Oh, what a week

Weeks like this don't happen in America. At least not to me, and I'm pretty sure they're hard to come by for anyone else too. It started off with some good old fashioned pranking, which turned on me - the non-participant - and ended with a gorgeous view of the ocean unlike anything I've ever seen. And I've seen the Atlantic before in multiple places.

But before I get to the amazing view part of this week, let me tell you about the happenings of House 82. Two of my Irish housemates, James and Brian along with their oh-so-funny friends, have quite the senses of humor. They tease us for things we say and we tease right back. Unfortunately, most of the teasing revolves around phrases my mom doesn't think I know so they won't be repeated here. Sorry. But recently the teasing has morphed into practical jokes, mostly centered on either James or Katie. We focus on James, he focuses on Katie. And I use the term "we" here very loosely because up until early this week I had kept out of all the shenanigans. You would too if James still had a key to your room and had threatened to use it.

Well, Monday night James got revenge for what up until this point had been a pretty one-sided barrage of pranks. And got me all wet in the process. See he, Brian Fox (who lived here last semester) and Kieran (who never lived here as far as I know) decided to tie my doorknob to Katie's doorknob, both of which open inwards thus trapping us in our rooms. Katie apparently tried to climb out her window but James was outside pushing her back in. Once Lauren finally let us out (which she didn't do automatically and will never be forgiven for) Katie and I tried to mess up James' room, but couldn't manage to get the door shut and locked. It was two girls against like three guys. We never had a chance. After this, Brian Fox and Kieran redeemed themselves slightly by stealing the other Brian's mattress. They literally dumped his sheets and walked out the front door with it.

Eventually the pranking stopped - or at least I thought it had. I don't know why, after being trapped in my room, I thought it was safe to close my door, but I will never make the same mistake again. See, there's this prank that involves filling a bucket (or any large container really) up with water, then leaning it against someone's door, knocking, and then running away. When the door is opened, the bucket tips over leaving the victim all wet, along with the floor. James was the first victim in our house. Lauren was the second. And yours truely was the third and final. As of Friday morning my carpet was still slightly damp. No joke.

After that night, the pranking died down. Mostly because James, Katie, Lauren, and I all began locking our doors at all times. Going to the bathroom literally five steps away from my room? Better not forget my room key. This made it hard to do much of anything, and Thursday night a truce was called. Rooms are now officially off limits in House 82. Because let's face it, locking your door when you aren't leaving the house is über annoying. (I should probaby mention that this truce happened one day after Brian put a 24-hour moratorium on any badmouthing of each other from James or Katie. It was getting nasty). Apparently the whole "rooms are off limits" thing didn't apply Thursday night/Friday morning for Katie's room, but that's too long of a story to repeat here. Suffice to say, Katie spent most of Friday afternoon cleaing her room.

But we must not have made James all that mad, because he still agreed to take us to the Cliffs of Moher on Saturday afternoon. Maybe his getting lost was just payback for picking on him. Or it was just him being a boy and refusing to look up directions beforehand. But either way, I think the pictures speak for themselves:

Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Missouri anymore.

Apparently, the Cliffs are also a nice place to kill yourself. I don't know that it's the way I'd want to go. A 600-foot drop into ice cold water and flesh-piercing rocks seems a little painful to me, but then again I'm not suicidal, so...And yes, we did go past the sign in the background that says not to pass this point.

This isn't actually the Cliffs (duh) but if you turn around this is what you see. There were people surfing. In February. In Ireland. Yes, I think they were crazy too.

Absolutely amazing. Probably one of the prettiest things I've ever seen in my life. And talk about making you feel small and insignificant!

Cinema Musings

Not much has happened since my last post, mostly just me watching a whole bunch of TV on my computer trying to catch up with everything that I'm missing. I know, this should definitely be on my priority list when in Ireland...Oh well. But I did go to the movie theater (or cinema) for the first time yesterday to see "He's Just Not That Into You." It was Valentine's Day. What did you expect a whole bunch of girls to do? And so I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on the Irish version of a movie-watching experience.

