All by myself

This weekend is one of travel. Tomorrow, I leave to spend a night in Galway and a night on Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands off the west coast of Ireland. It was nice to have this entire day off to clean up a bit, pack and catch up on some much needed sleep. But what was truly remarkable was that I had the entire 10 person suite to myself! One roommate went to London, one to Scotland, one to Germany and the rest to Amsterdam, and I've been enjoying the silence ever since this morning.

Now don't get me wrong, I love everyone I live with, but I've come to miss the quiet that living in a single at BU allows me to have. We are together morning, noon and night here and I've made some amazing friends, but having a day to myself was much welcomed. Plus, I had the luxury of using three of the four burners on the stove at one time! Oh, the little things...

Though I did experience a midday freak out, all thanks to my addiction to crime shows like Law & Order: SVU and CSI. I was Skyping with Eileen, when I heard the door to our apartment open and slam. Immediately my heart started pounding since all of my suitemates were out of the country. Plus, I'm all the way in Dublin, how would Grissom ever solve my crime when he's in Las Vegas?! I investigated, with Eileen standing by on the computer, and found that it was only a maintenance man coming to fix Colleen and Tara's blinking bathroom light. Whew, crisis averted.

I took advantage of the lack of foot traffic in the common room to do some major cleaning--doing dishes, cleaning counters, vacuuming and taking out the trash. It's a pretty nice lounge, but would it have killed them to give a room of 10 people more than four burners, one sink and about a foot and a half of counter space?

Unfortunately, seeing as everyone starts trickling back Sunday morning, I estimate this wonderful sight will only last for the next 36 hours at most. Sigh, there's always next weekend.

I'm so excited to be going back to Galway; it's bar none my favorite place in Ireland. I hear the Aran Islands are beautiful, too, so I'm anticipating a lot of picture taking. We're coming back Monday morning before our history class at 2 p.m., so expect an update sometime after that!

Checking in!

Having two term papers due within a few days of each other has seriously cut into my blogging time. The good news is, all you've missed is me drinking tea, making egg sandwiches, eating Cadbury eggs, typing, typing and typing.

I did have an eventful Tuesday night when I realized that I lost my credit card and my driver's license, which resulted in a frantic call to my mother, only to realize they were both in the 20 pound load of laundry I had just shoved in the dryer. Oops...

Last night, we went to the Abbey Theatre to see the world premier of Christ Deliver Us! which is a play about coming of age in the 1950s in Ireland, which basically meant no discussion of feelings unless it was to a priest. It was funny, sad, and disturbing, but wonderful. I spare you the plot details, but trust me in that it was very well acted and produced.

Today, instead of sociology, we headed over to the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. We were able to sit in the balcony overlooking the Dáil Éirann, which is the equivalent of our House. We walked in when everyone was speaking Irish, as they can choose to speak in that or English, but they soon changed back, which was helpful for us. There were some tense moments as they established the order of business, like when one representative yelled at the Ceann Comhairle (like our Speaker of the House) when he was cutting her off: "Ceann Comhairle, do you have a problem with all women or is it just the Labour Party?" The claws came out on that one....meowww.

We got a standard tour of the rest of the building, which used to be a town house for some family with...ready for this...22 children. This house is so big that, well, it got turned into the Irish parliament building.

As for the rest of the night, we're all recharging our batteries. I'm making pancakes! Unfortunately, chocolate chips are absolutely nowhere to be found in Ireland, so I'm using M&Ms as a delicious substitute. Now I'm off to make tortellini for dinner and give Julia Childs, or Sheila Kavanaugh, a run for her title of top chef.

Snow?!

Last night, all the girls on the trip decided to dress to the nines, wearing dresses and heels to go dancing. The guys had all donned suits the night before and had back stories of being 24-year-old investment bankers, record producers, lawyers and even a real estate agent. Well, they did pull off the suits and ties quite well, but the girls certainly could not be shown up. So we all suited up on our own in only the prettiest dresses and shoes, straightened and curled our hair, did our makeup, and looked fabulous.

