach with an organization called International Friends. Irish people are probably the friendliest, most welcoming people you could ever meet, and this organization's members are definitely no exception.

First we walked along the beach for a little while...

It was super cold but absolutely beautiful. (As usual in really windy situations, my hair comes alive giving the allusion that my head is being attacked by a brown, curly-haired beast. Cute.)

What do you get when you walk along the beach, with eight giggly, excited girls??... A picture of eight giggly, excited girls holding hands!!

What you're not seeing in this picture is our friend Alan, who got suckered into taking this picture eight times with eight different cameras....girls. :-) At least he was a good sport about it.

In the not-so-epic battle of the exchange students v. the north Atlantic winds, we definitely did not fair well. So we took our stroll inland a bit and got to see some even more beautiful views.


This is the part where I felt like we had walked right into Tolkien's imagination.


I kept expecting to see a gorgeous woodland elf and a strapping ranger jump out from behind the marshes to save us from an eminent orc attack....no such luck. (That double-reference to Lord of the Rings is just for you mom!)



I wish my camera could have captured just how beautiful this scene really was! It was simply stunning.




This picture is by far my favorite because you can see the fields in the distance. It also captures a rarity here, a bright blue sky!


After our walk, we were all invited back to the church International Friends is a part of for some biscuits and hot chocolate. Here all the exchange students ate and drank their weight in homemade sugar goodies and yummy hot chocolate...well at least all of the American students did. I may have seen one of the Frenchies pop a biscuit or two. ;-)

Over all it was a beautiful Irish day!!