Taking time to slow down

As some of you may have noticed, most of my posts are centered around my weekend travels. You've heard a lot about the places I visit, but I think enough time has passed that I actually have something to tell about my daily life in Cork. The most noticeable thing about my daily life is that it's much slower than my life has been in a long time. At most, I have 4 hours of class per day, and I don't have classes at all on Fridays :) While this is a nice academic break, it leaves a lot of free time to deal with. You wouldn't think that I'd feel like I have to "deal with" free time at all, but it adds up. So to fill my time, I've taken to actually working out on a regular basis (woah), reading (duh), and sewing. It's going to be quite the shock to come back next semester and be super busy as usual.

As for academics themselves, I'm really liking my classes :) The prize for my favorite class is a tie between Step Dancing and Modern Irish, which is the gaelic language. Step Dancing is a class of 7 girls taught by a young woman named Margaret. It's really nice to dance again and I love learning all the new steps. The Irish language is really weird. So many odd spellings that don't go with the pronunciation whatsoever and rules that I'm only starting to be introduced to. But I really like learning everyday phrases and we're getting to the point where I feel like I actually know a little. Nowhere near being able to converse, but I overheard someone on campus talking in Gaelic and I understood a phrase that she used. I was so excited :) I'm also learning Tin Whistle, with a new song each week. We've been doing some ornamentation, but our rudimentary playing is never as cool-sounding as our teacher's. Admittedly she's the teacher, but I hope we learn more ornamentation soon. My other classes, Intro to Irish music and Intro to Anglo Irish Lit are lecture classes with good information, but lectures are never going to be my thing, so they're not my favorite. Finally, I'm starting my Geology class this week. We had one lecture last week and it turns out that there's a field trip at the end of the semester as part of our assessment. We'll be going out to the countryside near Antrim to do geological stuff...not really sure what yet. It might conflict with my plans to visit Italy, but cross your fingers that I'm scheduled for the other group!

Now some of you may be wondering about the nightlife here. Pubs are frequented all nights of the week and the busiest nights for college kids are tuesday and thursday. Yep, most students go home on the weekends so they party during the week. As for me, I usually go out a few nights a week and get a pint at whatever pub we've chosen for the night. My favorite is still the cider, but I'm learning to like some of the beer. I still have a ways to go until I like Guinness though. They do have clubs that fill up on the busy nights, but that's not my style and the way the girls dress for those clubs is definitely not my style. I much prefer a pint and some live music.

Have I left anything out? I think that gives a bit of an insight into my everyday life here. We did just discover a map with lots of fun looking stuff to do during the day, so we'll probably be checking those out in the next few weeks. I'll let you know if we find anything cool :)

"Is the Eiffel tower as big as the blue whale?" and other London escapades

There are a lot of people in London. I’ve never independently navigated through a city so big and so crowded; it was quite the experience. We had an amazing weekend that went off without a hitch, thanks largely to the help of our CSB/SJU friends who were hosting us. While I had a great time and saw some awesome things, I’m glad to back in Cork where things are less crowded and much friendlier.

Julia, Rochelle and I arrived in London on Wednesday morning, having taken a 7:00 am flight and 9:00 bus into London. We got off the bus at Victoria station with no more information than the fact that we were headed for South Kensington, 13 Manson place. Being a map person, I was in search of a map of London, but apparently they don’t like to give out street maps of London. Tube maps? Got em. Train maps? Got em. Street maps? Nope. So I ended up buying a £2 map, which told us that we were a ways away from South Kensington. So even though none of us really knew what we were doing, we bought a ticket to South Kensington on the underground. I’m pretty proud of us, because it went really smoothly. And when we got there, we bumped into one of the guys from St. John’s as he was waiting for the tube. Talk about weird. He gave us directions and off he went. Step one: make it to the flat all in one piece. Check J

The rest of the weekend was a mix of sightseeing, chilling in the flat, chatting with the group and museums. Julia, Rochelle, and I all had a friend or two who we’d been planning with and we all knew a few random members of the London group, so sometimes we’d be joined by a few London friends and sometimes we’d just go off on our own to sightsee. Rachel and Aaron, who are Julia’s good friends and who I knew through classes really took us under their wing and were wonderful hosts. They joined us for some of our excursions and made us feel comfortable in the flat.

