A semester in Ireland

The End

2009-05-23T04:28:00.001+01:00

Well friends, the end of the most memorable semester of my life is here. I am currently typing this on the flight home… only 2 hours left, ughhhhh. So far I have tried to sleep, had a chicken dish for ‘dinner’ although it is not dinner time in either time zone, watched the movie seven pounds, read some magazines, and played Sudoku on the screen in the headrest in front of me, now I will recap the last few days of Ireland and if my computer has enough battery and they don’t come around with our light snack too soon I will keep typing probably random stories that nobody really wants to hear, awesome!

Ok so the majority of the last 2 weeks of my life have been spent at the library. My library buddy Celia and I had quite the intense schedule. Andrea usually made her way there at some point during the day but her exams were not as coordinated as Celia’s and mine were. Ally showed up a couple days too! So every day I left Roebuck around 10am and left around 2pm for lunch. Returned to the library at 4:30 and stayed until about 8 or 9 when we left, had dinner, and hung out until we went to bed only to get up again and do it over.

Ally and I went out once during the study week with the other Americans and it was so much fun! I really didn’t hang out with them that much all semester so it was kinda sad to start hanging out when we only had a weekish left.

While most people finished their exams on like Wednesday or Thursday, I was fortunate enough to have the last final on the last day. It helped that a lot of the other Americans I know were in it as well as Violeta and Celia. Celia had an exam at 12 that day so she didn’t want to leave the exam center and waste all that extra time so I went to the city centre in the morning to do some last minute errands and picked up some lunch for both of us. I got there at around 2:30, we ate together, then studied on and off until the exam at 6.

We obviously went out immediately on Saturday night after the exam. We ended up at Turks Head for the ERASMUS party. It was fun, as always, especially because it was a party held by the ERASMUS so all the international students were there. That also meant that Celia knew absolutely everybody.

For my last night the girls and I went out to dinner. We went to the Hard Rock Café because I wanted to go to dinner and they had been wanted to go there. We met Sandra there because her parents were visiting so she was already in the city centre. Celia brought a bag to our apt and didn’t leave it there but brought it to the city centre. I asked her what was in it and she said it was something for Sandra, I totally accepted it. When we were all sitting down after Sandra arrived they told me they had gotten me a little something for my birthday. I was so surprised! They got me a little Ireland stuffed animal and a giant 21st birthday card that they wrote in and all signed. It was the cutest thing. It was completely Celia’s style, starting with “Hey American!” and everything, haha!

After dinner we got a giant brownie sundae, it was delicious. Then we headed to Blackrock to the Wicked Wolf to say our goodbyes to the Spaniards. It was karaoke night and a lot of fun, but the place closed at 12 so we were only there for about an hour when it closed. Afterwards everyone congregated outside. It was a very long process for Sandra to say goodbye to everyone and Andrea, Celia, and Vio to say goodbye to all the people who would be gone by the time they got back from Germany. I know most of the Spanish but am closest to Maria, Blanca, Fifo, and Vicki so I only had 4 people to say goodbye to. Eventually we exited before the water works started but the taxi ride back to campus was pretty somber. It was starting to set in that we were all leaving. =(

We hung out in Andrea and I’s kitchen for a few hours because none of us wanted to say goodbye. The girls were leaving at 7am for the airport and Sandra had to wake up to meet with her parents, I had to finish packing, vacuum my room, check out, etc but we didn’t care because it was our last night and sleep was not important.

We finally got too tired to avoid it any longer and I started to say my goodbyes. It was the worst moment of my entire trip. We were all so sad =( I promised to visit Spain and they promised to visit the US. Someday we will see each other again, until then we will have to get by with Tuenti, Facebook, MSN, and Skype.

The next day I finished packing, vacuumed my room and bathroom, tidied up the kitchen, and checked out. I called a taxi to take me to the airport because I had way too much stuff to handle myself. My cab driver was so friendly and talked to me the entire way to the airport, he was so funny!

I got to the gate pretty early; luckily another kid from my program, John, was on my flight too. He got there early too and we talked for an hour while we waited for our plane to start boarding. It was a good time killer, I know I would have been bored out of my mind sitting there alone.
That brings me to the flight which I described at the beginning…..

I am now at home and still unpacking. Trying to get used to the time but no matter what time I go to bed… even past 1am… I always wake up between 7 and 730am. This has to stop asap. I am missing all my Dublin people and places already. What a great semester it has been. I hope you all enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have enjoyed writing it for you. I don’t really know who reads it but if I see you around then let me know! Since the blog is called jen in Ireland I guess this will be my last post.

I have had the experience of a lifetime. I will never forget the places I have been, the people I have met, and the things I have learned. I know I am a better and more well-rounded person because of this semester. I am much more cultured and less of an “ignorant American”. I’m glad to be home but I will talk your ear off about Europe if you let me. I recently found a quote from James Joyce, I think it is a good finale to my blog. Bye bye!
Love, Jen

“When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart” –James Joyce

Finals

2009-05-08T21:15:00.002+01:00

Finals have taken over my life.
This is the only studying we have to do all semester so you can only imagine how much material I have to go over.
They are all essay exams and 2 hours long.
I have taken 3 already, including my Irish History final I took the last week of classes, and have two left to go.

The testing center is honestly an oversized barn with 3000 desks set up in rows of about 125. Several subjects take their exams at the same time in the same location. When you arrive at the center.... which is off campus so you have to catch a bus, shuttle, or walk...... you have to find your name on the list and memorize your seat number.
The first exam I was seat 556 and today I was 1398.
One perk is they have free bananas and lollipops! woot woot! banana before the exam and lollipop after is how I roll.

my last exam is of course the last exam the university has, saturday from 6-8pm. Then I am done! we are all going out afterwards =)

I have the 17th to pack up everything into two suitcases and a carry on..... yikessssssss

May 18th I am heading back to Chicago. It is definitely bittersweet because I am VERY excited to see everyone at home, eat non-boring food, sleep in my bed, etc but I am also really sad to be leaving Dublin and all the friends I have made here. I know I will keep in touch with them and some live as close as Wisconsin..... but then I have the Spanish and French and who knows when I will get to see them again. We are dreading saying goodbye. =(

Well back to studying for me. I have procrastinated long enough!

Update!

2009-05-01T19:29:00.002+01:00

I am at the library right now and I am sick of studying so here is my attempt to catch everybody up a little. I will begin with Portugal. Ally and I were flying out at 7am, so obviously we decided to just not go to bed at all….. I went to Sandra, Violeta, and Maria’s apartment with Andrea and Celia because Blanca was making crepes! Since they are all Spanish they obviously didn’t start preparing them until after 9pm.

By the time they were sitting down to eat Ally and Jackie were drunk and waiting for me to go out so I told them to come over. We were going to go out but never made it off campus, haha. After crepes we were hanging out in the apartment and at midnight Ally decided she was tired and needed to go home so she left. Jackie was sleeping on the couch. I was looking through a Spanish gossip magazine with Andrea and Celia… they read me my horoscope and everything, hahaha. Jackie went home soon after Ally and eventually the 3 of us decided to go back to our apartment. Thanks to them I was able to stay awake. They were determined to stay awake with me and I appreciated it.

Ally and I got a cab around 4:30am and got to the airport very quickly…. not much traffic at that time. Ally was still slightly intoxicated and after we got past security she fell asleep on the floor of the Dublin Airport, hahahaha

I slept the entire flight. I have never slept so well on an airplane before! We arrived in Lisbon and it wasn’t even 10am. We took a bus to our hostel, which was right in the middle of the city on a very cute pedestrian street with lots of good shopping, souvenir shops, and cafes. It was one of the nicest hostels I have been to. We dropped off our things and immediately went to eat. Then we changed and ventured out to find a beach! It wasn’t super nice out… the temp was good but it was getting late and it was cloudy. We didn’t care. I didn’t have any sunscreen but figured I would just buy some there. We didn’t pass anything and I decided to just buy it the next day, no big deal.

Ughhhhh such a bad idea!! I definitely got burnt on one awkward line down the front of each leg and arm, hahaha. After we left the beach we hit up the local mcdonalds for some mcflurries and noticed that the mcdonalds in Portugal definitely serve beer, like draft in a plastic cup, hahahaha. So funny.

That night our hostel had a Portuguese sausage dinner thing for 4euro so we had that. It was so good! They had all different kinds of sausage and some of the best cheeses I have ever had, bread, ham, olives, wine, ya know. Needless to say, we went to bed early that night, I was exhausted.

We got up and had our breakfast that was included in our hostel…. Cereal, eggs, toast, juice… not bad at all. Heather arrived that morning so we waited for her to get in and the 3 of us went to the beach. We ate at a café on the beach and I ordered a hamburger… and not only was bread not included so I had to pay extra for a bun, but apparently a fried egg on top is included, hahaha! That night Ashley and Tiffany flew in to meet us from London. We all met up at an Italian restaurant and had dinner then went out. It was so funny because nobody stayed in the bars. You just bought your drink there and people were everywhere on the streets just holding their drinks!

The next day was sightseeing! We walked up and down the hills of Lisbon to castles, churches, monuments, etc. it was a very nice day and I had to roll up my shirt sleeves because I didn’t want any more awful tan lines, haaha. For anyone who has never been to Lisbon let me just tell you that all you need to do is go to San Francisco and you will get the main idea…. Things they have in common: cable cars, very steep hills everywhere, the golden gate bridge….. well in Lisbon it isn’t golden but it looks the same otherwise.

We signed up for a night tour through our hostel and that started at 9pm so we grabbed some sandwiches for dinner and met up with our guide. He took us to the modern part of the city where the world expo was held and then to the old part of the city and a pasteleria with the best egg tarts in the country… they really were fantastic. We learned a lot about Lisbon and definitely enjoyed the tour.

The last day all 5 of us hit up the beach. It was beautiful! I got burnt again because I am dumb… this time it was all on the back of my arms, legs and my back. I was so mad at myself because it hurt! Luckily my face never got burned =) Ally and I managed to do some damage at Zara and H&M during the trip, I got a shot glass for my collection, and caught up on my gossip magazines. good stuff.

Heather, Ally and I left for Dublin on Tuesday. Ashley and Tiffany were continuing on to Madrid. I got back to my room in the Dub, unpacked, showered, and got ready to go to The Fray concert!!

Jackie, Ally and I went to see The Fray right in the city centre. I think we were the only people over the age of 16 there besides the dads that obvs wouldn’t let their daughters go alone, hahaha. Whatever, it was a really good show! They sound exactly the same live as on their cd. I got some good pictures and videos too.

I was going to start being productive and study for finals on Wednesday but that most definitely did not happen… oops! It is so hard to get motivated when you still have 9 days before your first exam. It’s ok though, I made up for it yesterday. I left for the library with Celia and Andrea at 10:30am. We studied until our lunch break at 2pm. We ate at the student restaurant just to do something different, it was pretty good. We took a short break in our rooms and met up again at 4:30pm to head back to the biblioteca. Around 9:30pm we packed our stuff up and headed home. At 10:30pm we ordered pizza for dinner! Yummy!

