St. Paddy's Day: Ireland Style

What a weekend! I can honestly put this one down in the books as one of the best in my life. It was a  whole new level of excitement. I have celebrated St. Patrick's Day for as long as I can remember. It was always a different experience in Minnesota, mostly because the weather varied so much from year to year: sometimes it was snowing and around zero degrees, other years it was sunny and in the 50s. I especially loved it when the 17th fell in the middle of the week: I always got to take off school and go to the parade (our family marched in it, whether we signed up to march or not hehe).

1997

1999

2009

Here it was decent weather. For Ireland, anyways. It was on and off raining (typical) and about 45 degrees. I decided against going to Dublin for the day, which I heard was insane, but more like the US on St. Paddy's Day, as so many tourist go there for the day. Instead, we stayed for the local parade in Limerick City. It was great, and more authentic, I like to say. We got to the parade about an hour before it started, and found a place to stand. The parade was so cute: it was a bunch of groups from Limerick, like the boys and girl scouts (they call them something else here, but I can't remember what that is), and the youth sports teams: football (soccer), rugby, even some little hurlers (an Irish sport). It was really cute. A bunch of the groups had dressed up as St. Patricks and walked like that. There were a few marching bands, and a few sets of bagpipers (my favorite were the preteen ones: the only bagpipers you see in the St. Paul Paddy's Day parade are old men haha).

A bunch of St. Patricks! 

Meggan and Callum

We stayed for most of the parade, but we were getting really cold and hungry, so we walked to the first pub we saw. It was a great choice: we left before the parade was finished, so we got a place to sit at Flannery's. We ordered our corned beef sandwiches (which were delicious, by the way), and settled in for the afternoon. We stayed there and just visited (and drank a little, I admit) the entire afternoon. We met some pretty interesting people, I do have to say. I had to favorite encounters. The first was a young boy, ten, named Callum. He was sitting at the bar with his mum, and when she stepped outside for a minute ("She's having a ciggy," Callum said), he came and started chatting with us. There were nine international college girls and the ten year old kid. He was in heaven, to say the least. He was showing us all the cool things he could do, like sticking a coin to his forehead, and posed in pictures like he was a total gangster. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen. By the end of the conversation, we had all  agreed to come back to Flannery's for next year's Paddy's Day festivities, and he told us he was going to marry Meggan. The other person was interesting and funny as well. There was an old Irish man who was sitting at the bar who took it upon himself to mentor us and tell us about life in Ireland. I didn't get to hear much of what he had to say, but Meggan went and sat at the bar with him for a good half hour. He was equally as adorable as Callum.

Free hats :)

After Flannery's, we decided to head back to campus. On our way out, the bar tender handed three of us free green leprechaun hats with red beards attached to them. I was thrilled to get one myself, who doesn't like free hats? (I had also gotten a free shamrock shaped hat on Friday night, when we went to the local Spar-a convenient store-wearing temporary tattoos on our faces and decked out in green. I guess the cashier thought we would enjoy them, which we did). It was only six o'clock, though, and still light outside when we stepped out, so we went to the Burger King down the street for dinner before taking the bus back. When we got back, we were all wiped from the day, so we sat down and watched The Avengers. It was a great way to end the day. The day was amazing, spent with amazing people, and I couldn't have imagined a better St. Patrick's Day in Ireland.

I put together a little video with my pictures and video clips from the parade, just for fun (I got the idea from Callista, who uploaded one to Facebook :)). Hope you guys like it (and I hope it works: I have never tried uploading videos on here before...)

My parents come tomorrow (early in the morning: less than twelve hours!) I am so excited to see them and hope they are going to have a great time, and love Ireland as much as I do! Cheers!

