French toast, Vikings, and Getting Fancy

I'm currently knee-deep in exam study, so writing this blog is my study break. Well, I don't know if knee-deep is an accurate description, but yes, some studying has been taking place....

The last three weeks since I have gotten back from Europe have been good, though not as much stuff to write about has happened. There were the last two weeks of classes, and then this last week has been "study week" before exams start. We don't get a study week at home, so I've studied more in advance then usual, and I'm worried I'm going to forget everything before the exams even start haha. I'm curious/anxious to see what they're like. I haven't had to take any exams here yet, so it'll be interesting to see the layout. Apparently, even though classes here are laid back, exams are super intense - you need to identify yourself, sit in a certain seat, and literally leave your cell phone at home. Who knows if it's actually as scary as they make it sound, or if they're just trying to intimidate us. Probably a bit of both.

Aside from school and exams, the fun stuff that I've been par-taking in is mainly just a lot of hanging out and eating food, which you can never go wrong with. I think I might've mentioned this before, but all us international students here agreed at the beginning of the semester to have a night where they would cook traditional food from their country for everyone. Before the break, we ate Mexican and Brazilian food. Since the break, I've gone to American night, French night, German night, and yes, we put on a Canadian night as well.

I know only the name of one thing I've eaten - not including the American food, because really, we eat most of the same stuff haha. Other then that though, everything from all the other nights is unpronounceable - but delicious.



The one thing I know the name of! It's called: kaiserschmarrn. It's a German dessert that is like shredded pancake, but not as sweet.

So basically, what Canadians eat for breakfast is has more sugar then what Germans eat for dessert.....














Apple pie from French night! My roommate Vivien made this actually. He did a good job too, cause it was delicious.

We didn't have French night at our apartment, but they did make a lot of the food here and needless to say, our apartment smelled amazing for a couple of days!






For Canadian night, myself and Julie were kind of stumped on what we were going to do, but eventually decided to do Breakfast for Dinner - so we made French toast, scrambled eggs, sausages, and fruit salad. This mainly stemmed from the fact that my parents brought over this huge jug of maple syrup when they visited, and there was no way just me and Julie were going to make that many pancakes before coming back home. So, we had over 25 people in our tiny apartment, and made over 50 pieces of French toast. It was absolutely crazy, but I'm pretty proud to say that it was a successful night. So successful in fact, that security had to barge in, and tell us to be quiet. That's the second time our apartment has been bombarded by security ..... I'm going to blame that on the fact that we live right next to reception ;)

Canadian night! Julie had brought a huge Canada flag with her, so we finally had a good reason to hang it up in our apartment. And it's still there hehe.

This is the crew that stayed till the wee hours of the morning - no, not to clean up, but to play card games. Man, we're just the coolest.



This week as a study break, me and Julie finally went to Reginald's tower. It's the third museum in Waterford, and the only one we hadn't gone to yet, so we walked down to city centre and made an afternoon of it. The tower only has three small levels, so it didn't take long. It was all history specifically regarding Waterford, which was really neat, seeing as that's where I'm currently living. Of course, I don't remember much.... only that Waterford used to be populated by vikings, and everyone drank wine because they thought water was contaminated.... you know, the cool stuff. I hadn't been to city centre in a while, so I was reminded again how different & pretty Ireland is. I have three weeks left here, and I'm going to try to not take any of it for granted.




Reginald's tower, is literally a tower. And for how big it is, the door is quite small.

The view of Waterford from one of the windows on the third floor of the tower. It was a grey, sort of nice, sort of rainy day.





On the Thursday just passed, there was a black tie event held in City Hall specially for international students, and everyone looked magnificent. It wasn't quite what we all expected - it was just a whole bunch of speeches, and then appetizers were passed around. Nevertheless, it was kind of cool - the mayor and the president of WIT were there, and even though I only understand about 50% of what they said, what I did get was interesting. After that, there was a slew of pre-parties, the party, and then after-parties. It makes it really obvious to see who came to Ireland just to drink haha. Overall, it wasn't the best night I've had here, but it was the last big international event, so it was definitely worth going to.

From left to right:
Eva, who's from Germany; myself and Julie; and Bruna, who's from Brazil.










