Sunshine, rain, and hail...all at the same time. Where am I, South Carolina?!

Yesterday I went on the day trip "Into the West" with the International Education Office. We pretty much went everywhere we had gone on the trip to Galway with the International Society, but it was a nice trip for only €5, so no complaints from me. We also got to go to the Ailwee Caves. We didn;t get to do this last time, so that was cool. Plus, I looked at the prices at the caves-normally it would cost €17 just to take the tour, so I would say that we got a deal.

We stopped at Bunratty Castle first (though I don't really know why.) Nice photo op, I guess.

From there we went to the Cliffs of Moher. It was cloudy and slightly foggy last time, but the weather yesterday was PERFECT! It was windy (by the ocean, duh!) but the sky was crystal clear and bright and the air was almost warm-I ended up taking off a layer!

We drove through the Burren again (I took motion sickness pills BEFORE the trip this time, so no misery here!) From there we went to the Ailwee Caves. The caves were discovered int he 1960's when a man was hunting wabbits :^) and his dog chased a wabbit :^) down into a hole. This hole ended up being caves that were formed by melted glacial waters form an early ice age. It will never cease to both stump and amaze me that water is capable of cutting a hole through a mountain. There have also been some interesting discoveries made in the caves. One was the discovery of a bear skeleton in the cave. I know what you're thinking. Duh-bears sleep in caves. Why is this cool? It is cool because it is believed that bears have been extinct in Ireland for more than 1,00 years. I jokingly thought "Now way is that a polar bear...that's a polar bear." Cheers if you get the reference.

Classes are still going well. I wish I could say the same for my housing, but I can't. To sum it up, I'm not a freshmen anymore. I get on very well with all of my housemates and I love them all. However, Plassey is really not suiting my sleep and sanity needs. Even when I was a freshmen, I didn't act like the hooligans here in Classy Plassey can. After two nerve-wrecking incidents the other night, I went to the accommodation office and said that I needed to move to another village where I could have quiet at 3:00 AM. I was expecting it being hard to convince them to let me move, but the lady made a a quick phone call or two, and now I'm just waiting on a call to confirm that I can move. I think I'm headed for Thomond Village. Thomond is relatively new and each resident gets a double bed (have you ever heard of THAT in a college dorm?) and EN-SUITE toilet and shower! Oh, the joy that courses through my veins at the thought of my own shower...

And now I must go dear friends. I have a paper to finish and I need to go grocery shopping.

I would like to use this post to thank whoever decided to pour spoiled milk through our mail slot last night. It was such a generous gift and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart, stomach, and nostrils.

Also, we've had a few snow flurries on and off throughout the weekend/week, and they have been quite lovely! I didn't even realize that it was snowing last night until about 1:00. I was sitting in bed browsing through JSTOR while working on a paper and when I stood up to put my computer on my desk so I could go to bed I looked out the window and saw snow falling! Quite the nice little surprise. Granted, the snow mostly melts as soon as it falls although it stuck a little on Saturday and last night. Being from South Carolina, I view any small collection of snow on the ground as a near winter-freaking-wonderland, so what did I do? I put on my boots and a hat and went outside for a few.

Please forgive me for keeping you all in suspense. I’m not cruel, just busy and easily distracted!

As of today, I have been in Limerick for exactly one month. It seems like time is moving both very quickly and very slowly, and both are in a good way. In the first month of my stay, I have gotten used to several things and started to miss other things. For example, I am becoming an expert at remembering which way to look before crossing a street. I can count coins easily now without having to look at the number value on the face of the coin. I am getting closer to using the term “chips” exclusively and not saying fries (this is an important one!) Best of all I am getting used to the cold. I don’t really even think about it anymore unless I am waiting for forever for the bus or if I have forgotten my gloves.

As I mentioned, I have also started to miss certain things more than I though I would, or I miss things I didn’t realize I would be without. One thing I miss is Hans. Who is Hans? Hans is my VW Jetta. I miss being able to get in my car and drive to the store at midnight if I please. I don’t, however, miss having to think about gas money-bus fare is much cheaper. I miss Twizzlers. It isn’t an insane craving, but I love them. However, not having them will maybe make them seem that much better once I get home! The thing that I probably miss the most that I didn’t realize I would miss as much as I do is not food, an object, or even one thing. I miss USC. I’m having a good time here. I love it here. My professors are pretty awesome, my classes are GREAT, and the campus is beautiful. However, it is not Columbia. There is no French House with Erin and Stephanie and Caroline and Mary. There is no Horseshoe with tea olive trees. There is no Beezer’s. Lame, I know. I was so ready to come to Ireland and be away from USC for a bit that I forgot to consider how much I do actually love it. Columbia means more than just school. It’s a mixture of classes, friends (friends are pretty much pseudo-family to me), atmosphere, and simple daily life. I’m just glad I didn’t miss football season!

