My name is Morgan Nicole Richards and I am 21 years old. I grew up in Erie, Pa and am an only child. I’m a junior at Point Park University studying photography. I am a fashion, editorial, and commercial photographer with goals to shoot for high fashion magazines in the future.
PRE-TRIP BLOG
Only two more weeks till the Ireland and Iceland trip! I have done some traveling before, but mostly in America and once to Canada when I was a child. The farthest I’ve flown was to California, which is a 5 hour plane ride from Pittsburgh. I usually don’t do well traveling on a plane they make me very nervous and I hate turbulence. I am extremely excited to go on this trip mainly because I haven’t really been outside of the states before and I get to go with one of my close friends, Emily Scheirer. I also can’t wait to take photos of the beautiful landscapes that both Ireland and Iceland are heavily blessed with. I hope to talk to many photographers on this trip and hopefully build relationships and make connections!
5/14/17
After the 9 hour layover at JFK we finally got on the airplane at 9pm to go to Iceland. The plane was the biggest plane I have ever been on with 6 seats in a row. You could say I was really nervous for this flight because of the size of the plane, the 5-6 hours of flying, and the storm that was happening.
At 6:45 we arrived in Iceland. It was overcast and a little gloomy outside, but we finally made it off the plane, so I was extremely happy to see what this country has to offer. When we walked outside you could see almost everything around you with the land being fairly flat with lava rocks all around covered in a green to brownish moss. There were no trees in sight, which is very strange for me living by so many forests, but the amazing thing is you could see mountains in the distance with snow-capped tops surrounding the land. I couldn’t wait to get a closer look, which we did when we started heading towards Reykjavik the capital.
Reykjavik is a beautiful little city with buildings painted many different colors that could cheer up any gloomy day. We got to have a short tour of the city and a little of what’s around it by Helga our tour guide. She took us to the president’s house, Hallgrimskirkja church, and around the downtown area. She also gave us some interesting facts about herself and Icelandic people, such as her full name, which I don’t think I could ever try to pronounce if I wanted to, and how people would greet each other by family names.
After the tour was over we had plenty of time to go out and explore on our own and Emily, Kayla and I had a blast doing going through
the cities shopping streets and even checking out the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which is a penis museum. It was comical and interesting showing different species of animals and the
ir family jewels.
Overall, I had a great first day and did/walked a lot even though I haven’t slept in 24 hours so I know I can count on falling asleep early tonight. Before I end the first blog I want to mention a few things that I found to be weird such as the restrooms at the airport were very strange to me not able to open them from the outside due to no door handle. I also noticed they don’t put any coat hooks in the bathrooms. The toilet seats are shaped different and have a very thin and even lip to sit on. The showers hear are strange as well being hard to understand and work with. There are several roundabouts everywhere, buildings are not very high, every house and building is painted a bright color, the Pepsi tastes different, money, and everything is expensive.
5/15/17
Today was a very long and adventures day full of sightseeing. We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel, which was very delicious. We left at 9am and went on a quick group walk in downtown to make up for some lost time the day before and after that we went on our way to Thingvellir National Park.
On the way there it started raining and shortly after we saw a large and close rainbow with the mountains and lake in the background. This was a large national park with beautiful natural wonders throughout it and most were very close to one another, just a short drive to each.
We stopped at many spots such as a large lake where you can see earth’s plates spreading apart separating North America and Europe. We went to a farm and had fresh ice cream made from the cows on the farm. I got salted caramel flavor, it was very good a little saltier than you’d think it would be, but still heavenly. Also we got to see and pet Icelandic horses, they were small and very fluffy, soft, and loved to be touched and gi
ven attention. After that we went to see the geysers where the world f
mous Geysir is. We got to see one erupt named Strokker. I saw it erupt three times and the third time we were in the splash zone and got tons of water falling from the geysers spout. Lastly we went to Gullfoss waterfall and it was spectacular. It was a large waterfall where people got to be extremely close to it and the edge of the cliff. It was very cold and windy there, but definitely worth seeing.
