Why is there a Bush on the Floor?

Just when I thought Ireland couldn’t get any more ridicules… a bush gets thrown into my housemates room. Now I’m talking about my housemate who’s room is next to mine and if you remember I’m on the second floor!

Let me set the scene for you…

It’s 3:30 am and I was sleeping soundly. A noise wakes me up and as I sort of wake up I hear a bunch of Irish guys outside making lots of noise. I wasn’t concerned because the Irish are often loud this late at night. What did concern me was when I hear quite the racket next door.

I know I should have gotten up to check on my housemate but I didn’t hear her calling for help… what I did here was her shouting out the window “Are you f***ing serious?” at which point an Irish guys says yes they all laugh and it gets quiet as they run off.

I’m still in bed I figured if my housemate needs help she’d call me… a few minutes later she does. So I roll out of my warm bed and open my door and take two steps into her room…

Dirt everywhere!! And there in the middle of the room…… a mini bush. A mini bush that had formally been outside. Needless to say she was quite upset and I was too. Her room was sooooo dirty!! After a few minutes of just staring at it we decided to deal with it in the morning. So after shaking out her sheets she goes back to bed and so do I.

This morning the min bush was still in place…

^I stole these pics from her facebook… hehe^

We had a good laugh over it today. It’s much funnier when it’s not 3:30am and you’re woken up by having a bush tossed through your window.

It’s now our new joke since no one but the bush was hurt.

Cheers,

College Kids

It’s week 9 here at UL which means the semester is more then half over since there are only 13 weeks in a semester. Since it’s so late in the semester it mean it’s Paper Season. For those of you not in college Paper Season is the time in a semester when all your classes have assigned you a paper and they’re due within a few days of each other. UL is no different from Kean. Between today and next Thursday I have 4 papers due.


But I’m fine with that. I love writing and I picked cool essay topics so it’s no prob. Besides the papers are only 3,000 words! The problem lies in the fact that I’m a college kid. This means I’d rather pull an all nighter then work on my paper leisurely over a few weeks.


So here’s the low down on my paper I just handed in… I started it Wednesday and by started I mean I browsed the internet for sources then attempted to browse the library. Found nothing in the library and after a mere 45 minutes of “working” on my paper I gave up because the library here frustrated me.


Thursday afternoon I typed up the intro and decided what I was going to write about. I also pulled up a bunch of sources and articles. After doing that I felt so accomplished and since the day was so warm and wonderful I met up with my friends at Sables and we had a pint.


Then this morning I woke up for my 9 am class threw on clothes went to class and came back home. I promptly sat my self down at the computer, after all I only had 5 hours till the paper deadline and I only had 500 words done. So I feverishly wrote out the rest of my essay and finished in only 3 hours. Smiling to myself I proof read it then looked back at the question to make sure I’d answered it…


The Second World War is sometimes referred to as a ‘People’s War’. how appropriate is this term for Europe?


oops……


It was supposed to apply strictly to Europe. I included American statistics in it as well!! Once I took out things applying to America I was down 700 words…. I had less then 2 hours to finish it, walk to campus, print, and turn it in. needless to say I was panicked. But I work great under pressure… so naturally I pounded out the rest of my paper and turned it in 45 minutes early.

That’s the college life right there!! Here's a song by Relient K that i love

Cheers,

Castle Time

One of the stereotypical things you’ve got to do while in Europe is see a castle right? I’ve been here over 2 months and saw my first one this weekend. You see my brother was here and when we went into city on Wednesday we walked down to the river and I pointed out King John’s castle and I realized I hadn’t been there and that Spencer hadn’t seen a castle wither. So plans were made and we went to King John’s Castle on Saturday.
Before I get to the pictures here some cool facts about the castle::

-Built in the 13th century on King’s Island

-King John of England ordered the building of the castle

-King John had it used as a stronghold, an administrative headquarters, a barracks, and a prison

-The Great Siege of 1642 devastated the castle. Most of this damage was done by siege mines

-When there was a housing shortage in Limerick (centuries after the castle was in proper use) there were houses built in the courtyard

-There have been many Viking artifacts found during excavation
           Why it this you ask?? Welllll before the Brits came…. The Vikings built a stronghold on Inis
           Sibhtonn (now known as King’s Island) in 922. Thanks to the Anglo-Normans the stronghold was
           burnt to the ground in 1174. The castle construction started a few decades later.