Then it snowed.

It doesn't snow here. Almost never. Not the kind of snow that sticks to the ground anyways. Usually it's just these tiny balls of hail that kind of look like mini Dippin' Dots. Now, I mean this amount of snow is laughable for a bunch of students from Boston, but we would never have gone out with bare legs in February had we been back home. Nevertheless, we braved the elements and the barrage of snowballs thrown at us by some Irish guys to go out.

It was a nice end to a relaxing weekend, the first one all month where we stayed in Dublin. Friday, I stayed in, watched a movie and made an egg sandwich. It was pretty wonderful. Then yesterday, Marion and I went shopping at Penney's in the city center for some ridiculous bargains and new clothes and shoes. It was a wonderful girls' day out. And today will be spent grocery shopping and writing a sociology essay. And making egg sandwiches because they're delicious.

My day in jail

In lieu of classes today, we hopped on our familiar coach bus to take a trip to the Kilmainham Gaol Museum. The jail was home to many a rebel and thief throughout the years of British rule, including many children. Basically any petty crime could get you locked up for months on end, including an eight-year-old girl who stole a cloak to keep warm on the street and a six-year-old boy who was caught on a train without a valid ticket. Some kids would actually try to get caught stealing loaves of bread because after being orphaned by the famine or political imprisonment, having the jail roof over their heads and three meals a day was a pretty good deal. They also executed the prisoners here, and we got a chance to see the gallows. Eerie stuff.

Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera so I had to bum pictures off Colleen, but she got some good ones so it all worked out.

This iconic main area has been the set for over 70 movies, and the acoustics are so wonderful that U2 has even recorded here.

It was an interesting trip, and a welcome break from classes. Then, we all came back to bang out our 2,000 word history essays. I'm finished in record time (at 1 a.m.) considering my procrastination impairment. And I'm not the last one awake! Hey, I'll take my victories where I can.

Pancake Day!

It's Pancake Day here in Ireland today. It's the equivalent of Mardi Gras, since my media professor didn't have a clue what Mardi Gras meant. The news was full of segments showing people eating delicious looking pancakes, talking about delicious looking pancakes, cooking delicious looking pancakes...you get the idea.

Unfortunately, I did not have any pancakes today. We had classes today and we have a paper due on Thursday, so we've all been a bit busy and preoccupied. The workload here is much lighter than the work at BU so having two papers due in the next week has thrown us all for a loop. But I, along with everyone else, take comfort in knowing that there has to be someone in the class who has done less than me at this point.

Nevertheless, I should start making a dent. I dipped a Cadbury egg in my Barry's tea tonight as a Mardi Gras treat to myself. For those of you keeping score at home, my Cadbury egg count is up to at least one per day. Today was a double. This picture accurately represents my reaction upon looking up the calorie count in one egg.

I won't spoil the surprise for you, but it's not pretty. Here's to making the most of your Fat Tuesday!

The South

This was the third weekend in a row that I've lived out of my backpack, not giving a second thought to wrinkled shirts, ice cold showers or neck pains from sleeping on the bus. We traveled to the south of Ireland and celebrated our one month anniversary of arriving in this beautiful country. At dinner one night, as we passed our plates and ate bits of each other's dinner, it hit me that we had become one cohesive unit, a kind of family. We do everything together and are sharing these amazing experiences with each other, it's crazy to think that I've only known these people for one month.

But enough with the reflection, look at all the good craic I had!

We started out on Friday by going to Glendalough, an old monastic site. The lakes and mountains were beautiful.

After exploring, we hopped back on the bus for a several hour ride to Dingle in the southwest. The people who live in Dingle are a part of the 2.7% of Ireland that speaks Irish fluently and regularly. Signs were in Irish and did not include English like the rest of the country. We arrived at night, dropped off our bags and headed out to the pubs, which would have been quite empty without us. We talked to some locals, who all happened to be about 17 years old, and they taught us a few phrases in Irish.

