Week Three

Okay first, this blog has been loading weird - all the lettering should be blockishly cute (I understand that description is probably completely unhelpful) - it should not look like any sort of calligraphy or italicized at all. If it's coming up like that, I firstly apologize because I have no idea what to do about it, and it's not the greatest font to read - my solution is just refresh the page a couple times and it always eventually sorts itself out.

Back to the fun stuff:

It's been another week in the land of the Irish!

School has been interesting. I've noticed a couple of things that are quite different then back in Canada. One of the most noticeable, is that the Irish seem to be quite confident, opinionated people, even with controversial issues where most of us have a degree of sensitivity with what we say. Well, it seems that the Irish students have none, and while it's interesting, I find it somewhat unnerving.

Highlights from the week:

- My second beer in Ireland was a German beer, and unfortunately, this one actually tasted like beer (the shock!) and though it wasn't horrible, it wasn't great either. My friend Hubert ended up taking the last quarter off my hands haha.

- Tuesday night, I was super excited to go to a karate training session through the university's karate club - I've missed working out (does walking count? ;)) and was stoked to potentially have scheduled workouts, meet people, do something through the university, and even travel and compete! Unfortunately though, the whole thing was really disappointing.  Even though I told the instructor I had done martial arts back home, she insisted on teaching me everything painstakingly slow and making me do the easier version of everything the class did. I get that it was my first class and everything, and I probably shouldn't be too harsh, but I can not justify paying money to go and learn how to punch. If I don't know how to punch by now, something is seriously wrong. I was very disappointed, and it made me miss the atmosphere and everyone at SHD very, very much.

- Also on Tuesday night, there was a last minute decision to go to another pub because they had a jazz night! I was pretty tired at that point, but it was worth it. It was a "jam session," so all the people playing had no sheet music, they were just listening to each other. It felt very authentic, and was very cool to experience.

- I found out scarves here are only 2 euro each! Which is like 3 dollars! I've bought two, but I think I should go back and buy ALL THE SCARVES! *crazy eyes*

- I went to a club on Friday night, as there was a party being put on for international students. Since it's the only one I've been to here, I can't make any generalizations yet, but this one at least was pretty much the same as clubs in Vancouver - in other words, it's fun because of the people you go with, not because of the club itself.

- We went to Tramore on Sunday, and it made for a really, really good day. It was fog-filled in the morning, got brilliantly gorgeous in the afternoon for an hour and a half, and then got really windy. There were only four of us this time, so we ended up with some really good pictures and had a pretty calm day. The beach there is the best part and what Tramore is mostly known for, so we spent most of the day just walking around and climbing over rocks trying to get the best view. It was stunning. I finally saw some of the cliche Ireland views, and it was amazing. If I could live by the water, anywhere, I would.

On a different note, I've thought a lot this week about travel, and change, and life in general (yes Dad, I can see you shaking your head). In particular, I read this quote on pinterest the other day, and it resonated. It read: "Travel not to find yourself, but to remember who you've been all along." I've thought multiple times about my own reasons for wanting to travel, and everyone knows that cliche of traveling to "find yourself," whatever that means. Well, I've decided I liked this quote better.
I think that everyone has multiple sides to themselves: we have the side that comes out at work or school, where we have to be professional and smart, having our best head on our shoulders. We have the crazy side that finds itself on a night out, and its mellow crazy cousin on sleep deprived days, when you're in that state of melancholy bliss. We have sides with our parents, sides with our hobbies, and sides when we find ourselves alone, staring out the window with nothing but our own swirling thoughts to keep us company. Some of these sides are less frequently used then others, but does that make them any less part of who we are? I think that perhaps traveling does not help us find ourselves, because all of our selves are already within us. Rather, we travel to unleash the sides that don't often come out otherwise. To remember who we are at our core, when everything else is stripped away and we have no expectations from ourselves or from others, except simply to be.

ANYWAYS. I've only been here for three weeks, I doubt I'm qualified to make observations on traveling hahahaha.

I'd also like to say thank you again to my Oma & Opa - you know what for, and I appreciate it greatly. Also, thank you to everyone who has commented on any of these blogs or said or liked anything on Facebook - it's wonderful to hear from you all even when I'm all the way out here :)

- All these pictures are from Tramore (and I take credit for none of them haha) (:

Bert, Julie, Me, Carlos

Pictures

Hope you all don't mind, I'm putting the pictures from the weekend in a separate post. I have no idea how to work the layout on here, so it may not look pretty :S - but here they are, nonetheless!

