Belgian Chocolate + Belgian Waffles + Irish Choral Society= The Perfect Mix

So. Belgium. Well, My time in Belgium itself was quite fun and I got to know a lot of cool people from Choral society much better. Getting to Belgium, though, was a whole different ballgame. A train, a bus, a plane, a bus, a train, a tram, and an Irish pub all worked together (not so smoothly) to get me to Ghent, Belgium from Venice, Italy to meet up with Choral. Let’s start at the beginning.

5:10am- I wake myself up 5 minutes before my alarm and realize that I’m going to be walking with all my stuff, alone, through the streets of Venice to get to the train station. I promptly freak myself out and calm myself down in a 5 minute time span. But we were literally a 5 minute walk down a main street, so I just grit my teeth, said goodbye to the other girls, gripped my lifeguard whistle and walked myself to the train station. My train was at 6, and I got there at 5:40, so I had plenty of time, but here’s the thing about Italian train tickets. They say your destination and that’s about it. It doesn’t say which train you should be getting on (your destination may just be a stop on the way) it doesn’t say the time, it doesn’t say the platform: all this is supposed to be known to you. So when I got to the train station, I looked around in the main area for someone who was working to help me get to the right train, but I literally couldn’t find anyone working at the station besides the magazine guy. Soooo I stood around for a while hoping “Treviso” would show up on the departure list. But by 5:55, it hadn’t shown up and I began to freak out again. I looked harder for someone working and finally found a lady who told me to hop on a train that had been sitting near where I was standing the whole time. I made it with 2 minutes to spare. What a great way to start my long day of travels.

6:10 am- I arrived at the Treviso city train station and realized that I wasn’t at the airport, which is where I thought I would be. Add a bus to the list.

7:30 am- I made it to the airport, finally! And it was only 7:30. Ok, so I got in line for my flight and realized that they’re being really picky about bag size. This is an issue because my bag, while quite small, isn’t the right rectangular shape for Ryanair carryons. This hasn’t been an issue for the 3 other Ryanair flights, but this time, they didn’t let me take it. So I got in the other line, to check it. Then they shooed me to another line and by then I was worried about being late and when they told me to go wait in another line to pay 50 Euros to get my bag on the plane, I was in tears. I paid to carry on an oversized bag and went through security. On the bright side, I’ve never gone so fast through security. Who knew that tears worked wonders on airport security? I didn’t even take off my coat or shoes, and they let me go with a sympathetic smile. Despite all my worries, I made it to the gate before most of the other passengers did. My 9:15 flight took off with me blaring the music as loud as I could stand it, but miraculously still on track.

10:45 am- The plane arrived on time, and my bag made it with me.

My next step was a bus. Of course the automated ticket machine wasn’t working and the line for the ticket booth was astronomically long, but I eventually got a ticket and was on the bus into Brussels.

12:30 pm- This marks the first good transportation moment of the day! I got dropped off the bus right at the train station where I could catch the train to Ghent. Yay! The second good thing was that there was a Subway sandwich shop there and they had regular potato chips! What a good hour of my day. So after that lovely interlude I hopped on the train to Ghent and guessed which of the 3 stops in Ghent I was supposed to get off.

2:30 pm- I got off too soon. I shoulda waited one more stop and I would have been right in the City Centre, but alas, I did not. So I asked the student worker at the desk how to get there and she said Tram 1. But when I got to the stop for the tram and asked all the locals there, they pointed to Tram 2. So I trusted them and hopped on that one. I didn’t pay for the tram cuz I couldn’t find where to get a ticket, but no one checked, so I didn’t feel too bad. I tried to figure out where to get off, but mostly just ended up waiting. It turns out that the end of the line was where I wanted to get off, and with the help of a nice mother/daughter duo, I alit in the right place. (they say alight in a lot of transportation places- it’s a cool word and I like it :)

3:30 pm- I was on the right street but was going the wrong direction. I spied an Irish pub and decided to ask directions here for 2 reasons- 1) it was familiar and 2) I half expected to bump into one of my Irish friends who I was meeting in the area. I didn’t run into anyone but I got headed the right direction. After walking for 5 minutes or so, who should I see but Aaron, one of our Choral committee members. I had finally made it.

