Ireland Forever

"Erin Go Bragh" means "Ireland Forever." I've decided I like that title better.

Tonight we went to Dolan's pub down by the River Shannon in downtown Limerick with most of the Americans from my group and brought two of my roomies with us, since they were here for the night before they go home tomorrow. I really like it at Dolan's because it has live traditional music on a nightly basis and the beer is typically cheaper there. I did, however, break down and had a pint of Bulmer's (hard cider) before my Guinness. I also got a free Guinness pint glass tonight (how authentic!) and I will hopefully get a couple more...like maybe a Carlsburg or a Smithwicks or a Bulmer's. I'm glad for the time being, though, that I ended up at least with a Guinness glass.

Also, I just booked a flight for le Pareeeeee (Paris) for the second weekend in March. Score!! As my father put it, I'll "really be doing Europe."
These next three weekends are going to be booked. I'm doing work all this weekend, Belfast the weekend after, and Paris the weekend after that. I have like one weekend off to finish all of my papers that are due at the end of March (no worries, mom, I've started them already) and then my family visits!!!!!!! I'm starting to build a list of places to go while they're here: Bunratty, Angela's Ashes tour, Cork/Blarney, Galway, Lahinch, Cliffs of Moher, and possibly the Ring of Kerry. Although, if it's warm enough, I might suggest the Aran Islands (off the coast of Galway) because I hear they're amazing. I just don't know how long of a trip that would be, ferry and all.

I just found out that my senior thesis advisor will be none other than Johnny Vaughan himself, which is way exciting because it means I get to do a lit review on autism and I get to have an internship at an autism center...I'm SO excited.

Reasons why I wish I had my best friend around for so I could spew out random thoughts:

I've started drinking tea. What is this world coming to?

Then again, I'm not sure you can say you've truly lived in Europe unless tea becomes part of your everyday routine.

I've been a big waste of life this weekend but I don't mind it so much because it's been fun to not have a schedule for a couple of days. It's funny that everyone always says to make the most of your time here and do as much traveling as possible, but what's the point if you're going to be miserable doing it? Taking time for yourself is important no matter where you are.

I should really be savoring all of this time off because I know when I go back to Hamilton my life will fall into the chaos that is the dreaded Senior Thesis. Not that I'm not looking forward to it (if I get my first choice...) but it's going to be a LOT of work and I'm thinking there will be several sleepless nights.

There's not much to update here in Ireland right now except that the weather is starting to warm up a bit. Of course, as soon as I say that it's going to get chilly and rainy. But for now, the weather is nice and it's going to be cool to see everything bloom here. I'm excited for when my family visits because by then everything will be greener than green and it will make sightseeing that much more enjoyable.

I still haven't decided what I want to do for my spring break. It seems like all of my American friends here have picked where they want to go and everything but I have no plan whatsoever. Several places have been suggested to me; it's just a matter of choosing a location and committing to it.

Also, I need a job. Eek. It's really hard to get hired when you're in another country. I'll probably just end up at the hospital again but who knows.

I'm not sure what most of this has to do with Ireland but I felt the need to update so there it is. Hope all is well at home!!

Diggy called me the most Irish American he's ever met, apparently because I don't overreact to the things he says and I just have that "fuck off" attitude, to quote him. Honestly I think it's just because I can't understand him half the time.
Diggy, by the way, is my roommates' friend.

So I'm thinking of going to Berlin in a couple of weeks. Thoughts?

Also, I'm going to Galway on Saturday for a little preview of what I will see when my family visits. Not that I will have any idea where I'm going the second time around because I have absolutely no sense of direction.

I don't really know what I'm going on about. I think it's time for bed...