The theater itself was a lot better than 75 percent of theaters at home, by my standards at least. And this is coming from a spoiled, AMC-loving movie gal. But besides for the chairs that needed to be about six to 10 inches higher in the back, it wasn't that bad. The screen was about 1/3 the size of the big screens back home (in good ol' theaters 11-14 in KC - so many memories it's kind of sad). The student ticket cost €7.50, which was the same price as the adult ticket. Thanks for the spectacular discount there Storm Cinema (and what's with the tacky name?).

I bought a bag of Starbursts to go along with my smuggled-in water bottle, and here lay the biggest disappointment of the entire experience: in Ireland apparently they don't believe in supplying customers with lemon-flavored candy. It's lemon-lime. But what about those of us who dig through the bag to find all the yellow ones and ditch all the other colors but orange? What about us? Needless to say, I'm kind of an artificially-flavored lemon fanatic. The discovery that my desire for lemon candy was not to be fulfilled was almost more than my taste buds could stand.

And thrown into the mix of the flavor tragedy was the odd tasting strawberry (do they grow them differently over here or something because no strawberry I've ever had tasted like that...) and the addition of Blackcurrent. It's everywhere I tell you! The Lodge doesn't have cranberry juice but black current cordial to mix with your vodka. The markets don't have grape jelly but black current (not that I care all too much since grape jelly is the most disgusting thing since baby food). And now Starbursts are in on the scam too? If I didn't know better I'd say black current was attempting to take over the world. Or at least Ireland. Next thing you know all the green grass is going to be replaced with purple, black current flavored artificial turf. Enter Willy Wanka already. It fits too, since Willy Wanka always disturbed me as much as this black current fettish is now.

But back to the movie theater. They didn't have ads before the previews started, and obviously the music being played wasn't supplied by MovieTunes. I found it a little weird to be sitting in a theater not watching the same five ads/movie quiz questions being repeated over and over again. And the music they played was different from the type of music they play at home. Not that I didn't like the music. In fact I loved it. So much so that Brittany, Katie and I all went home and Googled it to find out who it was: Elbow. It's a British rock band that's been around since 1990, and apparently inspired Gary Lightbody and the rest of Snow Patrol. No wonder I liked them.

There was the usual copyright infringement warning before the movie, and a warning that trying to record the movie on any sort of device was also illegal, but no ad telling people to turn off their cell phones. No Martin Scorsese directing a mom on how to put her child to bed. No garbled collection of people talking, babies crying and cell phones ringing. Nothing. This was also a little disappointing, as normally these are either so rediculous or so familiar that I look forward to them every time. I'm normally that annoying person fake crying along with the baby in the AMC warning. Sorry. Instead it went straight from the proclamation that stealing this film could result in a heafty fine and 5 years in jail to the movie.

The movie that is rated "15A" in Ireland, meaning that someone under the age of 15 has to be accompanied by someone over 18 in order to see it. And the movie's PG-13 at home. Hmm, this may say a lot about why the whole world thinks we have our priorities wrong. Even though the movie wasn't even that bad. At all. I mean, besides for the swimming pool scene that's in every preview for the movie and one slip of the F-word by Jennifer Aniston's character, the movie was pretty clean. And I personally don't think one utterance of the F-word is as big of a deal in Ireland as it is in America. Since the average Irish person probably uses the word more than almost any other word in the English language. But that's just me.

But once the movie started, it was home sweet home. The lights never turned on once the credits started rolling, which I thought was odd and resulted in us stumbling down the steps in darkness to exit, but other than that everything was the same. I guess that's to be expected. I mean how do you expect them to change the actual movie?

Even though all in all it was enjoyable, I'm still going to be happy to be back at home, within easy access to my baby, AMC Barrywoods 24. It's sad but oh so true.

Kim

Traveling through Cork

I love to travel, but this weekend I remembered just how exhausting it can be. After staying up late on Thursday night/Friday morning but not sleeping all that late (since I had a 1 pm class. I know 11:30 is late by most standards, but not by mine, especially when I'm up until 3:30), I had to get up early to catch a bus to Cork from Limerick at 8:35 am. But since we caught such an early bus we got to Cork at 10 am. After a quick check of the bus times to Blarney, Katie, Lauren, Brittany and I decided to go check in at our hostel (Sheilas, only about a five minute walk from the bus station) to dump our backpacks before traveling to Blarney.