The Streets of Kilkenny

Well hello.

The Castle

A walkway.

The cathedral.

Cool stuff in the background.

GREEN.

Me & Bruna, trying to take pictures :)

The castle from the inside of the grounds.

We're such tourists.

A fountain.

Me again. I swear I'm not vain though.

All the girls! :D

Parties & Kilkenny

Okay, fine, I actually mean party, singular - I haven't progressed to the Irish standard of going out every night yet.....

Julie's (one last time - she's my Canadian roommate!) birthday was last Thursday, and so I threw her a surprise party! We've become quite good friends with a fair number of other international students, and so I talked to them a couple days earlier in the week to hear their thoughts and possibly enlist their help.  Fortunately, they were all stoked, and so from there, we embarked upon our secret mission.
I created a secret Facebook group with them all, spent way too much time on my phone messaging everyone (which I was worried she would find weird, because I'm not typically attached to my phone), and told her I was going running when I actually went shopping for cake & stuff. It was devious, it was awesome, and it worked.

The day of the party, I had school until 5:15, at which I then made plans with Julie to meet right after at Supervalu so we could go grocery shopping. Meanwhile, everyone else was at our apartment, setting up! I was super nervous, not wanting us to finish grocery shopping too early and not leave them enough time to get the apartment ready, but not wanting to be super late either, and have everyone bored waiting for us to arrive. Through the gift of text messaging however, I was able to keep in touch with people at our apartment, and we ended up timing it quite nicely. The only hitch (which wasn't really a hitch, since Julie didn't notice, but I had a minor panic attack) was that you could hear everyone talking in our apartment while we were outside opening the door! Ah well, she figured it out pretty soon anyways after we got inside, since all the lights were off, there were about a million people in our kitchen, and there was a table full of candles lit. She was so surprised!I think she had a really good time, and I'm so stoked that it all worked out so wonderfully! The group of friends we've made here has been amazing, for sure.

Friday, on the other hand, was pretty relaxed - though we did have two minor crises: Julie's adapter exploded, and I burnt my hand.
I maybe somewhat exaggerating Julie's misfortune, but at the same time, not really. She's been using this adapter/converter for the last two weeks with no problems, but then on Friday night, after five minutes of plugging it in, it started smoking and sparking. She pulled it out right away, and of course, we both proceeded to freak out. We called one of our guy friends to come look at it, and then two more guys showed up as well - for all the testosterone that was circulating in our apartment, they had no idea what to do about the adapter other then the sound advice of not to use it hahaha. I ended up lending Julie my adapter, and on Sunday we found a place that sells simple cheap ones, so ta da! One crisis solved.
Also on Friday night (I blame this on the fact that it was 1am), I placed my entire hand on the stove element, which I obviously didn't realize had just been used. Please, nobody freak out, I'm fine. The funny part though, is that we googled home remedies for burns, and came up with milk or cold tea bags, and I didn't really want to soak my hand in milk, so I put two cold tea bags on my hand for the next half hour. I'm not sure if it helped, but when I woke up the next morning, I definitely had a story to tell with my hand not only being red, but having a strong yellow tinge and smelling slightly like tea.......!
(In all seriousness, it's totally fine. I only ended up actually burning a small section of the bottom of my hand. It's already a running joke now, unfortunately.)

On Saturday, WE WENT TO KILKENNY - and it was awesome. It was originally something that just me & Julie had planned, cause we thought it was outrageous that we'd been in Ireland for almost two weeks and hadn't seen a castle yet. We did invite a couple of friends, but I guess Kilkenny is a popular attraction, because there ended up being 21 of us traipsing down to the bus stop, where we consequently took up over half the bus. I would personally like to attribute the growth in numbers though, to mine & Julie's outstanding personalities - I mean, who wouldn't want to spend an entire day with us? But it also might be because everyone loves Canadians - I mean, we're just so modest......