Edinburgh

Yes, I'm back from Scotland! We really only did one full day of touring and such, but it was definitely a great time and I think that we made the most of it. Immediately upon arrival, we checked into our hostel (by the way, if you're looking for a good hostel, I definitely recommend Budget Backpackers) and headed to the pubs. I don't know if it was where we were or what, but the pubs we went to in Edinburgh were...ew. Let's just leave it at that.
The next morning we got up nice and early to go out and explore the town. After walking by a few shops, we decided to go to a free art museum (very cool, but we couldn't take pictures). The museum housed everything from portraits to landscapes to abstract art, oil on canvas and wood panel and sculptures. We even ran into an art school class, sat in for a few minutes, and realized that we had no idea what the professor was talking about so we decided to leave. Next door to the art museum was this amazing tower called the Scott Monument. I'm pretty much obsessed with it. I was really not feeling well so I didn't climb to the top, but a bunch of my friends did and they took pictures which you can view in my album. After the monument we walked around for awhile up to this random hill that overlooked the whole city, which was absolutely beautiful. We sat there for a bit and then headed to Edinburgh Castle to see the cannon fire. We also got to walk around the grounds and check out all of the museums they had; there were a ton of war artifacts and paintings everywhere and it was really interesting to see the pride that the Scottish have in their history. We also got to see the crown jewels, which have a whole museum dedicated to them. They were breathtaking in person, and I'm definitely disappointed that we weren't able to take pictures of them because they were the best part of the whole castle, hands down.
Post-touring the city we went to some random pub who gave us 2-for-1 on lunches. That's right, two meals for the price of one. Unfortunately, I was with a bunch of boys who actually wanted their own two meals so I had to pay full price. Bummer. After lunch we took a little break to recharge our batteries (by this time it was about 4pm) and while some of us relaxed and napped, others went up to Arthur's Seat. I'm a bit sad that I didn't get to go to Arthur's Seat, but I'm not sure that I would have been physically capable to get up there because I was so tired. We all met up again around 7pm to go on a famous Edinburgh ghost tour, where we heard some history about St. Giles church, witch burnings, and peasants living in underground vaults. Apparently there is some paranormal activity known to have taken place in the vaults, although it seems nobody really experienced anything. There is an active Wiccan church that is located in one of the vaults, which is really creepy because there is nothing else down there but stone, water, and slime. We did, however, get scared to death by a woman who ran up to us in one of the vaults, screamed, and ran away. It was part of the tour, so I guess at least we didn't pay money to not get scared. That's right, double negative. After the tour we went to a pub crawl that was absolutely insane and as I said before, most of the pubs were horrible. So, word of advice, if you ever go to Edinburgh, beware of the pubs.
Lastly, as always, here is the link to my photo album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008463&id=1083330009&l=85124

Spring Break

My new thing now is looking for places to go during my spring break. My family will be here for a little less than half the break, so I would like to take the other half and go somewhere. Some of my American friends here are going to Italy and Spain, so those are options. Leave suggestions for me!!

I can cook!!

Okay, by I can cook I mean I made one dish successfully and I had to email my mother about it to ask how to make it. But the big miracle is that I didn't burn anything and I didn't undercook anything. AND, as an added bonus, the three boys I made it for (plus myself...don't think I didn't eat my own food!!) loved it and ate the whole thing. I think the only downside was that two other girls were supposed to join us for dinner decided to go to the gym and the boys got antsy and wanted to eat early, soooo they kind of missed out. Oh, by the way, it was chicken casserole.

I would update more but I don't have much to say other than classes are going swimmingly but I'm starting to get bored of the social scene. There is just so much going out and drinking like 4 or 5 nights a week and I definitely can't keep up with that. Plus, the same clubs over and over again get kind of boring after awhile so I'm thinking of taking a mini hiatus from all of that and just chilling out like I did over the weekend (I literally slept like 30 hours between Friday and Saturday nights). In terms of class we learned today about the Merry Wake, which is essentially when a LOT of Irish people get together for three days (between the death of the individual and his or her burial) and drink their faces off and play lots of games. Kind of makes you laugh, doesn't it?

This weekend a group of us is headed to Edinburgh, Scotland for a couple of days (thank you, RyanAir) since it's Valentine's Day weekend. It's a bummer I won't be in Tanzania and Calvin won't be here but there's not much I can do about it so I'm just going to go have fun in Scotland and hopefully see Robbie and Hannah!

More when I return from Braveheartland.

A little piece of home

I got a little update from one of my rugby teammates today :-)

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20255776&BRD=1630&PAG=461&dept_id=188010&rfi=6

FINALLY. This one's going in the scrapbook.

Irish Dance

I finally finished Angela's Ashes the other night. Absolutely loved it. I of course have to thank Leigh and Roy for that book because it's been a really long time since I've enjoyed a book that much. It was fun reading it while I was here too because I could sort of build a map in my head of where Frank went throughout the story...pretty cool. But yeah, for those of you who haven't read it, I definitely recommend it.
Also, one of my roommates' friends called me "the American....girl" the other night. It was actually really hilarious because everyone was silent, thinking that I would have been offended by such a comment. Much to their relief I laughed it off because its so funny actually being the foreigner...the FES. Ha.
Today was my first day of performance class for my Irish Music and Dance class. Yes, performance class. As in, I go to class in sweatpants and socks and learn how to do Riverdance moves. It's actually quite fantastic. I hated it at first because there were girls in my class that were all like "oh, I've had 13 years experience in ballet" and "I took several Irish dance courses at school in the States." Turns out they all SUCK. That made me feel better. This is only the first class though so I'm sure I'll be struggling just as much in a week or two...we'll see. Oh, and at the end of the semester, we actually have to do a performance. It should, at the very least, be interesting.