I think my favorite thing was seeing Gullfoss because it was so large and we were able to get amazing photos because we are
able to get right up to the falls. I truly enjoyed this day and will always remember the natural wonders of Thingvellir National Park.
I can say by the end of the day I was very tired and hu
gry, but my hunger was satisfied with the group dinner where we went to a restaurant on the 8th floor of a hotel where we could see out over Reykjavik. Dinner was once again amazing starting off with scallops to chicken dinner and 
then a beautiful lemon dessert.
Today was a very long day full of exciting things. I look forward to the days to come and am interested to see how these me
dia days will go, which start tomorrow.
Day 3
5/16/17
Today we went on two media visits starting at 10am at Promote Iceland and then to The Reykjavik Grapevine. I must say I was surprisingly happy to have gone to the media visits. At first I was not very excited just because they have nothing to do with my major or what I’m interested in, but in the end I feel like I learned a lot and found the people here to be very comical.
Promote Iceland was our first media visit and a young man, Sven Birkir Bjornsson, talked about the PR they do to get tourists to visit Iceland called Inspired by Iceland. The original campaign was only meant to be for three months but was so successful it has been going on for three years with the objectives to increase awareness, commerce, and seasonality. Their target group was the enlightened traveler with the theme to tell the stories of Iceland adventures, pure, creative, cultural, sustainable, and mysterious. They strive to have an authentic, energizing, joyful, welcoming, and surprising tone of voice. I was surprised to see that they want to promote the people of Iceland more than the nature. They want to show how genuine, generous, and lively the people of Iceland are. He said, “Answer the door in the clothes you are wearing”. They also made some great videos to inform travelers about what to do and not to do in Iceland.
The second media visit was The Reykjavik Grapevine, which is a newspaper/magazine in Reykjavik. They have their offices on one floor of what looks to be a house. They wanted to have an independent media outlet that was accessible to a lot of people including tourists and Icelanders. 30-40% of readership is from America and from on the web. The core of the paper was to show the culture combining interests in Iceland, which the media traditionally doesn’t cover culture. The paper was started a while ago by a few men who were 21 when they started it. The paper has a lot of spirit and is very
comical and a little serious when needed. They have one main photographer who works with them and does about 75% of the photographs for each 
magazine and the rest come from freelancers and other outside photographers. Overall, they were all very nice and laid back.
After the media visits I went with my small group of friends to get food and do a little last minute exploring. We went to a hotdog stand near our hotel, it was delicious with crispy onion, onion, brown mustard, and mayo on a toasted bun. After that we went to get some dessert at the same crepe place we went to the first day here because they were that good! We took a walk back to Hallgrimskirkja the church/tower in Reykjavik. This time we went to the top of the tower so we cou
ld look at the view of the city. It was extremely
beautiful and the sun came out showing lovely blue skies and white puffy clouds! When done we thought about getting tattoos, but all of the tattoo shops had already closed, so we decided the next time we come we will get them.
Today was a lovely day felt a little warmer out with less wind and sunny blue skies at the end. We leave for Dublin at 3:15am and I’m sad to leave Iceland so soon, but excited to see what Ireland has to offer for the next week and some days. I’m all packed up and will be getting to bed a little earlier than usual tonight, there maybe a chance that I go back and stop at the hotdog stand one more time tonight for a midnight snack though!
Day 4
5/17/17
Today we woke up at 2am, so we could leave to the airport to continue on to Ireland. We took Wow Airlines and I was very nervous because I’ve heard a lot of negative things about Wow. Overall, the plane ride was very smooth except for the landing, which I thought we were going to die. The pilot landed badly and had to take off quickly again aft
er we landed in Dublin. The line to get through customs was also a very long and tiring experience. Luckily everyone’s luggage arrived to Dublin!
After grabbing our luggage from baggage claim we finally got to meet Joe our tour guide. Joe is a character, he is extremely nice, generous, and hilarious. He took us on the bus to get to the city of Dublin, which is quiet, a large city with tons of people everywhere. It reminded me of NYC with the hustle and bustle, but without the extremely tall buildings. The city had a more homely feeling, but you could also tell this is not home there are many things that are different.
