Spring Break

Two more weeks until spring break. Although that would seem to be a good thing, the whole college thing once again gets in the way. Since I’ll be away for the entire break, I will have to finish and hand in not only the papers due before the start of break, but also the ones due the Monday and Wednesday after the end of the break. All in all, it looks like I will have to finish up four papers, complete a stack of scholarship applications and evaluate the feasibility of an internship this coming summer or fall, all by the all too looming date of March 20th :D
On the bright side, I went over some of the travel details for Tenerife and southern France earlier in the day and just booked my flight to Munich. My travel schedule for spring break is as follows;

March 24th- March 28th - Garmisch, Germany [Ski town]
March 28th - April 1st - Munich, Germany
April 1st - April 3rd - Dublin, Ireland
April 3rd - April 11th - Canary Islands
April 11th- April 13th - Barcelona, Spain
April 14th - April 20th - Renting a car and road trip throughout southern France

Lookin pretty damn exciting.

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Things on the sports end have been going well. I caught the end of a UCC rugby match the other week, and have been keeping up to date with the six nations tourny and cork’s hurling team. I’ve also been enjoying inline hockey a lot, actually more so than any sport I’ve played before. The past couple weeks have been great since the club has been able to rent a larger gym and have everybody in full equipment including two goalies. On Friday, I played a round of golf in Kinsale. I really miss golf, and had a great time…even though it ended up costing an arm and a leg due to transportation costs (i.e. taxi). I shot a 62 on 9 holes which is terrible but not much worst than what I shoot back home. Hopefully, by the end of the summer I’ll be able to break 100 for 18.

Today was awesome.

Ryanair.com had a sale

Cork -> London -> Stockholm, Sweden -> Bratislava, Slovakia -> Vienna, Austria -> Dublin -> Cork

May 20th - May 30th ... then back to Massachusetts on the 3rd of June.

Still gotta book flight back from vienna and from cork to london but want to wait on final exam timetables to become offical. As it stands now a Flight from London to Stockholm and from Stockholm to Bratislava ran me about 23 dollars and the bus from bratislava to Vienna should be under 10 euro...It costs more to eat out at a restruant in Ireland than to travel across europe.

Documentation

I'm not doin to good with updating this on time

At any rate, I have done quite a bit over the past month ranging from visits to small Irish towns like Kinsale and Cashel to traveling on a bus in the early hours of the morning to go hiking to recent visits to cities like Dublin and as of this weekend; Edinburgh, and Glasgow. There have been many memorable moments, but nothing compares to my Saturday in Dublin. I had just finished an amazing (and lengthly) visit to the Book of Kells at Trinity College, and decided to split off from the group to watch the Ireland v. Italy Rugby match, the opening skirmish of the Six Nations Tournament for Ireland. I followed a sea of dark green Rugby jerseys to Croake Park, where I passed dozens of hot dog vendors, memorabilia stands, and eager fans seeking out a last second scalped ticket to the match. Of course I soon fell victim to a line of thinking sometimes dangerous while on vacation or studying abroad; 'Well I'm thousands of miles from home, I already have spent so much money...I might as well buy this'. You can probably guess where this is going, following some intense bargaining and negotiation with the fine young entrepreneurs of Ireland (Read: sketchy ticket scalper), I had secured a colorful and coveted ticket to the match. I cannot even described the following five minutes as my face beamed like a child as I passed through the gate and then in what can only be described as some sort of picturesque movie moment, I walked up through the tunnel to emerge into a panoramic view of 75,500 Irish rugby fans and two national teams lined up of the field under the glaring stadium lights of Croake Park as the Irish national anthem was sung. The game was amazing and Ireland emerged victorious by a slim margin of 16-10, but it was the experience of attending a international tournament event that just completely blew my mind. It also didn't hurt that the tickets were at midfield and only about 25 rows from the field :)

At anyrate that has been the defining moment of the trip, and I wont brutalize the English language with anymore rambling about events so seemingly insignificant but absolutely amazing to me. For the sake of my memory and a sense of time, I have included a short list of some of the more memorable moments of my trip thus far.