The Cork bus station, fulfilling all of our travel needs.

Since I was out the entire bus ride to Cork I was actually able to stay awake for the short ride to Blarney. It only took about 25 minutes, and the scenery was amazing. Obvious I know, but I'm still kind of in awe of how green it always is here. And we had perfect weather. It could have been a few degrees warmer, but asking for heaven isn't exactly realistic.

Blarney was great. It was beautiful. We wandered around the castle a little bit before actually heading up - where we were met by the Stairs from Hell. They were spiral and skinny and spelled instant doom for claustrophobic me. And Lauren. And Brittany, who's afraid of heights. Only Katie was OK, and she did a pretty good job, inadvertently, of scaring all three of us the entire way up. But once we got up, what a sight to see. You could see for miles, including pretty much the whole town of Blarney and the Blarney House, from up there.

But if I thought the stairs were scary, I was sure in for a treat when I went to do what everyone who goes to Blarney does: kiss the Blarney Stone. Except when you kiss the stone, as pictured below, you have to lean over backwards while laying on your back, over a hole with only two steel bars separating you from the ground 150 feet away.

Only afterward did I realize how high up I had been. And that there was literally very little separating me from the fatal drop. I'm happy I didn't know then what I know now, or that picture might never have happened. But the guy who held me was attractive (what little of him I remember since my mind was preoccupied with other things, like not dying). And he was young and sturdy, not old and weak.

Me kissing the Blarney Stone. Weeee!!

After we all kissed the stone, is was Round 2 with the scary stairs. I like to think we did a better job the second time around, but maybe not considering that Lauren was clutching the railing with both hands, making hilarious remarks that almost resulted in Brittany and me missing a few steps. We then wandered towards the Blarney house, which we couldn't enter since it's closed during the off season. But it was still amazing to look at. I kind of expected, or rather hoped, Mr. Darcy (or another Jane Austen equivalent, aka Mr. Knightly, Captain Wentworth or Henry Tilney - no man from Sense and Sensibility or Mansfield Park is worth dreaming of) to walk out the front doors and onto the pebble drive in order to sweep me off my feet and into a life of luxury and true love for ever and ever, amen. Yes, I realize this is unrealistic. And yes, I realize Jane Austen is English and not Irish. But the only lesson this line of thinking teaches me is that I have to go to Bath, London, or the Lake District in order to meet Mr. Jane-Austen-Made-Me-Perfect-and-I-Love-You. So what's the point?

Yes, in some part of my mind I do expect my future husband to own property that looks like this. I know it's unrealistic and I don't care.

We decided to call it a day in Blarney and took a bus back to Cork, where we were finally allowed in our room. It was actually really cute, and we had a good view of the city. The room was smaller than the hostel rooms in Wurtzburg, Passau, or Fussen, but it was also nicer than all but Passau. And let's face it, it's hard to come close to the awesomeness that is Passau, so I call it a pretty darn good pick from hostelbookers.com. And it was extremely close to the city and the shopping street. Which is all that matters. We spent the evening shopping until we were all too hungry to function when we found a nice little restaurant that supplied me with my first real meal not prepared by yours truely since I've been in Ireland. And what did I order? A ginormous hamburger with salad and potatoe wedges. A-ma-zing. We finished dinner around 7 pm, headed back to the hostel, and all passed our by 9 pm. Yeah, we're cool. Or exhausted (as I mentioned earlier).

Our hostel room.

This morning we went and saw St. Finbarr's Cathedral and Elizabeth's Fort before any of the stores were open. But you better believe at noon we were outside a store ready to go in - it was just chance that we were walking by a store we had already picked out when it opened. We didn't stalk it like crazy engaged women do bridal shops when they have sales. When we were done shopping, it was off to home sweet home, where we all dumped our stuff ready for a nice relaxing evening in our cold as anything home. But it's still home. Even if the hostel room and buses were 15 degrees warmer.

St. Finbarr's Cathedral. It really was pretty, even if we didn't go in.

One of my 7 Wonders of the World. FCUK: French Connection, UK. Spectacular.

