Family is HERE!!

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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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.