Joe took a few people including myself to get lunch at O’Neil’s a pub that has a sandwich shop inside. I got the Christmas Cracker that had flavors of thanksgiving with stuffing, turkey, cheese, and cranberry sauce. I really enjoyed the sandwich and the atmosphere of the pub, you could tell it was old and had a lot of history.
Later we went to The Parliament Building where we toured the
inside and got to sit in on real live meetings. We learned about the History of the building and got to see the beautiful rooms that will soon be redone and restored. I must say that I was so tired at the Parliament building I found myself dozing off and I felt awful about it I didn’t want to be rude, but I couldn’t help it I had two hours of sleep the day before and haven’t slept a lot before that.
Towards the end of the day we were able to check into the apartments we are staying at and then took a trip to the corner grocery store since we have a kitchen in our apartments. For dinner we went to The Brazen Head pub where we had another delicious group m
eal including a salad, meat and mash stew, and chocolate cake! Once dinner was over we
all came back to the rooms quickly and got ready for bed since we’ve become sleep deprived the last few days.
Day 5
5/18/17 This morning I met the group at 9am to go to the first media visit of the day at Dublin City University. We got there around 10 or so and a woman met us and gave a lecture about the media of Ireland and some history about the media here. I found it to be really interesting, but once again I was really tired and found myself dozing off here and there. I
did my best to stay awake and I really wanted to give her my full attention. The lecture ended at 11 something and we all had lunch at the DCU cafeteria. The food was decent not the best, but usually you can’t expect the food to be that great in a school cafeteria. After lunch a small group and I walked outside around the cam
pus and enjoyed the sun, flowers, and the architecture of the buildings.
The second media visit was with Harmonia, which is the largest magazine publisher in Ireland. I was really interested in this media visit and can say it has been my favorite one so far. We slit into two groups and listened to two different talks one being business and one about the layout and journalism. I found it all to be fascinating because Harmonia publishes a lot of fashion and women’s magazines. At the end of the talks I talked to the two female editors and asked them about internships and gave them my business card. She told me she would email me people I can talk to about the internships. They also gave us a lot of magazines for free.
We all finally got back at 5:30 and we had the rest of th
e day to explore, so Emily, Kaila, Jac and I went around to look at shops and eat food. We looked around for a while and stopped at a few stores and ended up buying a gold Celtic trinity ring. We looked around for a place to eat forever, we just couldn’t decide and find the right place. We ended up at a pub near Trinity College. The food was okay I didn’t really like mine much, I wish I would have gotten a m
ore authentic dish. We got back to the room at around 10 and got ready for bed. We have another big day full of media visits tomorrow.
Day 6
5/19/17
Today we had two media visits back to back starting at 10am. First we met Heneghan PR. We took a quick stop at there offices, and then met up again at a near by hotel where we had more room to have discussions. I am not a PR major, but I found what they had to say was interesting and can be helpful. The Main guy of the business was Nigel Heneghan, he was very nice man and extremely polite. He gave us a talk about the business and how it is run/their goals and the clients they have. Heneghan PR specializes in crisis cases and is well known for helping businesses get out of a bad situation. They said they do not take on all businesses, such as a tanner services because non
e of they are familiar with that product and the market. They do have many well-known clients such as Haven, Uber, Motorola, etc. Also, they had an American student interning for them, which was very cool to meet her and here what she had to say. One thing I took away from this was from Mariah the intern who said that in order for her to stand out she wrote her Resume and cover letter as if she where making a feature story about herself. I think this doesn’t just apply to PR person I think many careers could take this approach.
After that we met Michael Chester who is the president of the Photography association of Ireland. Right away you learned he is not a shy man. He told us stories of his life and his career, which he did not become a photographer for a long time. He was always interested in it, he continued working other jobs, but always had a camera with him. He told us about how he became the president of the Association and what the Association does. He is a truly inspiring man wh
o has made every negative thing in his life a positive and doesn’t dwell on bad. He is a go getter and because of this he has amazing opportunities such as photographing the Queen of England and Barack Obama.
