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.