On thursday we went to Menlo Castle

On Thursday I had to go to class. It was actually sort of awkward in my Social Stratification class when, at least for the first 10 minutes, as the only American I was also distinguished as the only person who had done the readings... I guess, although I've failed to get paper writing done, I've at least managed to stay on top of readings. After social stratification, I had Irish. Here, I found that we'd actually gone ahead in the book and I'd missed out on some non-songs/poems learning, whoops.

After class I rushed back to the apt and Rachel, who had worked all morning long on her papers. After lunch we went on a run to Menlo Castle. Probably not the best idea to eat first but oh well, we survived the run. Again, another gorgeous day, I'm sorry if this is getting old, but it needs to be said. It was 59 and sunny. We went running in tshirts and shorts. This time, we weren't the only ones at the castle, but there were only a few others. We didn't even go into the castle for a good half hour, choosing instead to sit out in the sun along the river and talk about staying there forever, setting up camp and somehow getting a canoe to play across the river. No worries we did actually explore the castle, I mean, it's one sweet ruin and I believe Rachel enjoyed it (she took all the pictures that day so I haven't any new ones to offer). We had fun dancing around, making shadow dancers and being goofy.

We left to be home by 5 in order to catch Mom on skype. I missed her, but as Rachel pointed out, could just call her on her cell phone. I love technology! We caught Mom and, as Rachel pointed out, we could hear the smile in her "Hey!" once she recognized it as me. Love it!

I fear we got too comfy after stretching and showering that when we went out that evening to a pub we just weren't very into it. haha, kind of pathetic college students as far as the partying goes. Since things don't get too exciting til late, we wound up missing the excitement, although we did catch the start of a pub fight before the bouncer took one guy out. Actually, where we'd been sitting, the table was flipped over in an angry push. Kind of scary. Whatever, it might not have been a crazy night out, but just hanging out and talking with Rachel was a blast!

Oh, that castle is gorgeous but all the more so with beautiful weather, I wish I had pictures, but just imagine those lasts ones I had put up, but now add a sense of warmth and spring and you've got what Thursday was, ;)

Last Wed's trip to Cliffs of Moher

Ok, so all last week was beautiful weather: sunny skies, no rain, 50s, perfect! I'm so glad that I waited to see the Cliffs for when Rachel came to visit!

So on Wednesday morning we made our way to the city center to figure out the best deal for the tours. We wound up going with Healy tours and had a fun bus driver and a grand old time! The bus left off around 10 and made it's way first to the Burren and Aillwee Caves. Having already hiked the Burren, I pushed our personal tour towards the caves. Admittedly, not the best caves, but interesting and pretty nonetheless. From there, we stopped at the Poulnabrone portal tomb in the Burren for a photo opt before heading towards the Cliffs themselves.

The Cliffs of Moher, wow. I wish they'd let you explore closer to the edge but wow. We did go to the "don't step beyond this point" sign, but didn't go much further, although now I wish that we had. We just were amazed by it all. The cliffs are so tall (and not even the tallest in Ireland!) and the sea just seemed to go on forever. I mean we had a perfect day for the cliffs! They were beautiful and I am so glad that I got to share the experience with Rachel!

Honestly, almost more than the cliffs, I liked where we went afterwards. I fear that I cannot remember the name of the place but it was a rocky, very Burren, small cliff. Like everywhere else in the Burren, this area had craggy limestone rock. I think I liked this more because we got to walk around a lot more, look out towards the edge and climb around a bit. Don't worry Mom, all was safe, but it was definitely more fun for Rachel and I who like to stray from the path a bit.

After returning from our lovely adventure, we went grocery shopping and then spent the night in. I believe we completed the night with ice cream and the Emperor's New Groove. Ah good times!

Actual St. Pat's day

Long overdue recaps:
On St. Patrick's we went to the parade down in the city center. We met up with a girl who lives here and all walked down together. Again, what is it with people telling me Missouri/Kansas isn't the Midwest. I'm pretty sure we're the freaking heart of the Midwest, but whatever, what do people from Michigan know? (Just kidding, I'm not overgeneralizing).

The parade was fun but very different. The KC one is huge, and I was actually kind of sad to have missed it b/c I realized Tymara would have been in it this year, dancing with the Foreign Language Academy drill team, just like I did a long time ago. There weren't people throwing candy and there were very few floats. Tons of little kids in school bands playing down the way and lots of different groups, ranging from the Police or Fire Dept to Amnesty International to the Galway Nigerian organization... It was quite fun. I can't remember what all went on between our exploring the bay and the city center and later on that evening. I feel like we went back to the apartment and chilled for a while before heading out. We tried to check out Taffe's but it was too crowded even for standing. Monroe's had reached capacity. We wound up at Roisin Dubh. My first time there, it was kind of insane. They had a live band and we were basically caught standing and listening to it, an interesting sound/feel to the group I must say. I did the fiddle, it's sweet. Anyways, we left after stealing Rachel a Guinness pint glass and heading back to Monroe's. We were lucky and got in. The traditional Tuesday night festivities weren't in swing, but they did have live Irish music and dancers, just a bunch of drunk/happy Irish dancing around instead of the usual group of older people. It was fun! Rachel and I took our first Guinness. This thing was my Everest, I worked hard to finish it. Not a fan, to say the least, I think I'll be keeping to my girly/fruity drinks when I return home. But if I were to drink a Guinness only once, when better than St. Patrick's at my favorite pub with my best friend? We left after finishing the drinks- it took a looong time, haha- and walked out with souvenirs pint glasses ;) I think I actually felt a bit of the alcohol, my first beer was a Guinness and a pint is 2x an American beer, so I think it makes sense that I would've felt it. We did a midnight Tesco run and bought ice cream and chocolate, came back, enjoyed the combo before crashing.