We all finally got back to the apartments at about 5pm and had a quick group talk. After that my small group decided to get changed and walk around the city and get food. We ended up at a Mexican restaurant called Torteca, similar to Chipotle back home and after to Gino’s for gelato. We walked back and got ready for bed soon after that because it was past 10pm.
Day 7
5/20/17
Today we had a free day in Dublin! This free day blessed us with more sleep! Well, a little more sleep in the morning we still woke up at 8am, but we took our time getting ready and left the apartments at 11ish to go to the trains for Howth.
Howth is a town north of Dublin, so about a 25 min trin ride with a few stops in between. It is a smaller and more laid back own compared to Dublin. It is also known as a fishig village with the bay right next to it. 
When Emily, Kaila, and myself arrived we started going towards the bay area where you could walk by many fresh seafood restaurants and at the end of the street you could see a lighthouse, an island, and many boaters out in the bay area. We all took many photographs in this area due to this spectacular scenic view!
When we first got to Howth it was very sunny with a few clouds, but within about 30min the rain hit us and we had to quickly fin
d somewhere to go, so we diced to find a place to eat some fresh seafood. We ended up going to the market of the town because most of the restaurants were full. The market was very cute with delicious andinexpensive food. I ended up getting fish and chips, w
hich I’ve never had before and I also don’t really like fish, but I decided to try it since it is fresh and popular here. I also got dessert, 3 little cupcakes where the man selling them helped me pronounce the town’s name.
After eating we looked around a few shops and then took off to find the Howth castle, which wasn’t far from the train station. The castle was not huge, but it was old and unfortunately not in the best shape and there was no way of getting inside of it. We explored around the castle as much as we could until we heard some music coming from the church down the road. We stopped by to see what was happening and it turns out there was a small fair/gathering at the church where locals were eating and selling old things.
We headed back towards Dublin at 3:30 and hoped on a bus to check out the Guinness Brewery. The factory was actually really interesting, but packed with loads of people. My ticket cost 18 Euros and it included a pint of beer. At the end of the tour we were able to get our pint and drink it in the sky bar where we could enjoy our cold one with a view of Dublin.
To end our day we ended up in a pub not to far from the apar
tments called Ned O’Shea’s. It was a nice place with good food and live music. I ended up getting a steak sandwich and a coke. We didn’t get out of the pub till almost 10pm. We got back to the room soon after and started packing and getting ready for bed to head to Belfast in the morning.
Day 8
5/21/17
I was sad to leave Dublin; I didn’t want to leave this beautiful city yet. I liked this city right when we arrived a few days before and knew that I could see myself living here. There’s not much I didn’t like there other than the traffic was awful and there was tons of people everywhere.
The group had to get on the bus by 9am, so we could all go to the train station to get to Belfast. The train ride was lovely with one side over looking the beautiful countryside and the other over bays and ocean areas. The train was also very nice and clean and it only took two hours from Dublin to Belfast. Once we arrived in Belfast we got on a bus and took a two-hour tour around the area seeing many things such as the Parliament Building, Titanic ship
yards, and Belfast Castle. I really enjoyed seeing the Belfast castle! It had a beautiful view of the city and had a lovely garden full of cat symbols. I also did my report on it, so it was very cool seeing it in person. Another thing I enjoyed was seeing the peace walls that divided the Catholics and the Protestants during a time that was called to the Troubles. I signed my name on the now colorful walls full of symbols and words of peace.
After the tour we got to our hotel and had a couple hours before dinner. McHugh’s was were we had a group dinner and we were able to pick what we wanted to eat so I order tomato and thy
me soup, salmon, and puff pastry with fruit compote! I was all extremely delicious, especially the tomato soup it was life changing!
I got back to my room to get ready for bed, I knew the next day would be another big day full of media
visits, so I wanted to get as much rest as I could.
Day 9
5/22/17
Today is my last day in Belfast. It was a day full of media visits where we visited BBC and The Irish News. First we had a nice breakfast at our hotel and then we met as a group to walk to BBC. It didn’t take long to get there and soon we were heading up to the conference room to learn about the BBC. Kathleen talked to us quickly in the beginning and gave us some history on the BBC and Belfast, including background on the troubles. After her talk she had to leave because she is a busy woman and has many job titles at BBC. We then got to explore different parts of the newsrooms such as Radio and TV. The radio was really interesting to me as we watch people call in and be transferred to the live talk show. The building was hustling and bustling with people hurrying to get the latest news out there for the people; it was fascinating to see.
