It seems like it was just a blink ago that I was last writing but as I am looking at the calendar and its been 2 weeks. Last week was pretty eventful I'd say..
Oct 16-18th:
Friday- Steph had her first date out with an Irish boy. It was very exciting, we spent the day shopping for something for her to wear. I think shopping for dates is the most exciting thing. Ever since I was in middle school, I always managed to buy a new shirt for a first date. I guess I feel like the first date has the potential to be the beginning of something great, and therefore you deserve to start it off with a new shirt. Plus even if the date sucks, atleast you got a free meal and a new shirt you look hot in. Tom and I ended up going out for dinner at Eddie Rockets(whatever the first name is) and it was amazing. I have a weakness for onion rings and milkshakes. This was also the night that I introduced to Jameson Whiskey. Which I was delighted to find out that unlike Jack, Jameson makes me want to do nothing but dance. So I decided that from now on Jameson will be my drink of choice. Saturday (17th) we decided that we would make our way down to the Oktoberfest in Dublin. By the time we made out way down, the queue was too long and we could no longer get in for free.. soo we stood in line for a little bit while some people had a beer and I ate a german pretzel and then went on our merry way to Doyles. The highlight from Sunday was buying the New Moon soundtrack.. its freaking amazing. enough said.
Oct 19-22:
Monday, I woke up for my class and brought with me a cup of coffee. That was probably one of the most inspirational cups of coffee ever, or maybe it was the lecture. My Sociology of Education is really a hit or miss class. Mostly a miss, it is long and painly dull and dry. But when it sparks my attention, its pretty good. We started talking about families and education and how the family influences a childs education. Closests I've come to material on my major which was refleshing. As soon as I got back to my room, I began writing emails to profs back in the states about programs, internships and my spring classes. Also I got all my course evaluations out soo I no longer have to worry about that. Go Me!!
Wednesday, was a pretty upsetting day. My computer broke. I think it was a virus, but all I know is the screen turned funny colors and I could no longer get on the internet and the machine kept making this beeping sound. When the reality that I could no longer connect to the internet, hit me. My poor little heart just couldn't take it and I found myself feeling like I could not be any farther away from home. Up to that point, the distance didn't seem to be that far, since my family and friends were just an IM and phone call away. But when the idea that there was no way for me to IM them whenever I wanted or needed to, I just broke down. I was proud of myself that up til that point I had only made 1 phone call home crying. But when your feeling alone in a very large large world, what is the only thing to do? call your mommy. Sooo I did. She calmed me down but I was still left with this problem of trying to fix a problem that had I been home wouldn't have been such a large issue but because I am in a foreign country and I have an American computer it doesn't make the task of fixing the problem as easy as sitting on the phone with dell( on a toll free call might I add) or just calling your parents computer tech who knows you on a first name basis bc he is over soo frequently.
Thursday, I woke up bright and early and walked me and my poor pathetic excuse of a computer to the IT building. I tried to use my "im a clueless girl, please help me" routine, but apparently i wasn't his type or my computer problem was even too big for this guy. Soo I took to calling Dell. After about 3 hours of talking to people and explaining my problem adn why I am in Ireland and how I know its an American computer that doesn't have a code in the Irish system and $200 later.. They decided the best course of action was to erase my entire computer. My 2500 songs on itunes..gone. All my college documents and photos are in limbo on a flashdrive. It wasn't until I tried to put my documents back on my computer that I realized I no longer had Word. Which is still a problem I am trying to deal with. At the end of the day, its been decided that its time for a new computer when I come home from Ireland.
After all my problems with my computer, Sean (A guy from Philly, who I met through Annabelle on her bday) and I walked to Tesco and he made me dinner. We had chicken breasts with motzeralla, tomato,and basil and I made my Mom's garlic spinach. It was very yummy. After dinner, I had a drink with some girls from Irish class and we later on meet up with Sean and his roommate in the city.
Friday was the beginning of Bank Holiday!! This past weekend since everyone (those who didn't procastinate, like me and steph) went out of the country on holiday. When Steph and I got around to finding places to go the prices were jack up soo much, so we decided we were going to have our own Ireland Tour. Since we have soo many trips booked in Nov and Dec, we didn't really have any time to travel in Ireland.. soo we decided 3 citys and 3 days was the best course of action. Yes, I know what your thinking.. thats crazy. But we thought it was manageable.. So we began our adventure Friday starting out in Cork. While DeeDee had already told me "Meg, Cork is boring, there isn't anything do"- Kissing the Blarney Stone was enough of a pull for us.
