Rosenheim, Germany and Salzburg Austria

Mountains by Bernadette's house

I guess I should start with how I met Bernadette. For the past year and a half, I've lived in a special international housing complex that had about half American and half international students. Last year, Bernadette lived down the hall from me. When I found out that I was studying abroad, she kindly offered for me to come and stay with her and her family if I got the chance to. Well, long story short, I got the chance : )

I left pretty early in the morning in order to get to the Munich train station at a reasonable time. One flight, one bus ride, and a train ride, and I was finally meeting up with Bernadette!! It was amazing to get to see her again for sure. I was staying with Bernadette and her family for the weekend, and they turned out to be amazingly lovely people! Her Mother was extremely nice and did her very best with speaking English, which she did quite well I might add :) My only wish was that I could speak German so I could have communicated better with both Bernadette's mother and father. Also I totally fell in love with Bernadette's cat! After being away from my own cats for so long, it was amazing to get to pet and hold Moritz! (Bernadette, let me know if I spelled his name wrong! haha)

Bernadette and her wonderful Mother : )

While I was with Bernadette, herself, her Mother, and I went to King Ludwig’s Herrenchiemsee Castle which is located on one of twin islands. We visited both islands and the castle, all of which were very beautiful! Even though the castle was unfinished, it was still much more impressive than anything you could find in America. On the last full day that I spent with Bernadette, we made the 45 minute trip to Salzburg to visit a friend from University of Dayton, Kat,  who just happened to be studying abroad there. Bernadette and I met up with Kat and her friend and the proceeded to show us around the city. Salzburg, and Germany for that matter, is a beautiful place.

Fountain at King Ludwig II's unfinished castle

While we were in Salzburg, the four of us (Bernadette, Kat and her friend, and myself) hiked our way up to the Salzburg Fortress, which apparently has never been overtaken, which I found very impressive. The view was amazing and made the hike up totally worth it! Kat gave us a tour around the city before having to get back to her school work, leaving Bernadette and I to wander around a bit more. The two of us found an absolutely wonderful gelato shop! Like possibly the best I'd ever had! Totally wish we had one of those in Cincinnati! After some ice cream, we saw that it was getting dark, and heading back to the train station to head back to Bernadette's house : )

Visiting with Kat in Salzburg!

I must say that Germany left a wonderful impression on me. It was much more green and beautiful that I had been expecting! Everyone was so nice there, one guy actually stopped me from stepping on some live wires. It was definitely a close call! haha Anyway, I'm sure I've missed a lot considering I'm typing this months later, so if I remember anything after I post this, I'll be sure to come and add it!

I PROMISE I'm working on the last of the updates from Europe....

....But I wanted to get this off my chest first. Feel free to skip if you so choose. Considering it's 5am, it may get a bit rambly. Just a warning : )

I decided a long time ago that I wanted to travel and see the world. I can't remember a time when I didn't want to come to Ireland, or see London, Scotland,  the Dachau concentration camp, Paris, have actual Italian food in Rome, you get the gist. Maybe I got my Grandmother's wander lust, maybe I'm just too curious for my own good. Point being, I've had the once in a lifetime opportunity to see things that other people are forced to see only through Google Images. Yes, I was forced to leave my friends and family, my comfort zone, my life, to do it, but I did it and I am a better person for it. I've learned so much about myself here and learned to accept that there are somethings about me that I just can't change no matter how hard I try.

The last few years have not been easy for me. An up and down rollercoaster that seemed like it was never going to end. But coming here, meeting the people I did, making the friends I've made, and getting to figure out that life isn't worth it if you can't let go of things, people, you name it. What's the point if you can't laugh at yourself once in a while? Make plans for the future, because even if it may seem like you don't have one right now, things change, things get better, and you move on to the next day. Smile, because even though things may suck right now, someone somewhere out there, is feeling exactly like you do.