Today I met Celia at the library 10:30am because she got here early and Andrea was staying home. Vicki came to study also and we studied until 2:30pm then went to Celia’s to have lunch. We made a big salad and Andrea decided to show up by then, haha. After our break we headed back to the library where I am now…. .not studying. It’s ok though, I don’t think my brain can take any more right now. Vicki and Celia have left to go play football…. I passed even though they said I could be the goalie and wouldn’t have to do much because they were so good, hahaha.

Ok this is very long but I just wanted everyone to know I haven't forgotten about you! Enjoy and have a great weekend!!

Be back later

2009-04-24T03:45:00.002+01:00

I am off to Lisbon, Portugal for the weekend!!!

I will be back on Tuesday.... then I will most definitely have time to completely update this because I have no more classes!

Sorry for the lack of updates. The last week of classes killed me with all the projects and papers due.

Galway

2009-04-17T17:20:00.006+01:00

I went to Galway for a night with Sandra, her boyfriend Salvo (Salvador), Violeta, and Nadine. I left the same morning Michelle went back to Chicago. We spent a LOT of time in a bus but the Cliffs were BEAUTIFUL and so worth it =)

All the US girls went to Galway the day before, this did not work out for Michelle and I, so I planned the trip with the Spaniards. Story of my life, haha. I was a little worried because Salvo doesn't speak English, Vio has the least English ability of the girls, and Nadine is here for a month to improve her not so good English...... sweet. It turned out fine though!

Vio is actually decent at English and initiated a ton of convos with me. She said she doesn't have a chance to usually because Celia speaks so quickly in English that she can't keep up or get any words in to me. I told her we would just tell Celia to shut up next time so she can talk too, haha.
Sandra is a very good translator too and I felt like I was actually talking to Salvo at some points, haha. She said she was speaking so much English she was dreaming in English! This from the girl who is fluent in Spanish and French, wow.

It was Easter Sunday so Galway was pretty much closed. We walked along the beach and stopped at a pub and walked through the city. We visited the college and church and had pizza for dinner! We were all tired so we decided to just go to bed..... apparently this was a crime because Galway has great nightlife, oh well, I am already over it.

The next day we took a bus tour to the Cliffs of Mohr. It is about 1.5 hrs from Galway but a lot longer when you add in all the extra stops we had. Random places that none of us really cared about but the tour company added them in so their tour looked better than the others. ugh.
It rained on and off the whole way and we were worried it might be raining when we arrived. It was not. It was so beautiful!! It did rain the whole drive back to Galway though...... Once back in Galway we took a bus back to Dublin.

When I arrived I was planning to pass out immediately because I was exhausted, however, Andrea and her boyfriend Raul and Celia and her friend Dan were here. They had 11 cups of instant noodles stacked on the table and invited me to dinner, hahahaha!! It was 11pm, no big deal. I was actually hungry so I agreed. Maria came over and we ate 10 of them. They were good, I tried every kind. They were so weird though cuz you add hot water but there is also a packet of either soy sauce, tomato sauce, or mango sauce that you add too. I was disgusted but it tasted fine so I got over it.

Recent things

2009-04-05T23:32:00.006+01:00

REUNITED!! =D

UofI ladies

My Spaniards

Ok so I have decided that I will post about my trips once I have time. I don't want to keep falling behind so I am just going to jump to now and fill in things later.

Heather came to visit! We celebrated "The Lanuti Family and Friends Irish Spring Break Adventure 2009" and it was great!!

The Lanuti's with Irish pride!!!

Food

Heather, Haley, and I hit up the UCD Spring Fling at Tripod and I am pretty sure we were the only non-Irish people there. Good times.

As for the family... we took it easy and did a pretty chill tour of Dublin. Not too many touristy things, mostly just hanging out. I enjoyed it a lot.

We went to Belfast with my school for the day and that was very cool.... we even saw where they built the Titanic!

YAY!

They took some of my friends and I out for "real food" and it was great!! I had the Irish stew, yummy! I was glad they could finally meet all the people I talk about.

At dinner my dad wow-ed Andrea, Celia, and Sandra with his knowledge of the Spanish language- una cerveza- and that is it, haha! =)

My mom became Celia's first fan for her future Hannah Montana-esque singing career... Celia still talks about having a fan.

Kelsey had an entire conversation about bowling with Andrea and Celia before we realized that Celia thought she was talking about baseball, hahahaha. Andrea had to set her straight.

Dad showed Celia the "American" way to eat Irish Stew and had her doing crazy things with her bowl and spoon, bahahaha!! She knew he was messing with her and just didnt care, oh man.

Kelsey, Ally and Heather all ordered the Dublin Double Burger.... it was the biggest double burger I have ever seen in my life! Good news for me because I got to bring home an entire burger that Kelsey didnt eat!

Michelle!!

I had a few recovery days to catch up on sleep and organize my life and then Michelle came!

She is here now and has a very busy schedule for herself if I do say so myself.

We had a great weekend!

Dublin love

On Friday we went to Newgrange with my school, Andrea came too. We saw the Neolithic Tombs and they were very cool! They are older than the pyramids!

We went out Friday night and Saturday night.

I got together the combination of Ally, Heather, Michelle, Violeta, Celia, Sandra, and Andrea for Friday night. It was so fun! We played circle of death spanish style, hahahaha. It is the same idea as the way I would normally play except they have a "toast to the queen" card, "bomb" card (my personal fave), "despertaco!" card, "rabbit" card, and others.

Celia is a bad influence on me

Saturday we had a similar crowd of Michelle, Ally, Sandra, Andrea, Celia, Violeta, Julie, Rachel, and Lauren. We played cards at Ally's apartment before hitting up three different pubs/clubs. I guess we just couldnt make up our minds.

Hahahaha, sleeping standing up?

I love group pics with my Spaniards

there are so many funny pictures! Usually we dont bring a camera out because nobody thinks about it but Ally and Michelle were all over it this weekend. Ahhhh! I have added a few cute ones and a few funny ones =)

I have no words for this pic....

Family is HERE!!

2009-03-27T21:13:00.003Z

mom, dad and kelsey arrived today!!!!! I was sooooo happy to see them!

They are all sleeping now but did a very good job of not falling asleep early. mad props!

Tomorrow we are going to be traveling to Belfast with the school, I am looking forward to it!

Heather and her parents will be back from London tomorrow night so we will try to all get together before they leave on Sunday.

My family brought some Garrett's popcorn for me... yummy!!!! Along with other things I missed from home. However, the most important things were.... pancake mix and maple syrup so I can finally make my roommates the 'American' pancakes they have been dying for. They also brought me a waffle iron, hahaha, because my roommates are fascinated by them also and really want to see me make them. oh man.

I'm back!

2009-03-23T13:15:00.004Z

Hello all!

I am back from Spring Break and it was great!!
Heather and her family are here now so the party is continuing in Dublin!!

I haven't had time to upload the pictures from Morocco onto my computer yet but once I do I will put some up on here. I also plan on writing about all my trips but it may take awhile because I am still very busy. Don't worry, it will be up eventually!

packing again

2009-03-15T21:30:00.005Z

Hello all!

I am back from Spring Break part 1 and Spring Break part 2 is starting way to soon for me to possibly write about everything that I did so far this break. So, the best I can do is post a few pictures from each place and fill in the details when I return again. My flight to Madrid is at 7:25am... I have to wake up at 4am, yuck!!! We have a 2.5hr layover in Madrid before flying to Casablanca, Morocco. I am so excited to check Africa off my list!

I have been walking around the city the past two days and people watching all the crazy tourists in town for St. Patrick's Day. The huge hats with attached leprachaun beards or the painted faces are my favorite.... and all the street performers that have come out of nowhere. Last night we went out and everywhere in Temple Bar area was packed, even the street was hard to walk through! It was a weird crowd too, much older than normal and of course a lot more green than usual. It was fun though.

Today I bought an air mattress for all my visitors!! I am so excited for Heather to be here when I return from Morocco!! I also vaccuumed my room and am thinking about tackling the kitchen too before I go to bed.

Be back March 21st!

Destination: Amsterdam

I amsterdam.... also known as a climbing place for all young children

Typical view in Amsterdam

One of those houses is where Anne Frank and her family hid......... yeah, I would have never known either.

Just chillin' in a big wooden shoe

Destination: Vienna (Wien)

Vienna Zoo! The oldest zoo in the world... they have 3 real pandas along with this statue of 2 fake ones.

Delicious dinner, I will never remember the name of it though

Schonbrunn Palace, no big deal

People really live in these apartments!

Destination: Munich (Munchen)

Hofbrauhaus, famous beer house

Nymphenburg.... summer residence of the King

City Hall

Old school merry-go-round in the Coach exhibit at Nymphenburg

packing

2009-03-04T21:37:00.002Z

I am taking a break from packing for spring break part I to give a final update before my adventures begin.

This week has been very busy. I spent the entire day on Tuesday writing a paper for Irish History (it is due March 25 but I won't have time to do it any other day before then), and studying for my midterm in International Monetary Econ. The midterm was today, I think it went well. I also printed out all my itineraries and directions to hostels and hotels. Packing is going ok, I just dont know what to bring! And it isn't even like I have that much here to choose from in the first place, haha!

Here is my itinerary for anyone who is interested:

Amsterdam, Netherlands- 3/5-3/9
Vienna, Austria- 3/9-3/11
Munich, Germany- 3/11-3/13

then back to Dublin for 2 days to regroup, repack, and rest before Morocco!

Look for another update sometime between 3/13 and 3/16 =)

Tuenti

2009-03-02T19:16:00.002Z

As I continue to slip into the habits of the Spanish.... it is after 7:30pm and I still haven't eaten dinner.... I have been forced to join the social network site "Tuenti"

It is pronounced like twenty and apparently all the rage in Espana. You can't just join it, because it is too cool for that, you have to be invited. So they are showing me pictures on Tuenti and telling me why they like it so much better than Facebook, etc when they get the genius idea to have me create one. Let me just tell you that they searched the entire website and there is definitely no way to change the language....

They sent me an invitation. It is an email that is completely in Spanish, which I put into an online translator to get the idea of what was going on. I changed my Facebook language to Spanish so I would know the common verbs. It was quite the adventure trying to create my account.

I got stuck when they asked for my universidad, colegio, o trabajo..... the university of illinois was definitely not an option... and which provincia I was from, Illinois was not an option. So I used my newly downloaded msn messenger to ask andrea where I could pretend I go to school and live. She said to just do the same as her. So according to Tuenti I now attend universitat de valencia and live in valencia.

Once I set up the account I figured out how to upload a picture and add a friend. I already had Violeta as my friend because she invited me.

I now have four friends, two tagged pictures, four comments on my wall, and fourteen profile views!! woot woot! Celia just showed me how to add youtube videos on 'me perfil' so I am going to have to try that sometime.

If any of my readers have a Tuenti account you should definitely add me, thanks!

So busy!

2009-03-02T15:34:00.004Z

Thanks to Ally and the dude at the race track for this pic!

I know I have been slacking on the updates but I have been so busy!
I am leaving on thursday afternoon for the first part of spring break! Amsterdam, Vienna, Munich!!
There is so much to do before then....
I have a midterm on wednesday in International Monetary Econ.
An Irish history paper due right after spring break... won't have time to do it during SB so I have to start/finish it ahhh!
Lots of laundry to do, hahaha
then I have to pack, yikes!

