Ladidadida

Hi Everyone. I guess I should update again since it's been a bit since I've written anything :) Sorry 'bout that. Not that I've been terribly busy, but I have been writing a paper that was due this past Friday. Thank goodness that's over with. It was a 2500 word essay on the causes and effects of the Great Famine. Easy right? No. It was like pulling teeth. The whole lack of work that I have to do here has killed my academic motivation so I'm trying to be better about that right now and get a head start on some of my essays that will be due in March. Mmmmmm, what else is new with me?

Well, this past Friday me and three girls, Nora, Kelsey, and Morgan, went out to celebrate being done with our essays (they're all in FIE with me). We first went to Whelan's, a bar near school, to hear Heritage Centre, a local band, play. They were pretty good, not my typical type of music, more punk rock alternative, but still pretty good. Then we decided to go dancing because it was only like 11pm and we didn't want to go home yet. So we headed to the Temple Bar area and went to Turks Head, a club, to dance. Ended up staying there for quite a bit. Melody, another girl in the program, met up with us there and we all danced for something like 3 hours straight. It was great!!!!! After a bit though we all got hot and decided to stand outside to cool down. Whilst out there we, Melody and I, met this group of Irish guys. The only one whose name I caught was Connor, and they were all really nice. We ended up talking for over an hour before we realized the time and decided to head back. The guys had been trying to get a party started and wanted us to join them, but we were all tired and didn't want to walk very far so we declined. I think they were kind of drunk, but then again that's pretty typical of Irish boys at 3:30am :)

All Saturday I stayed in because my legs were screaming at me and it was a little painful to move around. It's been awhile since I've gone out like that considering I don't go out that much. However, when I do I go all out hehehehe. Yesterday, Nora and I hung out and watched a movie because it was kind of a blah day (it rained for a little bit, which is out of the ordinary because it hasn't really rained all this past week).

Today I'm trying to be a little productive because I have 3 essays due in March and March is going to be my busiest month. This coming weekend I'm going to England to visit Lauren and Lauren in Brighton and see London, the following Saturday Briana arrives for a week and that Sunday Kyle arrives for a week. Then the following Sunday Lauren and Lauren arrive to visit and then that Thursday morning I'm leaving for Galway with the FIE group. So basically every weekend is taken in March :) Not that I'm complaining, it just means I'll have to budget my time well. But that's fine because I'm really excited to see everyone. And then the first weekend in April my family comes to visit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited to see everyone that I can hardly stand it hehehehehehe. Although I'm not looking forward to the early plane arrivals. Oh well, I can deal. Well, I'm going to go do some research on Islam for a paper. Love, hugs, and happiness to everyone!!!!

Schools Back

Not much is happening right now. I'm not going anywhere this weekend so that's a slight change, but I'm fine with that. It'll be nice to have a lazy weekend (sorta). I've gotten some of my academic motivation back now. I have a paper due for my foundation course on Friday and I'm already about half-way through it!!! Big improvement from the lack of work I've been doing recently.

Hmmm. Oh I went to the movies again yesterday with Amanda and Sam. We saw He's Just Not That Into You. Really cute!!! Go see it if you like chick flicks :)

Today is Valentines Day, or as my friends and I refer to it, Singles Awareness Day. Though I am determined to have a good day. I made myself a lovely breakfast this morning of french toast, I'm going out and doing some "me" shopping, and then making Indian for dinner and watching a good movie or something. And probably doing a litte work on my essay. I'd like to make it to 2000 words or more tonight, and considering I made it over 1000 last night I think I can pull that off. Then that will be one less thing to worry about.

Also went into major cleaning mode last night (I know mom, major shocker right?) but since my roommates rarely clean, I was sick of looking at the kitchen the way it was. So I cleaned my room and deep cleaned the kitchen, which should stay pretty clean since my roommates are in Amsterdam until Monday (which is totally fine with me). I get the weekend to myself!!!!! Okay I'm going to go continue my day of fun. Toodles!!

To Scotland!!!!

Hi everyone. I got back from Scotland yesterday afternoon and figured that I should update this so y'all could here about about my crazy adventure :) Lets start on Thursday evening when we (Amanda, Sam, and I) were supposed to fly out. We're all packed and ready and somehow between the time we left the apartment and when we got to the airport our flight was canceled...because of and inch of snow. We were not happy since we'd had to pay 6 euro just to get there. So we find a computer and come to find out the earliest flight we could get out is on Saturday morning at 7:45am. We decide to take it because we could still fit in Inverness and Loch Ness, which was the main thing we wanted to see while in Scotland. After we rebook our flight, we find someone who works for Ryanair, and she tells us that we just have to send our receipts to the main office in Dublin and we can get refunded for our taxi and such because of the missed flight. Okay that's not so bad right? Well, come to find out that we're going to be charged for the Thursday night we were supposed to spend at the hostel because we didn't cancel the reservation with a 24 hour notice. Go figure. So I talked to the lady who runs the hostel and she said she was able to print a receipt for us so we could send it to the airline and try to get refunded for it. So we take a taxi back from the airport and I get online to try to rearrange our accommodations in Scotland. Thankfully the lady, Mrs. Stephen, at the B&B in Inverness could move our reservation from Friday to Saturday evening. So we all go to sleep a little frustrated but whatever.