-Despite having his name King John never visited the Castle

Now onto the best part…. Pictures of my very first castle experience::

^Me with King Louis XIV...I'm going for the regal look^

^Courtyard^

^Gallows^

^Old garrison^

Cheers,

St. Patrick’s Day

I have a handful of good memories of St. Patrick’s day while I was growing up but to me it had always been an adult’s holiday. This being because of the drinking and the fact that just about every year my parents would go into New York City to see the St. Patrick’s Day parade. Even when I was at college last year it wasn’t a huge thing. Then I came to Ireland.

University was closed yesterday. All the schools were closed for the holiday. That is the first big difference between here and America. This is also huge because this semester St. Patrick’s Day is the only holiday I have outside of spring break. When in Ireland you’ve got to do St. Patrick’s Day the Irish way.

So my brother, Spencer, and I got a bus to Dublin. What better way to spend St. Patrick’s Day then in the capitol! We got there and found food before hunting down the parade… unfortunately we only saw the end of it… but we were in Dublin. I did manage to snag a few photos

 

I think it was worth going just to see everyone dressed up. People had on the Leprechaun hats and beard. Some wore the Irish flag like a cape. Lots of people had the Irish flag painted on their cheek. And there were any number of other outrageous get ups. What I noticed was that yes there’s a lot of green, but there was a heck of a lot more Irish flags and orange. In America, as you probably know, St. Patrick’s Day = green. Here St. Patrick’s Day is everything Irish.

^Like this Pub so many Irish flags!^

I Skyped my mum today and she asked if we had corn beef and cabbage yesterday. And I realized that was another huge difference. In America corn beef and cabbage is THE “Irish” dish of St. Patrick’s Day. While I walked around yesterday on all of the pub daily special boards I didn’t see one hint of corn beef and cabbage. There were a lot of Irish Stews and Sausage specials but no corn beef and cabbage.

Since we were in Dublin and the most Irish thing we could think of was Guinness we decided to tour the Guinness factory!

^Me in a bunch of barley^

^that be hops behind me^

^the sacred Guinness yeast^

I think the highlight of the day was while in the factory we got to pour our own pints! The guy instructed us how to do it properly and… I felt sooooo cool pouring it! 

And check me out with my certificate saying that I did it!!

After the factory we walked back toward the bus station along the Liffey river.

Got treats then caught the bus home. Over all I would say the day was AMAZING!!! And it was even better that Spencer was here!!

Cheers,

Glasgow

My brother Spencer arrived last Friday the 11th. I picked him up from the airport via the bus and then put him to bed when we got to Limerick. That night, or rather really early Saturday, we caught the 1:10am bus to the Dublin airport. After a 4 hour ride we arrived at the airport 4 hours before our flight. So we picked seats and settled in till we boarded.


8:15 our plane took off and 35 minutes later we landed in SCOTLAND!! It was brilliant! We arrived at Glasgow-Prestwick airport, which is an obscure airport about an hour from town. So we asked how to get to town and were informed we had to take a train. So we did! And on the ride into town it started snowing! It was pretty.

^waiting for the train... no snow yet^

^SNOW!!^

Since we couldn’t check into our hostel until that afternoon we promptly started walking around. The first place we stopped into was GoMA aka Glasgow Modern Art museum. It was like any modern art museum, mind boggling in the most absurd sense. After that we went to Starbucks…

Can I start by saying my life is made by Starbucks coffee. When I was in London I had such a warm fuzzy moment upon seeing a Starbucks. It’s a comfort from home that I loved oh so much. Needless to say I drank a lot of Starbucks last weekend.

After finishing our coffee we wandered off in the now rain and slushy snow to find Glasgow Cathedral and the necropolis. The necropolis was epic.

After that we did more wandering but since we were super tired we went to the hostel. The rain really dampened our day so we turned in early.

^View from the Hostel^

Our second day was a lot more fun! Lots of pictures and walking around.

First stop the Blochairn market. It was a 2 mile walk from our hostel but it was worth it. It was a boot fair (aka flea market) and there were also meat and fish auctioneers. It was huge and lots of fun to walk around. On our way back from the market we decided to take the bus instead of walking back. The bus we took was a double decker!!!! It was so cool we sat on the second floor right up front! I felt like I was in Harry Potter or something.

After the boot fair we walked around a bit more, napped at the Hostel, then went to Glasgow Green. Remember my buddy Nelson…. Well there was a monument for him in the green!!! I was so excited!

Then we checked out the greenhouse and the People’s Palace.

Then we walked back along the River Clyde…

Then it was back home to Ireland!

Cheers,