On that note, one of the main things I've learned is that no matter what, everyone is human and deserves to be treated as such. Even when I was in countries were I didn't speak a word of the language, there was still the woman who tried to help me find my way, still the creepy men who watch as you walk away, still the sweet little kids who will stare and smile back when you grin at them, we're all the same no matter where we are, what language we speak, who we love, who we look up too, or who we associate ourselves with. There have been so many times since I've been here that I could have been in real trouble if someone hadn't stepped in to help. I almost stepped on a live wire in Munich on my way home from visiting a friend, but a man who didn't speak a word of English grabbed my arm and stopped me. Basically what I'm trying to say is that we're all human beings, which is why I will never understand the hatred that is in the world. People tell other human beings that they can't marry whomever they may love, can't be who they really are, should be ashamed of themselves for being different in any way, which means they're telling our children that too. So how can you be so freaking shocked when bullies torture school kids to the point where they feel like they have no other choice but suicide. It makes my stomach churn thinking that people will sit idly by while kids are made fun of for being gay, overweight, wearing clothes that aren't "cool", being a nerd, being religious, or non-religious, etc.  So parents, don't act so shocked. They learned it from you.

London, Killarney, Edinburgh, and Updates!!!!

Ok. So I realize it's been forever since I updated everyone, so prepare yourself for the longest blog post in the history of blog posts.

LONDON. Was amazing. So many memories that I'll never forget.

First of all  I went with my friend Mary Kate, her friend from home Ruthie, and Ruthie’s friend from the Netherlands, Marike. As it turns out, the 4 of us got a long pretty well!

Mary Kate, Ruthie, and I flew from Shannon to London together before meeting Marike at our hostel. But on the flight over, Mary Kate decided she wanted to play the scratch card game that was offered for 2 euro a card. She was nervous. It was a bit ridiculous considering it was a scratch card game, not a real live poker game. She lost, go figure, but “won” another card in a second chance scratch box. She lost again, but was laughing so hard she was in tears. To say it was amusing is an understatement.

After landing, we met up with Marike at our hostel before heading out around town to sight see. We saw so much in the two days I was there, I'm actually quite impressed with us. We made it around to the London Tower, figured out the underground (much easier than I was expecting actually), saw Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye (at night!! So cool! See picture above :) ), the Tate modern art museum, The Globe, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, visited Harrods, the standard tourist pictures in a red phone booth, London Bridge (which isn't the real London Bridge anymore), some parks, and probably some stuff I'm missing.

The four of us had a wonderful conversation with two London police officers since we managed to be in London during the protest on government cutting funds. They talked about how McDonalds in Europe is "rubbish" but in America it's "Brilliant". Also that American and German beers are "awful" compared to beer in England, Ireland, and Scotland. I must say in general, I agree with the man. The protest (more like a riot) that we somehow stumbled into, was massive! Literally the most people I've ever seen in one place at one time. Like literally you could look down a main street and not see an end to the people marching. It got so bad that parts of the underground where shut down because people were defacing and peeing in there. I can't decide if it was a good or a bad thing that we were there during the protest, but in all honesty, I can now say that I was in the largest protest in England's history!! :)

KILLARNEY. Such an amazing little Irish town. Beautiful, calm, wonderfully cute town.

So my program that I chose to study abroad with (InterStudy) has these 'excursion' weekends where they take us places, pay for pretty much everything, and basically just show us a good time. This group of kids in the program are all amazing. Like literally I don't think there is a single person in the program that I've met that I didn't like. Everyone is so nice and friendly that it makes me glad that they attempt to get to know you before letting you into the program. Anyway, the trip to Killarney is a story in itself. In order to get there from Galway, you have to take a bus to Limerick, then transfer onto a different bus that finally takes you to Killarney. On the first bus, my friend Korali and I got our own seats, which is nice, but I got stuck behind a man with the worst BO I've ever smelled in my entire life. No joke. By the time we got off the bus, I thought I was going to puke from how bad it smelled. Now on the second bus, there was no disgusting smell, but there was a woman who I swear liked to hear the sound of her obnoxiously loud voice. Now that may sound harsh to you guys, but this woman had to have been deaf or something. She was yelling into her phone for 3/4ths of the trip, telling someone on the other end about where something was in a cabinet. I don't really know what she was talking about considering she had a very thick accent that made it super hard to understand her. But after these trips, we finally got to Killarney.

Charlie playing 'Titanic' on our boat!