The first thing we did in Kilkenny was obviously go and see Kilkenny Castle - and it definitely lived up to my expectations. We got a guided tour where we learnt a whole bunch of history, of which I can tell you none of, but I can say the whole place was gorgeous, both inside and out. I'll let the pictures do most of the talking on what the place was like. Goodness knows, we all took enough pictures. I did find myself stopping a couple times during the day, just to look around and take it in though. I find myself needing to do that a lot, because even surrounded by obvious facts that make my life so different from back home - such as talking to people with accents, the everlasting cold, and specifically here, looking up at this giant castle - I still have to just breathe and remind myself that I'm in Ireland. I'm beginning to understand that just because you travel to a different place, doesn't mean you have to feel different - if you wanted, you could walk right through everything and not be changed at all. For me, that's quite a scary prospect - I came here to experience different things and to let myself be bewildered and amazed at what I do have the chance to experience. I do not want to live through the lens of a camera and only see through the thin paper of maps.

Anyway, to wrap up Kilkenny, the other stand outs were a cathedral we went and saw (I'm amazed at its immenseness), and the lunch place we went to (exceptionally quaint, historic, delicious, and delightfully Irish!).

The only noteworthy thing from Sunday was that I finally went for a run - and I didn't even get lost ;)

The Waterford Institute of Technology (aka WIT)

So the first week of classes is over, and it's been interesting to say the least. Classes here are very different then UFV, especially the first class of each course. At UFV, if you don't show up to that first class, then you don't get in. At WIT, my first class was me in a completely empty room..... I finally found the room after running around on campus for about an hour, because none of the teachers or important looking people behind desks (the people that you think would know where everything is) knew where anything was. If you know me even a little bit, you know I have no directional sense - so couple that with being in a brand new place, and being told to go in a million different directions, and I was absolutely completely lost. I almost cried tears of joy when I found that first class..... just to go in, and then second guess whether I had written the right class number down because no one else showed up! Long story short, the class had been cancelled, which I hadn't been informed of because I'm not registered in any classes yet.

Anyways, I've decided I'm going to do an exercise medicine class, which is all about athletic injuries and complications due to sport - which I'm super excited for actually, though it'll be a lot of work. My second class will be nutrition, where in our lab class, we'll be analyzing our own diet, which will be cool as well. I think this semester I might end up being somewhat nutrient deficient though ;) My third class is social & health psychology, which I don't know too much about, only because the prof didn't even show up yesterday. Things here are very relaxed, sometimes disturbingly so...! The fourth class is mental health & wellness, which is taught by the same teacher as the psychology class, which isn't really a good thing. She's super sweet, but she's nervous all of the time, and I don't feel challenged intellectually at all, in either of the classes so far. You'd think that'd be a good thing, seeing as I don't want to be crazy bombarded with school here, but it's also really boring. I think I'm going to drop that class, seeing as it is so monotonous, as well as I also don't think it'll transfer over as a course at UFV.

It'll be weird only doing three classes though, and I'm struggling with the idea of it. It's already quite strange being in school and not having it completely occupy my brain - it doesn't seem quite right. I keep trying to remind myself that I'm not here just to study, but I also feel like a bit of a slacker, only doing three classes.

You know what else is weird about school in Ireland? The final exams are worth the ENTIRE MARK. Or at least most of it. Exercise medicine - the final is worth 70%. Nutrition - 70%. Social and health psychology - 100%.

100%!!!!!

Enough about school, I have a funny story for you:
(I think it's funny at least, but don't feel obligated to laugh ;))

I was sitting next to three Irish guys in class, and overheard them talking about asking some girl whether or not she was Spanish. There was a Brazilian girl sitting in the row in front of us, so I thought they were talking about her. There was eventually a break in their conversation, so I pulled myself together and introduced myself. We talked for a few minutes, and then they asked IF I WAS SPANISH. Whaaaat?!?! I've gotten American quite a few times since I've been here, but who knew I looked Spanish too?

Anyway, I've probably missed about a million details, but there you go.

I've decided I like putting pictures in too, so here are four more:

A store in the city centre. The USA is an ever present force I guess, no matter where you go.

The bookstore! It's cocooned between a whole bunch of other stores, so it doesn't look like much from the outside, but it's three stories inside and it's beautiful. Me & Julie, whose idea of fun is also hanging out in a bookstore (yay!) thought it was awesome. Many of you will probably have seen this picture on Facebook already, but I thought I'd post it again for those of you that haven't (Dad).