Budapest! Caving and Other Adventures

I discovered this week that I am finally getting busy, and it is interfering with my blogging time. I had to turn in my very first assignment in one of my classes (in week 7...this is madness). I also have two papers due next week (right after Patty's Day, what are the professors thinking?!). I am getting SO EXCITED about my parents coming to visit me! They arrive on Wednesday the 20th! Anyways, this weekend is bound to be fun, as it is a four day weekend for the holiday. A friend of mine wanted to copyright the name "Saint Hangover Day" for Monday's "bank holiday" that we have. I love this country! :)

I guess you guys would like to hear about what I did this past weekend. Nothin', really, just went to Hungary for a a few days. I guess that is kind of a big deal. It was a blast! We (a friend and I) arrived on Friday afternoon, and we booked it through WSA-Weekend Student Adventures. They plan almost everything for you, so all we had to do was get to Budapest and find the hostel. We unfortunately got there late in the day, and missed a few tours around the city, and the one I am most sad about missing was the trip to the baths. Budapest is famous for their underground springs and Turkish bath houses around the city, and I heard it was relaxing and fun. I learned my lesson though: the next WSA trip I am going on (to Barcelona), I am getting there Thursday night so I don't miss all of the tours on Friday. Anyways, when we first got to the hostel, the group wasn't back yet, so we just hung around for a few minutes. When they returned, we were going to go to dinner and find a few pubs in the city.

The group. The girl furthest to the left is Bogi, our tour guide.

As it turns out, we were going to get to hang out that night with Andy Steves (the son of travel expert Rick Steves, and the CEO/founder of WSA) and his girlfriend Jenna. They were both super friendly and adorable, and we found some interesting connections. Andy went to Notre Dame, and studied abroad at John Cabot in Rome (where Elizabeth was, if you recall). I already knew this, but what I didn't know is that apparently his entire family went to Creighton! His grandma still lives about three blocks away from the school! Crazy. Also, there is a scary connection with his girlfriend, Jenna, as well. The two girls that I met (and am now friends with, they are coming to Berlin with us in a few months), Brdiget and Rachel, go to Maynooth (that is one of the other universities here in Ireland-where the girl on the plane from MN, Megan, goes, remember?). Bridget is from Waukesha, Wisconsin, and went to high school there. Turns out she went to the same high school as Jenna, and knows Jenna's younger brother (and her entire family-big family and name in the Waukesha area, I guess). I am super creeped out by our small world still. Dinner was fun, we ate a packed restaurant that had delicious food. I got a banana daiquiri to drink. It was delicious. After the restaurant, we headed out to the ruins pubs for a few drinks.

One of the ruin pubs

The ruins are what Budapest nightlife is all about: they are abandoned buildings from WWII that lay empty for many years (hence "ruins") and were recently converted into bars all over the city. They are known to be huge and have eclectic decor. The one we went to was the third best bar in the WORLD. There were some strange things decorating the place (I think I remember seeing a child's tricycle hanging from the ceiling), but it was pretty cool. Budapest is well known for hosting bachelor parties (they call them "stag" parties). We saw tons of them. In fact, on the plane from London there was a guy who had orange dreadlocks, to the middle of his back, wearing a "Party Girl" tiara, a white toga, a pink sash, and a necklace with shot glasses on it. That wasn't even the strangest outfit there....We walked around the city to different pubs (they don't have one concentrated area that people go, they have little spots all over). We hung out there for a while, explored the place, and headed back to the hostel for the night.

The Danube

The next day I got to do one of the coolest things I have done in my life. We started off the day with visiting the "shopping street". It is exactly what it sounds like: a square and street with a bunch of stores. It ran alongside the Danube, which we walked up to and took pictures of. The buildings in Budapest are beautiful: they all look so important and fancy. It is an extremely old city, so it makes sense. They also have more graffiti than I have ever seen. Unlike in the US and many other places, though, the graffiti doesn't mark abandoned or rundown places. It is actually a cultural movement: the younger generations are trying to add color and culture to their city after the years of communist oppression and restrictions. It is pretty cool. Next we headed off to go caving! We took a tram and a few buses to get to the location, the entrance to the longest cave in Hungary. 

Budapest Opera House

"Shopping Street"

Don't know what this building is, but it looked important :)

This is what pretty much all of the buildings looked like! 

Made it through the smallest hole ever, just barely fit!

