St. Patrick's Day

ST. PATRICK'S DAY WAS LAST WEEK!

On Tuesday, we jumped on a bus and arrived in Dublin close to 11. We all know our priorities, so obviously, the first thing we did was get food. After, we tried to find a spot to watch the parade, which started at 12. We had 40 minutes to find a spot, but literally every street was packed. Completely packed. I was slightly claustrophobic, there were so many people. We couldn't make it to the front, so we hung out at the back, watching only the heads of people in the parade and the floats that were big enough that we could see them above the crowd. And what we did see, was strange. I'm not sure how any of the floats had anything to do with Ireland or St. Patrick's Day. It seemed to have a weather or an insect theme... there was a giant sun with creepy hands sticking out, a bee, a fox, a couple clouds, an owl.... I don't get it. But like I said before, Ireland sometimes just doesn't seem to make sense haha!

After the parade, we wondered around and looked at Trinity College, a couple cathedrals, and the Dublin Castle. It's definitely a huge bonus that everything is within walking distance. We then found a cafe, hung out there, met up with more people, and then headed to a pub. I finally ordered my very own Guinness! Before you get excited, it was only a half pint. I'm such a wuss hahahahaha. I actually thought it would be cool to have green beer, but that was only Heineken, and that wasn't going to happen. We chilled there for almost three hours (feeling like such locals, since I'm pretty sure that's what they all do - hide in pubs to get away from all us foreigners), and then after that, went to find somewhere to get dinner. At this point it was 7pm, and we got directions to this other Irish pub that was right in city centre. Getting there however, proved to be an adventure - the streets at this point were absolutely disgusting - they were completely littered with cans and bottles. City centre was still packed with drunk people too, so it took 20 minutes just to force ourselves through the masses! Anyways, when we finally we got there, we were told it was full, so we ended up at a much less crowded Italian place. After that, we went to the Porter House (another pub haha), and stayed there until midnight, at which we then meandered our way back to the buses, to finally leave Dublin at 1am.

Overall, I thought it was a really good day. It was so cool to just revel in the fact that I was in Dublin on St. Patrick's Day!! It was just as crazy as I expected it to be, and definitely one for the books. Dublin as a city was quite different from any of the other cities I've experienced here so far as well. It seems every city has a different sort of vibe, which I like a lot.

I also had my birthday on Thursday, which was both strange not to be at home for, but also very cool to celebrate in a different country!! I especially have my friends here to thank for making it such an awesome day. I came home from school, and found out Julie had decorated my door, bought a cake, and even got me this adorable necklace, since my other one broke and I've been too cheap to buy myself a replacement hahaha. I lucked out with a really great roommate :) Later that night, a group of us went out for dinner, which we have not actually done yet here in Waterford, so that was pretty cool, and then came back to the apartment for cake, and just to hang out. So nothing super crazy, and maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely mine. I'm gonna miss all these people so much, but I won't think about that yet.

Two other noteworthy things from this week:
- We had a Brazilian night where all the Brazilians made authentic food for us. It was different, but so good!
- This week has been kind of ..... WARM. I'm not consistently wrapped up in sweaters and scarves! It's so exciting!

This coming Saturday, the next huge adventure begins. We leave to go to London, Amsterdam, Belgium, and Paris. It's crazy to think that in a week, I'll be living out of a backpack, in a different country. Though it may not be true, I always associate those types of travellers as bold, daring, and audaciously carefree. And I don't typically think of myself as any of those. Yet here I am, about to do it anyway. It's exciting, it's scary, and it's shifting my perspective on a couple things.

I'll be back from that trip on April 7th, at which I will then meet my parents and brother who are visiting (yay!), and we'll all be in Dublin until the 11th. They will then fly back home, and I'll come back to Waterford. I won't have another blog post until probably mid-April, and while I don't post much on fb, other people do, so through them, I'm sure you'll all be able to see I'm still alive haha. Hope the rest of March treats you all well :)

The temple bar in Dublin! The iconic place to be. We weren't cool enough to get in though... hahaha

The exceptionally crowded streets of Dublin. I'm the one in the green ;)

Like I said, anything goes in Ireland. I have no idea why there was a duck in this parade. No idea.

I think there were only 8 or 9 candles on the cake at this point, but we eventually crammed all 21 candles on there haha!








~ And, because I spent so much time on pinterest today instead of doing homework, here's a pinterest quote to end my blog today:

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware; joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware."

Wexford Woe

Last week, I felt like I had nothing to talk about haha, but this week, I do!