WIT has a main campus, which looks like a regular university, and is where most of the classes are held. There is a second campus however, that looks like A CASTLE. Neither Julie or I have classes there, but we went and explored, and it was so so cool! :)

Julie & I also went for a walk the other morning up to this clearing, which is pretty close to where we live. It was extremely cold haha, but look at it! Such a nice morning and the grass is so green - twas lovely. Also, doesn't Kilbarry just sound so Irish? (:










P.S - I wrote this Thursday morning, but am only posting it now, so I'm a bit behind & have done some other cool things since then. Basically, be ready for some more pictures and a long post probably on Sunday night (my time) ;)

Things I've Noticed Thus Far....

So, instead of detailing another day's itinerary, I've decided to make a list of things I've noticed or been made aware of within the first couple days here in Ireland! Then there's some pictures at the end. First, the list:

- I should've brought more scarves & sweaters. It's literally always cold here.

- The weather is just as if not more unpredictable then the lower mainland.

- Twist ties and pot rims do not mix, as even my ninja skills can not unlodge the twist tie stuck in the rim of one of our stovetop pots. Yes, it was also my fault in first place :/

- They sell peanut butter here! Not a lot though, and half the jars have written on them: "Peanut butter- the American Way."

- The Irish are very laid back. I'm not adjusted to it yet, and it's occasionally frustrating, especially as I'm currently still trying to figure out my timetable.

- I can already feel my English rapidly degrading from listening to more broken english then I normally would.... it's like if they don't have to use full sentences, neither do I! Even though I know that is completely unreasonable and doesn't make sense at all. I think it's just a Brittany thing ;)

- Roundabouts here are the scariest things ever - I keep forgetting to look the opposite way, since driving is on the other side of the road. I'm pretty sure I've almost died a couple times already.

- Ireland is just all around expensive - I think we're quite lucky as Canadians, though we don't realize it.

- If the Irish accent is strong, and they talk really fast, I actually will not understand at all what they are saying.

- The ring tone (I mean the sound you hear when you dial another phone and are waiting for them to pick up) is different then in Canada. It sounds angry, and I don't like it. I literally shudder every time I call someone.

- When 15 international students go out to a bar, you realize that in a lot of places there won't be a random table big enough for 15 people, and you also get a lot of looks going back and forth looking for this said table.

- It's a sad thing when a Canadian doesn't bring any toques with them, and then has to go out and buy one. Yes, I'm talking about me :(

Okay, I'm going to try add some pictures... not sure how this is going to turn out haha. It might be a mess... bare with me!

So this picture to the right (I hope it ends up on the right) is one of the city centre. It wasn't the nicest day outside, but it also wasn't raining, so all in all, it's a good day haha. Though it's not the greatest picture. I'll get a better one for you guys later.

I know, I know, it's incredibly strange posting a picture of peanut butter. All of you people out there who have an inkling of my craziness however, will probably laugh at this. Julie (my Canadian roommate) was with me and while I tried to explain why I was taking pictures of peanut butter, I'm pretty sure she just chalked it up as another reason to question my sanity. The point of it was because I thought it was hilarious that it says "american style" on it. Anyways.....

This is a picture of me in one of the rooms of the Bishop's Museum!
We went here on Saturday, and while I'm not the biggest fan of history related things, it was still pretty cool. I thought this mirror in particular would go very nice in my room ;) Ignore my expression here though, I'm not to sure what I'm doing with my facial features.

My first beer here! I have no idea about anything related to beer, so I literally just said, "I'll take the one with the red top," and I got this one. It is strawberry flavoured however, which was worrisome, because fruit beer? I don't know, but that sounds pretty gross. However, I was pleasantly surprised, cause I actually quite liked it! Ireland is already changing me hehe

So, that is it, that is all! Tomorrow I start the epic adventure that will be school, and I'm trying not to be anxious about the fact that I really still have no idea what I'm doing. I'll cross my fingers and just go with it, because hey, am I really here for school anyway? ;)

(YES, I know I am. Shush.) 

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend everyone (:

Orientation

So it's past 1am here, and I'm kind of tired.
Today was wonderful though, so I'll tell you about it really quick.

So in our flat, there's myself, my other Canadian friend, and a guy from France. He was here for a semester last year, so he kind of knows the way around Waterford, and was therefore the leader when we went to find the university. Basically, we ended up meeting a whole bunch of really nice other international students on the way, as they had no idea where they were going either. Briefly, those we met were from Spain, Poland, Germany, Hungary, France, the States, Brazil, and the Netherlands. I may be forgetting a country.... anyways, they're all really cool, and we went out to lunch after, and then walked into the city centre, which was amazing as well. Lots of buildings close together and streets that are only for people walking, and it's very colourful. About seven of us all needed new sim cards and a new plan, so we shopped around at a couple places, and all ended up getting the same one, because none of us really knew what we were doing, so we all just did it together. Yay for simply hoping for the best!