Cork 10/23-10/24
We started out a bit late. At the last minute I realized that I had to pass in a paper for a friend and because my computer was broken I had to stop in at the library and send it. So we ended up missing the 3:00 bus and had to walk down a little further to the bus station off of O'connell. We ended up seeing the results of a fight that happend a few minutes before we walked by.. needless to say there was tons of blood. It was rather disturbing.We got to the bus station with about 45 minute wait soo we were about to buy some snacks and stuff. When we finally boarded the bus, I remember saying to Steph that I hoped we got seats together. Well, that was wishful thinking bc when we finally got on the bus all of the seats had been taken and we couldnt even take the express bus. We ended up getting on another bus, that to be honest we werent even sure was going to Cork. The bus guy said it did, but when we were like 3 hrou into trip the driver got pretty annoyed when we raised our hands for Cork and we had to pull over and changed busses. We made it to Cork around 9:30 or so and since it was dark, I decided that walking around an unknown city with luggage wasn't the best idea so I voted for a taxi. We got a weird taxi driver. He must have been right off the boat because he had no idea where he was going. (in the light of day.. we ended up being very close) And then he decided to drop us off in front of some pretty sketchy people and charged us like 3 euro extra because he had to turn his car around in a tight alley way. Kinda crappy but what can you do.
the hostel was nice. they gave us a free breakfast of toast and coffee or tea. the front desk guy was clearly not a people person because everytime we asked him about how to do something ie. get to blarney, he would barely give us an answer. we were starving by the time we got into cork. So we walked into their city centre and found a burger king. I ended up eating 2 meals I was soo hungry. After dinner we voted that it was better for us to go to sleep early and not drink and wake up early to start the day off right because we had to leave for galway around 4 that afternoon. So we were asleep by 11 or so.. with the alarm set for 7:30. Saturday morning I woke up with another sore throat and popped my million things of immunity stuff that my mother packed me with. Cork didn't seem to be a lively as Dublin at 8:30 on a Saturday morning. We walked around the city for awhile, checked the bus times, and got some coffee. We had about 2 hours to kill.. so we decided to walk around Cork and take touristy type pictures. It was a great success because I managed to get some great pictures and I found a halloween costume. It seems that Ireland doesn't have a Party City type place like we do in the states. You only find costume in small sections of the most random stores. I decided to go all out and become Tinkerbell.
We took the 10:30 bus to Blarney Castle and it was amazing. I decided that I want to live in a castle. It just seems like it would be the coolest place to live. I told Steph the story of when a lady asked me what my name was and my 4 year old self said "I am the baby Princess." Clearly, I am supposed to live in a castle. Haha. As I made my way through the castle and up to the blarney stone.. I kept saying to myself "No wonder DeeDee didn't like this" the steps werent really for the faint of heart and the space was limited. We managed to climb our way to the blarney stone and when it came time for me to kiss it, Steph didn't get the shot. She got me getting up after. This is why I am the camera person in the duo. I am a born Mom who takes all those embarrassing pictures. But I figure, one day we will want those pictures, even if they arent appreciated now. I also went up backwards on the kissing steps. If you walk up the stairs backwards and only think about your wish then it will come true, or so they say. I happen to be a suck for wishes. I will pretty much do anything for a wish the come to true. And No, I'm not telling you what I wished for. We walked around the grounds and managed to be just in time for the bus to take us back to town. We had to pay double the price to get home, which wasnt advertised. We paid 3.50 to get there and had to pay 7 to get back. Steph made me laugh when she was like "Well thats ridiculous, but I guess we have to get home" I suppose you had to be there. It still makes me chuckle. Anyways, we grabbed lunch in Cork's city center and I bought my halloween costume (even got a student discount, goo me!!) I decided to be Tinkerbell. We boarded the bus at 3:30 for Galway. It was around this time that I realized my camera was dying and I forgot my charger. I'm totally going to blame Sean for distracting me Friday morning. We rolled into Galway around 8:30..