I didn't really know what I was getting myself into when I signed up to go to caving. When we got there, we put on jumpsuits to cover our clothes (it got really dusty in the caves), and were given the helmets with headlights on them. We all looked pretty hot, let me tell you. Before we went, we had to sign a piece of paper that said we weren't drunk or under the influence of any drugs. Kind of like when getting a tattoo...haha. We walked out and began the adventure. Right when we got inside the caves, we had to descend a 40ft ladder down into the caves. As we were going down, one by one, three guys with intense harnesses and equipment came running past us. Turns out, there was a girl ahead of us who had fallen and broken here leg. When our guide said this, we thought he was joking. He wasn't. She apparently had stepped wrong and broken her leg. We found this out within 5 minutes of entering the caves...doesn't necessarily reassure! It was all fine though, we just exorcised a little more caution from then on. We went through the caves for about two hours. I went through spaces I never thought I would fit into in my life. Many times, you could only army crawl for a few meters at a time, through small spaces. Let's just say, if you were claustrophobic at all, you never would l have even gone in. At one point, I was in a space so small that both sides of my face were touching opposite sides of the hole. I didn't really think about it; if I had, I probably would have freaked out. It was reassuring that the largest person that had gone through the same spaces was a 350 lb. American football player. If he could fit, so could I, was my entire thought process. My knees and elbows were covered in bruises for a few days. What I didn't expect about the caves was the complete lack of living things: there weren't any spiders or reptiles or bugs of any kind. They were formed from the same natural phenomena as the springs, so there were fossils (40 million year old fossils) of sea creatures in the walls, but that was it. There was so much dust, I must have inhaled at least a pound of it, but it was humid, so it didn't make me cough or sneeze, which was amazing. Caving was the coolest thing I have ever done.

Heaven

That evening, a bunch of people went to a party at the baths. They turn them into a club on Saturday nights, apparently, but I opted out of that one. I am glad I did. From what I have heard about it, I would not have had fun at all. That party is more for the crazy, partier people, which I am definitely not. Instead, a few of us went to a low key bar a few blocks from our hostel. It was great to be able to sit and relax, chat and have a drink. This pub was also a ruin bar, with strange decorations. This one had rabbit statue things suspended from the ceiling, a big pack of them like they were racing. The next morning, people were leaving at different times, so there wasn't much planned for the day. We all met up to say goodbye, and then split up and did whatever. My friend and new friends weren't leaving until evening, so we went back to the shopping street to buy souvenirs and then walked back. On the way back we went into a candy store, aka heaven. It had SO MUCH CANDY, I didn't know what to do. I bought a few things and then we went back to the hostel. I was exhausted at this point, and I had a cough that was started to develop. 

Sugar! These are all jelly beans.

We got to the airport that evening, and we were on a red eye flight. We had to spend the night in the London airport (which we knew we were going to have to do). It was miserable, and I got about an hour of sleep altogether. I ended up with a full blown cold, ears, eyes, nose, and throat. Awful. As our plane was landing from London into Shannon, it literally felt like my head was going to explode. I was about to cry. Next time I am bringing decongestant (my allergy medicine) so that it doesn't hurt so bad. I am still a bit sick, but it is tolerable. Monday I slept literally the entire day. I got home at about 10 am, showered, and fell asleep until 8 pm, woke up for a few hours to eat something, went to bed at 10 pm and woke up at 10:30 am the next morning. That sleep helped a lot, but I was extremely disoriented and confused for a few days. As I mentioned at the beginning, I had to write my first paper, and I have two more due this coming week. This weekend will consist of writing those papers and having fun on Patty's Day! I can't wait! 

P.S. If anyone would like to "send" me anything, you could possibly send it with my parents! They are bringing me a few things to last me the last two months! :)

Routines, Snail Mail, and TRAVEL

New travel journal/sketchbook-decorated the title pages :) (no stencil used) 

It's been a few days, so I thought I would come and give everyone a brief update. I have finally gotten into a routine here! I thought I would never memorize my class schedule, or where everything is, and I felt like a freshman in college (or even high school, for that matter) all over again. Completely overwhelmed for the first few weeks, but then once you get the hang of it, it feels like you have been here forever. I am comfortable here, and I have amazing friends and keep in touch with family and friends from home regularly. I did notice, this week, however, that I am sketching a lot more in the margins of my notebooks, so I decided to buy a cute little sketchbook/travel journal. It is small enough that I can just throw it in my purse without it becoming a major issue, and I am doubling it as a journal, so when I don't have my laptop on trips I can write in it instead. 