My time in Belgium itself was much better than the journey there. We were in Belgium for an international Choral Festival, which turned out to be a very small festival (us, a choir from Russia and the home choir) I got there on Thursday and our days were pretty full- Friday a trip to Brugge, Saturday a concert in one of the grande churches in Ghent and Sunday the actual festival (which I thought was odd, cuz who’s gonna want to go to a choral concert on Easter?) Anyway, we started our trip with a jaunt to Brugge. It’s about an hour away and it was a very pretty town. We did a boat ride on the canal and I took a picture of two swans that I think is one of my favorite pictures I’ve ever taken. We also went to a lot of chocolate shops, climbed the bell tower for an amazing view and tried our first Belgian waffles. So good. We came back for dinner at the B&B and then split up to get ready to go out. Now remember, I’m here with Irish people, so lots of the girls got very dressed up. But actually, a lot of them didn’t. So I felt better about that, since I didn’t have anything dressy. We went in search of somewhere to get a pint and where should we end up, but at an Irish pub. Leave it to a group of Irish students to go to Belgium and find the Irish pub :P It turned out to be lots of fun and I mostly chatted with a small group of people and just got to know people a bit better.

Saturday was our first performance of the weekend, an exchange concert with the Russian choir. It was held in St. Nikklas church, and it was a beautiful place to sing. Our first encounter with the Russians did not go well. They went way over on their rehearsal time in the space and when we had finished our sound check (15 minutes before the concert started) They had taken the back room to change into their outfits and were literally barring the door to the single bathroom and not letting any of us in. Their director was the one leading the charge. We were not thrilled with their manners, to say the least. That night, I headed out for Easter Vigil mass with about 8 other people. The mass was in Flemmish, but it was actually really cool because they had all the readings written out on the worship aid. I was sitting next to Melanie, who is from Austria, so between her knowledge of German and my mix of bits of languages, we pieced together was all the readings were about. They also had a really good choir and ended the mass with the Halleluia Chorus J

Easter Sunday was the day of the actual festival. It was held in a small theatre in Ghent, and it was really cool to be part of a young choir, so to speak. A lot of the people in Choral had never sung in an actual theatre before, or a church like the one we sang in the day before. It was nice to be reminded how cool it really is to be able to make music with people in such a space. The concert itself went really well. We sang a wide range of things, but my favorites were the two Irish pieces we did. For everything else we stood in our two rows, but for the Irish songs, we spread out to cover the whole stage and sang without Tom directing. They felt more powerful that way. The other choirs were good as well. The Russians we had already heard the day before, but the Belgian choir was a surprise. It was a group of mostly white people singing gospel songs with more soul than I’d ever encountered. They began the concert with a 30 minute set and I really enjoyed it. They also ended the concert with more people in the choir, and it turned into an almost hour long set that went on a bit too long. But they ended on a good note, and the concert was a success.

That night, as part of the festival, we were supposed to have dinner with Russians. Believe me, we weren’t all that excited about that considering their chilly behavior throughout the past few days, but we decided a bit of a social experiment would be fun. We were there before they were, and we automatically started to sit in one big clump, so it would have been us on one end and the Russians on the other. But someone suggested that we all sit on one side of the table so that when they got there, they’d have to sit on the other side. This way, we’d be mixed up, but we’d all have a bit of hometown support on either side. So. When they got there, it was a very tense moment. We could tell they weren’t excited and they were muttering in Russian…but they all sat down and after about 10 minutes of awkward tries, the room grew louder and we all relaxed and actually chatted with each other. The night ended up with a song exchange orchestrated by the guy across from me, who seemed to have the best English of the bunch (I got lucky there). I’m really glad we did our social experiment because now we can all get past the rude bathroom incident and remember the Russians and their awesome folk songs (which they taught us the dance to). That night it was decided that everyone would gather to play Werewolves (Irish form of the game Mafia) and drink the night away. Instead, our apartment sat around talking about politics and religion for almost two hours and then heading over once the party was in full swing. That tiny apartment was so chaotic. We had arrived just as they were trying to mobilize to head out and I could tell from the amount of yelling and stumbling that I didn’t want to be part of that group. So I corralled anyone else who seemed to feel the same way and we went back to my apartment to play cards.