Brittany and me with the statue that made the day, and probably the trip for both of us. It's too long of a story to explain to anyone except perhaps Kate, but suffice to say it has to do with The History Boys. And says "Lest We Forget."

Kim

I thought I left Missouri?

So, when flying to Ireland I expected it to rain. I expected it to be cloudy. I expected it to be cold. I did not, however, expect it to snow. Not that the snow is sticking really to anything but the turf on the fields, but seriously? I didn't think it snowed here. In fact, I'm fairly sure this isn't normal. See, I thought I was leaving the crazy, bi-polar weather of the midwest behind me. Like, an ocean and half a continent behind me. Apparently I was wrong. But you wouldn't tell by looking at the Irish that it's snowing outside. Or that it's cold enough to snow. The girls are still walking around in their sweater dresses, leggings and boots without coats. Why I ask? Why? It makes me cold, and I'm all bundled up!

Irish people running through the snow, probably more confused about it than I am.

The view from my window without perplexed Irishmen.

On a different note, it's the beginning of the second week of class, which means I'm finally starting to get into the groove of things. I've gone to class the past two days without a campus map tucked in my pocket and I haven't gotten lost yet! I'm beginning to understand how all of the building work - and let me tell you none of them confuse me as much as the science buildings at Creighton (am I in Criss I or II, or Rigge, or Hixon Lied?? And what floor?) Even the main building with five different sections doesn't pose as big of a conundrum for me. I've been at CU a year and a half and haven't figured out the science buildings, but I've been here two weeks and it all make sense. Something isn't right.

We're starting to figure out how to make balanced meals too. Last night we made grilled chicken breasts, green beans, and mashed potatoes. Lauren still had pasta, but at least we tried. And for lunch I had a salad today. I know right? In the last 24 hours I haven't had Italian food once. That doesn't mean I've cut all of the carbs out of my diet, seeing as I had a Nutrigrain bar for breakfast and a scone and a cup of coffee between classes, but that's normal for me. Maybe I won't turn into a beast before I come back. There's hope!

Katie, Lauren, and I have begun bonding with our housemates. Well, not so much Colin because we never see him, but with James and Brian. Katie and I talked to them for like an hour last night when we both had decided we were going to go to bed early. Oops. But I geuninely like both of them. I can't believe how lucky we got with housemates.

And we finally figured out why James and Brian switched rooms from last semester - the rooms they're in now have double beds. James was in mine and Brian was in Katie's, and we couldn't figure it out for the longest time. But now it all makes sense. Lucky boys. And anyone in Cappavilla. And their stupid double beds. But I guess my feet would still stick out of the douvet cover anyways, so there's no point in complaining. I can't imagine what a tall person would feel like in these beds, since my feet almost hang over the edge and I'm only 5'7". I guess they don't grow Paul Bunyan-sized people here. Just leprechauns. Although my Irish Folklore lecturer told us today that they don't really exist. I still don't believe her though.

The snow has stopped coming down in huge, wet flakes now. Which is nice since I have to walk to class soon. For my Irish Folklore tutorial - we're making Brigid's crosses today. She's an Irish saint, second only to St. Patty himself.

I have to go soon for that, so bye!
Kim

Have I told you lately that I love you?

That's how I feel about my computer right now. Because for the first time since last Tuesday (aka the day I arrived in Ireland) I'm sitting in my room on my own computer. I could have kissed the guys at the computer store when they handed it to me. It's quite the day in my life! It's kind of sad how happy I am right now.

Add this feeling to the total fun of last night, and it's been a pretty awesome 24 hours. See, last night I actually did something. I went out. For the first time it was midnight and I wasn't curled up under blankets in my room shivering. I was at the Lodge, well underneath it at least. Kilmurry Lodge is a hotel in Limerick, but the basement is a night club. Nothing fancy, but it's about three minutes from campus by taxi and lots of UL students go there. And now Brittany, Katie and I have experienced it.

We got there around 11:30 pm and found it fairly full - although apparently not so much for those who go there a lot. About an hour later Brian, one of our housemates, told us this was a pretty low turnout. This does make a little sense since people got turned away on Sunday night. Apparently there was a line to get in at 9 and it didn't open for at least another hour. I haven't had that much fun in a long time, and surprisingly my feet never started to hurt, even in my boots. I'd describe everything that we did, but it's mostly self-explanatory. It was a night club, so we danced and drank and talked - and laughed a lot.