Now on to lighter and less sappy, emotional topics!

The last two weekends I didn’t really do anything out of the ordinary and that was the way uh-huh uh-huh I liked it! Last weekend I did laundry. While this is usually an insignificant and ordinary daily thing, one cannot fully appreciate it until one has been limited to washing one load of clothes per week. I had actually been two weeks without washing clothes (aside from a few things that I’ve washed in my sink) and I came frighteningly close to tears thinking about the French House, where I have an en-suite washer and dryer and can wash clothes when I please for free. However, once I got my laundry tokens and had TWO loads of laundry washed, dried, folded and out away, I felt much better. Who knew that clean clothes could bring about feelings of elation?!

I’ve found during the last two weeks that I am really settling into a normal routine of daily tasks much like back home. This is really an achievement because it means that I am more settled and becoming adjusted. It’s hard sometimes to remember that this isn’t a vacation-I actually AM here for school. Some things I enjoy doing are watching Friends while eating lunch, taking daily long walks/jogs by the river, (trying) to go to the library at least twice a week, and (trying) to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

A few interesting things have happened, though. I was eating lunch on campus one day and one of my history professors ended up sitting beside me. He asked me lots of questions about the differences between university here and back home, lecture styles, etc. It was interesting because it was pretty informal and I wasn’t really expecting professors here to be like that. Another little shake to my routine was that I had to switch out of my tutorial for European Society and Governance into another one. At first I was almost bummed because the instructor for that tutorial was pretty much awesome. However, it is just another example of something seeming lame but turning out to be amazing. This is due to the change in paper assignment between the two tutorials. In the tutorial I was originally in, I was going to work with four people and write a paper on the Marshall Plan. Interesting, yes, but somewhat dry in my taste. In my new tutorial, I actually got to choose (from a list) the topic that I wanted to write on. The instructor mentioned this one and my heart was set. I have to read a book titled In Pure Blood, which is written on the Lebensborn Program in the 1930’s/1940’s in Germany. Basically, the Lebensborn Program consisted of “baby factories” and the kidnapping of thousands of Polish children in order to further the ideal “Aryan” race. The problem is, I only have 600-800 words to write. For most papers, that length requirement would have me saying “Sweet!” and “You have got to be kidding.” For this, however, I find myself saying “…that’s all I get?” However, I get 20 minutes to talk when I present said paper, so the instructor told me I could go further if I wish. Who knows, maybe having a (much) shorter length requirement will make it harder because I will have to make my words matter instead of beating my brains trying to add fluff to meet the usual length requirements. This topic is morbid, yes. However, if you know me and my weird little brain, my excitement will make sense to you. You see, I believe that by looking at some of the darkest parts in history can help shed light on some of the greatest parts of the human condition.

And to wrap things up this update, I will tell one more quick story. Last night the International Society had ‘80s Night at the Stables (bar/restaurant here on campus.) Usually I avoid this type of thing like the plague, but I decided to go. I went shopping and bought purple tights and a headband with a silky black bow, threw on my new earrings shaped like nesting dolls and my black Converse and went. Surprisingly or not, I enjoyed myself. I didn’t dance or anything, because I don’t dance. I met another girl who is studying here, but she has actually been here all school year, and her friend who is studying in Galway. I had a Bulmers and we sat around and talked. It was a pretty good night.

The end. I actually have some more, but since this post is lengthy, I’ll add another post in the middle of the week. See y’all later!

Thankfully, my first hostel experience was a good one!

A few more pictures to go along with the previous post:

Hey Dad-it's a lunchbox! I mean a Prius...

The church is a cathedral on grounds at the Kylmore Abbey. It was built in the Gothic style. It was so small that it seemed like a doll house of sorts. It was identical to the Gothic cathedrals that are huge, but it was scaled down to its tiny size!

BRRR!!!!! As beautiful as this country is and as much fun as I am having, it is still COLD and I'm still having disagreements with my radiator. I did however go out and buy another blanket to out under my comforter, and that has helped quite a bit. Now, onto to the part of the post with no complaints!