Friday we go to the Guinness Factory since we had nothing better to do. It was actually kinda interesting to see how they make beer and all the advertisements they would use for Guinness. And I tried a small glass in the tasting room. Yes Dad, I finally tried a Guinness...and I'm not a big fan. Too, I dunno. I just didn't really like it. But the storehouse was still cool to walk around. At the top there is a place called Gravity Bar, where you show your ticket and you can get a free pint of Guinness or a free soft drink. So I had the most expensive soft drink ever (cost me 11 euros). But the view was spectacular as we had arrived just as the sun was beginning to set.

Moving on to Saturday morning, I'm up at 5am to be ready at 5:30 for the taxi to take us to the airport. That was a fun morning. We got to the airport and got all checked in and stood in a really long, but surprisingly quick-moving security line. Once we were through, we discovered that there is a Butler's Chocolate Shop in the airport (they have the most amazing hot chocolate ever!!!!). So we treated ourselves to a muffin and a nice cup of hot chocolate. The flight was pretty uneventful and quite short. Only about 40 minutes long. Once we arrived at Preswick International Airport in Scotland we were ready to go through Customs, but we didn't have to for some reason. Still don't know why....

We take the train into Glasgow, which is about a 45 minute ride through beautiful countryside, because Preswick is right near the coast. Not even 10 minutes into our journey we pass a golf course, which made me immediately think of my dad :) I actually had the urge to pick up a set of clubs and go to a driving range, but alas, we had a bus to catch. Once in Glasgow, we took a connecting bus from the train station to the bus station and hopped a bus to Perth. Pretty uneventful ride, mostly tried to sleep. Once in Perth, we changed buses and got on a bus to Inverness. 2.5 hours later, we arrived in Inverness. It was early afternoon and it began to snow as we got off the bus (of course lol). We made our way to the River Ness and walked along the bank until we reached our B&B. Absolutely beautiful was the the walk. And our B&B was amazing!!!!!!!!! Finley, the older son of Mrs. Stephen showed us to our room, complete with an insuite bathroom and shower, and a COMPLIMENTARY BOX OF CHOCOLATE!! It was great. We also had a beautiful view of the river from our room. We were exhausted from our bus rides so we relaxed for an hour and found out that Supernanny is played in Scotland, but with American families. It was interesting to watch, but we got hungry so we left and found dinner at a cute italian restaurant about a 10 minute walk from the house. The penne pasta I had was superb and the brownie sunday dessert was to die for! Once done, we returned to the guest house where we all ventured to shower (which was an experience because to have hot water, you had to sacrifice some water pressure), but it was nice to be clean and warm. The bed was the most amazing thing ever!!!! Comfy, warm, and two very squishy pillows all to myself :) I was in complete heaven. We watched The Italian Job on tv and then all konked out around midnight. Here are some pics of the B&B we were in.


Breakfast was bright and early at 8:30am and we met Mrs. Stephen then. She is a lovely lady who is very nice and helpful. We had a lovely breakfast, it was nice to actually eat a decent breakfast, of eggs, sausage, and a potato scone. And I had COFFEE!!!!!!! Strong but good french press coffee. It was a great way to start the morning. Mrs. Stephen helped us find a tour of Loch Ness to go on and when it left so we headed back to the bus station with all of our stuff for the tour at 10:15. May I just say that Loch Ness and Urquhart (not sure of the spelling) Castle are absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

We tromped around the castle for about an hour and then hopped back on the tour bus to go back to Inverness. At Inverness we caught a bus back to Perth that would then take us back to Glasgow for the evening, where we had a hostel reservation.

Sooooo, here's where the fun starts. We get to Glasgow, and it's snowing again (of course) so we head out to look for the subway station that we need to take to the hostel. Turns out the subway is closed on Sundays. CLOSED!!! Thankfully they had also given directions by bus so we took a little adventure on the public bus....yeah I'm not a big fan of the buses in Glasgow because we had no idea where we were going and we missed our stop...by 3 miles. We finally get off because we are lost and have no idea where we are. So we decide to hail a cab to just take us to the hostel, only problem is we don't have the actual address because silly me forgot to write it down. The taxi driver was really nice though and found out the address for us and took us to the hostel...or so we thought.