Quick run through of what I have been doing......

On Friday Celia, Violeta and I tried to study for our Econ midterm.... we got through like half the slides. Celia definitely understands a majority of the English business terms because at her university in Spain she takes her classes in English. Violeta has a much harder time so we have to stop so Celia can explain to her what it is in Spanish.

Friday night I went to the cinema to see Confessions of a Shopaholic with Andrea, Violeta, Celia and Sandra. After the movie Heather met up with us and we all went to get pizza. Andrea went home after pizza because she was sick and wanted to sleep. The rest of us went out to temple bar area. We hit up a pub that Celia likes because of their band... we listened to like three songs and left. We ended up at Turks Head again. Heather got tired and went home. by then we had somehow turned into a group of me, Celia, Violeta, Sandra, and about 7 Spanish boys. 2 of them were from the Canary Islands which I thought was very cool. they were all nice but it is intimidating for them to talk to an American. one tried to talk to me in spanish and sandra was like "no, no! en ingles!!" hahaha.

Saturday afternoon I went with Sandra, Violeta, and Celia to a nearby town called Howth to check it out. We took the DART and it was pretty close. It is a coastal town... we had fish and chips, walked along the beach, watched the crazy jet skis out in the freezing water, and just hung out.

Ally has some friends visiting so we all went out to twentyone on Saturday night. I really liked the club and they played good music!

On Sunday afternoon Jackie, Ally, Heather and I went to Leopardstown to the horse races. It was a nice day except the 5 mins that it rained. It was completely different than horse racing I have been to in the States so I had no idea what to do! I bet on two of the races and lost both times.....

Mardi Gras

2009-02-27T11:13:00.004Z

Celia, Me, Andrea, Violeta

For Mardi Gras the school was having a party for the Erasmus students..... they are the students who are here on exchange and basically from every country except the US. the US has their own program because we are study abroad and not exchange students. Anyways, Andrea and Celia invited me to go with them. We wanted to dress up but realized none of us owned anything fun to wear...

The party began in the student centre so Jackie, Violeta, Andrea, Celia and I headed over. They had free (Jamaican) beer for us..... it was 'best before Jan 08'.... I didn't have any, haha. There wasn't really anything going on and people were just talking to the groups they came with. Since it was only 8:30pm, Andrea and Celia had not eaten dinner. After a few minutes Celia decided "vamos!" and we left... with some extra beers in Violeta's purse and Celia's pocket.

We stopped at Centra to get some bread, wine, and diet coke. Andrea and Celia made us some dinner and we drank calimocho- red wine and coke. I did not want to try it, but I actually enjoyed it! I provided the music and cookies for dessert, haha

Celia made me wear her hat for awhile because she was sick of it....

Around 11:20pm we decided we should get going. Jackie didn't come with us but we picked up Violeta on the way to the bus. Once we were on the bus the three of them opened some more expired Jamaican beer, I still passed. The school rented out Turks Head for us. I had never been there and it was actually a really nice place. It was 1euro to get in and we had the place to ourselves. The dj was pretty horrible. I even went up and asked him to please play some better music, he really didnt. Andrea was surprised, she said they usually have good music there.

Example of an unflattering picture I took of Celia, haha

I was the only one who brought a camera so Celia borrowed it and took a ton of unflattering pictures of everyone. When she gave it back I made sure to take just as many of her. We also took a bunch of group pictures and Celia didn't have a normal face in any of them... it truly is hopeless!

This would have been a nice picture if it didn't look like Celia was eating my hair

At 2:30am the pub was closing so we made our way out to the line of taxis.... we got a group of 7 and took a van back to campus.

London!

2009-02-26T18:01:00.004Z

sorry it has been so long! once I got back from London I was very busy, but it is the weekend now and I have some time to catch up on the past week....

Ally, Heather, and I left for the airport around 6pm thursday evening. we only brought a small bag each, no checked luggage, because it costs a lot for even one bag. we got to the airport, checked in, and through security no problem. grabbed some dinner at the food court and boarded the plane. It was very nice because it was not a full flight and I had the aisle and another guy had the window and nobody sat in the middle. The flight was just long enough for me to listen to like five or six songs on my ipod before electronics had to be stowed away again for landing, haha.

We bought an oyster card at Heathrow.... it gives you discounted rates on the tube, I put 10 pounds on it to start with. the three of us got on the Picadilly line and headed to the city. Ally was staying with a friend so Heather and I got off at our stop and changed to the District line... our hostel was right across from the Bayswater station (one stop after notting hill gate, which made me want to watch that movie so badly!).

So, my first hostel......the main area was pretty active when we arrived with people hanging out, playing pool, drinking, etc. Since this was the first time Heather and I had booked a hostel, we did it seperately. Not a good idea, we were in seperate rooms. good thing only one person booked for everyone for all the other hostels from now on. We got our keys, sheets, and tag to put on our bed and headed in. There was a weird smell everywhere, hahaha. We were each in a room of 14. My room was packed, and everyone was already sleeping! I had to get Heather to come help me find the bed that was open because I couldnt find the empty one in the dark. Bottom bunk in the corner... I put my sheets on in the dark and shoved my bag under my bed. We walked around the block but pretty much everything was closed so we just went back and went to bed.

The London Eye with Big Ben in the center

We woke up early the next morning and got our free breakfast, which turned out to be toast with butter and jelly, hahaha. We took the tube to Westminster and took pics of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye. Since Heather had never been to London I decided it would be best to just do the hop on/hop off bus tour so we could see everything. We found the stop and a man was selling tickets that were valid for 48 hours, perfect! He gave us a 4 pound discount for paying in cash! We hopped on the bus and started seeing the sights, haha. We didn't want to actually go in to everything because we didn't have much time so we would just get off and take pics and get back on the next bus.

We met up with Ally in the shopping area between oxford circus and bond circus. We ate lunch and then shopped til we dropped at H&M. The prices on their clothes are in Euros and Pounds and since the pound is weak these days it was so much cheaper than buying things in Ireland. By the time we finished browsing in the other stores we had to go back to the hostel to get ready for our night out.

Big Ben and Houses of Parliment

Heather and I met Ally at the South Kensington tube station and we walked together to her friend Tiffany's apartment. A group of us went to dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant down the road and stopped at Tesco afterwards to get some wine. We hung out until 10:45ish and then all 11 of us headed out to the tube station. We went to Fabric nightclub. It was crazy. Soooooo much techno my head was hurting, but it was fun! I made the mistake of wearing heels and my feet were killing me by the time we got there, yikes! The place was cool and had a few different rooms along with a vip like section. we ended up in a less crowded corner by a roped off section with only 4 people in it! As one of them was walking by us to go get more drinks he asked if we knew who Blondie was.... Heather said yes, and he said she was right there. After he walked away we looked at each other and realized neither of us knew who this person was, hahahaha!! I still don't.

The bus Heather and I needed to take home definitely flew by us as we were trying to wave it down, along with a few other people at the bus stop... so we took a different bus to hyde park corner because we figured it would get us closer at least (our hostel was on hyde park but we didn't know how close to hyde park corner it was because it is quite a large park). When we got to Hyde Park corner we got a cab to take us to the hostel.... we were definitely on the opposite corner of the park, hahaha!

We got up early on Saturday, had some free toast for breakfast, and went off to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. After that we went to Harrods and rode the bus some more, haha. We were going to get tickets to a musical, but they were all sold out at TKTS. So we had some time to kill. We had a yummy meal in notting hill at a tex-mex restaurant and then walked back to the hostel. We stopped at some little shops along the way. Once at the hostel, I definitely took a nap. When I woke up heather and I got ready for the night and went to get dinner. I got a waffle with gelato, hahahaha. It was soooooooo good. heather had a cheeseburger from McDonalds. We walked around the mall that was across from McDonalds and tried to kill some time.

Buckingham Palace- changing of the guards

Finally we went to meet up with Ally and her friends again. This time we went to the Ministry of Sound. it was even more crowded and loud and sweaty than the first night! Benny Benassi, a dj I have never heard of, was playing in one of the rooms. I guess it was a big deal but I definitely couldnt not have cared less, it was just more techno to me. ally and I went to get some fresh air outside and ended up spliting a hot dog from this cart in the smoking area that was delicious. We made friends with the men working in the cart and ally even took a picture with them, hahahaa!

This time there was a direct bus to Queensway... a 3 min walk from our hostel, so that was really nice. Another late night and another early morning... this time to catch the plane. Heather and I had our last free toast breakfast and packed up our things. we got on the tube and headed back to Heathrow. I returned my oyster card to get the 3 pound deposit back and we headed to the gate. The plane was full this time. I had a man all in my space most of the time but since I found an US Weekly magazine near the hostel before we left I was perfectly happy just reading that.

We got on the bus when we arrived back in Dublin and I was actually really happy to be back. I just wanted to have my own bathroom again, and sleep in my bed. Once I got back to my room I took a very long nap to make up for my lack of sleep in London.... it felt great!

Off to London!!

2009-02-19T16:04:00.000Z

Be back on Sunday =)

Misc

2009-02-17T23:38:00.006Z

FACT: The paper here is longer and it really annoys me because it sticks out of the top of my folders and binders. Also, I have to write a 20 page paper (in a group) for one of my classes and the longer sheets mean I have to write more..... just great.

FACT: Andrea and Celia made me lunch today. It was delicious. I have no idea what it was called, I even had them repeat it twice and I saw it written down. Oh well, not important. They said their moms make it better and it would be better if we had an oven and not just a microwave so I can only imagine how good it is supposed to be.

FACT: We made crepes again on Sunday. I actually cooked some of them this time, and they were good! I watched Cecilia make the batter too so I could probably do it myself by now. Yummy!

FACT: On Friday evening Ally and I took a dinner adventure to the city centre to find traditional fish and chips. We used her handy little map to find Leo Burdock's. It was right across from Christ Church Cathedral. It was strictly carry-out so luckily it was a beautiful night and we sat at a picnic table outside a nearby pub... which we weren't really supposed to but oh well. I don't usually eat fish so I was skeptical but really wanted to try it. They give you a HUGE piece of cod that is all battered and fried and a good amount of chips, put some salt and vinegar on it, and wrap it up in paper. It was REALLY good! I could only eat half of it but it was definitely one of my favorite meals here.

FACT: I just wrote a lot of facts about food, haha!

FACT: I went to the library yesterday and checked out not one, but FIVE books! I have to do a research paper for my Irish History class and we can't use internet sources.... I know, crazy. Four of the books are falling apart and a couple are from the early 1900's, this is what I get for picking a topic from 1768.

FACT: Tesco delivers groceries and it is amazing. Jackie, Ally and I combined our orders and split the delivery fee. It was cheaper than the bus fare would be and we didn't have to worry about only getting as much as we could carry across campus. We will definitely do it again.

FACT: I need to invest in more scarves. They are definitely the thing to wear here.

