Homework, Rocks and Sunburn

Hello again!! It’s been awhile since my last post, since I haven’t traveled in awhile, but I’m about to embark on my European travels so I figured I’d give an update on my past few weeks.

I’ve actually been somewhat busy for the past couples week, with my semester finishing itself up. The way the school system works at UCC is that we have classes from January to March, then we get April off to “study” and May is exams. Our exams can be spread over the whole month with study time in between. But of course, I always have to do something different with my schedule and it turns out that I have no exams in May. All my classes did final exams last week and I’m finishing up a group project soon and then I’ll be completely done with schoolwork for the semester J Be jealous.

As you may remember from an earlier post, I haven’t had a very rigorous class schedule. It honestly has been an easy semester, but remarkably, I’ve still learned a lot. You’d think that only going to class onc

e a week with very little homework would accomplish little, but looking back, I have learned a lot of new things. Maybe not much that pertains to my major, but still good to know anyway. The best example of this is the field trip that I took this weekend to County Antrim in Northern Ireland with the Geology class. I’m actually typing this up on the bus on the way back to Cork.

My Geology class has been the biggest source of stress for me this semester but surprisingly, one of the most interesting courses as well. I need the Geology credit to fill my Natural Science requirement at St. Ben’s, and so I basically chose it from a list because it seemed like the least painful class available. Let me tell you, I didn’t get off to a good start with Geology. First, it didn’t start until halfway through the semester but I didn’t realize that so went on the first day of the semester and felt thoroughly stupid when I ended up in a microbiology lecture. Then, when I finally went to the right lecture, I was told that there would be a field trip that conflicted with all my travel plans (I worked it out in the end but had a few frustrated conversations before then) Then, I couldn’t find the actual Geology building to pay the fee for the field trip. Then I missed a lab because all the other students are in classes together and passed the word about schedule changes to each other and forgot about me. Then I couldn’t get ahold of my group for our project when I couldn’t find enough research about my topic for the project. And that was all before the field trip actually began. Up to that point I really hated Geology.

Even as we started the field trip, I still had no idea what we’d be doing or what I should know to actually do well in this class. I also didn’t know anyone on the trip. But I decided that I was gonna have a good field trip if it killed me. So I introduced myself to 2 people who seemed nice and weren’t part of the “clique” Side note about “the clique”: imagine high school seniors let loose for a weekend with their friends with alcohol readily available, and that’s them. Altogether not

bad or mean people at all, just…not my type. Anyway, it turns out that Brian and Natasha, the people I made friends with had striking resemblances in personality to Dave Kaster and Rachel Pollari. It made for a good time getting to know them but oddly a bit homesick as well. And not just homesick for school people or hometown people, but both, since each person reminded me of one group of people. Over the weekend, I had great conversations with both Brian and Natasha, about the most random topics. I also taught Brian the game Cows Mine, and at the moment, I’m winning J They were a big reason that the weekend turned in to a success. It also turned out to be some great sightseeing as well. We went to some really beautiful beaches and cliffs. I frolicked in the sea for a little while and it was incredible.

The other thing about this weekend that I wasn’t expecting was that I really liked the actual field work. We had three days of traveling along the north coast of Antrim being guided through the basics of Geology. The first day I did feel really overwhelmed because the other students had had another semester of Geology and practicals that prepared them for this and I knew next to nothing (the lectures were not helpful at all). After that first morning though, I started catching on and by the end of the weekend, was answering most of the questions with the rest of the group. It helped a lot that my group leaders, Jo and Jess did really well with guiding us all through the process at each locality. I mean, the other people in my group didn’t really know what they were doing either; I just sometimes needed an explanation of a more basic concept in order to understand the most complex bit we were learning.

And finally, the weather was INCREDIBLE. Clear, blue skies for 5 days straight, 65 degree average for the whole trip. I even wore sunscreen and got burnt. It was actually very comical to watch all these Irish natives burn in the sun. A few guys got a little burnt on the second day and wore their hoodies the whole last day, which was the hottest with a huge hill to climb. They were about as burnt as I get in an hour or so without sunscreen and they were cryin like babies. They should stay in Ireland where 75 is as hot as it gets and 5 days of sun is a miracle. I took every opportunity to lie in the sun and soak it in. I’m so excited for summer and will probably be immensely disappointed by the weather in May, which will probably be back to it’s normal Irish course. Until then, I’ll just be appreciative of our amazing luck. I like to think that I was the lucky charm J

As for my next few weeks, I’ve got a lot of traveling in store. Tomorrow morning, I’m flying with three friends to start our Europe travels. Starting in Italy, we’ll hit Pisa for a few days, Florence for a day and Venice for a few days. After that, I’ll split off from them and head to Belgium to join the choral society for a 5 day stint that just so happens to include a choral competition and Easter. After that, I’ll fly to Barcelona and meet my friends to spend our last 6 days in Spain. I’ll then head back to good ol’ Ireland to recuperate for a few days before Mom, Dad, Emma, and Aunt Marilyn join me for their Ireland visit. I’m excited to show them around- if the weather is even half as nice as this weekend we’ll count ourselves lucky. After that I’ve got a few weeks to chill and for the grande finale of my Ireland experience, Samantha Ellen Schloss will join me for my last week in Ireland! What a way to end J

I’ll be journaling while in Europe, so next time I post will be dependant on the journal and probably not forthcoming until April or May. Keep me in your prayers that my travels go smoothly!