Jan 19 - Kinsale - Beautiful harbor town, walked around the city for a bit

Jan 20 - Killarney National Park - Decided to give mountain climbing a shot, 6 hours on a wet and soggy Irish mountain never seemed so fun. After the hike, Pint of Guinness and some food as we watched a soccer game in a pub in Killarney.




Jan 26 - Cashel - Amazing views. Rock of Cashel is a castle built for the King of Munster about 1600 years ago. The Hore Abbey provided for some great pictures and provided a great view of the castle on the horizon. After we got some great sandwiches and a pint of Guinness in a pub in the main town.


Jan 31 - Feb 3 - Dublin! Dropkick Murphys concert, Book of Kells, Ireland Rugby, Temple Bar, Guinness factory, drinking a freshly brewed Guinness at the top of the factory as well as the foreign extra stout (only available in Africa, Dublin, and parts of the carribiean), The best damn bed and breakfast in Europe, omelets in the morning, and a damn good time wandering the streets of Dublin.






Feb 10- Hungry Hill climb - oddly enough while climbing the mountain, myself and other people became quite hungry. It was cloudy but nice, untill we hit the top and it felt like walking past dubois library during a hurricane. Furthermore, the fog got pretty thick once we got up a little bit, I snapped a picture before it got really foggy.

Feb 13 - Played Inline hockey with the UCC inline hockey club...this was very embarassing and VERY fun.

Feb 16-19 - Glasgow and Edinburgh, Scotland! This was a great time....started off on saturday with a classic "We are American day" involving some pizza hut and movies. Cultured up a bit on Sunday with a visit to the AMAZING Kellingrove museum...saw some ridiculously amazing paintings (including the feeling of seeing a Van Gogh or Rembrandt in person) and cool exhibits. Monday was possibly the highlight of the trip as we took a train to Edinburgh...just a spectacular city which felt so European it gave me the chills to actually think about where I am. Grabbed some lunch in what looked like some kind of cathedral turned art center (?), got a sick sandwhich and a locally brewed IPA.

Ah that feels good to Document.

Today I bought Coca Cola, a bag of cookies, and a choclate frosted donut.

A week in Ireland

I've never been a fan of journals, or for that matter blogging, but I thought the concept could actually be useful given my circumstances. I've been in Ireland for about a week, and it has been a busy and exciting week full of nerves, anxiety, and excitement. The plane flight felt long in some regards, and short in others; the image of landing on the rainy Shannon airport runway will probably be a long lasting one in my mind. The first two days were busy sleepless days traveling and running around town. I finally feel somewhat settled in, although the process of selecting classes and becoming acclimated to the campus offers little sense of structure or normalcy, but that will be for the time being only.

Downtown Cork is amazing, the city is beautiful and there are tons of shops ranging from a local football club shop run by avid supporters of the club to numerous markets and shopping centers laden with clothing and apparel shops. We havent explored the entire city yet, but it does seem quite large, but not too much to not eventually get a solid feeling of familiarity. I was somewhat suprised about the presence of american culture and commerce in Ireland. Pubs actually play a few American songs (Journey?!), American products are hidden amongst the array of confusing and seemingly foreign products at the supermarket, and the US Presidental primary is covered nightly on the news. In retrospect, such American presence isnt all that prevlant, nor suprising, but my nerves and anxiety seemed to prepare me for a completly and utterly unfamiliar culture.

I had known about a Dropkick Murphys concert in Dublin for about of month, but just tonight did I decide to make the trip up Janaury 31st with some kids from UMass. I'm really looking forward to the concert, it's a weird feeling to say it will be a reminder of home as they are known for irish music back home, but they embody Massachusetts more than anything I can think of.

I havent really gotten homesick yet, I dont think I will. That is not to say I dont miss certain things from home nor I havent been nervous. In contrast, I have had periods of worry, concern, etc. but never felt as if I should be or wanted to go home.

I think thats realtivy enough for now; when I know the Gaelic word for 'goodbye' I'll use it...but untill then, goodbye!