FACT: Celia made my day today when she was describing to me the meal she wanted Andrea to make us. She said she didn't know how to say it in English so her and Andrea talked about it for a minute in Spanish and Andrea said she didn't know it either. So Celia says "ok, so... it is like a ball.... of meat...." to which I replied "A meatball?"
hahahahaha!!
She was like "Oh my gosh, really? English is so simple! We have very specific words for everything and you just say 'meatball'?!?"

FACT: Last week I went to the Copi-Print center in Quinn and printed out all the lecture slides from the beginning of classes until now. I'm glad I got a start on that so I can look them over and write on them... it is so much easier than reading from my computer.

Sangria Party!

2009-02-17T11:27:00.005Z

Clockwise from left: Marine, Me, Violeta, Celia, Sandra, Andrea, Cecilia

After taking a nice siesta, I was ready for the St. Valentine's Day Sangria Party!

Andrea and her friends had invited Cecilia and I to come along so I knew I was in for a real Spanish treat! We paid ahead of time and Andrea told me afterwards they bought 67 bottles of wine, yikes! I had never had Sangria before but I actually liked it.

Since the buses weren't running we had to catch a couple cabs from campus to the Blackrock campus. My cab was Cecilia, Hoi, Marine, Andrea, and Celia in shotgun. The driver didn't know exactly how to get there and poor Celia was trying to tell him but didn't know street names so she was yelling to Andrea in Spanish to the way back seat and the driver was getting so confused. They worked it out and we got there perfectly.

The party was fun. I was glad there were a lot of non-Spanish there also. I met a girl from Connecticut, and two other guys from the States. Our German friend showed up too. Hoi was so funny. She brought a carton of OJ for herself and her really nice camera. After the first 5 mins of the party Andrea asked me if I had seen Hoi and Celia ran by and told us Hoi had taken charge of the Sangria... sure enough little Hoi was holding the huge jugs of Sangria and pouring for everyone that came to the table, hahaha! She was very good at it.

Hoi pouring the Sangria for everyone!

I met a lot of Andrea and Celia's friends. The first girl they introduced me to- I stuck my hand out to shake hers as she was coming in to kiss my cheek. Awkward. So I asked Andrea and Celia what I should do when I meet new people and they said they always give two kisses on the cheek, to everyone. Cecilia told me the French do the same. So I became more observant and sure enough everyone was greeting each other like that. I adapted for the evening, it wasn't awkward once I was expecting it.

We were both wearing red! Celia takes awful pictures, this was our 6th or 7th try... she was determined to get a good one, haha!

It got very sweaty and loud in the dining room so we moved into the kitchen area.... Blackrock has all their shared kitchens downstairs so there were just like 15 kitchens randomly that people started migrating to. There was much more air in them, it felt good. We found an iPod with speakers so we started playing good music and it was much better than the main dining room mess.

After the Sangria ran out (at 11pm) we headed out to City Centre for the pub. Andrea told me that it was a pub she didn't like and they played bad music. I figured it would be fine...

This time the cab was Celia, Violeta, and I. The driver knew where the Temple Bar area was so we got there fine, haha. We walked past a random pub and of course Celia knew some of the people who were outside smoking, so we stopped to give kisses, etc. We continued walking and ran into Andrea, Cecilia, Marine, and Sandra. We walked together to the pub. The good thing was they didn't charge cover, so I was fine with staying there.

Andrea was so right. The music was awful. I think it hit rock bottom when the Star Wars theme song came on. Jackson 5 played as well as Frank Sinatra. Not kidding. Nobody really seemed to care though, haha! Celia came up to me at one point and she was holding her heels... not like the whole but just the heel part, she was still wearing the shoes. I don't know how it happened but she walked like that for the rest of the night, oh Celia! The pub closed at 2:30am so we slowly made our way out. We got back around 3:30ish. Andrea, Celia and I hung out until like 4am in our kitchen, mostly laughing at Celia for breaking her shoes.

My roommates Andrea (Spain) and Cecilia (France)

I was exhausted! But it was definitely a vey fun day!

Malahide Castle and a beach

2009-02-17T11:16:00.004Z

We had lunch at the Cafe when we arrived. It was sandwiches, soup, and delicious cake.

Once again we were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle. The tour was a mix between self-guided and tour guide. We started in one room and a lady came in and told us to listen to the recordings and when it was over to enter the next room and the next recording would begin. A few rooms didnt have the audio and she told us to just walk around and check them out.

The castle is said to be haunted, but unfortunately they didn't talk about it. That would have been so much more interesting than listening to Talbot family history!

Then we headed to the beach. It was a typical cloudy day in Dublin, as you can see from the photos. I am actually getting used to it. It was definitely too cold to swim or anything but we took pictures and some people collected shells.

Croke Park

2009-02-17T09:53:00.007Z

Saturday was a VERY busy day for me!

First up: Stadium tour of Croke Park- the National Stadium for the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA). Since their remodelling they have begun host a lot of events at the the Park but it is still mainly used for the Irish sports of Gaelic Football and Hurling. I learned that the two games actually have the same basic rules just different equipment. For Gaelic Football you use what looks like a soccer ball but the players can pick it up and dribble it or throw it. Hurling uses a stick and smaller ball... I tried it out and can honestly say I am not good at it. We were told that anyone can play Gaelic Football but Hurling takes a lot of skill and most of the best players start playing when they are 3 or 4 at their local GAA clubs. So I started out a little too late.

Croke Park is the 4th largest stadium in Europe.... and it is for a club organisation! (notice the lack of z, haha!) It holds 82,300 people!! An interesting fact is that all the players are unpaid. They play because they really love the game.

The tour guide was telling us about how the GAA is an identity here. Everyone supports their local team and usually if something is going on in the town, it is at the GAA club. We watched a short video about their sports so we could see them being played. Then we walked through the service tunnels and into the players lounge, dressing rooms, practice rooms, and then onto the pitch and up into the very top of the stands. We basically covered it all. They even played sound effects of cheering and screaming fans when we walked out of the tunnel onto the pitch, haha! One of the teams that was playing that night was on the pitch and they all laughed at us as we walked out. Then we sat in the stands to hear some more info and the team went and pressed the sound effect button 2 more times, haha!

Players Lounge: the winning and losing team usually comes in here after a game. Since they are unpaid they get free drinks and food. The light fixture is made from Waterford Crystal and symbolizes the hurling ball and football. The lights change to the color of the winning team.

Random Happenings

2009-02-08T17:21:00.005Z

I know I have a lot of posts from today but it is because I finally have time to type everything! This is just a list of things that have happened recently that don't really have anything to do with a particular post.

Most of these are things with my roommates. They keep me on my toes. Being American and fluent in English makes them so curious. They are always questioning my choice of words and giving me blank stares when I use new phrases. It is very fun to hang out with them though, they are pretty great. Their friends are pretty great too. Here are some funny stories...

The Spanish have a hard time saying the letter J. For example, my name sounds more like Hen- thanks a lot Mom! Another example is that Andrea always tells me that her goal for this semester to to understand her professors hokes and laugh when everyone else does. hahaha!
I told Cecilia and Andrea that I was going to 'hang out' and they said they had been wondering what that meant. Then they asked me to explain the what the difference was between 'hang out' and 'hang up'. Now they prouldy say 'hang out' and even taught their friends!
I learned that American's open their mouths wide when they talk and I am no exception, but it is ok because it makes me easier to understand. I also annunciate very well and am easier to understand when I use a higher tone.
Elodie loves rap music. I heard her jamming to "whatever you like" and told her she got it stuck in my head and I couldn't get the words out of my head! She told me she only knows a few words because TI goes too fast. I wrote the lyrics out for her and I now hear her practicing at night. She promises that one day she will sing it for me =)
On the same note I really sent Andrea the Soulja Boy instructional video from YouTube. She watched it and said her and her friends would learn it and then show me. hahahahahaha! I can't wait for that!
Ally and I are going to try to learn some French for Morocco. Cecilia has volunteered to help us out so now we just need to figure out what will be the most useful sentences. I already learned how to say 'how much money' and I am very proud of myself.
One of the lines in 'whatever you like' uses the word 'chick' and Elodie asked me what that was- a girl. Cecilia said she was reading a book in English and they used the word 'kiddo' and she didn't understand- slang for kid. Marine watched a show and they said they would 'break it down' and she wanted to know what that meant- cut into smaller pieces. I am getting very good at this.
After beer pong and flippy cup when we were singing to the iPod Celia told me I was a better singer than anyone we were listening to, and everyone agreed! Talk about an ego booster! She said it was because she could actually understand what I was saying but I will take any compliments I can get!
I watched the FRIENDS episode where Joey trys to speak French with Marine, Cecilia and Elodie and they LOVED it. They were cracking up! Even funnier is that when they saw that episode dubbed in French, Joey tries to learn Spanish. hahahahahaha!!
I also watched the clip from The Pink Panther where Steve Martin trys to say "I would like to buy a hamburger" with them and they loved that too. The funniest part of that is they actually have a hard time saying hamburger.
I am kicking it back to my high school days and learning all the words to my Juanes songs so I can serenade Andrea and company someday...

The Moon

2009-02-08T17:05:00.002Z

For Abby-

As we were driving home from Kilkenny I noticed the moon for the first time since I got here. I thought of you =)

It was a very clear night and I actually jotted down what it looked like in my sudoku book as I was half asleep!

It looked like a full moon, or at least very close. It was very bright and since it was so clear it was shining right in my eyes as I was trying to sleep!

I didn't have a tool like you to measure the degrees but it was pretty high, haha! I am not an expert or anything but I think it was a good moon.

I miss you!

Kilkenny

2009-02-08T16:02:00.007Z

Kilkenny Castle

Saturday morning the bus pulled out of town with Dorothy and 37 American students headed to Kilkenny. Heather, Ally, and I were among the students. We probably drove through some nice scenic areas but I wouldn't be able to tell you because I was sleeping for most of the time. I did wake up once while we were in Kildare county and Dorothy told us about all the championship horses that were bred there and Ireland's most famous stud lives there. It is a very expensive county to live in. Next thing I knew we were in Kilkenny!

The name Kilkenny comes from two words of the Irish language (Gaelic). Kil means church and Kenny is for St. Canice's Cathedral- a 13th century cathedral. We started our day at Kilkenny Castle which was primarily a residential castle. The famous Butler family lived there from the 14th century until 1935!! At that time most of the items in the castle were auctioned off and the people at the castle have tried to get as many things back as possible. One of the most famous paintings on the tour had ended up in a residence in New York and a visitor from New York was took a tour of the castle and tipped them off as to where the painting was. They found it and bought it back, haha!

One side of the castle was knocked down in an attack long ago but the other three wings still remain. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the castle but my favorite room was the gallery. It had all the original family portraits that they were able to find. At one point there were 200 portraits in the gallery but they have only been able to get about 46 back. That is still a lot of portraits to see.

After Kilkenny Castle we walked down the street to Kyteler's Inn for lunch. It was delicious! We had chicken breast and chips (I tried mine with vinegar first but ended up using the ketchup) and for dessert we had Bailey's cheesecake. Our walking tour guide, Liam, met us at the restaurant. The first story he told us was about the restaurant and apparently the woman who used to live there, Alice Kyteler, was a 14th century witch! She had 4 husbands and all of them mysteriously died from poisoning. She went on trial and her maid was killed but she ran away to England and nobody saw her again. Awesome. By the way, at one of the tables in the basement (which is where our party was sitting) there was a witch sitting at a table. After the story I understood why.