The next day was the day they were heading back to Ireland and I was splitting off to join up with Julia and Katie, but I had one more day in Belgium before catching my flight to Spain. I took the bus with Choral to the airport and caught a bus into Brussels, where I was staying that night. On the way to the airport, Eilin taught me the Our Father in Irish. It was a good way to end my time with Choral. J The following day I spent in Brussels, which was not all that exciting, except I went to a musical instrument museum, which was pretty cool. I didn’t learn much since everything was written in French and Flemish, but hey. (you’d think if they could do it in two languages, a third, more widely used language wouldn’t be too difficult) It also rained all day, so I didn’t do all that much. My flight was at 6:30 so I caught a train with no problem and arrived at the airport with plenty of time. I got to Barcelona airport and figured out the metro without a hitch and found the hostel, arriving after Julia and Katie, so I was greeted when I got there. It was a much better traveling day getting out of Belgium than coming in, thank goodness. Belgium overall was lots of fun and very pretty, but probably the country I was the least impressed with. I think I’ll remember it mostly because that’s where I really got to know my Irish friends, and I’ll cherish it because of that.

Pizza and Wine and Gelato, oh my!

Hello everyone! I know you’ve been waiting with bated breath, so here is my next blog post. I traveled for almost 3 weeks with my red backpack and 3 other girls from St. Ben’s- Julia, Katie and Rochelle. We spent a week in Italy, then I split off from them to go to Belgium to meet the UCC Choral Society for a choral competition, and then I met up with Katie and Julia again in Barcelona for our last 6 days. I’m going to split the posts up by country, so I’ll start with Italy and see you on the other side J

Pisa

We flew from Cork to Milan, Italy on May 29^th, starting off bright and early. After landing in the Milan airport, we took a bus into the city to the train station, where we caught a train straight to Pisa. We had a few hours to kill at the train station, so we went for our first Italian pizza. It was absolutely delicious! I think I’ve been converted. We also sampled our first Gelato as well, I went with Chocolate (Cho-co-latte) and it was scrumptious J Not only was the food great, but there was constant sunshine. Do you know how much I’ve missed that? We just sat in the sun until we caught the train to Pisa. After 4 hours on the train, we made it to Pisa and found our hostel. We finished off the night with spaghetti and white wine. Another great Italian meal.

The way we split up our traveling in Italy was in two big chunks. We had 3 days in the Pisa area and 3 days in Venice. Since Pisa really doesn’t have much to do besides the tower, we decided to do a day in Pisa, a day trip to Florence, and a day on the beach. Our first day was dedicated to sightseeing in Pisa, which means the leaning tower of Pisa. When we got there, we took the obligatory “holding up the tower” photos and we got a great group pic as well. It really was an incredible sight to see. After meandering through the stalls of souvenirs we found a spot on the lawn in front of the Duomo (basilica) and the tower. We did some more lying in the sun while soaking in the sights. That night we got dressed up and went out to dinner. Our pattern of food in Italy quickly became apparent: pizza or pasta, splitting the house wine and finishing with gelato. By the end of the week I was a bit tired of Italian food, but it was so good that there was no way I would have eaten anything else.