I got my first piece of mail last week, and a second letter today! I love that I can keep in touch with people thousands of miles away and feel like they are right next to me with the technology today, but there is just something wonderful about getting "snail mail." The letters I got were from a family friend (thank you Mrs. Ortiz, I know we don't know each other very well, but I loved both the card and the letter you sent me! So sweet of you!), and I got so excited when I saw my name on them! A few people have asked if they could send care packages. The answer is yes, you can, but they might be a little expensive! I appreciate letters just as much, and they are way cheaper to send internationally :) Here's the deal: if you send me a letter, I will send you a postcard back from somewhere cool! I never know what to write on postcards, as most people know what I am up to because of this blog, and there isn't much space to write, but they are still fun to collect and send back home.

A few nights ago we got to book our housing for next year at Creighton! I am living with two great friends, Audrey and Jessica. It is going to be a blast and I cannot wait! That same night I also got to Skype with my godmother/aunt, Tina, and Grandma Maki. She is in the midst of house hunting in Neillsville, the "big city" compared to her tiny little town in northern MN. It was so much fun to just sit and chat (and make funny faces into the camera the entire time...thanks for your sense of humor Tina, makes skyping so much better).

Yesterday, I went into Limerick City with a few friends who had their immigration appointments, as I wanted to go to the sporting goods store. As it turns out, UL has an olympic size pool in the arena (their name for fitness center), so I needed to get a swimsuit to work out in, and a pair of goggles. Mission accomplished! I agreed that if I was going to workout here, it would be swimming, as my joints probably wouldn't be able to handle jogging regularly. Here's to adding the gym to my new routine!

Budapest is just a week away! This past week I also planned my reading week trip (reading week is a week of no classes right before finals start. Here, most of the international students take advantage of the break and travel!). The first weekend we are spending in Berlin, and then we fly to London for our HARRY POTTER adventure! I am beyond excited for this, as we get to tour Warner Brothers Studios in London, and see the actual sets of Harry Potter, as well as costumes, the Hogwarts Castle model used in the movies, and the special effects and green screen sets! We are also going on what they call the "Muggle Walking Tour", and we will be going around London and seeing the "locations" from the movies and books (Platform 9 3/4!). We then come back and are spending a day in Dublin before coming back to UL. I also have tentatively worked out going to Italy during Easter week (after the parents leave; can't wait for them to visit either!). Because it will be Holy Week when we are there, we just have planned a day trip to Rome, and are spending most of the time in Florence and Venice. To finish off the week, I planned and booked two more trips today! One to Barcelona for a weekend (over my birthday, actually! It should be fun!). And the other one is to FINLAND! Finally! I am beyond excited for this one (I can hear it now..."why?"), but this is where I get my blonde hair and blue eyes, and a large portion of my genes (from Dad's side). It was a bit of a hassle, booking just these two, because I am going with a friend and we had issues with the internet and computers and websites. At one point, I wanted to just throw my computer against a wall, but obviously that would have been counter-productive. But we finally got it all worked out, and booked. 

Next week is Rag Week here at UL, also known as Charity Week. The basic idea is that there are a bunch of parties and events, and the money used to purchase the tickets to the events all goes to charity. So basically, people just party literally all week for charity. I am not exactly sure what goes on, but I have deduced that it will just be absolute madness. There are a lot of restrictions in effect in our village (barriers at the entrances to the on-campus housing, ID required entry, no guests, no furniture outside, no consumption of alcohol outside, etc.), and I have heard a lot about how crazy and fun it is. It should be a good time. I realize that my "brief" update has become quite long, so I'll end it there. I'll maybe update everybody about Rag Week, then Budapest! Woohoo!