Creepy Witch

Liam with two of the girls on our tour. He was so cute!

Liam took us past the shops of Kilkenny and through some narrow medieval streets on our way to The Black Abbey. The church was built in 1225!! At one point it was 4 times the size it is today but they went through some rough time. It was even a courthouse in the 16th century! The stained glass windows were beautiful.

A seriously old church

I couldn't fit the whole window in the shot, it was HUGE

We also saw the place where James Hoban grew up. He is the architect who designed The White House. He lived in Kilkenny before moving to America.

Funny story, his house is now a hair studio, hahaha!

We got some time to walk around so I bought postcards. One of which I am sending to my cousin Kenny. =) Ally found a Claddagh ring she liked. We went to the 2 Euro store... kinda like a dollar store but everything is 2 Euro. I bought some very cool things like hangers and dishwashing soap. By then it was time to head back to the bus. The driver put on the Ireland vs France rugby game because it was kind of a big deal. I put my headphones on and slept the whole way back, haha! Elodie, Marine, and Cecilia actually went to the game and told me France had lost but they still had a good time. I apologized to them for not caring and sleeping through their big match =)

Guarda, Guinness, and Beer Pong

2009-02-08T11:44:00.010Z

Friday I set out on a mission to get my immigration card from Guarda. When I arrived in Ireland they only stamped my passport for one month. I had to go to the Guarda office downtown and register/pay them for a card that would let me stay for the rest of the semester. This card is also the only thing that gets me back into Ireland after my weekend and spring break trips so it is pretty important. So Ally and I took the bus to Lower OConnell street and it was a short walk- some of you may like to know that the Guarda office is located on the same block as the huge Heineken building in Dublin, haha!

We got into line, there were a lot of people already there, great. In the first line I showed my papers, passport, school ID, etc and they gave me a number. My number was 266, at that point they were on number 215.... fantastic. We sat down and waited. About 20mins later I realized that we were moving at a snails pace because all but 2 of the clerks were gone! Their lights were shut off and they weren't helping anyone! ugh. The Irish and their breaks! So we waited for them to all go have tea or something and when they all got back 15 mins later it started moving again. Finally it was our turn, Ally was 265 so she went first and then I had to wait for what seemed like forever until someone was available.

The guy who gave me the number was totally confused by my American bank account, I guess he didn't realize he could easily convert that into Euros and see I still had enough money in the account. Luckily this guy was not confused, haha. He looked at my letters from the school, my receipt from tuition, passport, school id, proof of residence here, etc. He asked what I was studying, when I was leaving, for some contact info, took my fingerprints, and more. I paid and he took my picture. Then I had to go wait for the card to print. Although I am leaving on May 18 he was nice enough to give me through the month of June in case I wanted to travel or something. I know this is very uncommon and usually people would only get like one day extra, or a week tops. Then I finally got the card! yay! I legally can stay!

Afterwards we walked to Upper OConnell Street to the bus company to meet up with Heather and Jackie and buy a bus pass! It was so overdue. It is very hard finding coins every time you have to take the bus. Then we put our bus passes to good use and jumped on the 123 to Guinness Storehouse!

Guinness is a self-guided tour thing. It starts on the first floor and goes up to the gravity bar on the 7th floor. At the top is a really beautiful view of Dublin. Since we went late it was dark by the time we got to the top and my pics didn't do it justice. So anyone who wants to see it will just have to come visit me =) On the 5th floor they had a smaller bar where you could pull your own pint. They taught you the proper way to fill it and then you got to do it yourself. It was pretty cool, and I even got a certificate!!

The new bus pass put to use again to go back to upper oconnell to search for solos and ping pong balls for Ally's beer pong party. We had no luck. We got tall, clear plastic cups that would be decent. The real kicker is our ping pong substitute of wiffle golf balls, hahaha! I would urge you to not try this at home, it gets messy. The balls are definitely heavier than ping pong balls and will knock down almost every cup you hit. oops!

I invited my roommates over to learn the art of beer pong and flippy cup. Elodie had a babysitting job and Natasha said she wasn't feeling well. Cecilia and Marine were the first to come over. I think it was a little intimidating for them to walk into a party that was already going on with all Americans who were mostly rowdy boys. They were champs though and mastered flippy cup! It was so fun to teach them. I went to change my shoes and Andrea's crazy friends were walking downstairs telling me they wanted to come to my party. Andrea's boyfriend is visiting and he doesn't speak English (this is becoming a common problem in my life) but all of them headed over with me.

Just when we were walking in Ally's roommates and their rowdy American friends were leaving to go out. It was perfect timing because then I explained beer pong to them and had them get into 4 teams of 2. Heather helped me but she isn't as used to talking to them so they didn't quite understand what she was saying. So they asked me again and I used simpler words, gestures, ya know. Cecila and Marine played against Andrea and Celia's roommate. Sandra and I played against Celia and her friend. Mateo watched and laughed at us. Heather was in charge of rules at the game I wasn't playing in. It was very fun. They got into it and were excited to learn a new game.

After the games were over we played flippy cup. They really enjoyed that game too. My team was Andrea, Celia, and their friend (she is the only one I don't really know). We were pretty good. They are really funny because when it was Celia's turn she would drink a little then pour the rest into Andrea's cup and flip it. Then Andrea would drink a little and pour the rest into my cup and flip, and I was like "no!" this isn't how you play!! hahaha!! Then Heather peaced out and it was just me and my roommates and their friends in Ally's apartment, hahaha. We sat around laughing and listening to music. Gasolina was a fave because all the Spanish girls knew all the words, I asked what it was about and they said it was dumb, haha. Soulja Boy was also popular and they assumed I knew the dance and asked to see it. I told them nicely that I don't dance but I would show them the instructional video, haha.

Celia decided that we all needed to have a big dinner one night. Andrea told me I should make Chicago style pizza, hahaha. I told them I can't make it, especially without an oven, and I would take them when they visited me in Chicago. If anyone has any suggestions on something I can make for them then let me know!

Overall my day was a success! Got my registration card, went to Guinness, and my roommates and company had a good time at the party!

Also, thanks to Ally for the pint pouring and st. james gate pics!

Some stuff I have been doing, and snow

2009-02-07T21:45:00.006Z

On Saturday Jackie and I met up with Matt from Baxter in Blackrock. We went to a really nice pub and had a good time!

It snowed this week! A lot! Well, a lot for Ireland that is. We had about an inch, tops, accumulated at one point. Ireland hasn't had a good snow in about 14 years. It snowed a few years ago for like 10 mins and nothing stayed on the ground. So obviously it would snow now.

From my room I saw everyone running to the HUGE snowball fight on campus
The roads were a disaster and people were told to stay off of them if possible. Some schools closed for 2 days. There was a significant decrease in the number of students in my classes. AND two of my classes were cancelled! One professor didn't say it was due to the weather but the other specifically said it was "due to poor weather conditions". That was funny because she canceled the class on Tuesday night for our Wednesday night class. And Wednesday night was beautiful!! Oh well, I don't like having class from 6-9pm anyway and she probably doesn't like teaching that late and saw it as a good excuse.

Definitely not the Dundrum Shopping Centre we saw online!!
Ally and I ventured to Dundrum Shopping Centre on Tuesday. It was very nice! They had an Urban Outfitters and everything! When we got off the bus we weren't too sure about it though. We knew we had to walk a little but the first Dundrum Shopping Centre we saw was dark, old, had no stores, and I think the only thing in it that was still used was a dentist office. We got worried so I went into the bank and asked if that was the shopping centre. The lady giggled and told me to keep walking and I couldn't miss it. Phew! Sure enough, around the next corner it came into view... brand new, modern, huge, and definitely open, hahaha!
The Dundrum Cinema is right next door to the shopping centre and I plan on hitting that up sometime =)

Urban at the real Dundrum Shopping Centre!

After shopping we ate dinner there at TGI Fridays "The American Bar Restaurant". It was the only place I have been to with free refills on soda! yay! They had the same menu but everything was much more expensive. I got chicken fingers!

Travel Update!

2009-02-04T21:27:00.002Z

Just booked Spring Break part 2.... Morocco!!!

Landing in Casablanca
going to Merzouga to stay in the Sahara and do the camel thing, ya know
going to Marrakech because it is an amazing city
back to Dublin
=)

Shopping!

2009-02-02T21:58:00.002Z

Friday was shopping day!

No classes Friday but I had some stuff to take care of before we left. First I had to go to the Fees desk to get an official receipt that shows I paid my tuition, I need to bring it to Guarda. Then I hit up the ATM and headed to Quinn to print out some other documents I need for Guarda. I had to set up my account and put money on my card, etc. Since I didn’t bring a printer I am sure I will be at the copi-print center a lot.

Then it was shopping time! Ally, Jackie and I took the bus to St. Stephens Green. We went into more stores than I can remember and it was a really nice place to shop. At Zara I got a new rain coat (it was raining that day, shocking, I know) that was on sale, and 3 shirts that I found for only 3.95 Euro each! What a steal! We hit up McDonalds for some DC on the rocks and fries, delish!

After we had hit up all the outdoor shopping we went into the St. Stephen’s Green mall and went to T.K.Maxx (no joke) and I bought another pillow for my bed. They only came in packs of two but Jackie wanted one too so we split it! Best investment EVER! Then we stopped in one of the most interesting stores ever, and I loved it! It is called Argos and the store is literally just a room with a bunch of counters with huge catalogs on them. These catalogs are not messing around. They are over 1000 pages of everything from bedding to electronics, home furnishing to Halloween costumes, jewelry to toilet seats. You find what you want in the catalog, write the code on the ordering slips, bring it to the register and pay, sit down and wait for them to call your number, and bam! they give you the things you ordered! It was very cool and I bought a straightener (don’t have to worry about blowing it out or frying it because it is made for the Irish outlet), and a duvet cover for my bed which is another investment that has revolutionized my sleep.

Ally did some grocery shopping at Dunnes, I bought some facial moisturizer, haha! We ended the trip with dinner at a tapas restaurant. It was soooo good! We pretty much inhaled it because it tasted so much better than pb&j and pasta! We picked up the bus at Trinity College and headed back to campus. Shopping day was most definitely a success.

Irish House Party!!

2009-01-31T10:13:00.004Z

I don't really know why it is called an Irish House Party, but that is what the hotel calls it. It is more like a show I would say. Oh well, that is besides the point.

The Irish House Party was at Landsdowne Hotel right off Waterloo St. We were supposed to be there at 7:30pm sharp according to the emails. So Ally and I got to the number 10 bus at 7pm to meet up with Miranda and Heather and about 10 other people from our program. We asked the bus driver to please let us know when to get off. There was a lot of traffic and later Dorothy told us that Thursday was the late shopping day in Dublin so many people were out shopping. And even later than that (like on Friday when we were out shopping) we noticed that the Thursday shopping hours on stores were only one hour later, hahaaha! Wow, they stayed open until 8pm instead of 7pm!