I will say it's incredibly interesting getting to learn about different cultures and meeting different people. I love it. Many of them were apologizing for their lack of English, but in my opinion, they're so brave coming to this place and just immersing themselves in a foreign language. I don't know if any of them believed me when I tried to tell them that though haha.

Anyways, that's the bare bones of it, so thanks for scraping through to the end. Or as I've already heard multiple times here,
"Thanks a million!" (you have to say that with an Irish accent though, or it's pointless ;))

And We Arrived

Well, here I am in Ireland. I'm sitting at our kitchen table, with three sweaters on, a thick scarf, my fuzzy socks, and I'm still frozen.... haha. But I'll start from the beginning.

The flight to Seattle was on a propeller plane, which was kind of scary. For someone who doesn't enjoy flying in the first place, the thought of a propeller plane is not super exciting. But it turned out pretty uneventful, and we made it to Seattle just in time for a three hour layover ;) Fast forward through that, and we're on the nine and a half hour flight to London. The night consisted of watching The Book of Life, a lot of episodes of the Big Bang Theory, and many unsuccessful attempts to fall asleep. We landed in London on time, and then went through customs and security again, and made it to our gate with only 10 minutes to spare!
The last flight was again, uneventful, and so finally we landed in Dublin, finishing the 16 and a half hours of traveling. Except - not really, because then we jumped on a bus for another 3 and a half hours, where my friend Julie said she saw some really cool sights between Dublin and Waterford, but this is the point where I finally fell asleep (of course) so I saw nothing except the inside of my eyelids. From there, we found a cab, and finally made it to Riverwalk (the apartments) at 8pm (Irish time). We got our keys, felt very isolated without internet and consequently quite sad, and pretty much crashed.

Today has been better. We haven't done a whole lot, but at least we were in one place! I felt like we officially entered the world of adulthood (or at least part of it), when we went grocery shopping and had to buy things like dish soap and toilet paper, and try think of things for dinner hahaha. Other then that though, all we've done is unpack and try and get enlightened about heating and water here. The water is heated overnight, and we have that supply during the following day. We haven't had a chance to test that yet though, so it's only been cold water so far. Ireland has just this month also tacked on a 10 euro water charge per month. Not for hot water, just running water. Awesome, eh? The heating is also really expensive here, so we're not heating the place a whole ton, just during the night for a couple hours. I guess we'll figure out more as the time comes, one way or another. I hope so ;)

Tomorrow is orientation, when I'll see the university and can hopefully figure out my classes. I'm crossing my fingers it all goes well.

Until then, it's now 11 pm here, so I'm going to read for a bit (on the kobo, which I'm actually loving, thanks Mom!) and go to sleep, so goodnight :)

P.S - For Dad: one of the movies on the plane to London was This is Where I Leave You .... haha I didn't watch it cause I didn't wanta cry :P

Hello There

Hi friends, (as I assume I will probably know most of you who read this), welcome to my blog! I won't be posting here all the time, but hopefully enough that you can all stay updated and know that I'm still alive.

Just in case you've stumbled upon this page randomly - hello to you too. My name is Brittany, and I'll be going to Waterford, Ireland, for five months as a student studying abroad. Kind of a little bit crazy, no?

I was talking to some friends from high school the other day, and we thought it was kind of ironic that out of all of us, I was the one doing this - and by doing this, I mean going to live somewhere else for almost half a year. I think to some degree, all of us have a sense of wanderlust - perhaps it's like a scale and we all land somewhere between being a complete homebody at one end and having an unquenchable restless nature at the other. I haven't traveled enough to really know where I fall on that scale, but obviously I have enough of a desire to see the world that I willingly am changing my life for the next five months. It definitely scares me, but weirdly enough, I'm also glad that it does. Change is uncomfortable, but I know that great things can also come out of it.

Anyways, I'm all packed (finally!), though I'm slightly worried about weight limits haha. I already took some stuff out, but I think I might take out some more, just to be safe! Other then that, my last night is going to be pretty chill. Though I probably won't be able to get much sleep....