Firenze (Florence)

Our second full day in Italy was dedicated to time in Florence, or Firenze as they say. After a little over an hour on the train, we arrived in Florence just in time for lunch. We found a cute little café that had a great view of the huge Duomo in the middle of Florence. After lunch, we wanted to climb the tower to get an amazing view of Florence, but it was 15€ and the line was ridiculously long. Instead we walked all the way around it and admired the architecture :P About halfway around, Rochelle got pulled into a shoe store and I ended up getting the most wonderful sandals. They’re built for support, and they’re Italian leather, so I’m hoping they’ll last me a long time. I wore them for the rest of the day and they felt great the whole time. After our shopping, we headed to the Galleria Del Academia, the museum that houses the statue of David. We waited in line for a while, but it was totally worth it. I mean, he is accepted to be the perfect male form :P I was surprised by how big the statue was. I imagined him to be much more life sized. Instead I saw this huge statue surrounded by instruments measuring the humidity and temperature of the room (meaning it was the real one, not the replica). I was sneaky and took a couple snapshots even though we’re not supposed to. Actually, I’m glad I got them when I  did cuz after I had put my camera away, a man yelled “NO PHOTOS” from across the room at a woman near me sneaking a picture. The guy wasn’t even in uniform. His whole job was to stand around and look at David wearing civilian clothes to catch picture thieves. Yikes. 

After David, we walked to the Palazzo Vecchio, which is a big plaza with statues all over and restaurants lining the square. And after that, we made our way to the Ponte Vecchio which is a pedestrian bridge with houses on it. It was super crowded and lined with shops way out of our price range, but the coolest part about it was the way it looked from down the river. It just seemed very…Italian. It was beautiful and different. After sitting in from of the Palazzo Pitti (a big palace that we couldn’t see much of because of the wall) we made our way back to the Palazzo Vecchio for dinner and then back to Pisa for the night. The most incredible part about Florence was just the amount of art. Every corner you turn there are artists, or a statue, or an incredible building. We had a great day in Florence J

Our third full day in Pisa was very chill. Katie and I started off the day by heading to mass. If you’ve calculated it, you may recall that it was Palm Sunday. We worked our way over to the Duomo by the leaning tower of Pisa for Palm Sunday mass. No big deal. When we got there we received olive branches upon entering the church. Since we were there early, we got seats. And good thing too, because it was a long mass, and we didn’t understand any of it, except “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” because it was repeated so many times. There were two really remarkable things about the mass. The passion was said from the huge ambo in the middle of the church. It was one of the most ornate lecturns I had ever seen; with intricate carvings surrounding the whole thing. There was also a choir of about 40 people and they did music for a full mass. It was quite the change from Irish masses, which tend to have no music at all. So although it was long and boring at times, the mass was still really cool, and how many people can say they walked out of Sunday mass and were greeted by the leaning tower of Pisa? After mass, Katie and I swung by the hostel to pick up Julia and Rochelle and we caught a bus to the beach. The bus was hot and smelly, and we were standing for the 20 minute ride. We also weren’t sure when we were supposed to get off. But we weren’t alone; there were 3 other American students on the bus aiming for the same place as us. Sydney, Emily and Mike were studying in London and we ended up next to them on the beach, when we finally got there. The beach itself was small and sort of shut off from the actual ocean by a ring of rocks, but the sand was soft and the sun was warm, so it was great. I had bought sunscreen the day before and we slathered it on and lay in the sun for a few hours. It was so great to just relax and be warm. After figuring out the bus back into town, we found another yummy pizzeria for our last dinner in Pisa, amazed that we were already done with our first city.

Venezia (Venice)

After two uneventful train rides, we arrived in Venice. My first thought as the train pulled in and I saw the canals was that this was my city. A city built on water? Yes please J Our hostel was a bit hidden, but once we found it, and climbed the 5 long flights of stairs, it was totally worth it. It was set up like a hotel: nice beds, full bedding, a good shower, complimentary soaps and room service. And it had a great view of the rooftops of Venice. We definitely chose right with that one J Since we got there in the afternoon, we put our stuff down and went to explore and eat an early dinner. It was really cool just walking around the tiny streets, coming up on random canals and not really knowing where we were. There’s really no rhyme or reason to the streets there, and I didn’t even try to use the map most of the time. But even when you’re lost, you’ll eventually hit the Grande Canal and can find your way from there. Once it got dark, we walked the other direction searching for a glass of wine on the water, which we found J It was a great first day in Venice.