Tuesday night, 18 of us went to a pub called Phil Grimes for their jazz night, and surprise - they actually had room for us all! That's cause we were smart, and got their early. But are you ready? It started at 9, and we got there at 9:30, which yes, is early, because 9pm in Irish Time is actually 10:30..... believe it. This is the same place that we went to about a month ago, so it wasn't anything new or different, but it was still pretty awesome. It was one of those times where I just felt content with life, actually. I was drinking beer that I happened to not hate, listening to live jazz music, and having some pretty cool conversations. It was a good reminder that life isn't just a frenzied, chaotic mess, that half the time we're just trying to sludge through, but can be a rather wonderful thing.

On Wednesday, I met one of my best friends from Canada at the Waterford bus station!! She's currently studying abroad in Scotland this semester, and before we both left, we had talked about the possibility of her coming over for St. Patricks day and my birthday, which is this week Tuesday and Thursday, respectively. It's cheaper for her to fly back Wednesday morning though, so that's what she's doing. Nevertheless, it's one of the best presents ever, and I'm pretty stoked that she's here. She met all of us, tried and failed to remember all our names (totally okay, seeing as she was introduced to probably 20 people), and came along on all the weekend's adventures.

Of which included going to Wexford (a city about an hour bus ride away) .... which proved to be quite interesting. We've actually had really good luck with all our trips so far, so we were bound to have some trouble eventually, and it happened on Saturday. We took a small bus to get from Wexford city center to Johnstown Castle, telling the bus driver where we wanted to go. Instead of getting dropped off at a castle however, we got dropped off at the side of the highway, next to a massive closed gate, and a whole bunch of cows. We stood there for five minutes griping about the bus driver - because why would he drop off us here when he knew where we wanted to go, we obviously were not from here, and it was obvious we were in the wrong spot. We literally had no idea where we were haha. Long story short, after calling the reception at the Castle, we ended having to walk another 25 minutes to the castle, during which one of our friends tripped and twisted his already sprained ankle. It worried all of us, but he pulled through. All in all though, if you fast forward through the unfortunate bus situation and ankle injuries, the castle and the grounds were beautiful, and it made for a pretty cool day. Absolutely freezing cold, but at least it didn't rain!

Sunday,  I figured my visiting friend needed to experience traditional Irish breakfast, so we did that,  and then we went to Tramore. Julie and I had been there already, but it's a beach, and I will never tire of beaches.

Anyways, now it's Monday morning, and I should probably stop writing this and go to school haha. Have a wonderful week everyone :)

~ Also, here's a very, very, random fact of the day: It's not illegal to hitchhike in Hungary. So, if any of you feel the need to jump in some stranger's car and not go to jail for it, buy a ticket to Hungary. You're welcome.

~ For Samuel: Listen to Mumford & Sons new song, Believe, if you haven't already. You'll like it.

~ For Oma: Yes, I finally did wear my hair down the other day. And then had three people come up to me and say I looked like a different person. Go figure.

Some of these pictures aren't the best quality (old phone camera's aren't always the best haha), but here you go.

Pub with live music! In this picture, we're representing Canada with three Canadians, two Americans, and one Brazilian (:















Tramore, on a Sunday afternoon.

So this was the gate that we were dropped off at in Wexford. I took a picture, because hey, for all we knew, that might have been the only thing we were to see in the city the whole day. Thankfully that was not the case haha.

Johnstown Castle, Wexford, Ireland :)

Life is life

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to find funny and interesting things that happen during the week, because well, I'm not really doing funny and interesting things hahaha. The first while of being here, everything is new and worth talking about, but now, life is life, and I doubt you really care about how many times a week I go grocery shopping... though, if you do, it's like every third day, because when you go three times a week, it seems cheaper then if you do it all at once, no? ;)

Anyways, exciting things that actually did happen this week include:

- We booked flights, trains, and hostels for our eleven day trip through Europe! AHHHHHH!!! We will be in London for three days, Amsterdam for two, Belgium for two, and Paris for three. There's been a lot - I repeat, a lot - of thought and planning over the last two months for this, and we spent a couple nights this last week finally booking it all. I'm so incredibly excited (and sad, because I can hear my bank account in Canada sobbing from all the way over here haha). But mostly, just really, really excited.

- Sometimes it seems that there are more Brazilian people in Ireland, then Irish people (at least in Riverwalk, which you'll recall is my place of accommodation). Hence, on Wednesday, there was Brazilian Day at my school. There was stuff during the day, and then that night, there was a Carnival (read: party). I love all my Brazilian friends, but they can be kind of crazy, so it made for an entertaining night. Again, also with the going out on a weekday - strange.

- Friday, we went to a football game. Which is actually a soccer game haha. We bundled ourselves up so much that we all looked like the Michelin Man, and then walked to the stadium to watch the Waterford soccer team play against the team from Athlone. After finally figuring out which team we were rooting for, it was a pretty fun night. Waterford scored in the last thirty seconds of overtime, which was awesome - the whole stadium went crazy. I also realized that night that kids under the age of ten swear here more then I do..... which was slightly disturbing haha.