By the time we reached the flat on Wednesday, it was around noon. We chatted with the group and decided to go see some of the big must-see’s of London. Aaron, Rachel and Christine showed us how to not look like a tourist on the tube, and brought us to the stop that emerged directly under Big Ben and the Parliament building, where we definitely did the whole tourist thing. From there we could see the London eye and Millennium bridge (the one that the dementors attack in Harry Potter ;) We then walked past Westminster Abbey and through St. James Park to Buckingham Palace. The queen was there at the time, shown by her flag being flown above the building. We arrived as there was a small change of the guard. We didn’t see the whole shebang, but it was pretty cool anyway. It was cold the whole weekend, so we then decided to check out Harrods, this HUGE store full of stuff that is more expensive than I can even fathom. I felt like a little kid, who needed to keep her hands by her sides at all times. No touching or else something would break and I’d be in trouble. I made it out without breaking anything, with a croissant in my hands to boot. We went back to the flat after that and were treated to a family dinner, made by some of the girls in the other flat. Now, I say the other flat because there were only two flats for 24 of them. There were 5 bedrooms, and a small kitchen and living room in each. I was very impressed by their ability to live together in such close quarters. They seemed to be doing pretty well with not stepping on each other’s toes too much. We did our best to be as unobtrusive as possible, since they were already pretty crowded.

Thursday, Julia, Rochelle and I struck out on our own to see more of London. We made a stop at the Natural History Museum, which was literally around the corner from their flat. While looking at a full size model of a blue whale, a little girl from a tour class asked her teacher “Is the Eiffel tower as big as the blue whale?” It was the cutest question J All the museums we saw were really cool, but I really liked this one, with the dinosaur exhibit and all the animals. After the museum, we worked our way along the Piccadilly tube line, with stops along the way. We hopped off at Piccadilly Circus and Leicester square, walked around China town and ended up at Trafalgar square. The square had a few big fountains and a tall memorial, surrounded by four huge lions. We tried to climb the lions, but they were too tall, so we got some pictures by their haunches :P We then went into the National Gallery, which overlooked the square. Here we got a close look at some Monet paintings and lots of others. (and Manet was right next to Monet for those Ordinary Days fans) We finished off our excursion with a stop at King’s Cross station. It was unfortunately under construction for the Olympics, but we still got a picture at platform 9 ¾ J

When I first started thinking of going to London, I instantly wanted to go see Les Miserables in the West End. Unfortunately, I didn’t find anyone who would go with me, so I decided to go to Wicked with the other girls. As this was the third time I had seen Wicked, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t see Les Mis, which I’d never seen professionally performed. But I needn’t have worried; it was just as wonderful as the first time. The woman who played Elfaba had an incredible voice and the whole production was enthralling. Maybe I’ll make it a tradition to see Wicked every three years of my life :P

Friday was another day of sightseeing, this time joined by Aaron and Rachel. We went to the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum) which had a lot of cool art, and the Borough market. This market was a huge, open-air market with fresh food galore. It reminded me of a bigger English Market like we have here in Cork. I got a meat pie at the market and prayed that it wasn’t made by Mrs. Lovett, courtesy of Sweeney Todd. We then returned to the flat to rest up, because we were headed to Club Koko that night. The club was actually really cool, mostly because of the venue. We went early so we could pay the cheap cover charge, so it was relatively empty for while. The club itself was in an old theatre building, so the dance floor was in place of the ground floor seats and the balconies were open and the chandeliers still in place. The music wasn’t that great, but the coolest part was that there was a guy dubbing a Gene Kelly movie to the beat of the music. He’d make the ballet dancer repeat fluid movements to the beat of the song or match Gene Kelly to the music. It was really cool J Seeing as I’m not much of a clubber, I was glad when part of the group decided to leave after an hour or so, but really happy that I had seen it- it was definitely worth the two pounds.

Saturday we were shown around Portobello market, which runs down one long street and sells all sorts of things, from clothes to food to antiques. If it weren’t so cold we probably could have spent all day there. We finished off our sightseeing with a trip to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. I had no idea what the tower of London looked like and was expecting something of a tall bell tower, so when it was really more of a castle, it took me a while to realize that that was it. Before heading to the airport on Saturday, we walked through Kensington park and stopped at Ben’s Cookies, which is right by the tube stop and has amazing cookies.

I don’t think I could have asked for a better weekend. I had great traveling companions, who I’m really glad I’m getting to know. We had wonderful hosts, and didn’t have to pay for accommodation to boot. And we got to see a lot of London without spending money to get into anything. The rest of my travels are going to have to step up their game to compete with London J

Thank God for hiking boots, rain coats, and home knit hats.