Looking forward, the next week and a half is exams, and the last week and a half I'll be hopefully heading up to Belfast, and then Killarney & Dingle. Nothing has been booked yet, but as it's been pointed out multiple times to me here: "Stop stressing and it'll all work out." Not exactly my strong suit, but I'm working on it haha.

I know some exciting stuff is happening at home right now, so good luck to everyone who's traveling, opening up new places, or simply celebrating exams being done :)

And a final thought for you all: I've learnt quite a lot about what the Europeans/Brazilians/Mexicans/everyone for who English is a second language, think about English. And the consensus is that it's strange. Their proof to back that up: this picture hahahaha

Europe, Part Two

Hello again :)

This is the second instalment of my Easter Break, which includes the last city we traveled in Europe, meeting my family back in Ireland, and then just some thoughts at the end.....

So, to get straight to it:

PARIS
Ahh, Paris. I'll say right off the bat, the Eiffel tower is cool. And other then that, I didn't like Paris.

Gasp! It feels so weird saying that.... how can someone not like Paris?! It's Paris! The city of lights, love, and crepes!

But while their crepes were delicious, their macarons even moreso, it was just a big city, full of people, super touristy, and old tall buildings without any charm. Even the Eiffel tower, which I admit was stunning - especially lit up at night - is really just a big piece of metal. I do recognize that Paris was the last stop, and by this time, I was exhausted, dehydrated, and severely missing home-made food. However, even with that in mind, I can strongly say that I will be okay never going back to France.

I still had some pretty cool moments though, one of them being: seeing the Eiffel tower for the first time (I think that's a given), and I really loved walking across the Love Lock Bridge. My friends are all cynics and were talking about how at least 70% of all those couples have probably broken up, gotten divorced, etc, and after I punched each of them in the shoulder, I sadly had to give them some credit, because they're probably right. It's such a touristy thing now anyways. Most of the bridge is panelled up now as well to prevent any more locks being put on, since all the added weight has caused damage to the bridge. But it was still pretty cool, and provided some really awesome pictures.

Other big things we did included going to the Louvre, walking through both the Sacre-Coeur, and Notre Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, Moulin Rouge, Champs-Elysées, a couple museums, and Mont Parnasse. Pretty cool stuff.


It was interesting walking through the Louvre, seeing an astounding amount of beautiful art work, and then coming across the Mona Lisa. You can see it's encased in glass, is bordered off so you can't get close to it, and it even had a guard to the side - and obviously no other painting was safeguarded to that extent. Compared to many of the other paintings, I thought it was small and ... well, uninteresting. It's just a painting of a woman. If it wasn't famous, it would just be another painting to glance at and walk past. Yet here we all are, lining up and taking selfies. How easily we are all fascinated with things just because society convinces us they're important.





The view of Paris from Mont Parnasse. We didn't climb to the top of the Eiffel tower since all the tickets were sold out, but we did this instead, which I think is just as cool. We went up 56 (or something like that) stories, and got to see the entire city. We timed it perfectly, and got to see Paris slowly transition from day to night. It was very, very cool.





The Eiffel tower! Our second, and our last, full day in Paris we literally just spent the whole second half of the day looking at and taking pictures hahaha. It was awesome.

Ah, the love lock bridge. How picturesque.

Every hour for five minutes, the tower sparkles. It must waste a ton of electricity, but it's pretty....








DUBLIN
After Paris, I met my parents and brother back in Ireland for the next three days! We met in Waterford, where I showed them my apartment, my school, and my Dad showed me his left side of the road driving skills haha. Since he kept us all alive, I deem it a success! It's a different view from the front of a car, and I was reminded again how narrow the roads are here. Everyone also drives like they're on a mission. Needless to say, I'm okay with not driving here myself hahaha.

We were only in Waterford for half a day, since there's not much to do here. I think the main reason they came was cause it's where I'm living, so thanks guys! After that we headed to Dublin. To be honest, those three days were kind of a blur for me, filled with catching up on sleep, revelling in the chance to not make any decisions, and being incredibly thankful that I was staying in a hotel instead of a hostel.