The second media visit that took place right after BBC was at The Irish News. It is a family owned business and was a smaller building, but had about 4 or 5 floors. There were many people who talked to us from all divisions of the paper such as Editor, marketing, advertising, digital, political, and motoring/faith matters. My favorite part of the presentations was the marketing section with John Brolly. I thought they had some extremely good ideas on how to get more people to read the newspaper and they are showing a lot of improvement and signs that it really is working great. They are really focused on getting young people to read the newspaper by putting things such as tokens for the kids to collect and get the chance to win to go to a soccer camp. They also work with teachers in the area to get kids interested in reading the news and learning what else is going on in the world. What’s interesting is that he said the kids are really interested in learning about USA and president Trump. It was really inspiring to see this idea to get the younger generation to read the newspaper, I think that American newspapers could take this as a great example on what to think about and try in the States.
After the media visits we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted, so we went to Primark, which is an inexpensive store like Forever21. I found some good deals there. Also, Emily, Kaila, and I had an assignment to do while we were in Belfast, which was to interview people about Donald Trump. This was actually really hard for us to do because no one wanted to talk to us or they didn’t want to be filmed or photographed. Another thing that was surprising was a lot of people we approached didn’t have much to say other than they weren’t into politics especially American politics. In the end we were able to find two people who would talk to us, but it took a long time to find someone; we also didn’t have as much time in Belfast to try to interview people since we were barley here for two days.
We had dinner at McDonalds and then went to our room to pack and get ready for bed. Tomorrow we leave once again to go back to Republic of Ireland. PS a few things I noticed here was people would say “what aboutcha” meaning how are you or whats up. I also noticed everyone in Ireland seems to says you are always welcome, which is really polite and refreshing to hear.
Day 10
5/23/17
Today we left Belfast and took a big tour bus through the countryside to Galway. We had a few stops along the way including Kells where The Book of Kells was written. It was interesting to see the town of Kells after seeing the book at Trinity College. It is a small town with small colorful houses that are usually connected. I got to see some very old churches and talked to a couple of locals that wond
ered wh
at we were hoping to see in Kells. I also got a delicious tuna melt on a cibata bun at a hotel near where the bus was parked.
We finally arrived at Galway at about 3:30 and took our luggage up to our rooms and then had a group meeting about the next couple days. The 22 of us took a walk to the city center of Galway with Joe who gave us some facts about the 14 main families that once lived here. Shortly after we all split up and did our own things, so Emily, Kaila, and myself looked at a few shops and went to get the famous fish and chips from McDonaghs. I must say it was really good the fish had a great crispy outer layer and it came with delicious tater sauce. Oh, and the chips were the best by far the best chips I’ve had on the trip so far!
So far Galway is a beautiful town even though this whole day its been gloomy and misty out. There are streets and rows upon rows of shops and restaurants/pubs. Many talented people play musical instruments and sing along the shops, which makes the experience even more exciting. I can’t wait to get a better look around the city and bay area tomorrow after our last media visit.
Day 11
5/24/17
Today was our last media visit of the trip and we got to visit The Galway Bay FM, which is an independent radio station in Galway. The radio station was about a five-minute walk from our hotel. I can honestly say I did not know much about radio until the visit to Bay FM. Everyone was very nice to us and they allowed us to sit in on some live air time and let us in on many departments including news and sports.
The station has been around since 1989 by Keith Finnegan, who told us his father, was a radio technician and that was the start to his interest in radio. Finnegan is proud that people find Bay FM to be trustworthy and he keeps it that way by finding good accurate news and not using social media as a source because there are to many false stories floating around. The station runs 7 days a week from 9 to 7 and about 28 full time staff.