The first day we went for a boat ride across the Killarney National Park lake where our boat master had an ADORABLE dog named Charlie that I almost begged to take home! After the boat ride, we went on a 7 mile hike through the park, which would have been so amazing had it not been raining : /. Despite the rain, the company, conversation, and the sights made trekking through the weather so worth it. Though I do admit to my feet being sore after the long walk.

Matt, Mark, Collin, and Maddie on their horses

The second day we went horseback riding! I hadn't been riding in years, but now that I've ridden again, I can't wait to get back to the states so I can ride more! The horse that I rode was a gorgeous gray horse named Leroy. After hearing the name, I immediately turned to the rest of the group asking if any of them had ever heard of Leroy Genkins. Those who did got a good laugh out of it :).  Leroy was a great horse and did what I 'told' him to do, only protesting once or twice when he wanted to eat some of the leaves nearby. We got to trot a little, which was cool, since usually 'follow the butt' horses don't want to do that haha.

SCOTLAND: A beautiful country. Possibly my favorite place second only to Galway.

My friend Kerry and I decided a month or two ago that we wanted to visit Scotland. We planned out our trip (and by we, I mean she did most of the planning...) and decided to go this past weekend. Unknown to us, 2 other kids from our program were also going at the same time. Our friends Kimmie and Rachel were also going to be in Scotland at the same time, so we all wanted to meet up. Now getting to Scotland was a pain all in itself. The flight Kerry and I booked was for 6:30 am flight from Dublin to Edinburgh, which seemed like a good idea at the time considering it only cost 12 euros for each trip. The only problem is Dublin is a 3 hour bus ride from Galway, and you have to give yourself time to go through security, which is how I found myself on a 1:15 am bus to Dublin. Kerry, only being able to find a bus from Cork to Dublin the night before, had the  task of sleeping in the Dublin airport overnight, which I do not envy her for. On the plane ride from Dublin to Edinburgh (which is only like, 45 minutes) Kerry and I had an epiphany. Now some of you may read this next sentence and think, "wow, they never noticed that?", but give us a break, we were exhausted already and this was new to us. We discovered that the sky is always blue, its just that sometimes there are clouds blocking our view.

Kerry, Naeemah, Me, and Rachel in front of Edinburgh Castle :)

Now when we finally got to Edinburgh, it was around 8am, and I had been awake for going on 8 hours. Since we didn't have the energy to do much, Kerry and I walked around the city, getting to know it a bit, went to the Edinburgh Museum, the Zoo they have there, adventured into some beautiful churches, and pretty much did anything we could think of to keep ourselves awake. We eventually retired to our hostel and passed out. I was dead to the world until the next morning. The second day, we took a 12 hour bus tour around Scotland which covered the Highlands, Loch Ness, a few castles, and a few other less popular 'hidden gems' of Scotland. It was amazing, but soooo long. 12 hours is way to long to be on a tour for! Saturday, Kerry and I met up with Rachel and her friend Naeemah (who is so funny!) and visited Edinburgh Castle. the Scotland Disney store, Rachel ate some haggis (soooo gross. Google it. Seriously, Ew), and a general great time was had. We walked around the city shopping street some, before sending Rachel off on her way back to London. After walking about half way up to Arthur's Seat, which holy crap, is by far one of the steepest hills I've ever seen, Kerry, Naeemah, and I met up with Kimmie (another girl from our program) and her friend for some fish and chips.

Loch Ness. Where's Nessie??

After dinner, Kerry, Naeemah, and I went back to Naeemah's hostel to chill before heading off to sleep. To say that the day's were super long in Scotland is an understatement. We definately took advantage of our time there! Sunday brought me to the end of my visit to Scotland, so I boarded a bus by myself since Kerry was jetting off to Italy, waited a while in the airport, people watching (where a creepy man kept asking me what city I was from after seeing my US passport...) and finally made my way back to my home away from home, Galway :)

Hotay, now onto the updates. This week is going to be long for sure. I have an exam for my Celtic Mythology, Religion, and Folklore class tomorrow, plus I have to finish my 2,000 word essay for one of my psychology classes, since it's due Monday, which is when I'll be in Germany visiting my friend Bernadette! Which is another update, this weekend, I'll be with Bernadette and her family :) I met her last year in the International living community. She's such a sweet person and I can't wait to see her again and get to meet her family!