So we got to the Waterloo St stop and followed the directions by turning right at the junction and walking 200 meters. Sure enough there it was! We walked in and the desk told us the party was downstairs. Downstairs looked just like a pub! There were people sitting around having drinks in business suits and watching rugby or something. We didn't see anyone we recognized and it was already 7:25pm..... and we were worried we would be late! They told us our room wasn't ready yet and to just take a seat. So we found some huge booths and sat down. A few more people came and then Dorothy arrived. She is the coordinator for all our activities and trips and a really nice older woman who is really funny and tells pretty great stories. She said we would wait around for the others to arrive and our room to get set up. It was about then that we realized the 7:30pm sharp was to make us get here asap and nothing was really going to start until at least 8pm. So people started getting drinks and taking off their jackets, etc.

Nuala arrived and all the boys were daring each other to buy her a drink. They all secretly wanted to but nobody wanted to be "that guy" who asked our study abroad lady, but if she would have said yes then all the other guys would most definitely be jealous of him. Anyway, nobody asked to buy her a drink, hahaha! By this time everyone was there and it was getting crowded in our little area. Luckily the room was ready and we went inside.

We picked a table that was close to the front but later realized there was a pole kind of in our way for some of the stuff, oh well. We sat with some girls from Colorado and students from Boston University who lived all over, including the Chicago area. We got two free drinks from the school so I took this opportunity to have my first full pint of Guinness! It took me forever to finish it and I was literally choking it down at the end, but I finished! In the time it took me to do that Heather and Miranda had 2 pints of Guinness, and Ally had a pint of Guinness and a pint of Bulmers. For the second round I got a diet coke. Everyone else got another pint of Guinness but I would have rather died than drink another right away.

The funniest thing was that this party was about 50 college students from the US, their two coordinators, and a table off to the side of 4 cute old women from Maine. hahahahaha!!! They were so funny the entire night.

The show was really great. They played their traditional instruments for us and told us some history behind the music and instruments.There were 3 men playing instruments and a girl who danced. She showed us some Irish jigs and other dances. We even had volunteers get up and learn some dances.... I definitely was not one of those volunteers. The funniest part was during one song when they had to spin around a lot they said more people should come dance..... so Dorothy and Nuala got up and did it! Then more people got up, still not me. One of the boys asked the women from Maine to dance and they just giggled a lot and I am pretty sure said no!

They passed out song sheets and we learned some Irish songs.... one was even in gaelic! They asked for some talent from the audience and one kid knew the Irish lullaby and he was a really good singer. We were all very impressed, including the band. Another kid played the guitar and sang Galway Girl from p.s. I love you. We were all very impressed by that too.

When it was over it was raining, obviously, because it is Dublin. We were all going to go to a nearby put but we walked FOREVER in the rain. Finally the two boys in front told us they didn't know where they were going, perfect! So Pat took the lead and he brought us to a pub that is probably half way back to campus! We were walking so long and my feet were so wet, ewww. Miranda went in and got a drink and wanted to hang out but Ally, Heather, and I did not. We were super hungry so we went next door and got food, I just had some chips (fries) and they asked if I wanted vinegar on them.... no thanks. After we ate Miranda still didn't want to leave so we just grabbed a cab and came back to campus. It was definitely a good night.

Week

2009-01-31T09:57:00.002Z

There isn't much to say about the rest of my week. Some highlights included....

going to the poster sale and getting two posters to spice up my room a little.
buying some tacks so I can actually use the huge board in my room.
installing Quinn's printers on my computer and setting up my account so I can print stuff.
my roommate Andrea making me a Spanish Omlette for dinner! It was sooooo delicious and she promised to make me one once a week =)
walking to Centra to get ice cream bars in our pajamas and running into some friends who asked if we were on our way to the student pub.
buying books from the crazy bookshop that texts you when your books arrive.
booking London and the first half of Spring Break.
Cecilia making me a list of French words that I have to practice.
I picked my roommates for my International Marketing group instead of the American kids I knew (they literally begged me and I felt bad). I should definitely get bonus points for this because I am the only English speaker in the group. Then an Asian girl randomly joined us too which doesn't help because she doesn't speak English well either!

And that pretty much takes care of the week up to Thursday's Irish House Party!!

Saturday Night

2009-01-30T21:59:00.001Z

When I got back to my apartment it was time to get ready to go out with my roommates. Cecilia, Elodie and their friend, Natasha and her friend (who does not speak English, and I didn’t find this out until AFTER I talked to her all night and thought she just couldn’t hear me because the music was too loud! I felt so dumb!), and Cecilia’s 3 German friends were all going. I invited Jackie so I wouldn’t be the only English speaker and I had a buddy.

When I was ready to go I went out to the living room and it was quite the scene. Andrea and 2 of her Spanish friends were drinking some beers on one of our couches while all the French girls were drinking wine on the other couch. So obviously I said hello and made them all talk to me in English. They were so happy when Jackie came down so they could go back to talking amongst themselves. Andrea and her friends weren’t coming out with us because they were getting up early to go on a day trip.

We headed out to the bus and it was raining, of course. We tried to go to Temple Bar but it was absolutely packed. We had to leave because we couldn’t even find a place to stand! We made our way to Porterhouse and it was really fun. We went up to the fourth floor and I had a Bulmers Irish cider that was actually pretty good. We hung out there until we finished our drinks and then headed out for some dancing. We ended up at the Purty Kitchen again and they were charging 10 Euro cover. Jackie and I were like “no way!” so I told my roommates we weren’t coming in. On our way out security asked us why we were leaving. We said we didn’t want to pay 10 Euro so he was like, “well how about 5 Euro?” We said ok and he walked us to the front and flashed the lady with a 5 and then she looked at us and said “ok so that will be 5 Euro” hahahaha!

We went to the third floor disco room and danced for hours. I knew pretty much all the songs they were playing so I was singing along. All my roommates were so impressed when I knew all the words. They told me it was too fast for them to understand all the words they were singing. At around 3am we got a few taxis and came back. I was exhausted! Good thing I had no plans for Sunday.

Saturday

2009-01-30T21:39:00.003Z

On Saturday Jackie, Miranda, Heather, Kate and I took the DART (train) to a small town called Dalkey. It was about a 20min train ride. When we got there we went to Goat Castle and asked about their tours. We decided to come back to it later. We wanted to walk down to the water so we just started wandering around. It turned out to be a really cute town and the houses were so quaint. The first time we saw water was in the yard of the prettiest school I have ever seen. So we obviously took pictures of the school and water. From there we saw Dalkey Island and the place all the other tourists were at, haha. So we walked towards that spot and on the way we passed some really huge, beautiful houses that overlooked the water. One of the prettiest ones, it looked like a castle, was the Moroccan Embassy. That was pretty cool.
The lookout point was basically just that, a point that was close to the island that people took pictures at. Dalkey Island has stone ruins that go back to the Napoleonic Era and a herd of goats live there. When it is nice out people can usually talk local fishermen into taking them to the Island. We might go back to try it, haha.

We walked back to Goat Castle and took the tour. It was really funny because the tour guides were actors that dressed for the period and played the roles they would have in the castle. They were so into it that it made us enjoy it. The end of the tour was in a church and graveyard. I found a gravestone that dated back to 1790, the older looking ones were hard to read and I couldn’t make out the dates.

After the tour it was time for food! We went next door to the castle to Queens Bar and had dinner. It was so delicious. It was getting cold out so I got a hot chocolate. I wanted to try something more Irish than the lasagna I had last time we went out to eat so I got the Traditional Shepherd’s Pie. It was soooooo good!

After dinner we got back on the DART and headed back to campus.

Trips!

2009-01-28T23:39:00.002Z

I just got finished booking the first of my trips and I am really excited!!

Feb19-22: LONDON!!

First part of Spring Break:
Mar 5-9: AMSTERDAM
Mar 9-11: VIENNA
Mar 11-13: MUNICH

Back to Dublin for all the St. Patrick's Day Celebrations!!

Fact:

2009-01-27T01:38:00.002Z

When the Irish tell you that something is on the first floor, they really mean the second floor.

An example: room 113 would be on the second floor, room 213 the third floor and 013 would be on the first/ground floor.

Another example: when they clearly tell you to pick up your textbooks on the first floor and you walk in and ask at the counter they will definitely tell you to go up the stairs to the reserves desk.

Confusing? Yes.
Will I mix this up again? Probably.

Friday

2009-01-27T00:16:00.001Z

No classes! I had a list of a bunch of things to accomplish and I totally struck out! Jackie, Miranda, Heather, Kate and I were on a mission for books. The used bookshop was closed, of course. We stopped in the regular bookstore and it was about the size of a closet! Instead of having the courses next to the books they just had the books on a table with signs like ‘marketing’ or ‘accountancy’ and you had to search for the exact name of your book. It was such a pain, especially because I couldn’t find any of my books! I asked the guy at the register and he looked up the one book I needed for sure…… it was on order because they didn’t know the professor was going to use it. He took my name and phone number and told me I would get a text when my book was in and I could pick it up at the reserve desk, haha! The other books I am sharing with Ally so I was going to wait for her to come with me so we could get them. Then I wanted a bus pass…. we couldn’t find any so I will have to go to the Dublin Bus office next time I go to town. Then we wanted to check out the UCD apparel…. not a good selection.

Finally I had some success…. Heather and I took the bus to Stillorgan and hit up the Tesco for some groceries. I needed food badly! I don't know if I will ever get used to these grocery stores though, they are something else.

Later Jackie and Heather came by and we watched some Friends DVDs and read our Ireland travel books, hahaha! We are sooooo cool!

Thursday

2009-01-27T00:14:00.002Z

Not much to say about Thursday. My International Marketing class was at 9am, I did not enjoy waking up early for the first time since I arrived. My professor has quite the sense of humor though. He wrote the book and told us to all buy it because he wanted a new car, haha! I found out later that my roommate Andrea (from Spain) is in that class too but she decided to skip all her classes this week. She said she wanted to be in my group and I said ‘yeah right!’ but she assured me she works hard and will try to make it next time. We will see.

After class I came back to my room and Ally imed me that she was feeling super sick. I called Nuala to see where the closest doctor was. She said we could go to the student center and they had a doctor and nurse that was free for students. Since Ally could barely get out of bed and the student center was across campus we waited a little while for the advil to kick in and her fever to get better. When we got there it was closed for lunch! Instead of like rotating shifts and lunch breaks everyone here just closes for lunch, it is proving to be very annoying. The center wouldn’t open up for another hour and a half and we knew Ally couldn’t do all the walking to come back and she didn’t feel up to sitting and waiting so we went to the pharmacy in the student center. She got some flu meds and we walked back.
She didn’t get out of bed for the next 3 days… poor Ally =(

Wed

2009-01-22T16:35:00.001Z

I will start by saying that I am sooooooo glad my schedule got changed and I had a break on Wednesday. I don’t know how I would have survived without one!