Nevertheless, from what I remember haha, in Dublin we obviously went to the Guinness Storehouse. We got to see in detail each of the ingredients, how they make it, and how their advertising escalated, among other things. It was neat! Even though I don't really like Guinness, it's such a big part of what Ireland is known for that it was a really cool thing to experience.  We didn't really do much else in Dublin - for being the capital, there's not as much to do as you'd think. We walked around, saw the Dublin Castle (which is undeserving of the title "Castle," if I do say so myself), and I pointed out stuff I'd gone to or seen on St. Patricks Day, which was cool. Dublin overall was extremely crowded and busy, like claustrophobically so. It makes me very glad that I'm residing in a smaller, much less touristy part of Ireland.

We also went on a trip to Wicklow and Kilkenny! I hadn't yet been to the Wicklow Mountains, and it was great. It's been somewhere that I have wanted to go from the start, and though I would've loved to spend more then just an hour or so there, I'm just glad I got to see it. Trees, lakes, and mountains - it was stunning. Probably the closest thing to Canadian landscape that I've seen too, since I otherwise have not seen any mountains. From there, we continued on to Kilkenny, where I have been before, but obviously the rest of my family hadn't, so that was cool. Kilkenny is such a quaint, small city, so I think my parents really enjoyed it. It was a good end to the day.

And that was it! I said goodbye to Samuel and my parents at the airport the next morning, and then headed back to Waterford. It's crazy to think I'll be back at the airport to leave myself in just five weeks. Five weeks! I'm starting to think about coming home more often now, and I have mixed feelings, like I figured would happen. But before then, I still have three more days of school, and exams to get through - blech.


Mom and I on the streets of Dublin. It was ridiculously warm that day actually. I'm not sure how that happened. I think I've forgotten what heat felt like, but it was amazing haha.

We each got a complimentary pint of Guinness at the Storehouse. And I totally drank all of mine, what are you talking about?...... (if my sarcasm wasn't thick enough there, I definitely did not drink the whole thing. In fact, I only got through like 1/5th of it. If that. Twas a sad, sad day).

The Wicklow Mountains. Pictures don't even do it justice; it was amazing.







OTHER NOTES
- I think those two weeks, I literally took every type of transportation imaginable. We went on planes, trains, buses, trams, a boat, the metro, the underground, and we also used our feet a lot haha. I think the only thing we didn't do was bike. Biking was actually something I really wanted to do in Amsterdam, but it didn't work out. So instead, we just looked at bikes, because they were everywhere. Like piled on top of each other, spilling into the street, you're about to get run over by a massive herd of bikes, everywhere.

- Speaking of walking everywhere though, one of the guys has an app that told us how many km's we walked per day. I don't know what we averaged, but in Paris, in one day, we walked close to 20km! We were only a couple km's short of a half marathon distance! We didn't believe it at first hahaha.

- So, now that I've gone backpacking for close to two weeks, here are my views on it, if I'm not to arrogant to think that you'll want to read my views haha.
I think that traveling this way, with the right people, and with a good balance of planning and winging it, was simply freaking amazing. Poetic, right? ;) We had really good experiences with most of our hostels, so I have no complaints there. If nothing else, they remind you to never take for granted having a place to actually call home. Walking as much as possible allowed us to actually see the city - not just wave at it through a window, or just take pictures of tourist attractions. You get the creepy streets, and you get the amazing random views - you get it all. Waking up early, and staying out every night for as long as we could, not only made us feel like we weren't wasting our money haha, but gave us the chance to see and accomplish an incredible amount. Every night I just fell into bed, so tired, but so astounded at the world and what's out there. I felt so small, but in the absolute best way possible.

- On the flip side, I also think that backpacking is romanticized, perhaps too much. There is a difference between the glorification of travel, and what actually happens. The glorification is eating crepes, having full camera's, and feeling full of life. And while all those things are true, there is also the constant headache from the lack of water and proper food, ever accumulating dirty laundry you can't do anything with, and constantly feeling lost and vulnerable, like when you're stuck who knows where in France, with no idea where to catch your train that leaves in 10 minutes. It's not like every second is wondrous. Simply transporting yourself to a different country does not automatically change the way you think. Worries do not disappear, and when you're hangry (yes, hangry), and lost, looking at a map on a random street in a random city is not that fun. Maybe that's all knowledge that just comes with experience, and most of you already know all this, but it was an intriguing concept for me.