I really enjoyed seeing a successful independent radio station such as Bay FM. It amazed me how fast paced things are and having constant dead lines all day is mind blowing to me especially conside
ring how well they do. I was a little surprised that sports was extremely popular and seems to bring everyone in Galway together. I’m not the biggest sports fan so to me this is a little new. Also, it seems that the county loves country music when the city hates it. I didn’t even know they listened to a lot of country music here in Ireland.
The meeting with Bay FM ended at almost 2pm and we were all set free to do what ever we pleased for our last night in Galway. My small group decided to head into town and do a little more shopping, look around, and get some food. I ended up getting a crepe with Nutella, strawberries, and bananas! After a quick lunch we headed towards the bay to get a look of the water and the boats around.It was extremely beautiful with getting a view of the city, boats, and swans. After a while we all got hungry again and went to Dough Boys for some fresh handmade pizza it too was heavenly and light. T
he day quickly started to come to an end and we headed back to the hotel to pack and get ready for bed.
I must say I’m really sad to leave Galway; it was one of my favorite places we visited. I enjoyed the small city with loads of shops and restaurants near the bay. I could stay here longer and just sit by the bay all day that’s how much I enjoyed it, but tomorrow is a new day and a new destination where we will be seeing the Cliffs of Moher and having dinner in a castle!
Day 12
5/25/17
Today is my last da in Ireland. I’m sad that it will be my last day here, but I’m also excited to see the Cliffs of Moher and the Bunratty Castle! This morning we left the Travel Lodge in Galway at 9am and started over to see the Cliffs. We had a scenic bus ride through the country and saw many old ruins along the way. We took a stop at a place called Burren, which is a place wh
ere limestone rocks cover the ground with many little caverns and holes that you have to be careful to not step in or you could break an ankle. I thought this was a really interesting place where I would hop along the rocks jumping over the little caverns usually filled with grass and flowers, but there was also an ancient stone memorial people built a long time ago to honor the dead.
After visiting the Burren we had a 15-minute ride to the cliffs and I’ve been looking forward to seeing them for a long time. We passed some beaches and fancy golf courses along the oce
an right before the cliffs. I wish we had more time to spend in that area and go to the beach. Joe had told us that that was one of the best beaches that surfers in the area like to go to. When we got to the cliffs we took our lastgroup picture and were set free for two hours to explore the Cliffs of Moher. When I got to the top of the hill where I was finally able to see out over the cliffs and the ocean I was amazed at the incredible view. The Cliffs were massive jetting out into the blue ocean. The sun was also out with just a couple clouds, so it was a beautiful day to walk along the edge of the cliffs where if you wanted you coul
d sep right on the edge, but you have to be extremely carful to not fall off. I really loved seeing the cliffs it was an amazing sight to see and I’m glad it was one of our last day activities.
After the Cliffs we took the bus to our new hotel where we had an hour to clean up before the last group supper at Bunratty Castle. We got 
to the castle grounds and walked through an area that was made to look a little like what the town would have looked like back in the day. There were some goats and mini horses as well. The walk was quick to get to the castle and it was pretty tall and very old looking. I walked up 35 stairs and was greeted by a woman dressed like a princess, she handed me a glass with a drink called mead. I soon found out that mead was alcoholic and is fermented fruit with honey. I wasn’t a big fan of it, but I wasn’t surprised I’m not very into alcoholic beverages, so I gave the rest to someone else who would take it. Once everyone was gathered into the room the actors started giving us some background and singing. Bob and Helen also became the Lord and Lady that night, which was really funny to see them get crowned! The actors directed us back down the stairs where the dinner was to be served and we all got to sit with our g
roup and had the pleasure to sit with the Lord and Lady. Dinner was okay not the best dinner on the trip, but not bad. We were served bread, potato soup, ribs, chicken and potatoes, and an apple crumble for dessert. After the dinner the actors sang some songs and it was really beautiful to listen to it. The dinner and show ended at 8:30 and we w
ere taken back to the hotel where I got the rest of my things
packed up and ready to go for the long travel day that awaits me.
This trip has tr
uly been a blessing! It was an amazing trip full of sight seeing and helpful media visits that I will never forget. I know that someday I will revisit these two beautiful countries and hopefully many more!