Hello--Dia duit. (gee ah gwitch)

How are you--Conas atá tú? (Connis ah taw too)

You are hot--Atá tú te. (Ah taw too teh)

When we arrived back at the hostel that night, I was about to go inside when I glanced up at the sky and saw by far, the most stars I have ever seen in my entire life. The sky was just full, I can't even describe it. I laid down on the porch and just stared. I've never been so far away from cities and bright lights in my life, so being there surrounded by farmland, with the sky crystal clear, was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever experienced.

The next morning, we hopped on a boat to search for Fungie, the dolphin who appeared in Dingle about 10 years ago. The Gulf Stream goes right through Ireland, which accounts for the palm trees and moderate climate. Fungie came alone, but he hangs out in the bay and people like us pay to hop on a boat and search for him for a while. We were having no luck, but the scenery was well worth the trip.

I must say I'm getting quite used to seeing stone ruins in my day-to-day life. Boston should look into acquiring some.

Here's the other boat of us, actively searching for the Irish dolphin.

Aha! We found him! Once we spotted his fin a few times, we chased him down and he swam in the wake of our boat for a while. We were so close to him and he was hamming it up, jumping in and out of the water and loving the attention.

So we got back on the bus and headed to a beach for entire afternoon to eat lunch, play capture the flag and climb rocks.

We have had the best luck with weather. Not once has any trip been ruined by rain or clouds. The sun seems to follow us wherever we go.

If you look closely, you can see Casey and I after we climbed up the cliff. I'm kind of turning into an outdoorsy person and it's really fun.

Now what you don't see in these pictures is that Casey and I were the only two to keep our shoes and socks on. We didn't have any desire to stick our feet in the freezing Atlantic Ocean, get them all sandy, then sit on the bus for another few hours. So, we climbed rocks. As we were mid-photo shoot on a rock near the water, an enormous wave came and completely soaked our feet and pants. So we were not only wet and sandy like the rest of our class, we now had soaking wet clothes and shoes. A quick change of clothes on the bus fixed everything, but we definitely felt the Murphy's Law on that one.

We stopped a few more times on the way to Killarney, seeing some of the amazing coastline. Ireland is shaped like a saucer, with mountains and cliffs around the outside and the lowlands in the middle, so it lends itself to beautiful scenery.

We went out to dinner in Killarney and had the after dinner treat of a table full of Irish Car Bombs. I don't like Guinness or Bailey's, but that was mighty tasty. Then we went to a pub with live music, where we saw the guitar player from a pub in Dingle. He was finishing his set when we arrived, but then a band with a female singer came on to play covers. They were SO much fun! They played songs that everyone knew the words to and could belt out. We were all crammed up by the stage, singing and dancing, completely catching the band off guard. They were shocked at how much enthusiasm and excitement we had. When they were done playing after a few hours, I took the set list off the stage as a souvenir.

On Sunday, we spent most of the day sitting on the bus, but we made the necessary stop at Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. There I am, making my gift of gab official, because let's be honest, I don't really need any help in that department.

There was the most amazing gift shop for all things Irish at the Blarney Castle since it's such a tourist spot, so I shopped for the first time since coming here and picked up quite a few gifts for family and friends.

This was our last weekend with our history teacher Caroline as our tour guide of Ireland, and we will all miss her trips. They are exhausting, but so much fun. I've now been to each of the four provinces in Ireland: Leinster in the east, Connaght in the west, Ulster in the north and now Munster in the south. There has been no down time and I love it, we're taking every chance we get to explore and see more of the country.

One month

One month ago today, I landed in Dublin airport and started this amazing semester in Ireland. I've just returned from a weekend in the south of Ireland, and a real blog post will be up soon, but I just thought I should share that I spent my Valentine's Day kissing the Blarney Stone. You can't get more Irish than that.

And now to the South

World traveler that I am, this will be the third weekend in a row that I am going on a trip. Last weekend was to the North, now this weekend is to the South. We're heading to Cork and the surrounding areas. I should know more, but all I can remember is that we're heading to the Blarney Stone on this trip. Hopefully I'm granted with the gift of gab--we all know I need it.