Our second day in Venice was the day we saw the most in Venice and also killed a lot of time as well. Venice is actually a pretty small city and we gave ourselves a lot of time to get to places that we really didn’t need. We started off trying to get information about the Gondolas, which is the thing that took the longest that day. Our plan was to book a Gondola ride and see San Marco Square that day. We headed out around noon after booking the Gondola, on our way to San Marco Square, which was across the island from us. We just pointed ourselves in the right direction and followed the flow of traffic. A cool thing (and annoying at times) about the Venice streets is that there seems to be one main way that everyone takes to get places, so it’s easy to follow the flow, even when you feel lost. But there are also a lot of dead ends, and a couple times we were walking for a long time and ended up almost in the exact same place as we started. The square itself was very impressive. One whole side of the square was made up of a huge domed church that I assume was San Marco church. The other three sides were buildings with rows of columns lining the front. We took our pictures and walked along the shops around the whole square. At the other end of the square were the two pillars that I recognized from one of my favorite movies, The Italian Job. “Fine- Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic, and Emotional.” (definitely watched it as soon as I got back ) 

 There was also an incredible view of the Grande Canal and more Gondolas. As cool as the square was, there wasn’t much to do besides shop, which we didn’t want to do all afternoon. By this time it was 1:30 and we had 3 hours until our Gondola, which was supposed to pick us up nearby. Soooooo we walked a bit and stopped to split a pizza as a snack. We sat along the canal and walked a bit more, finally stopping about 40 minutes early at the Gondola pick up spot. It was a long afternoon, but then was the Gondola ride! We were put in a boat with one couple, making 6 of us on the 35 minute ride. Unfortunately the Gondola driver did not sing for us, but it was still really cool to be on the water we’d been walking over for the past day. After the Gondola ride, we made our way back through the city, stopping for dinner and breakfast food on our way back. That night we stayed in the hostel trying to print our boarding passes for future flights and catching up on our journals.

My last day in Venice was another day that included lots of aimless walking. While that sounds like it might be boring, it wasn’t because of the setting we were in. I still can’t wrap my mind around a city existing on water even after having been there for three days. We did a lot of shopping and I bought another pair of sandals. I know I don’t need them, but they were only 10 euro and I absolutely love them J Some of my favorite souvenirs of the whole trip were in Venice. The Venetian masks were everywhere! And they were so brightly colored and beautiful that I wanted to buy them all. I ended up not getting any because I didn’t have a way to carry them for the rest of my trip, but I’ll never forget all the masks. The other thing that really drew me was the Murano glass. Murano is a nearby island in Italy where they are known worldwide for their glasswork. Just about every other shop was selling glass jewelry and other things. I loved just going into the shops and admiring the artwork. I’ve decided that if I ever 1) have lots of money and 2) am decorating a home, I’m going to come back to Venice and buy masks and glass to decorate my home. Besides shopping on my last day, we went to the Pointe Rialto, which is another bridge with shops along the whole bride. 

In this way, it is similar to the one in Florence, but beside the fact that there were buildings on the bridge, it was very different. It was definitely not as colorful and it was mostly souvenirs rather than high priced jewelry, but it had a beautiful façade on the front of it. For my last dinner in Italy, we went back to a restaurant that we had passed the night before just after eating. The man out front was very good at his job and had held a full conversation with us trying to get us to eat even though we told him we’d just eaten. We promised to return the next day and he said we’d get a free round of drinks if we did. So, we came back J It was my last dinner in Italy and I decided to try something different. Julia, Rochelle and Katie had gotten used to me ordering pretty simple dishes, like salami pizza and spaghetti, so when I ordered the seafood pizza they were very impressed. I was impressed myself :P When I got it, it had the shells of mussels and clams still on it and the shape of a small octopus was still discernable in one place. Surprisingly, I actually liked it and ate almost all of it J I’m not planning on making that my new go-to dish, but I’m glad I tried it, and now I can say I’ve eaten Octopus :P After dinner we headed back and I packed up, getting ready for my 6:30 am departure from the Venice train station to begin my long day of travels. I was splitting off from the girls and meeting up with Choral Society. But that’s another blog post. I hope you enjoyed my Italian escapades as much as I did J

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

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.