How many words for beautiful can we think of?

This weekend, I went on a guided tour of the Ring of Kerry. It was a trip provided by UCC that had come highly recommended by previous students and was absolutely worth doing. I saw sooooo many beautiful sights and had a great time. Definitely one of the best weekends so far.

On Friday we left from Cork at 2:30 with a group of about 40 people. I had originally signed up for the trip with just Julia and Rochelle, but the weekend ended up including their roommate Bethany as well, which rounded off the group quite nicely. It had been about 3 hours when we stopped at our first destination, the Kerry Bog Village Museum. It’s a village that is set up as it was in the time of the famine, the 1800’s. They also had some very oddly sized animals; the tallest dogs in the world and the smallest horses. It was sorta funny how oddly sized they were :P It seemed like we could almost ride the dogs and that the horses were almost too small to ride. After that we got back on the bus and made our way to the town we were staying in, Cahersiveen. It was lovely J We were fed wonderful dinners all weekend and the fact that it was an actual hotel put it up a notch from anywhere else we’ve stayed this trip.

The highlight of that night (and one of my favorite parts of the trip) was learning Ceili dancing. For those of you who don’t know, Ceili (pronounce Kaylee) dancing is like an Irish form of square dancing. We learned three dances with similar steps. Once we’d learned the steps they just started playing and those who got it started, and those who didn’t were dragged along with the beat. Since the partners switched around so much, I encountered almost everyone on the trip for at least one round of the dance. Everyone was just laughing and bumbling along and it was tons of fun J We all ended the night sweating and tired with smiles on our faces.

The next day was our busy day. We were off and on the bus, usually given less than an hour at each site as we made our way around the peninsula of Kerry. We spent most of the time on Valentia island, which is off the northwestern coast of Kerry. We started by going to see some baby calves J they were very cute and sucked on my fingers looking for milk. We had gorgeous weather for most of the weekend and it mostly only rained when we were either inside or on the bus. We were very lucky on that account. After the calves, we hiked up a mountain on the only paved road that goes to the top of the mountain. It was a straight shot to the top but it was an incredible view. Just…so beautiful. Bethany said “It’s so beautiful” so many times that she got sick of it so when we got on the bus we brainstormed synonyms for beautiful. It was….gorgeous, marvelous, wonderful, breathtaking, incredible, grand, lovely.

From the island of Valentia, we could see two other islands out to sea called the Skellig islands. They’re the western most islands until you reach America. In the middle ages, Monks rowed out 8 miles to these islands and built a monastery on these islands that are really just big rocks sticking out of the sea. The monastery still stands today. We couldn’t go out because the ferries don’t go at this time of year but we went to the museum. After that, we stopped at a slate quarry with a grotto to Mary in it. We were told we could keep a piece of slate, so I picked one up. I decided to start a collection of rocks, so began picking them up at other places too. We continued driving around the island and it was the most incredible view. We stopped at a beach, but it was drizzling and cold so we didn’t stay long. Then we finally went back to the restaurant for lunch. We had covered a lot of ground by lunchtime.

After lunch we went to a round fort that also looked out over much of the island. It was cool to climb up the walls and walk around the top. We then had the choice of going to visit a castle and walking back (about 45 minutes) or of skipping the castle and catching the bus. I was super tired but the other girls wanted to see the castle and I decided to go with them. The castle was cool but the walk home was long and rainy… we got chocolate and a nap when we got back so I was just grand J then there was dinner and a talk on Gaelic football, which is like soccer but you can use your hands too. After that was a table quiz in which I sang rolling in the deep for a prize; it was fun but I messed it up, of course :P

Sunday, we woke up and got to hold lambs J the one I held was only 4 days old and it was adorable J then we got on the bus and headed back to Cork, with a few stops on the way. First, to Derrynan house, which is the house of Daniel O’Connell, a man who was very helpful to the emancipation of Catholics in Ireland. Then a waterfall and more marvelous sights along the way. We also stopped at Muckross house, a huge mansion with sprawling grounds. We sat down by the lake and it reminded me of Lake Sag. It was the same shape and had a jut of land where the chapel would stand. It was restful and beautiful. Then we were back on the bus and headed to Cork.

The weekend was much like this telling of it. I grew really tired by the end of the day and paid less attention to it. It probably didn’t help that I was coming down with something and so was tired from that as well. Each stop was well worth the effort, and they did a really good job of mixing up the types of things we did at each stop. Despite my tiredness, it was still an amazing weekend with incredible sights. I would do it again in a heartbeat <3