Also something I'm super excited about is my friend Kat from home coming to visit!!!! She's studying abroad in Salzburg, Austria at the moment, and she's coming to visit me in Galway. As much as I love the people I've met and made friends with here, it will be amazing to see a familiar face from home. I'm totally excited to see her and get to show her around "my Irish city". Now all I gotta do is think of all the good things I need to show her :)

Alright, so now that I've typed up the longest post *ever*, I need to get back to studying for my exam and writing my paper. Hope everyone reading this is doing well and I hope to see/talk to you soon!

This is a Journey, not at Destination

So St. Patrick's Day. Where to start. Technically it started at 9:30 am. My roommates and I joined some friends from our hall, and ended up starting at a friend's who lives about a 40 minute walk away. We took a taxi since we didn't want to carry everything for the walk. After hanging out there for a while, we walked into town for the parade. The parade wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but was cool to see none the less. People on stilts, dancers, bagpipes, the whole package :) After the parade was over, we retired back to our friends house for a few hours before heading into town for the night. Let me just say right now, downtown was crazy. I'm not sure I've ever seen that many people in one place in my entire life. I'd say 80% of Galway was somewhere in town. It was awesome! It was a day that I'll never forget, that's for sure :)

Group picture from St. Patrick's Day :)

Galway Girls!

Now that St. Paddy's Day is over and done with, it's finally starting to hit that I only have so much time left here. It's making me sad that I'm actually going to have to leave here! This is one of my last weekends here in Galway before the serious traveling starts. The weekend after this I'm in London, next weekend is hopefully Austria, then Germany, then Scotland, then exams start. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks, that's for sure. I'm just praying that everything works out the way I want it too!

The past few days have been the first in the 2 1/2 months that I've honestly been homesick. Almost to the point that I thought "I want to go home". The only thing I've wanted was to cuddle up with my dog and my cats, which sounds pathetic, I know. I called my friends Tyler and Erika and my roommate from home Courtney, and thankfully they were able to snap me out of it. What would I ever do without them? I seriously am missing them like crazy. After talking to them, I realized that I'm so lucky to be here and that it's shouldn't be all about what's happening tomorrow, but about what you can do today. This whole time here is a journey that I'm supposed to grow and learn from. Don't worry about what you can't change and learn to let things go. If you never let go of the bad things, you'll never be able to truly experience the wonderful things that are going on around you.

Erin Go Bragh

Connemara, RAG Week, Papers, and Planning

Ok. Sooo there's a lot to cover so I'm gonna try and summarize everything without going on and on about it all! haha

First- RAG Week. Rag stands for Raise And Give, which is a week-long fundraiser for local charities around Galway. While it does raise a lot of money, it's kind of become a "spring break" for students. Most of the Irish students skip classes all week, drink all day (and night if they're still walking), and some dress up in crazy clothes and costumes. On Monday, the first day of RAG week, there was a MASSIVE mob outside our building. And when I say massive, I mean upwards of 300 to 400 people. It was like there was a rugby game going on outside our building with how loud it was! Bottles were being thrown, people were climbing on everything, some fights broke out, and someone managed to light a tree branch on fire! It was crazy! That is till the fire department and the Guarda (police) showed up and started arresting people. I was told that our "celebration" even made the Irish news!

Notice the smoke?

Next up is my trip to Connemara. My friend Matt, roommmate Kelly, and I took a tour of Connemara, Cong, and Kylemore Abbey. So far this may have been my favorite thing I've seen. The tour was more for the scenery than for things to do. The Abbey was built by a man for his wife after they both fell in love with Ireland. Their story is actually quite tragic considering their child got sick, so they moved to Egypt, where the mother got sick caught some Egyptian sickness and died. After they left, Nuns converted it into a school for girls who wanted to become nuns. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The building itself is so grandiose and beautiful nestled into the mountains and woods. It was epic. The Abbey also has a beautiful garden. Though since we went while it was still too cold for flowers, it didn't look at all like the google pictures. But with some imagination, you can imagine how pretty it would have been.