- This weekend, we changed it up, and didn't do anything particularly exciting. We're finding out we've exhausted most of our travel options by bus now, so to get anywhere else cool we would need to rent a car. That'll happen one day I guess, but that day was not this weekend.

Random Pictures, from no week in particular, or of any great importance:



We went to this sweet shop (that's literally what it was called), in Galway, and found chocolate frogs! I thought it was pretty cool.

This is a much better limerick then the one we wrote. We found this in Limerick in the middle of the city, and I loved it so much I took a picture.

I said last week, I found it awkward to watch all the people working at Waterford Crystal, but I pushed past it and took a picture of them anyway. I believe this was the engraving stage of the process.

Look closely, for this is a rare of picture of...... a sunny day in Waterford! hahaha. This is part of the university. Most of my classes are in that red building. Which is ironic, seeing as the health science building is actually on the opposite side of the campus, and the red building is actually the tourism building. Ireland just doesn't make sense sometimes.



& that's it, my friends. Till next week :)

List Love

Hi everyone,
Sorry I didn't get around to posting pictures earlier - I'll put some in at the end of this post!

In the meantime, because it's now the middle of the week, it makes it a little bit odd to detail the previous week, so instead, here's the one cool thing I did on the weekend:

- We went to Waterford Crystal! It's the one thing that Waterford is actually known for. I didn't even know about it though, until my Mom informed me a couple weeks before I came here, so there's an indication about how big Waterford is haha. It was pretty neat though - we paid to go on a tour of the factory, where we got to walk through and watch each step of the process as to how they make the trophies, wine glasses, etc. I thought it was a bit awkward to be watching all these people at work, but it was also pretty cool. We took a wander through the gift shop after, to check it all out and see if could we afford anything, anything at all. The answer was a resounding no.

To lengthen this post now, I've decided after two months, I am now qualified to make some lists.

 First List : Things I miss about home (not including people, because that's obvious):

1. Tim Hortons
 - Tim Hortons withdrawal is a very real thing.

2. Not having to use so much brain power just to understand what people are trying to say to me.

3. Knowing which side of the sidewalk to walk on.
 - You would think because they drive on the left side, people walk on the left side. However this is not the case. I've tried both sides, and either way, I still end up playing mind games with people coming the opposite way. The first month, I thought everyone was probably thinking I was crazy, switching from side to side, but really, there is no method to this madness.

4. Punching bags
- I'm not an agressive person, I swear, but there is something therapeutic about hitting them.

5. Automatically having hot water to do the dishes, rather then having to boil the kettle and use that water haha.

6. UFV
- Just to clarify, I do not miss all the studying, but needless to say, I am quite disappointed with school here. Neither the profs nor the students seem to care much about classes, though I am in only three, so I won't generalize that to the entire school.

7. THE WEATHER. WHY IS IT SO NICE BACK HOME?!
- I think my cheeks are permanently tear-stained from crying constantly from the wind.


Second List : Things I already know I'll miss about Ireland:

1. Walking everywhere.
- At home, the car beats walking almost every time. Here, there's no option of a car haha, and I've come quite accustomed to walking.

2. Cute cafe's
- Every third shop is some sort of cafe, and I love it.

3. Everyone I've met here.

4. How cheap it is to fly to other parts of Europe. Canada is crazy expensive.

5. The minimal amount of school work.

6. Being able to take a bus for five hours, and arriving on the other side of the country.
- Everything is so close, which makes traveling much easier.

7. The landscape
- I miss mountains, but Ireland is also stunning in it's own right.


Third List : Random interesting things I've learned:

1. Brittany is not a common name here. I've asked a couple Irish students whether they know any other Brittany's, and they don't. Also, for my friends from Spain and Poland, Brittany was hard to pronounce at first. Who knew?

2. People can surprise you, when you really give them the chance.

3. It's not just 'hockey' over here - it's always 'ice hockey.'

4. School as a system in Ireland is quite different compared to Canada. I've learnt about how school is structured in Germany and the Netherlands as well, and it seems every country has their own very, very unique way of implementing education. For example, the Netherlands have five different types of high school - so you may be in high school for five years, you may be in it for eight. I guess that explains why degrees in one country aren't accepted in other countries.

5. Writing a limerick is hard.

6. Being Canadian is simply straight up awesome.

And with that, let's move on to some colour:

This is what we saw when we were rebelliously climbing around the outside of the Rock of Cashel. Like I said before, I don't think we were supposed to (seeing as there was a 'no climbing' sign haha....) but it was pretty spectacular to see.

The view from the top of King John's Castle in Limerick, overlooking the city and the River Shannon.

      Me and Julie at the Cliffs at Moher.









Also Julie and I, this time at the Cliffs on the Aran Islands. I kind of love this picture a little bit.






Everyone from the trip! The girl second from the end on the right was an addition that day to our group. She was a very nice Canadian who we met on the bus, so we invited her to come along :)