This past weekend, I went to Dingle with 3 St. Ben's girls to see the sights. Kelsey, Rochelle, Julia, and I were planning on biking around the Dingle Peninsula on Saturday: a 28 mile ride along the coast and around the mountains. Let's start at the beginning :)

Friday morning, we bussed to Dingle. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining almost all day. When we arrived in Dingle, we found the hostel and were greeted by Dave, the man who ran the hostel. He gave us tips about where to get good local food, which pubs to try, and which tourists traps to avoid. After we got settled, we struck out to explore the town. Now, Dingle isn't very big and is definitely a tourist town. Since it's not tourist season at the moment, some of the shops had signs in the window saying "see you in March." Despite this, we found some cool art shops and promising looking pubs. We got some beautiful pictures on the pier and a delicious plate of fresh caught cod at a restaurant right on the marina.

After a rest at the hostel, we headed out to explore the nightlife of Dingle. It was really odd, how quiet it was. We were heading to a pub around 8:30, and we literally saw 3 people on our way to the first one. This was quite the change from Cork, where you'll pass a pretty steady stream of people at any time of day. But apparently all the locals of Dingle weren't on the street because they were already at the pub. When we reached the first pub, the "quirky" local pub Dave had pointed us towards, who should we bump into but Dave himself. We made it known that we were at his hostel and we were to be treated well. We stayed there for almost two hours chatting with some of Dave's friends. I even got a free pint from the bartender. Not sure why, but who am I to turn down a free beer? We then continued on to main street, where we went to another pub that had trad music. There was a group of adults set dancing, which is sort of the Irish form of square dancing. It was really cool to watch :) We were also joined by 2 Irish boys who looked no older than 18 but claimed to be 21...let's just say it was an interesting visit. At one point, the more boisterous one of the two noted our rings. We all happened to be wearing rings and he made a show of checking if we were available. I'm glad I was wearing my anam cara ring from Dave, so he mostly left me alone the rest of the night. I spent the remaining time trying to talk to the quieter friend, but he apparently has very different tastes than I do. Anytime I mentioned a topic I liked, he'd respond "oh tat's boring." They were entertaining for awhile, but we weren't too sad when they left. We went back to the hostel, heading to bed and praying for nice weather for our bike ride the next day. Our prayers weren't answered though, when we woke up it was raining.

The weather in Ireland is very fickle. There have only been a handful of days here when the weather has been consistent all day. One minute it's raining and the next the sun could be shining. So with that in mind, we bundled up and went to rent bikes, hoping that the rain would blow over and it'd at least clear up for some of the ride. The weather did fluctuate that day, but it was a small shift; from cloudy, to a light rain, to pouring, and back again. Suffice to say, we were soaked to the bone by the time we returned. But overall, it was still a great bike ride. When the rain stopped, we had some beautiful views and great pictures. It was a tough ride, and we think we went about 25 miles. We ended up not doing the full loop around, because we were worried about it getting dark too early because of the rain that had continued throughout the day. By the last 2 or 3 miles we were all just plowing through to get back and get dry. I don't think I've ever been that wet with so many layers on. But miraculously, my feet were completely dry in my hiking shoes, and my head was still warm thanks to my new hat Dave had sent me. My raincoat was great in that I wasn't drenched underneath, but it was not as completely waterproof as I would have liked. By the time we got everything hung up in our room to dry, there wasn't a spare spot in the room and the windows were utterly drenched with perspiration. We all had a nice warm nap and went for some fish and chips at a cozy pub with a fire at our backs. After dinner we decided to skip the pubs and go to bed- we were all exhausted from fighting the weather that day.

Sunday was a pretty chill day. We had to be out of the hostel by 10 but our bus wasn't picking up until 5:45 that night. So we mainly cafe hopped during the day. I found a church to go to, and they said the Our Father in gaelic :) It was really cool and I think I'd like to find a translation and figure out how to say it. We had some good ice creme in the afternoon followed by a shift of location and some hot chocolate. The bus finally came, and we made it back to Cork, safe and sound. The weekend turned out to be really cool. Dingle was Ireland like I had expected it to be; a small community, surrounded by beautiful green hills and sea. We got a good work out, and a chance to test our rain gear. I'd just like to say, thank God for hiking boots, rain coats, and home knit hats.