And now that I have my computer, I can upload pictures! I have all of my Ireland pictures on the right side of this screen in a slideshow, but I thought I'd post some here so they're bigger:

My home away from home. House 82, Kilmurry Village. And Katie (right) and Lauren (left): my two American housemates.

The University Arena. It was the first place in Ireland to have an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Needless to say, I won't be going in that part of the building very much. Unless Michael Phelps comes for a dip.

My really messy room (note the jeans draped over the chair - their permanent place of residence since they're always wet).

The Living Bridge during the day. Or at least a section of it. This connects the main campus to a completely different county. And also separates me from Brittany.

Tomorrow the plan is to see King John's Castle and the Hunt Museum before going to Dunnes, a kind of all-in-one place. We need food, and of course to look at the clothes they have!

Kim

P.S. On a completely unrelated side note, I think I've watched more "Friends" in the past few days than in years. Odd...

And I thought I was an overachiever before...

I still have no computer. It's been days since I've actually been on one. I never thought I'd handle this as well as I am. The whole being cut off from the world (aka Facebook and cnn.com) thing. But it's given me more time to nap, which is always a plus for me. Except now I feel like I'm sleeping my way through Ireland. Not something I was actually planning on doing, but hey, a girl's gotta do something when she has no Internet.

I've been to all except one of the classes I plan on taking, and so far I think I'm going to like them. The first one I went to was a history class on Irish revolution and independence. I'm not taking it. Not that it didn't sound interesting, but I have no need/interest in taking a class that used to be a second semester senior level class that is now a second semester freshman level class, but still taught by the same lecturer (aka professor but not really) who intends on teaching it exactly the same as he always has. And therefore making allusions/jokes about "famous" Irish people I've never heard of. Talk about yawn-inducing. Plus the fact that I got little to no sleep the night before.

But the other classes seem pretty cool. I have a European history class that's going to involve a little bit of reading (not that Irish students read...), an Irish folklore class that should be interesting, a 19th century lit class (but we're not reading any Jane Austen. He's referenced three Austen books in one lecture - Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park - but we're not reading them. Why?), an Irish political science class, and Irish music and dance. For the last one I get to choose either an instrument, dance, or song to learn. The instruments are either the tin whistle (aka a little tin recorder) or the drum. I'm not interested in singing, and I don't know how I feel about the dance. But I'm not big on the whole playing an instrument either (reference: my three horrible years of playing the clarinet). So I guess dance it is. When Riverdance was big I always wanted to learn how to dance like that, so I guess this is my chance to live the dream of a 10-year-old. Ten years later.

And did I mention that no one reads here? One of my lecturers said he stopped putting together a reading list because it's not like the Irish students looked at it at all. So it was just a waste of his time. And apparently they often don't go to class, choosing instead to stay up until 5 am drinking and singing at the top of their lungs. My Irish housemates think it's weird that I plan on going to all my classes. And reading. So even though I knew I was an overachiever in America, apparently I'm an ever bigger anomaly here. Great. And I had just gotten used to kind of fitting in with the majority of the student population at a school for overachievers (except you Leslie, who somehow manages to never do homework or reading but still passes everything. Did I ever tell you you're my hero?) And boy do they love to party. Not party in our sense of partying once every few weeks, but I mean every night. And "going out" is more of, hey let's go to someone's house and get smashed. Every night. But hey, they all make good use of taxis. It's something every American college student should learn to do. I can't imagine what it's like to be a taxi driver though. I'd get kind of sick of shepherding drunken college students around. But that's just me.

I know I keep saying this, but I really do hope to put up some pictures eventually. Once I get my computer back. Which hopefully is very soon.

Kim

They wear seat belts on the bus?

Hello from Ireland! I'd put up pictures of my room, campus, etc. except my computer is completely freaking out (maybe it hates the rain here more than I do) and so I can't upload anything. And my camera refuses to charge, so it's completely dead and I can't photograph anything. So basically everything involved in posting pictures hates me.