- To put it all in perspective, I would without a doubt, do this whole trip over again and change nothing, but it also was shocking how relieved I was when it was over. Twas an interesting enlightenment.

And with that, the European adventure is done! I have about a million more pictures that haven't made it to this blog, so I found one more (the best one, obviously) to end off with hahahaha. Have a good rest of the week everyone :)

They don't know I posted this picture..... shhh.....

Europe, Part One

I'm back! It's weird writing a blog again actually, even though it's only been a few weeks. Forgive me if I sound rusty ;)

So, during our two week Easter break off from school, eleven of those days were spent traveling to five different cities in four different countries. I went with three very cool people: Julie, my roommate; Carlos, who is from Spain; and Bert, who's from the Netherlands. It's weird to think that I've only known these people for three months, but here I went traveling around Europe with them. Yay for circumstances that create really fast friendships! hahaha. We actually accomplished a lot in that week and a half, so I've tried to narrow it down to the interesting stuff - in other words, this will won't be very detailed. Even so, it's still too much for one post, so I'll be writing two. A couple of cities today, a couple later.

So, here we go, with city numero uno:

LONDON
London was huge. It looks exactly like you would think it would look like, with these massive, white, majestical, old buildings surrounding you almost no matter where you go. Telephone boxes were on every street, double decker buses were a constant sight, and the entire city sparkled at night. In fact, we didn't arrive at our hostel until later our first night, so when we finally got out to explore, it was already 8pm. Our first view of London was when everything was lit up, and needless to say, that was probably one of the best moments on the trip.

Mostly, our adventures in London consisted of just walking around, seeing as much as possible. London is as expensive as everyone thinks, so there was no way we could possibly do all the touristy things without going broke in the first three days. We did choose one touristy thing though - the London Eye - and it was exceptionally cool getting to see the city from that high up.

My favourite London experiences were probably that first night, seeing everything in the dark, and our last day, when we went for afternoon tea. (Ugh - that sounds really lame doesn't it? haha). We had just spent a whole day walking, and it was really nice to just sit down in a cafe, drink English Breakfast tea in London, and look out at the city. It was one of those moments where I thought, "Holy shit! I'm in London drinking tea! How cool is this?!" This whole trip was very surreal, so any moment where the gravity of what we were doing or where we were was actually apparent, was very welcome ;)

London at night! The London Eye was the first thing we saw, followed by Big Ben. Obviously, pictures don't do it justice, but nevertheless, it's still pretty cool.








The famous London Bridge. We took far too many pictures, and then slowly meandered our way across it.













The guards in front of Buckingham Palace! We didn't get up close to any of them, but we actually lucked out. Without planning it, we showed up just in time to watch them change!








The Canada gate! This is right close to Buckingham Palace, and at first, none of us had any idea what it was for. Upon closer inspection, each of the columns had Canadian provinces on it, basically stating when each joined the country. It was cool! Obviously, we had to take a picture.

The Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey from the London Eye. It started raining about halfway through our ride, but even so, we still got some pretty cool pictures.







AMSTERDAM
Ironically, out of the four of us, I was really the only one who wanted to go to Amsterdam haha. Bert is from Holland, so it's analogous to me visiting Vancouver, and Carlos and Julie were interested, but not particularly excited. For some reason, I had it in my head that Amsterdam was going to be this quaint little city, beautifully lit up at night (I think I have a thing for cities at night hahaha), and there were going to be tulips everywhere, in front of all the characteristically tall skinny buildings. I think I'm too much of an idealist - though, except for the tulips, which were out of season, all of that was pretty much true.

We went on a canal cruise, walked through a flower market, and ate some strange, probably really unhealthy, Dutch food. Croquette was the first thing, and I didn't particularly like it. It's a fried roll filled with some sort of meat. Secondly, we tried frikandel (no, I still can't correctly pronounce it), which is basically a type of hot dog, with curry, mayonnaise, and onions on it. It sounds disgusting, right? Well, I tried it anyway, and surprisingly enough, very surprisingly, I actually kind of liked it. Who knew?!
We tried to go to the Anne Frank house too, but there was a two and a half hour wait, and at that point, it was windier then it was in Ireland, so with a unanimous vote, we went to a wax museum instead.... what a historical substitution, right?