Kylemore Abbey



The Abbey's Gardens sans flowers :(

















Now onto the papers and planning section of this rant. My roommate Paige jokes that every other conversation we have is about homework, which is kinda sad, but true. I have more papers to write all at once than I would at home. It's kind of awful. 8 papers (2 of which are done and turned in at this point) plus a multiple choice final, and 2 in class essay finals. This should be interesting. Even though the papers are a big pain, I have to say I am enjoying most of my classes. 2 of them are  "kill me now" classes, but other than those I actually like my classes' topics haha.

As for what I'm planning, there's actually a lot. I'm going to London March 26-28th with some friends. Then possibly out to Austria to visit my friend Kat for a few days, then onto Germany to visit Bernadette, a native German friend who lived in my hall last year :) Scotland and the Ring of Kerry are also on the planning list and are happening sometime in April, which I'm super excited about as well. I'm also trying to plan the EPIC trip my sister and I are going to be taking at the end of April when she comes to visit. And by epic I mean we're going to a ton of places in like 16 days. Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Venice, Rome, Switzerland, Austria, and of course Ireland are all on our "to do" list. Now if only Holly would get back to me on what she wants to see....hahahaha. :)

I would also like to add in that my parents are awesome. They've sent me packages with Mac and Cheese (which I think I've already explained doesn't exist here), breathe right strips (since my nose has been ridiculously stuffy), and thin mints!!! Which I was SUPER excited to see. They're totally my favorite Girl Scout cookie :). AND in the card that came witht the package I got yesterday, I was informed that I'm finally getting my own car, aka my Mom's old one, which is totally ok with me. I love that car! Can I just take a moment and say I'm excited?!?!

Now seeing that next week is St. Patrick's week (yes, its St. Paddy's WEEK here), I'd like to finish as much homework as possible so I can enjoy myself! I'll leave you with a pretty picture :)

Slán go foill

2 Months? Woah. When did that happen?

Holy crap, I just realized I’ve been in Ireland for 2 months. That is so crazy for me to think about. My time here has gone so ridiculously fast. As much as I miss my dog, my cats, my family and friends, I can tell you right now that I’m going to be extremely sad to leave here. I haven’t had the time/opportunity to travel out of the country a bunch since I’ve been here, so I’ve gotten to know and love Ireland, especially Galway. I’m so glad that I chose Galway over Dublin. Not that Dublin wasn’t amazing and cool, it’s just that Galway has a homey, chill atmosphere that Dublin just doesn’t have.

Moving on, my roommate Paige just enlightened me on what the hell a Turduncken is. Basically it’s a duck inside a chicken, inside a turkey. I don’t know whether to be intrigued or disgusted. I think I’m going to just go with a combination of the two. Also our apartment seems to be best friends with breaking things. Between the four of us, we have broken somewhere around 6 things, four of which have been my fault. I think I should just keep everything on the floor or something, save myself the trouble of having to clean up the things I break.  Also we had a roommate Valentine's Day. We made dinner together and Paige bought us a wonderful cake to share. It was awesome :)



Roommate Cake <3



Now on to the different trips that I’m planning!  This weekend, I am hoping to go to Connemara (Irish weather permitting), then the weekend after I may be going up to Belfast. March also means that St. Patrick’s Day in Ireland. How sweet is that?! I’ve heard it gets crazy in town, which I totally believe. This should be interesting, and by interesting I mean awesome. Thank God I don’t have classes the next day. After St. Patrick’s Day, I’m around Galway until the last week since those are the last few weeks of class. The first week of April, I’m hoping to go visit my friend who is in Germany, and a friend who is studying abroad in Austria. If not, then I’m just going to just backpack around and see where I end up since there will be no more classes to worry about.