But other than that I'm really liking Limerick. Two of my house-mates are fellow Americans which is great, especially since the one Irish house-mate we've met--James--we can't understand. Why is it so hard for some people to open their mouths and speak? But he seems really nice. I think we overwhelm him a little bit, but he's warming up to us now. 

My two American house-mates are Lauren from New Jersey and Katie from Michigan. They're both really nice and I've spent lots of time getting to know them (and the city of Limerick) over the past two days. Getting into town is interesting because we have to take the bus. It's not hard, I mean I've used public transportation before just not in KC or Omaha because it sucks in both places. But at least there I know the cities, and where and when to get off (or I'm with my dad in strange cities and he tells me what to do). But here, it's all you. And you have to press a button before the stop you want in order to get off if there isn't anyone wanting to get on the bus at that stop. And when you don't know the city or where you want to go at all that's kind of hard.

I bought a phone yesterday and it has Skype on it. I think that's pretty cool. So now anytime someone is on Skype I can talk/chat with them for free! So I think all my US friends should get it because I'm technically on Skype 24/7 or whenever my phone is on. I still don't exactly have all the kinks worked out with it, but it's still pretty cool. 

We had our first day of orientation today, starting at 9 am--way earlier than I got up yesterday for sure. We learned all about being study abroad students and signing up for classes, etc. and then got tours from Irish students around the campus. I'm kind of hating that Creighton is so small now, because UL definitely isn't and I'm going to have trouble learning my way around. Plus I'm nervous that I'm going to get stuck with some crazy Irish professor who mumbles the whole time. 

Tomorrow we have more orientation stuff; we get to learn about safety on campus. Don't they realize I've lived two blocks south of North Omaha the past year and a half? I think I'm good. But whatev. And then we have a session on study skills (because bad student me never picked those up...oh wait). But we have to go because they pass out the timetable for all the classes afterwards. And going is the only way to get it. Stupid. 

This weekend my plan is to take my computer into this Apple-but-not-Apple Store in the city "centre" so they can take a look at my computer and see what's up. I hope they can just fix it then! And I need to find a hairdryer and straightener. Because it's cold enough in my room as it is without having wet hair to go along with it. And maybe a camera if I can't figure anything out.

I thought I'd share a few odd things I've learned/picked up since I've been here (it's crazy how out-of-place I feel right now!):

A.) They wear seat belts on tour busses? The bus that picked us up from the airport had seat belts built in and a sign on one of the windows reminding people to buckle up. I didn't. Neither did anyone else. I didn't even see the sign until we were on campus driving around. I thought that wasn't safe to wear seat belts on big busses like that? Apparently the Irish didn't get the memo. Or we're just cheap in America and don't want to pay the money to install them on busses...

B.) Things smell funny. At least my room does. It needs a major air freshener. I wonder if they have Glade over here. Hum...that's something I'm going to need to check out. Seriously.

C.) Car's don't stop for you. I kind of remember this fact from Germany, but I guess I was walking in so many pedestrian zones that it didn't really matter on the large scale of things. And they drive fast too. Like, seriously. Maybe not on the highways/major roads and stuff, but around roundabouts and in parking lots/campus streets they just zoom on by you. And when you're walking across the street and haven't figured out which way to look when crossing (because they drive on the WRONG side of the road and it totally disorients you) it's kind of a bad thing. 

D.) I hate being eco-friendly. The whole recycling thing I'm fine with. And public transportation. As much as I miss my car I wouldn't want to drive here anyways. But not having hot water whenever you want and keeping the heat turned down. No way. I get too cold too easily to live with this. Plus, it rains like all the freaking time so you're always wet. All I ever want to do is walk into a really hot room and dry off/warm up. But no. That's not possible because we have to save energy to save the planet. I can't wait to get back to nasty KC summers just so I'm not cold anymore. And eternally wet.

That's really all I have. Hopefully I'll get my Mr. Mac fixed here sometime soon (I hope they don't have to ship it out somewhere to get it fixed...my poor baby!) so that I can update this/check my email and Facebook more often. And hopefully I'll figure out what to do with my camera. I really don't want to have to buy one or something. That seems like such a waste!

Writing soon (hopefully),

Kim