I guess I should also mention that yes, we did walk through the red light district, and once was enough.
All in all, Amsterdam was beautiful, and I'm glad we chose it as one of our cities to visit.







The canals! And tall, skinny buildings! Oh, behold!










There is no escape from the bikes. No escape.

The I amsterdam sign! Both days we saw it, it was aswarm with tourists - so we took pictures from far away, and went back at night when it was quieter. I don't have any of those pictures yet though haha, so this'll have to do.






BRUSSELS
Brussels is the capital city of Belgium, and I loved it. If I were to go to any of these places again, I would come back here. Perhaps that's because I really love waffles, or perhaps that's because we only got to spend half a day there. Probably both, but whatever the case, Brussels was fantastic. Though, if I ever go back, I might want to learn French. Apparently, studying it for six years throughout school gave me nothing.

We decided to go on a walking tour of the city, which ended up being led by an Irish guy! We talked to him a bit about Waterford and Ireland, after he educated us on the history of Belgium. It's a small world, I guess. We also drank Belgian beer, and ate chocolate, waffles, and fries. Honestly..... I think chocolate is just chocolate. Maybe I didn't try the right stuff? I didn't taste anything particularly different between chocolate from home and Belgian chocolate. The fries were good too, but since I don't really like fries, I can't say much on that front either. Everyone else loved them though, so they must've been good. And the waffles, you ask? Let's just say I will always be disappointed with Belgian waffles at home from now on. They were melt in your mouth, diabetes on a plate, absolute deliciousness. The streets literally smell like chocolate and waffles all the time too. It's great. Unless you're walking through them hungry.

As a city, Brussels had a bit more of a modern twist to it, but since we only had one day here, we spent most of the time in the older, quainter section. (I know I overuse the word quaint, I'm sorry haha).
Favorite moment: obviously eating waffles!


Our hostel in Brussels was super cool. The whole common room was decorated with old ... artifacts, for a lack of a better word. They had planes, bikes, an old typewriter, etc.
Generally speaking, we lucked out with all our hostels. As long as you keep the expectations low, then it will always be better then you thought haha. We didn't spend a lot of time in any of them either, which helped.



One of the main buildings in the main square. One of the things we learned on our walking tour: this building was constructed improperly. If you look at either side of the building, they're actually unequal. The picture may not be the best to see it, but there's a pretty big difference. None of us noticed it at first, but once pointed out, it's literally all you can see. Even more, the door isn't centre in the column. It's significantly off to one side.
Consequently, if you ever want to insult someone Belgian style, you call them a drunken architect ;)

Mmmmmm.











BRUGES
Bruges is the second city in Belgium that we visited. We went here because everyone that we had talked to who had visited Belgium, said that Bruges was actually much nicer then Brussels. Since the two cities are close enough to each other, we decided to go. Weirdly enough though, all of us agreed that we liked Brussels better. This may have been due to the fact that Bruges was a smaller town (though more medieval, which was cool), and after the excitement of three big cities right before, it was kind of underwhelming. Bruges is also known for it's canals, and while impressive on their own, they were nothing compared to the canals of Amsterdam. And while seemingly meaningless, the weather was much nicer in Brussels then Bruges, so that might have had something to do with it as well.

We decided to go on a walking tour here too, and needless to say, it also may have coloured our glasses in an unflattering light. In the first two minutes of the tour, our guide must've sworn at everything and everyone five times. His jokes were incredibly uncomfortable & inappropriate, especially considering the fact that we were basically strangers. It was weird. We all sort of wanted to leave actually, but weren't sure how to execute it without being rude. All in all, just a tip then: if you want to go to Bruges, just explore it on your own hahaha.



Windmills are a big thing here. So we walked for ages (not really, it was like 20 minutes), and got to see some windmills up close.














Canals, medieval buildings, and boats.

















The main square. It was substantially smaller then any of the other cities so far. Still pretty amazing though, especially when you consider that nothing like this exists where we live.








According to the tour guide, this is the most beautiful spot in Bruges. Why, I do not know haha. But here you go.









And, that's it for today! I have most of my next blog written already, so that should appear within another couple of days or so :)

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 :)