My second week of classes went much like the first. However, because of a schedule conflict that I didn’t realize was there until last Saturday, I had to make a few adjustments. One of the lectures for my Imperialism and Decolonization class conflicted with my two hour lecture in Irish Folklore. I was originally going to (regrettably) just give the folklore class the boot and fill something else in because come one people-a class that basically set up the history of the British Empire and then would proceed to tear it to pieces (academically, of course)-come on! It was going to be awesome. However, I realized that dropping folklore would of course mean adding another class. The problem was that any other class that I had been pre-approved to take conflicted with something else, so it would have been very hard to switch everything around. See, here at UL, when a class, or “module” is offered, there is only one section offered, unlike USC where one class can potentially have several different sections. Also, I got my sheet from Rachel at the SA office and realized that I actually hadn’t been approved for Sources for History. I quickly fixed this by getting in touch with my dean. Bam. Problem solved, no panic attacks or worrying. Although I really wanted to take the Imperialism class, it just didn’t work out. Oh well. Life’s hard. Get a helmet.

In changing said class, I did have to pick another. The only one that would actually fit was Modern Irish Cultural Geography. I show up for lecture, and the professor has an overheard (you guys remember those things before we had LCD projectors in every classroom?) transparency of a town here in Ireland. He sits the whole time reading from his book (that he has written, of course) about all of the people who lived on his street as a kid. It is…interesting. However, he doesn’t have tutorial sections, isn’t going to give us a final exam, and our only assignment the whole semester is one paper, so I won’t really complain. I guess he’s comparable to Professor Binns from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

My other professors and classes are all pretty awesome. My European Society and Governance professor is an old guy who really knows his stuff but has a wonderful sense of humor. The first day that he was there (he was out last week) he said to us “Now, as you probably have noted, I am old. Sometimes I will have a senior moment in which I forget where I am and need to ask one of you what I was saying. However, most of the time I will be pretending to have a senior moment so that I can see who is paying attention.” He also said to us that he finds universities comparable to asylums and senior homes, in which the students are the nieces and nephews visiting their crazy relatives, aka the professors, and listening to them ramble. I like this guy.

My Irish Folklore professor speaks VERY quickly and bounces from one thought to the next(I wonder why I have no trouble following her…) but she really knows her stuff and gets the point across quite well.

My music and dance class has a somewhat dry lecture for what it is, but the tutorial is…interesting. I have gone from an instrument with twenty-something tone holes, a thumb rest, octave key, etc to the tin whistle which is comprised of six holes and a mouthpiece. We were sitting in tutorial playing “Happy Birthday” while the cello in the next room was putting out some serious classical piece. Nice!

The best part of last week was the trip I went on with the International Society. We left (early) Saturday morning to go to Co. Clare and Co. Galway. We went to the Cliffs of Moher, which were absolutely BEAUTIFUL cliffs ant drop 700 feet down to the ocean. We also stopped in the Burren, one of Ireland’s six national parks. Basically, it’s a lot of limestone. We stopped on the edge of the coast, so that was nice. The wind blowing, the smell of the salt in the air, the waves crashing; it makes go weak in the knees just thinking about it. Once we were in the Burren, things got interesting. While Ireland does have major highways, they only get you so far. The rest of the roads are the beautiful winding country roads that you see in pictures and movies. This usually wouldn’t bother me, but try going down these rapidly winding roads in a tour bus. Needless to say, once we got to Galway, I found a pharmacy and bought motion sickness pills for the next day. They put me into a somewhat drunken stupor for the day, but who cares. I didn’t feel sick!

In Galway, I went around with Emily, another girl form USC, and Dana, who goes to school in Syracuse. We did a little bit of shopping and then went into a pub where I had my first Bulmers cider. TASTY. After we left the pub we went to another bar where live music was promised. The bar was in an old church with a lot of the wooden architecture and decoration is intact. It was a really cool place but it was so crowded that you couldn’t move. We left around 12 and went to Supermacs for more French fries!

The next day we left the hostel we stayed at (which was very nice and very clean) and went to the Kylemore Abbey in Galway. It was so beautiful that I felt bad taking pictures because I knew I couldn’t get the whole thing and the feeling of the place in a picture. I felt like I would have needed some serious panorama. The pictures I took were great, but they just didn’t capture it.

That’s enough for now-I’ll update again with a few more details in the middle of the week, but right now I’m about to rinse off and then go swimming (indoors, of course!)