St. pat's was full of great craic (again, pronounced 'crack')

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Rachel is here!
Customs took forever and so she wound up on a later bus than expected. That meant that I went to my second class of the day and could barely sit still, waiting for the hour to end so I could run into the city center to the bus station to pick her up! I was like a little kid at Christmas time, oh so happy!

We walked back to my apartment where Rachel revealed to me the 67 pounds of stuff Mom had sent. Holy Crap! It filled my bed, I took pictures and will post them later, haha. Thank you Mom. I'm pretty sure though I didn't ask for some of those quantities of things (ie, two larger than travel sized toothpastes, three bags of tortillas, and four boxes of one-load tides, haha). yeah, it sounds bad but I might have to send some of those excesses back, don't kill/hate me! I'm so appreciative of everything though. Last night for dinner I had me some delicious pinto beans with avocado on a corn tortilla, happy Mexican (oh stereotypes).

Yesterday after lunch, consisting of delicious "corn" from Mama G (thank you!), I took Rachel on a tour of the city center and we walked along the bay. Such a gorgeous day! She brought the weather with her. After walking and exploring forever we returned to unpack all of that stuff, talk, eat dinner and try to grasp the reality of her actually being here.

We went out, originally with the intent of seeing some traditional music. When we made it to the pub, there wasn't even standing room. We wound up at King's Head pub where we were lucky enough to find seats. The music playing by the dj was sweet. I heard my "You shook me all night long" by ACDC (yeah Mom!) and loads of other jams. Then the band, Kif, came along after 10 or so. They wound up being a really awesome cover band, doing one awesome ACDC and Bruce Springstein. It was sort of like Mama Lopez and Mama G were there with us, good times! Then we called it slightly early around half past midnight and walked back home to crash.

It is now a gorgeously sunny day and I think we're going to go to the parade and adventure some more. I'm excited.

Enjoy your st. Patty's day!

Rachel is now in Ireland!

Ok so this weekend was sort of a bust work wise. For some reason, lack of motivation, laziness (anxiety to talk to home) I don't know, I didn't really get to working on my paper until last night, I'm one-tenth done though with a good outline. I fail.

Oh and I also fail in that, this is hilariously embarrassing, the bag full of stuff from Mom to me weighed 72 pounds to begin with! Wow, that means 1-I am a spoiled brat, and 2-I'm a cow. hahaha, just kidding. As Mandy pointed out, it means 3- My mom loves me very much. Basically, I won't need to go grocery shopping for anything other than fruits and vegetables and yogurt from here on out. Nice.

I just got a call from Rachel, she is in Ireland, customs took forever and she's going to be taking a later bus. Goodness, talk about stretching one's patience. We're in the same country now, I just want to see her, not wait another 2 hrs! Oh well, I'm glad she got here safe and so happy to have her!

I love you all!

Big recap!

Ok so on Sunday we enjoyed yet again more bus time and toured the Dingle Peninsula. Except at least this time I was sitting on the right side of the bus (I got the view this time as we were on the side right next to the sea). Oh, it was gorgeous, even when pouring! On our way out we suffered bus malfunctions and wound up waiting about an hour for a replacement bus. I actually liked this second bus driver more because he actually gave us an informative tour, I learned while enjoying (I'm such a nerd). Anyways, we got to stop out occasionally and were lucky to get clear skies and sun a couple of times! (it's the small things). There was one point, towards the end of the tour, where we caught the most beautiful sight. Nonetheless, in that half-hour stop, we experienced every type of weather, just about. As we got out, sunny skies, beautiful! Then came really really hard wind, it, plus slippery ground, pushed people off their balance and several fell victims to the mud, including my glove. But better my glove and knee than my ass like several others. After the wind came brief rain followed by hail/sleet. It was ridiculous.

Oddly enough, on our regular drive back to Galway, the skies were as sunny as could be, why the skies didn't cooperate when we had the seaside view to enjoy, I don't know, but the Irish countryside deserves good viewing too I guess.

That evening, I returned and attempted working on a paper due the next morning, but was tired and decided to go to bed and work on paper in the morning. Let's just say I wound up skipping that first lecture to finish the paper but I DID finish it, yay!