My first class on Wed is 11am and exactly the time of our bi-weekly study abroad meetings. Luckily there are about 5 of us in that class so we all have to miss it and I know people who go and can fill me it. I sat by Pat, who I met in the halls of Quinn on Monday. I’m glad I know someone because I hate sitting alone in lectures. Afterwards I met Ally at Quinn and we went to the bank so she could open her account. They didn’t accept her letter from Nuala because her names weren’t matching the order on her passport (the comma was in the wrong place). So we went back to Nuala’s office and she wasn’t there, so we went to lunch at the student restaurant. The food was good but it was kind of expensive, what else is new, haha. Nuala still wasn’t back by the time we were done so we came back to Roebuck. I had about an hour to kill so I tried to watch Gossip Girl online and it was not working. I got some clips from youtube though. It is so annoying that I can’t just watch it from the US sites.

My class from 3-6pm was ‘The European Union and the Business Environment’ and wow was it boring. I tried to pay attention but 3 hours is such a long time. He gave us a few breaks but he just talked and talked and wasn’t making any sense, ahhhh! He also assigned 5 textbooks and told us to just pick one….. who does that?!? It didn’t help my concentration knowing that Heather and Ally were across the hall in the study area looking up flights for Spring Break trips! So this man talked until AFTER his time was up, as if he didn’t have long enough already, ugh.

Luckily my next classroom was next door, haha! From 6-9pm the US study abroad kids have Irish History. You can only imagine how well behaved we were… with all our friends sitting by us, computers in front of us, learning the history of a country that we will only be in for 4 months…. yeah. We had 67 slides to go through after she did the introduction and passed out our groups for a presentation but we still go out by 8pm. I was starving!

This was the first time I actually used our full kitchen. I made pasta. It was yummy. While I was cooking I finally met my Irish roomie! I told her I didn’t think she really existed and she said she was thinking the same thing. Her name is Feona and she is a freshman in engineering.

Tuesday

2009-01-22T16:06:00.002Z

Tuesday I only had one class from 12-2. It was my information systems class. We started getting into groups and so far my group consists of only two other people so we will probably have to join another group next class. We had to go around the room and talk about our homework exercise. Everyone had such good answers but I was lost so when it was my turn I just told him that I had never had a class about info systems before. He told me I could have just said I agreed with what everyone else had already said, haha. Then he told me that it was a big day in America and I shouldn’t even be in class. I am only one of two people from the US in that class.

UCD held a reception for the US students during the inauguration so we could all watch it. The party started at 4:30pm and it was at the Student Center. They had red, white, and blue balloons all over and an American Flag hung up and a giant screen with the live news from Washington. We had to check in (they had a list of the students who were invited) and they gave us drink vouchers. Soda and water was unlimited and we each got two (Budweiser) beers. It was so funny! I made sure to take some extra waters and diet cokes on my way out.

All the people from Quinn that we had met at our orientation were there along with various other faculty and the local news. Apparently we were on the 9pm news here! They tried to interview me but I kindly said no, I had no idea what to say! They brought out food for us too. Little sandwiches, chicken tenders, spring rolls, onion rings, it was quite the assortment. I was happy they put that together because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have found a tv or place to watch it.

My Address

2009-01-21T22:33:00.002Z

Just in case anyone wants to send me something nice.... =)

Jen Schreiber
Roebuck Hall House 1, Apartment 3, Room 3
University College Dublin
Belfield
Dublin 4
Ireland

2009-01-21T22:27:00.002Z

Happy 15th Birthday Kelsey!!

First day of class

2009-01-20T19:09:00.001Z

They don't celebrate MLK Jr. Day in Ireland, imagine that! So classes started on Monday. I only had an hour of International Monetary Economics and an hour of Management of Information Systems with and hour break in between. No big deal unless you think there is only one theater in the building and some nice kid outside tells you that there is a letter after it on your schedule and there are “quite a few” theaters. AHHHH! I had to take out my laptop and quickly pull up my schedule only to find that I was standing in front of theater L and needed to find theater Q, awesome. I went back to the entrance of the building and a nice man told me he would show me the way. I had been in the completely opposite side of the building. The lecture hall was pretty big but only about 60 kids were in the class. The professor seems to know a lot about monetary econ because he worked at the Federal Reserve Bank in DC for 8 years and also the National Irish Bank for 5 years. I recognized a few kids from the study abroad program in class and will probably sit by them tomorrow.

During my break I walked over to the Quinn Building to wait for my next class. I passed the time by updating my blog, you are welcome!

I don’t know a thing about IT systems and thought my next class was like an introductory type thing, wrong! The professor handed out a sheet with a case study of a fictitious company from, of all places, Peoria, IL…. no joke! He told us to answer the questions and we would review it the next day. I read the sheet and had NO clue what to do!! There were only about 20 students and 10% of our grade is participation so I was sure he would make us all talk about it. I googled it when I got back to my room, haha!

Later on Ally informed me there was a party in her apartment and to eat and come over. I had a good conversation with my 3 French roommates and one of their friends over dinner. We talked about American movies in France and horrible dub overs. They wanted to see my movies because they always come out sooner in the States. Apparently we have the same taste because they liked most of them. I told them they could watch one but they said it wouldn’t work on their computers so they would wait until I could watch it with them.

Across the hall was crazy, I think all of Ally’s roommates had friends over and everyone was just running around. Most of them were heading out to the pub already so it got quiet pretty quickly. We had some wine and waited for Heather to come over. Once Heather arrived we played some drinking games with the wine. Heather and Ally each had about a bottle; I had a glass, haha! We headed over to the student pub and there was a line, but it was nothing like a joe’s or brothers line. Miranda and Kate met us in line and we met up with all of Ally’s roommates inside.

It was crazy inside. We were packed in so tight and had to squeeze through everyone to find people. There was music playing when we got there but then a band started playing and everyone was really into it. Mosh pits were forming all around us! There was a kid with a Cubs shirt on and Heather made fun of him because she is a Sox fan. I just thought it was funny we were having this argument in Dublin. The night was pretty uneventful. Eventually I walked back with Rachel and Amy and crashed for day 2 of classes.

Phone Number

2009-01-20T10:15:00.001Z

My Irish phone number is 086 872 2687 and the country code is 35.
I can receive texts for free and send them for 25cents!

Bus Tour

2009-01-19T15:34:00.002Z

On Sunday we had a bus tour scheduled with our study abroad group. It was the hop-on hop-off bus tour of Dublin and we could do whatever we wanted but if we met Dorothy (the lady from Quinn who is in charge of our activities) at 1pm she would buy us our tickets. Ally and I wanted to go to the city earlier to eat lunch so we planned on leaving around 11:30am. As it got closer to 11:30 Heather woke up and said she wanted to go with us also and asked if we would wait like 10mins. During those 10mins Miranda woke up and wanted to go with us too. So we finally left Roebuck more like 12 but when we got to the bus (like 5mins later) Heather and Miranda still weren’t there! A bus going to the city centre came and we were starving so we went on it, haha. By the time we got there Heather and Miranda were on their way so we waited for them inside a McDonalds right at the bus stop. It was raining so we didn’t want to wait outside. Once they got there we didn’t have much time at all so we just at McDonalds… it was expensive! They only give you 1 or 2 packets of ketchup, no refills on sodas, and people take your trash for you.

The bus tour was nice. It was a good way to see the city and stay dry, haha. We only wanted to get off at a few stops because some of the destinations we were going to do another day (like the Dublin Zoo and Guinness Factory). We went on a tour of Dublin Castle (first picture) and walked through some of the National Museum. We tried to go to St. Patrick’s Cathedral (second picture) but it was Sunday and closed for services, so we will have to go back to that too.

We looked through a gift shop at all the crazy Irish things. I was going to get some postcards but they were really dumb, so I am still looking. Then Miranda and Heather left to go back to campus and Ally and I went on a hunt to find a good place for dinner before we went to see Bride Wars, haha! We looked for a reasonable amount of time considering it was raining and kinda chilly until we realized that we would never be able to find a cheap meal in Dublin. We found nothing cheaper than about 10 euro for a meal and the stuff we actually like was more. So we went to Burger King, haha! But it was still almost 7 Euro for a value meal, ugh. They didn’t have chicken nuggets so I got chicken bites! They are basically the same thing but smaller and you get more of them. They were out of Diet Coke, I was so upset! So I got a Sprite…

After we were done eating we had a lot of time to kill but since it was raining we decided to just sit in Burger King. We people watched and saw a lot of umbrellas break from the wind and watched the street cleaners go by, so entertaining! Jackie was meeting us at the movie but she didn’t get there until we were already sitting down in the theater. After the movie we took the bus home and I put on my pajamas and did nothing the rest of the night! They do not celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. day in Ireland so I had to get a good night sleep for the first day of classes!

Random Stuff

2009-01-19T15:30:00.001Z

When I got my schedule I thought it was great! No class on Thursday or Friday! Only 2 hours of class on Monday and Tuesday were good too…. Then I saw Wednesday. I had class from 11am to 9pm with NO breaks!! Ahhhhhhhh!! We had been told several times and it is in our packet that we cannot make any changes to our schedules, ugh, and I had already seen signs everywhere that you can’t eat in class…. so obviously I was thinking about when I was going to eat lunch AND dinner. Also, the US study abroad students have a bi-weekly meeting on Wednesdays that I was going to miss because I had class. So I went to see Nuala this morning and she told me the meetings were very informal and nothing to worry about missing. She said she would send out emails to those who had to miss and I could just stop by and see her if I needed more details. I was like ok that is fine but I will still be in class for 10 hours. I asked if there was a chance they would get out early so I would have a break and she said my Irish History one would….. that class is from 6-9pm so basically I would still be in class for 9 hours, haha! She said she would talk to the lady who makes our schedules and get back to me.

So I was just checking to see which classroom I am in for my next class and my schedule is changed!! Yay!! I have class on Thursday morning from 9-12 which relieves my Wednesday a lot. Phew, crisis averted!

Also, at our orientation meeting there was a funny miscommunication. We had to register our laptops and they printed out a sheet with a time for everyone to go in. some of the times were conflicting with our tour so the lady nicely told us that we could just call in anytime. She mentioned just calling in if we had any problems, etc. Finally a girl raised her hand and asked what the phone number was so we could call and the lady said “no, no, there is no need to phone you can just call in anytime.” After that Nuala said we could call in to her office any time. And the lady after her said we could make appointments with her or just call in anytime the door was open…. So then we started giggling a little because after all that they were talking about walking in, dropping in, stopping in, etc. hahaha!! I think they got the hint that we didn’t understand because when I was talking to Nuala today about my schedule she told me to drop in anytime, haha!

It is very easy for me to tell who isn’t from around here because we walk on the wrong side of the sidewalk. I walk on the right side, just like I would drive but everyone else walks on the left side… just like they drive! Oh man

Rainy Day

2009-01-19T11:02:00.001Z

The second day in Dublin was gross. I woke up at 11am and it was windy and raining. After being so productive the day before I didn’t feel guilty at all just lying in bed for hours and hours! Another roommate, Natasha, moved in and she is also from France! She speaks much better English than Cecilia and Elodie so they were very excited to have someone who could help them out. She lived here last semester and told us that our other two roommates had lived with her. Natasha went out to do some shopping and Elodie and Cecilia went to the city so I was here alone. I didn’t mind though because I talked online, did some of my blog, and archived all my emails!