I’ve also noticed that I miss singing sooo much! When I’m at home in Cincy I can totally jam out in my car, in the shower, in my room when everyone else is asleep, you get the gist. But here the walls are like paper and I’m always surrounded my people and I’d rather not freak anyone out by random singing. I tried to join the choir society here, but the times they meet are times when I have class, which is totally inconvenient. I totally started lip syncing/dancing on the walk home; needless to say I got some odd looks from people considering it was like, noon on a Tuesday and plenty of people walking around. Later walking around town, I noticed a music store was going out of business sale (half off!!). I went in and bought a ton of new music for a fairly low price. I got Mumford & Sons, the 2 Adele CDs, Florence & the Machine 2 disc set, the new Radiohead cd, the best of Michael Jackson, and Imelda May. Not to mention the 2,000 songs I got from my friend Korali. Needless to say I’ve been jamming out to some great music while trying to do my homework J

Getting lost may be my new favorite thing to do

Yesterday I went for a 4 hour walk around Galway. I'm one of those people who, if with other people, will most likely pay no attention to where I am going unless I'm walking around alone. Until yesterday, I hadn't done that, so I figured it was high time I learned my way around the city I'm living in for another 4 and a half months. It was a beautiful day here yesterday, so out around town I went. I set off just me, my backpack, some chill music playing on my iPod, and beautiful scenery all around me :)



Galway Cathedral

 The first thing I wanted to do was visit the Galway Cathedral when there was actual sunshine. I'm one of those weird people who love going into Cathedrals and other places that have awesome architecture. Galway's cathedral did not disappoint. It has so many gorgeous stained glass windows and awesome paintings on the ceiling! I walked in and seriously just walked around inside for almost a half an hour (it's much bigger inside than it looks!) There is a small shop inside the church with a very nice older woman who runs it. She noticed my backpack and asked if I was visiting Ireland. We talked about how I was studying Psychology here in Galway, and how much I love it here. She was very friendly (even when she found out I was not at all Catholic) and told me that I was welcome back to talk to her anytime I wanted. After leaving the Cathedral, I literally just picked the first direction that looked interesting. I was not in any hurry, so getting lost was totally OK with me.



Houses along Galway Bay



I ended up by Galway Bay, which I hadn't yet had time to visit. It is indeed as beautiful as the locals say it is. It's there I witnessed possibly the most humerous of the day's adventures. There are a lot of swans and ducks that swim around the bay close to shore. One swan in particular decided it wanted to go up on land, which creeped out a lot of people sitting on benches close to the water. On a side note, swans walk really funny when they're on land. It's almost if there's cement on their feet and it's a huge effort to lift their feet. Anyway...a swan came up on land and waddled over to some fruit that's left out for the birds. Soon after it got to the food, a dog decided it wanted to go sniff/be friends with said swan. It's safe to say Mr. Swan was not a fan of Mr. Doggie. It hissed then tried to like, dive bomb this poor dog. Mr. Doggie quickly ran away back to his owner, who was laughing so hard he almost had to sit down. Lucky for me, I caught a picture of the two animals right before the dive bombing occurred.



Swans are apparently not fans of dogs.....

After leaving the Bay, I somehow ended back up in the outskirts of town. There are a ton of "Mom & Pop" stores there that I loved looking through! Everyone there is so friendly and curious as to where you're from and what brings you to Galway. I made my way into the heart of town (Shop Street and Eyre Square) and went down a bunch of alleys and side streets where I found St. Nicholas Market. It's only open certain hours on Saturdays and Sundays, so I lucked out that I was still going on. There are so many stalls and vendors there of things from all over the world, plus a few vegetarian food stalls (which I'll have to check out more thoroughly next weekend).  I bought a scarf and a hand carved wooden elephant from an Spanish woman, a marble Star of David necklace from a Middle Eastern man, and a bracelet from a very chatty Irish woman. Money well spent I'd say.

Finally I talked with a shop owner about Blood Sports. There was a protest on Shop Street against the sports, saying that they are cruel to animals, which they are. For those who don't know what Blood Sport is, here's the wiki page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_sport. The shop owner explained it to me, than asked my opinion. Not really having a good grasp on what blood sport really was, I gave the "it's really not any of my business" answer. I told him I was a vegetarian, and against animal cruelty, since I'm basically the biggest bleeding heart when it comes to animals ( I would take every animal home from the shelter I work at if I could...), but since I didn't grow up around the "sport" my opinion was bound to be skewed.

Eventually, I left the store and continued on my way home since it was getting close to 5 p.m. Overall, I have to say yesterday was one of my favorite days that I've had so far while in Ireland. Some people may have been bored by just walking around, listening to music, and taking in the sights of Galway, but I loved it. I can't wait for another nice day on a weekend so I can have an excuse to do it again! :)

Procrastination? Yes Please.