I didn't learn from my mistake though b/c Monday night I worked late writing a paper proposal, but again, I think I watched a movie Monday (Disney's Pixar's Bolt, cute movie btw!) and didn't start again until late and finished it in the morning with an early wake up. Doesn't matter, the paper proposal was turned in. I'm really going to learn from this. I know I can't write 3000 word essays in one night so I'm going to start earlier on these next big papers coming up, I promise.

Hmm, so papers, classes. On Tuesday i went to Monroe's, great craic! Mandy's boyfriend Tony came to visit her for the week so he joined at Monroe's and I believe he enjoyed it. Also met a couple of other friends there as well. I love Monroe's on Tuesdays!

Hmm, Wednesday nothing special. Last night I went out with Meghan who I met on the Kerry trip and we went dancing. We went to the pub Hole in the Wall. It was my first time there, I quite approve. They've got a dance floor in the back, it didn't take long for us two dancers to hit that up! Sadly, it didn't take creepy Irish boys too long to try to join us.

Ok, so coming to Ireland I thought to myself, "Oh, Irish boys, hot accent, can't wait to meet them." Yeah, not so much. The ones at this pub were drunken creepers. The short fellow who tried to dance with me did not get the picture, for like five minutes. I'm sorry, if a girl shakes her head and pushes you away as you move in, it means "back the hell off!" Jerk didn't even say hello or anything, just started trying to dance too close to me, that's ok though, CR and my friends there taught me great cockblocking moves. Funny enough, later on, we two (Meghan and I) found the only two good dancers in the room, the two Africans. Go figure it's the Africans who know how to dance. The guy who joined me was polite, introduced himself, and danced with me, not trying to dance on me. He was a gentleman (I feel so old saying something like that) but was also a great dancer and good company. Basically I had a blast! When those two left Meghan and I just danced the night away, often getting separated by the drunk Irish girls who were... I don't think you could call that dancing. One guy near us started popping and locking and of course we were attracted to the 'show' and I tried, and failed, to do a bit, haha. Anyways, we wound up talking and he commented on how he'd seen me with that first Irish creeper. He said he could see the "fuck off!" message from way over where he was and didn't understand how that inebriated guy hadn't. Funny enough he said that he could tell, by my pushing that first guy off, that I wasn't from here. But, he didn't think I was American, he (pretty much madeup a whole scenario for my and Meghan's story) and thought that I was Turkish and was visiting or living with my Galwegian friend. Meghan does have that Galway girl look going on, i mean, her "hair is black and her eyes are blue." So, I have now been called Israeli, Italian, Spanish and Turkish. Cool. Anyways, we talked with him for a bit, and I left them to head on home and they went to a dance club to enjoy the night some more. Basically, other than the creeper, it was a great night!

Now, to being productive, really! ;)

ISS weekend to Kerry

Hmm, let's see if I can make this less than a novel, just a short story.

Boarding the bus on Friday with 50 other students, I realized it was my first Mandy-less trip, sad. But, I made loads of new and awesome friends so that was great! I sat next to Lauran, a very sweet and fun to talk to girl from France. The bus ride was very long; we left around 2 and probably didn't arrive until 6ish at our Hostel in Killarney. (Uh oh, I'm realizing I don't remember what we did that first day...) I do, however remember that night searching for food, winding up at a fast food joint, getting pizza and "chips" and not feeling so hot after. Me and fast food don't really mix, not after not eating it for ages. Bright side, that night I went out with my roommate and Betti. We found the pub where all of the locals go, really, it was the pub of the locals. It was a lovely, cozy atmosphere and I just could have sat there and let them play me to sleep, but I did go back to the hostel eventually.

On Saturday we got back into that bus and went exploring, on to the Ring of Kerry. On this bus ride, Yeekay introduced me to some other fun people from Villanova who I wound up hanging out with for a lot of the trip, them and Meghan who, while not from Villanova, was with that group. We did the Ring of Kerry on a not so visible/sunny day. Nonetheless, I wasn't about to let rain or other people's whining about long bus rides dampen my spirits. We stopped for lunch and got to walk around. The day's trip was kind of funny b/c you could tell the kids who organized it sort of winged it. Each heritage-like site we stopped by was closed. Eh, it didn't matter, we still got out, stretched our legs and took photos. It was the end of the Ring of Kerry where we stopped to explore a beautiful waterfall and later a park/garden area. The waterfall took me back to memories of Costa Rica even though they obviously were completely different. What is it about water that is just breathtaking? At the park/garden, Meghan and I wandered off in the opposite direction of most and discovered a path that took us towards the most incredible view of the lake. It was as if God decided that we'd had enough gray skies and decided that for that view, it'd be best for us to get some clear blue skies. Oh it was gorgeous! Meghan and I bonded over that breathtaking accidental discovery.

That evening, after enjoying some cards and Jenga! and dinner made by our leaders, we went to a traditional pub storyteller. I went in thinking traditional storyteller and forgot the pub part. Let's just say it was less myth storytelling more crude humor and hilarious pub jokes. All together fun even if some parts left me not knowing whether to laugh or sit with my mouth open in offense. (It almost reminded me a bit of being back with Kevin and Justin listening to what they spit out).

Ok, gotta go to Monroe's but I'll write about Sunday later.
And put up photos later.