Galway 10/24-10/25
So I'm going to just start off by saying I'm not going to hold my experiences against Galway but I'm not a fan. We managed to find our way to the hostel relatively painlessly. And we ate dinner at Dominos which wasn't bad. We went to sleep around 12. We decided since we didn't have a lot of time and we were packing a lot in that we weren't going to drink. Not to mention that we had no money to spend on drinks. Soo we were both sleeping soundly until around 2am, I started having this weird dream. People were like having a screaming match in a hallway. And I remember in my dream being like "wow, this is pretty real" and then I woke up and found that it was real. Outside my room, these drunken Irish guys were screaming and banging things. This continued until about 4am when the guys who were sharing the hostel room with me and Steph decided to go out and tell them to shut up. Im not really sure how they thought them telling them to be quiet was going to help since multiple people had already told them. So things got more heated and needless to say there was broken glass against my door in the morning. It was definitely one of those scary moments in life where your like "hmm.. this prolly the most danger I've been in with no escape" I also managed to notice the size of the 4 guys sleeping feet away from me and Steph. So as you can imagine I didn't sleep for the rest of the night. I got out of bed at what I thought was 7 but later while Steph and I were walking about the city in the dark, we realized that it was day light savings and cellphones here don't change the time on their own. I also couldn't bring myself to take a shower there, I forgot my flip flops, and there was mud and bugs in the shower stall. I just couldn't do it. I know there are tons of bugs and germs in showers to begin with, but if I can see them then I can't do it.
After figuring out the bus to the Cliffs of Moher.. (which we later found out we messed up).. we went back to the hostel to check our email and have some tea and coffee. We thought we found a bus that left at 8:40. Apparently, that only runs in the summer. So we had to wait around till 10:40. I should also mention at this point we had decided to cut the trip short and not go to Belfast. I had received an email from my doc who informed me, a week and a half after the fact that I had strep throat and needed to start medicine. With my Mother's lecture about going without med for strep throat running thru my head, and the fact that we couldn't find a bus that easily went from Galway to Belfast.. we decided to go back to Dublin for a night and then just do a day trip to Belfast on Monday. We also managed to get our money back on the hostel because the night was awful. Anyways, we went out for breakfast and wondered the empty city and bought a disposable camera. It was also raining all morning. There is nothing worse then me being cold, wet, tired, and unshowered. Why Steph didn't shoot me, I'm not quite sure. We boarded the bus around 10:30 and fell right to sleep. When I woke up, I looked over at Steph who had cheeks the color of tomatos and said "Do you thinks a little warm in here?" Man, that was the hottest bus ride ever. I asked the bus driver to turn off the heat because everyone was melting but I was told there was nothing we could do about. We took an amazing bus trip through the Irish countryside. I decided on of the best ways to see Ireland is truly by bus or car. I felt like I should be paying extra getting to see that much of Ireland. The Cliffs of Moher was everything I hoped and more. For about an hour all the bullshit it took to get there didn't really matter. First time in my life, I was literally knocked over the wind. But it was amazing. The gray sky cleared and opened right up to a blue sky for us. and as soon as we got back on the bus.. it down poured. I also managed to take my very last picture on my camera b4 it died right b4 I got on the bus. Sometimes prayers are answered.
The bus ride home was awful. We were once again stuck on the overheated bus, except this time we had a full bus. So it was 10 times hotter. Also, generally speaking I don't really get grossed out by coughing or sick people being around me. But there was a women on this bus who made me cover my mouth while she was on the bus. I can honestly say I never want to look, smell, sound or be her. She has sections of her head open with wounds, She had leathery skin and this cough that made me want to throw up. It was prolly the most miserable hour I have ever spent on a bus. And we were like 2 seats away from her. Ugh. When we finally got off the bus..we got a snack and went to get our bags and hopped back on the bus for Dublin. It was a nice bus ride, only about 3 hours. I was soo happy to get home back to my bed. I never thought I would miss my bedroom here in Dublin. But oh did it feel good to sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower.
We never made it to Belfast. We were both exhausted then the idea of getting up at 7am to go to Belfast was just a little bit too much for us. Plus Steph had a paper due. Soo I spent bank holiday, in bed, with the exception of walking with Sean to Eddie Rockets. Best meal ever. It was a good day. I like traveling and seeing Ireland, but I love doing nothing.
More to come..
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