Fancy hot chocolate from a cafe :)

After almost 5 straight hours of homework/ cleaning, I've decided it's music time. I've finally started to go through my iPod for the first time in almost 2 years, deleting/ renaming/ sorting the ton of music I have. I've also discovered that I either listen to the same like 20 songs over and over till I get bored of them, or put my entire iPod (which has over 6,000 songs) on shuffle and let it go crazy. This week it seems to be the latter of the two options and I'm loving it. Older songs that I haven't heard in years and obscure Indie songs keep playing and it's amazing. I need to do this more often.

The other night, my roommates Kelly, Michelle, and I had an amazing 90's music jam. We literally just sat on Michelle's bed, talked about our childhoods and all the music we listened to growing up. Like anyone remember the I'm Blue song? 'Cuz I do. And Spice Girls, NSYNC, 98 degrees, Barenaked Ladies, O-Town, The Graduation Song by Vitamin C? Ugh, why can't that music come back! Between the 3 of us, we decided that Boy Bands need to come back because their songs were about more than sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Plus we were all in love with at least one of them. Lance Bass- you broke my preteen heart when you came out as gay. Just sayin'

I went shopping with my friend Korali yesterday! We walked around Galway and found this awesome vintage store and a "hippie" (her words, not mine) store that I loved! The more I walk around Galway the more I fall in love with it. There is so much here that I never would find in the States. We wandered into the Galway cathedral, and it totally took my breath away. I have a strange obsession with architecture and this place was amazing. The stained glass and paintings were so so so beautiful. I fully plan on going back many a time :)

The fog from my apartment window!

I've also decided to get my cartilage on my left ear pierced (sorry Mom!). Korali and I had a long chat with the parlor about a lot of different things. I never thought I could have such an awesome conversation with a tattoo artist/piercer! She was such a cool person. Another random thought: it gets SO foggy here! I was walking to class today across the bridge and I could barely see 10 feet in front of me. Keep in mind this was at 1 p.m.....

     

Now that I've successfully procrastinated for a while, I feel like I should get back to work...but I really don't want to do. There's only so much psychological  research and profiles you can do without starting to analyze your sanity.

No joke.

I think it's safe to say that I never realized just how much planning and effort goes into planning a weekend trip. Like for real. You have to worry about the plane tickets, where you're staying, what you're going to do once you get there (and how to get to where you want to see), how much everything costs, how you're getting back, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

I'm currently working on plans to go to Scotland, Germany, Poland, Austria, London, Belfast in Northern Ireland, and a few other places around Ireland. Plus I'm going to all these places while I'm still in school, so it's taking much more time and effort than I originally thought. My sister, Holly, and I are planning an EPIC trip around Europe after my exams here are over, and are literally going to spend like 2 weeks traveling around, basically backpacking around Europe. To say I'm excited is an understatement.

Speaking of school, I managed to forget all about it last post. I was accepted and am now attending the National University of Ireland Galway (aka NUIG). So far I love most of my classes. It's very interesting to hear about topics from a non-American view point. For example, in my Psychology, Society, and Human Values class, we discussed how people come to form their view, morals, and ethics. Topics like gay marriage, human medical testing, religion, and other "taboo" topics came up and I found that Ireland is MUCH more liberal and accepting than I previously thought. It was very refreshing. The different thoughts and opinions I heard were ones that I had never really heard openly expressed in America. As for my other classes I'm taking there's: Forensic, Abnormal, and Clinical Psychology, Social Psychology, The Rise of Modern America (they talk about things I've never even heard of!), Studies in Medieval Drama, and Celtic Mythology, Religion, and Folklore. They're all pretty interesting as far as classes go, but I totally love my psych classes the most :)

I walk by this on my way to class :)

On a more random note, one of the main things I want to do while I'm here is hold a baby lamb. They're adorable and are my favorite farm animal besides horses. If I could take one home with me, I would in a heartbeat. Also Glee is 1/2 a season behind here. What am I going to do without my Glee!? I better find a website that I can watch it online or something because Hulu doesn't work in Ireland. Neither do netfllix or Pandora. I was not happy when I figured that out..