We get there and go inside and boom, think stereotypical hostel and that was what we had walked into. I talk to the guy at reception and he looks through his book for our reservation. But it's not there. "hmmmm I think you might be booked at our other location" WHAT???!!!????? Apparently there are two Blue Sky Hostel locations and we were at the wrong one. He calls us a taxi to take us to the other location and we finally arrive where we were supposed to be. The lady checks us in and gives us the receipt for the night that we had to cancel and we go up to our room. Mind you it's about 9:30pm now and we're all grumpy and hungry. So we venture out in search of food. Finally we find something that's open and have a pretty decent italian meal again. Once we have food in our stomachs, we calm down a bit, but have determined that we really are not big fans of Glasgow since everything seemed to have gone worng and no one was very helpful. Back at the hostel, we check our flight info, hoping that it will be canceled so we can go to St. Andrews, which we couldn't fit in because of the bus scheduel. Unfortunately, no cancelation. So we go to bed and wait for Monday morning to arrive.

Monday morning comes and we get ready, pack up, and check out. We take the subway back to the train station (it was actually open this time) and get on a train to the airport. At the airport we go to check in only to find out that we were supposed to check in online and would have to pay 9.50 pounds to check in at the airport. SO we were pissed and paid so we could check in then got through security finally, long line and slow people. We were all glad when we touched down in Dublin again because at least we were back on familiar ground. Once through customs, we got on a bus that took us into the city and walked back to our apartment. Needless to say we were all very happy to be home. Though that was quickly killed by the fact that my kitchen was a mess when I got back and apparently I'm the only one who does dishes or really cleans. Ugggghhhhhh. But that's a story for another time. So that was my adventure to Scotland. Everything that could go wrong pretty much did, but we had a nice time in the Highlands and at least I was with friends.

Northern Ireland

Well, I had this really long amazing post about my weekend trip to Northern Ireland with the FIE group, and then my internet died...sooooo here's a slightly briefer version and without the pictures because they take a long time to load.

We left on Thursday early in the morning and took a pleasantly short bus ride (only 3 hours) to The Giant's Causeway, which is this really neat natural rock formations on the coast. The group explored the causeway for about 1.5 hours, since it was cold and REALLY windy (like bowed almost horizontal as you walk kind of windy). But it was really beautiful. I would love to go back there in the spring when it's sunny and everything's in bloom. They also have a swinging bridge there but it was closed for the season :(

Next we ventured on to Carrickfergus Castle, which was built around the time of King John. It was interesting, but it would have been better if it wasn't raining and windy. But I did get to see some cool period weapons and armor.

We made our way to Derry and found ourselves at a lovely hotel. Hotels are a total luxury for me now. The showers are so much better than the one in my apartment and there is continuous heat! You don't realize what you take for granted at home until you live in another country.

Derry was very interesting to see, but very emotionally straining because it was the site of a lot of the conflict between nationalists and unionists and also the site of Bloody Sunday. Bloody Sunday was the day that British troops murdered peace marchers who were running for shelter. I believe 12 or 14 were killed that day. It was really intense because we got to meet the brother of one of the boys killed that day. Michael Kelly was murdered when he was only 17 and his brother, John Kelly, talked to us and showed us around the Bloody Sunday museum in town. It was very depressing, but very enlightening at the same time because of all we here about the conflict, it's a totally different experience to meet and talk to someone who was actually there.

After Derry we made our way to Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland and also where the Titanic was built. Belfast was even more obviously divided than Derry and there were a bunch of murals all around the city. We took a 3 hour walking tour led by one of my lecturers here at DBS, Noel, who is from Belfast. It was quite enlightening, but after about 2 hours of looking at murals, we were all getting hungry and a bit irritable.

Finally, as we were leaving, we stopped by and saw the yard where the Titanic was built. That was really cool and the ship was HUGE!!!!!

I really enjoyed my trip to N. Ireland, and hopefully tomorrow will be fun too because I'm flying to Scotland. I was supposed to leave last night, but our flight was canceled because of snow (not even that much, like maybe an inch). We were all really frustrated last night, but I've calmed down a bit today. I think a good night's sleep helped. Anywho's, we're flying out bright and early tomorrow morning, think 7:45am, and then rushing our way through Scotland since we've had to condense our trip into about 2 days versus the 3.5 we were going to do it in. Maybe we'll be able to get back to Scotland at some point so we can see stuff we won't be able to see this weekend. Well, toodles for now. I'm going to the Guinness brewery in about 30 minutes with some girls to check that out and have that pint of Guinness Dad keeps bugging me about :P