See the list of weird Irish things for additions!

Weird Things About the Irish: A Work in Progress

Throughout the semester, as I find out more and more facts about the inhabitants of my host country, I will list for you the ones that I find to be weird. These are the ones I have so far:

1. They call Band-Aids "plaster"
2. They usually have more trouble understanding each other than they do understanding Americans.
3. They charge 22 cents per plastic bag at the grocery store.
4. Most pubs have at least one type of hard cider on tap (usually Bulmer's)
5. Irish boys try to get to know you before they hit on you (actually quite hilarious).
6. Dogs almost never have leashes and they can poop anywhere they want.
7. The clubs play almost all American music...that is anywhere from six months to fifteen years behind.
8. There is no such thing as a standard shower.
9. Secondary school (high school) is legitimately harder than university. This seems to be the standard across the country.
10. They call going to class "going to college."
11. There is no such thing as becoming well-rounded in school. Students know what they will be doing for the rest of their lives by age 16, so when they get to university they only take classes that pertain to their career plans.
12. Instead of saying a phrase such as "that meeting took like 30 minutes" they will say "that meeting took 30 minutes like."
13. Their roads are really only big enough for one car yet there seem to be very few accidents.
14. Anything that is half-past an hour is spoken as "half-four" rather than "four-thirty."
15. If you say something that surprises an Irish person, they usually respond with "fuck off!"
16. Fun is called "craic" (pronounced "crack"). When they use this word, it's usually in a sentence like "That was some good craic last night."
17. One common greeting in an email is "howaya" (say it out loud).
18. They don't refrigerate eggs. Seriously.
19. It is common for children to swear, and adults think it's funny.
20. A cupboard is called a "press."
21. Telling someone that St. Patrick's story isn't real is like saying Santa doesn't exist.

Homestay Weekend

Though I have returned to Cappavilla with a cold or the flu, I must say that this weekend in County Cork was nothing short of a fanstastic adventure.
On Friday, myself and my fellow IFSA-Butler students were shuttled off to the south of Ireland to live with our homestay families for a week. Stephanie and I were located in the heart of a small town known as Carrigaline with Malcolm, a blacksmith, and his wife, Amanda, who owns a boutique down the street from their house. Upon entering their quiant living space, we were surprised to find that we were not the only foreign students staying in the house; it turned out that Malcolm and Amanda were no strangers to hosting visiting students. One was named Max, a sixteen year-old student from Germany, and the other was Roman, an eighteen year-old from Belgium. They had been living at the house since the beginning of the academic year, so they were quite settled in by the time we arrived. They also had two of their own children staying in the house: six year-old Matt and 14 year-old Megan. It was quite the full house. Amanda, true to her Irish nature, told us to treat her home as our own and, although it was pretty uncomfortable to do so, it really did make us feel welcome. Oh, and also, an Irish mother's stew is absolutely amazing.
Saturday brought an excursion into the city of Cork, where we walked around for a bit before meeting up with some of our American friends to head down to Blarney's castle. We got to Blarney at around 4pm, so we really had to rush through the whole climbing to the top and kissing the stone deal so that we could explore the grounds (the grounds are open all night). Honestly, if there was ever such an attraction in the United States I don't believe they would allow people in the castle for serious liability reasons. One of the things I really like about being in Europe is that you are responsible for yourself and if you do something stupid then it's nobody's fault other than your own.
Needless to say, I did not kiss the stone (I know, I'm sorry). My fear of heights really only allowed me to get to the top of the castle, at which point I was literally clinging to the walls. I did, however, get to witness some people kiss the stone and receive "the Gift of Gab."
After the kissing of the stone we explored the grounds for a bit and then headed back to Cork, where we caught the bus back to Carrigaline for the night.
Today Stephanie and I ventured out to Crosshaven, which is a small town on the south shore of Ireland, only a few miles from Carrigaline. We took a nice little stroll around the edge of the cove for an hour or two before we had to go back to get ready to leave. Malcolm cooked for us before we left, and I must say that American fathers should really learn to cook (I mean other than frozen pizzas in the oven or macaroni and cheese).
Anyway, now I am back at UL and haven't been feeling well, so I decided to skip the Super Bowl party (yes, one of the pubs is hosting an American party) and try to get better instead. Hopefully that happens before the next time I update.

If you would like to see more pictures, go to: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2007434&l=e85b0&id=1083330009