Seriously, how could you say No to this face?

I was walking around town the other day, and stopped to notice just how many buskers there are here. For those who don't know what busking is, its basically a street performer. There is practically one on every street in downtown Galway. I've found so much great music since I've been here ranging from Jessie J (a newer British artist. She's amazing, YouTube her), to Imelda May, to the Dubliners. It's great just to walk around town, grab a tea at a cute cafe, and read a book while you listen to the buskers on the street.

I Love Ireland. I may never leave.

1 Month down, 4 to go

After being in Ireland for a bit over a month now, I've decided that starting a blog would probably be a good idea. I've never really been one for journaling, always preferring to keep memories with pictures, but I figured "writing" about everything that's going on would be a good idea. On that note, this post is going to be S
SUPER long since I've got a month of information to get through.

I can honestly say that I don't remember much of the first day I got into into Ireland. I had been up for something along the lines of 30 hours (I can't sleep on planes...) and was so jet lagged and in shock that I wasn't in America anymore. I remember getting off the plane, going through immigration, where the man was very nice to me when I had to ask him to repeat himself a bunch of times, meeting Coleman (the "go to" man for my program in Ireland), and then meeting up with the other kids who were staying in Cork. We all went out for a drink to get to know each other, than walked back to were they were living. I caught a cab, went back to my hostel, and promptly fell asleep after being awake for a grand total of 38 hours!

The next day my Interstudy group went to the Blarney Castle where yes, we kissed the Blarney stone. After an afternoon out, Coleman drove Matt (the other kid who is in Galway with me) and myself to Galway where we were settled into our housing for the semester. I live in a building called Cuirt Na Coribe which is SO nice! It's like 10 times nicer than my housing back at UD. I feel like I'm living in a 5 star hotel or something. I have my own room, which is pretty awesome. I live with three other American study abroad students- Paige, Michelle, and Kelly. They are all awesome people and I'm actually really glad we're rooming together. It was nice to be able to complain with someone who understood when you were frustrated that you didn't understand something (like how class registration is completely different here than in America). Walking to class is also much different than at home. I walk max 5 minutes at home, where as here its around 20 minutes walking along a major road and over a bridge to get to school. It can be very hard to convince myself to get my butt out of bed and walk to class when you can hear the wind and rain hitting against your window, that's for sure.

Now onto living in Galway. I love it! It's a cute town, and I've yet to meet one mean person. Seriously. Everyone here is so friendly and welcoming, often asking where you're from and starting a conversation with you. That might be one of the biggest differences I've noticed. At home, when people say "Hi, how are you?" they are not looking for an answer longer than "I'm good." Here in Ireland, people seem genuinely interested in how you're doing and what your story is. It's beautiful here to put it plainly. Yes, it might rain when its sunny, and the wind sometimes threatens to blow you over, but to be honest you kinda get used to it after a while. The grass is greener, the water is clearer, and the air doesn't always smell like smog. It's glorious.

Since getting here, I've been to see a few notable things. For example, the Cliffs of Moher, the Aran Islands, and Dublin where I visited St. Patrick's Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin Castle, the Guiness Factory, and the Abbey Theater.

 Sunlight coming through the clouds on the Aran Islands

View from the top of the Blarney Castle

Sunset at the Cliffs of Moher

Mr. Horsey from the Aran Islands came to say hello. Then promptly tried to eat my hand.

Oddly enough, some of my favorite things I've done/found have been found completely by accident. Like when I was in Dublin this past weekend. My friends and I had split up for a few hours so we could wander around and do any last minute things we wanted. I walked randomly around town and walked into a church near my hostel. It was absolutely amazing. I didn't take any pictures since I didn't want to be disrespectful, but in my opinion, it was better than St. Patrick's and Christ Church Cathedral by a long shot. Also the best pubs, cafes, and shops I've found are no where near the tourist spots, tending to be more off the beaten path. If I could give one piece of advice to any traveler or study abroad student, it would be to wander aimlessly. Get lost. Because when you do that, you tend to find the best treasures.

Kerry, Matt, and I sitting on the edge of the Aran Island cliffs (so cool!)

Kerry and I on the Aran Islands