Sunday 15 February 2015

Rag Week

(First - yes, I did change the font. Hopefully this one's a bit easier to read and loads properly)

Well, this week started off crazy. This week is what's known as "Rag Week," here in Waterford. It's basically an excuse for Irish students to go get drunk almost every night of the week and then miss class - all for charity. Rag Week is Monday through Thursday, each day a separate ticket that you have to buy if you want to attend. Each day consists of shows and DJs at the pub on campus, which continues through the evening. If you bought the ticket, you then get cheaper admission to a club downtown, also on that specific night.

A bunch of us international students went on Monday. It was quite strange, going out on a Monday night. Who actually does that?! I woke up feeling disoriented Tuesday morning with the realization I had to go to school. And no, I was not hungover hahaha. Interestingly enough, that first class Tuesday morning, I was only one of five people to show up. All my classes had incredibly low attendance this week - like max seven people. I'm getting kind of frustrated with it actually. It's annoying walking all the way to school for one particular class, be the only one who shows up, have the prof hum and ha about what to do for twenty minutes, and finally eventually decide to cancel it. Don't ask me what I think we should do - I'm a student, I'm always going to want to leave early. You're the prof. Ugh.

Thursday night, I went to this theatre production, which was.... interesting. I'm glad I went to it, even for the sole reason that I can now say I've been to the theatre in Ireland. It was a one man show, so for an hour and a half, we listened to this guy who was portraying a woman who was struck by lightning and consequently dealing with being horrifically disfigured. It was quite dark material, but the way it was presented, it was quite humorous too. It was an interesting and unique depiction of themes and morals that we've all been relentlessly exposed to throughout media, creating quite the thought-provoking environment.  The music was really loud and kind of creepy though, and I felt like I was jumping out of my skin every five minutes. Pretty sure my blood pressure was through the roof the entire time.

Also this week, we officially booked all our hostels and figured out our plans for this next week as best we could - recognizing that things never go quite as planned. Already, there's been some deviation - there was originally five of us setting out, and now there is eight. I would again, as I said in an earlier post, like to assume that this is just because me and Julie are so incredibly charismatic, but I think it has more to do with the fact that we planned everything out, and therefore everyone else has minimal work to do. To be honest, I'm a bit apprehensive about all our personalities shoved together for a week straight. I'll probably need some space at some point, but I've tried to mentally prepare for it. Whatever the case, I'm pretty stoked this is actually happening!

Our plans are to leave tomorrow and first, go to Cahir, which is this little town that has a castle, and is supposed to be cute (the town, not the castle haha). After that, we continue onto Cashel, where we'll see the Rock of Cashel! On Tuesday, we trek to Limerick, where there's multiple things to do, and Wednesday, we'll find our way to Galway and have the day to explore there. Thursday will be the Cliffs of Moher, and Friday, the Aran Islands. Saturday brings the long bus ride home! As a note, I will not be bringing my computer with me for the week, so communication might be minimal!

Two Other Random Factoids:

- We booked bus tickets to go to Dublin for St. Patricks Day! I'm so excited! We were originally thinking about going to Cork, but we talked to a bunch of people for different opinions, and were pretty quickly persuaded to go to Dublin!

- I keep thinking I see people from back home here. Obviously, no one else I know is actually here, and sometimes the resemblance isn't even that close hahaha, but it happens all the time. Maybe all of you have random dopplegangers living in Ireland. Or maybe I just miss you all. I guess it's probably the latter ;)


So this is where I live! My apartment is at the very right of this picture. It's a far cry from home, but it keeps me warm. Oh wait... no it doesn't haha. But I won't complain. Pretty much all the other international students live here too, so it's cool that within a few minutes, we can all hang out.




Me and Julie went out for full Irish breakfast! Highlights were the rashers, which they call bacon, but it's really more like ham; grilled tomato; and white pudding - which tastes like sausage with sunflower seeds.
The white pudding was interesting, but overall, it was really good.






This is a picture from last week at Dunmore East. I don't know how I forgot to include it haha. My toes aren't pointed though, and of course I got my balance on the first try .... ! ;)






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