I was going to go to the store to pick up some things but decided I didn’t need anything that badly. Ally and I decided to go to a movie so we found times and buses and everything but we wanted to eat first. We walked to the Centra which is in the residence hall closest to ours to get some dinner. During our short walk we froze, got wet, and almost got blown over. No way were we going to walk to the bus stop! I got a pizza from Centra and it was surprisingly good! I ate it at Ally’s then went back to my room. Jackie came downstairs to visit for awhile and my fourth roommate, Andrea from Spain, moved back. She seemed to be in a hurry though so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her. All I know is she was here last semester and is in Business like me. After meeting her I watched a movie on my computer and fell asleep.

Not a very exciting day but it felt so good to do nothing!

Night 1

2009-01-19T10:26:00.003Z

We ended up having a group of 9 girls the first night. We took the bus to the Temple Bar area and had dinner at Fitzsimons. It was definitely a cool place with 5 floors of nightclub, pub, restaurant, and a rooftop terrace. We got a huge table in our own room that had a tv tuned to a rugby match. We took this time to discuss how little we knew about rugby and decided to try to catch a game while we are here. Some of the girls started out with a Guinness, I had water, haha. I was really hungry for a real meal since I hadn’t had one since I left Chicago. The first thing that caught my eye was lasagna. Now I know that it is probably a crime to eat lasagna in an Irish pub but whatever, I was hungry…. and it was actually good! Most of the table got the Irish stew with lamb, potatoes, carrots, etc. I tried both the stew and the Guinness so my pub experience was not a complete wreck.

After dinner we headed out on the street and just started walking. I don’t exactly know what we were looking for but finally a guy handing out flyers convinced us to go to “The Purty Kitchen” because we could get 2 for 1 cocktails. When we got there a band was playing and we ordered our drinks. This was my first Guinness experience. I was too afraid to get the full pint so I went for the ½ pint, or as I called it, the baby pint. It is a good thing I got the small one because I could not have choked down a whole pint. It is definitely something that will take time to grow on me.

We sort of split up a little because a group of 9 girls awkwardly standing in the middle of the pub was too much for us to handle. Once the nightclub opened upstairs we went to check that out and it wasn’t too long before the 3rd floor opened up with a different DJ. He played pretty good songs and even had some that we requested! At first we were the only people up there but it filled up quickly. The crowd at this club was definitely interesting and we began wondering if it was a gay bar! As the dancing continued the creepers started to come up to us. Ally seemed to attract the most and I even had to tell an Italian guy that no, she would not dance with him because she sprained her ankle yesterday, haha! I don’t think he believed us but at least he left.

I was tired and it started getting late and sweaty so Jackie, Ally and I took a cab back to Roebuck. Overall it was a fun night! I don’t think we will be frequenting The Purty Kitchen but I plan to check out some other places soon!

Day 1

2009-01-17T20:50:00.001Z

After waking up at 8am, I tried out my shower and new hair dryer. I went to the kitchen for breakfast and Cecilia had gotten up early and set the table for us but didn’t know what I would want to eat, so cute! We chatted about what we expected from the orientation over my bowl of cereal and her breakfast. Elodie and Cecilia made sure to tell me that they were counting on me to explain things to them later if people started speaking too fast at the orientation. Our orientation started at 10am in the Quinn building. It is a very nice building with lots of windows and open areas. Once we got there though we saw that the US Study Abroad students were in a different room from everyone else, ahhh! So I said good luck to my roomies and went into my room. It was very interesting how it was set up. It was stadium seating and the seats were connected to the desks behind them so if you were sitting in the middle the only way to get out was to have everyone on one side get up and out of the row!

We were introduced to 6 or 7 different people from the University and each gave us their little speech. We got a crash course in computer setup, campus safety, schedules, etc. My favorite was Dorothy because she is in charge of our trips! We got a list of events she would be taking us to, starting with the Hop-on, Hop-off bus tour of Dublin tomorrow! I also finally met Nuala, the lady I have been emailing for months with silly questions. I apologized for all the emails but told her I was very impressed with how prompt she was!

After the orientation they had some sandwiches for us. I ate it because it was free but it has cole slaw on it, yuck. The water and Cadbury milk chocolate bar was good though! Then we had a campus walkabout (tour, haha!). After that I had quite a list of things to do from the orientation so we got to work on the list. I got my student ID card, had my computer wired for the Quinn network, bought a cable to connect my computer, and got money from the ATM (didn’t have time to open my bank account yet). Along the way I met a bunch of other students and they were all very nice, I am sure I will see them around.

Then it was phone time! Miranda, Ally, Jackie, and I took the bus to Blackrock and got new plans. The first store we went to had a jerky guy so we left and went to a place around the corner. That guy was very nice so we decided to buy our things there. I got a new pay as you go phone and topped it off with 20 Euro. As long as I top off 20 Euro each month I get free texting to Irish numbers, which is really nice. While we were waiting for the bus to come back to campus Ally and I got fries at McDonalds. We couldn’t resist!

Once back on campus we got changed and headed out to the City Centre for dinner and our first night out on the town!

Arrival

2009-01-17T16:19:00.001Z

Well today is a gross day in Dublin. Good thing I have nothing on the agenda.

It is windy and raining and the fire alarm for my building just went off. Luckily there still aren’t very many people here so we all fit in the entryway, haha!

Ok so I will start with arriving in Dublin. Our flight got in at 7:50am local time and it was still very dark and cloudy. We had to walk down the stairs of the plane because we didn’t have an arrival gate. The flight crew told us it was chilly so if we had a jacket to put it on…. We walked out and it was sooooo nice! It was about 45F and a great change from the Chicago weather we had just left! Customs was fine, they stamped my passport for a month so I have to go to the Guard and register and get a resident card sometime this month.

All of our bags arrived and the carts at the airport are free here, phew! The bus took us to campus. We got off with one other girl, Jackie from Vancouver, but she had no bags! Apparently hers were lost so she just had her backpack. This was bad for her, good for Ally who had only rolling bags and no way to stack them. So she helped us pull some stuff and we asked the front gate how to get to our dorms….. they were all the way on the other side of campus! With no bus or taxi in sight we started our trek across cobblestone, pavement, and parking lots, thru buildings, up and down steps and hills and finally made it! We were sweating and I had taken off 3 of my 5 layers! Jackie, Ally and I are in the same building and it is nice to know someone.

Then I met my roommates! I have 5 roommates total but only 2 were moved in at that point. Cecilia and Elodie are from France and they know each other from school. They speak English but I have to slow down for them, use my hands a lot, and explain some words in more detail… so far I have taught them “can opener” and “sleeping bag” haha! They got here a day before I did and are very nice. I also met Ally’s roommates Rachel from Philadelphia and Amy from Australia.

My room is nice. I have a big desk, bed, storage space, and my suitcases fit nicely under my bed. Once it is unpacked and cleaner I will take pictures. My overhead light doesn’t work though, so I have to go buy a lightbulb. My bathroom is hilarious. It is literally a shower! I have a sink, toilet, and the shower head is on the wall! I just pull the curtain around and it turns into a shower. The water pressure is surprisingly good except the showerhead is dumb and the water comes out of it so that if I am standing directly under it none of the water would hit my head and be in circle hitting my shoulders. Hahaha!! I tried to turn it to see if it would narrow a little but the whole head came off! Then the water was just pouring out like a faucet, ugh. So I screwed it back on.

The living area is nice and already has all the dishes and silverware and pans along with a microwave, toaster, and of all things a George foreman grill, hahaha!!

In the interest of not falling asleep the group decided to keep busy. We dropped off our stuff, got a sandwich at the little store on campus, and went to the IT building to get our computers wired to their internet. After that we went shopping.

We took a bus to Stillorgan shopping center which is ‘just up the way’ from here. They had a Tesco there which is where we were told to go for cheap things. I needed a lot of stuff but didn’t want to carry it all back through campus so I only got the necessities and we will go back soon. The grocery store was interesting… I will have to get used to it. Everything is so expensive! And we realized that nothing is free either…. We had to buy reusable bags for our groceries or use plastics bags that they charge you for too! I also bought a hair dryer because I didn’t want to bring one and blow it out when I used it here.

By the time we got back from shopping I was beat. I put away my stuff and chatted with the roomies for a little while before going to my room and unpacking. I went to bed at 8pm and after being awake for over 30 hours it is no surprise to me that I slept a solid 12 hours and woke up at 8am the next morning!

Plane

2009-01-17T12:12:00.002Z

I am writing this from the plane and don’t know when I will have Internet to actually post it but figured that I would get started on this blog thing while I had time to kill. I am currently listening to the new Britney cd for the first time all the way through (Lanuti: I will get back to you on how I like it!). The plane is very empty. The seats are 2, 4, 2 and I have a set of two to myself! I guess I will back track a little to catch everyone up.

I am going to be in Ireland from now until May 18th. I am studying at the University College of Dublin (UCD) at their Quinn School of Business. I won’t know my schedule until I arrive (I am sure I will post it) but I signed up for management type classes and the required Irish Culture and History course which I am kind of looking forward to. I am traveling with 3 other girls from U of I, Alison, Heather, and Miranda, and we are all on this flight. Already at the check-in counter at O’Hare I met another girl from Boston University who is also studying at Quinn!

Packing was difficult. I have no idea what I will need so I brought a little bit of everything. But apparently Europeans in general tend to dress up more for things so I only brought 5 tshirts (everyone can be shocked now!). I will let you know how this works out, haha! I only brought travel sizes of shampoos, toothpaste, etc so I will have to try out some Irish products. Hopefully I don’t end up liking them better! Then I would have to stock up before I come back!

My carry on ended up weighing too much so they made me check it (for free, but still annoying). I have never had any airline weigh my carry-on luggage and clearly it was not necessary since this flight is not full. I put some of my heaviest stuff in there though, hoping to squeeze a few extra pounds into this trip… haha! I guess it worked but I was hoping to have my granola bars, towel, fitted sheet, and 4 pairs of jeans with me in the cabin!

Once we arrived at the gate, Ally and I went to get some water and magazines. The lady was really funny and told us that we should combine our purchases because she had a buy 3 get one free deal on magazines…. so we did and I will now be completely up to date on all celebrity gossip thanks to People, In Touch, Us Weekly, and In Style!

The in flight meal was decent. Chicken with rice and vegetables, salad, roll, cheesecake, cup of water. I ate most of it mainly because I don’t really know what the next meal I will be eating is, except for those granola bars in my checked luggage!

The movies we can choose from are pretty lame and I haven’t even heard of half of them. I decided to watch the one episode of Friends that they have while I ate. My iPod wouldn’t turn on…. not a good sign. I hope I just need to plug it in and it will be fine. I think we are going shopping once we get our rooms because none of us brought hangers, strengtheners, hair dryers, or school supplies and we all need some other miscellaneous stuff.

According to the flight info tab on my screen we flew up over Michigan and Canada and are just about to start crossing over the Atlantic Ocean. They have dimmed the lights for us to ‘settle down’ I should really try to sleep but I don’t know how well this will work. I will type more later!