To being spontaneous

WELL, my weekend hasn't really been going the way I originally expected. And by that I mean, I really didn't expect to be sleeping in the Dublin airport at any point this weekend. And yet here I am. It's 6:30 in the morning. I snuck into a closed restaurant to sleep in their comfy benches and they threw me out at four am. Which I kind of expected but I was having this awesome dream about woolly mammoths made out of clouds. I might be slightly delirious but Gabe is FINALLY going to be here in less than three hours. This has been an ordeal. Like I said, he was supposed to leave JFK at 9pm Saturday night and get into Shannon airport yesterday morning. But he couldn't because of the weather and his flight got changed to be leaving JFK at 9pm LAST night and getting in this morning to DUBLIN. This felt like the world's largest disaster until a very nice lady who works for Delta changed his return flight so that he can stay a couple of extra days. At this point, every once and a while I think about what's going on... how he was stranded in JFK for 24 hours with no clothes other than his Doctor Who outfit... how I've been in the Dublin airport for ten hours already for no real discernible reason... suddenly I'm laughing at how absurd this whole situation is. I'm stealing this internet connection from a bus company. His flight is delayed a little but it's still supposed to come in at 9:15. I hope we make the 10:20 bus because I am pretty seriously sick of this airport. To be honest I am ~not really sure~ why I am blogging about this but it's something to do. I am very excited but at this point, everything just seems nuts. Like, I logically know he's going to be here in like three hours because it says so on the little arrival screen, but my life has become so completely crazy in the past 36 hours or so that it barely makes sense in my brain. But if anyone is reading this who knew I was going to sleep in the airport, everything went better than expected I guess. And if you didn't know that, well, now you know and you can rest assured that everything went fine unbeknownst to you at the time. Spontaneity! Adventure! Backpacking! These are the buzzwords for my life right now apparently.

Risking my life at the Cliffs

I'm not sure why this just occurred to me to post but I was going through pictures on facebook and I thought of it. Remember how I said I hopped the fence at the Cliffs of Moher and went like right up to the edge? Well that was like an entire month ago so maybe it's safe now to prove to everyone just how close I was.

Yeah, I'm cool.

Exploring the Country

Sorry I haven't blogged in so long! I've actually been doing schoolwork, so go me! I'm writing a paper about Richard Loncraine's 1995 adaptation of Richard III, which is excellent by the way. And I'm trying to get the bulk of it done before Sunday, because that's when Gabe is coming to visit me! I'm so excited! But I still haven't written about my trip to Cork and Blarney, which was awesome.

We left last Friday, and there was a pretty big group of us, mostly from Canisius. It was me, Melissa, Nicole, Katie, Danielle, Nick and Joseph. It was a ton of fun! We stayed in this hostel on the hill in Cork, because Cork is pretty much on hills. Like, the River Lee runs through the city and that's kind of the "valley" I guess, and it goes upwards in most directions from there. We got in sort of late the first night, but we went to this great place called the Franciscan Well, it's like a microbrewery and a bar and most of it is open air. It's got this really cool feel. And we ran into my friend Panda there who I met the first time I was in Cork, which was cool. On Saturday, we did a lot of sightseeing. Me and Nicole broke off from the rest of the group, but we saw a TON of stuff. We climbed up the tower to see the Shandon Bells and we got to ring them, which was totally unexpected and cool. We went to the English Market, which is really bustling and sells all this really great meat and cheese and bread and produce, all really fresh, and we had a fantastic lunch from there. We saw cathedrals and I got to see the campus again and we ate the best chips and met people, it was really great. The second night we just chilled in our hostel room and drank wine, but it was a great time to hang out with the other Canisius people. I got along with them but I feel like I got to really kind of bond with them, especially Nick and Joseph who have the world's best bro-mance and pretty much kept me laughing the entire time we were there, including until about three in the morning. Here are some pictures from Cork!

The River Lee!

This beer... was in there!

Going to see the cathedral!

We also went to Blarney and I am so glad we did. It was BEAUTIFUL. Seriously, I pretty much cannot overstate how amazing it was there. We got there pretty early and the morning light seriously made the entire place look completely magical. I can see why people thought faeries lived there. We had an amazing time just exploring the grounds around Blarney castle. We did climb the castle, which was pretty terrifying actually. It's really high up and the whole thing is just like... old and made of rock. I was pretty freaked out. And to add to it, even though it had been nice all day, it started hailing as soon as I got up there. Crazy, I know! So no, I didn't kiss the stone and I guess I didn't get the gift of the gab... But at least there was a good view! Seriously though, I don't even have much to say about Blarney because it kind of defies all description, but have a look at some of the pictures! They don't really do it justice, but for an idea.

Me and Nicole!

This one is from the top of Blarney Castle!

Since then, I haven't really been up to much shenanigannery. I guess I've been taking it easy this week because I know big things are coming up, with Gabe coming and my birthday and then next week is Rag Week which is pretty much a big week-long party at my school. But tonight I did go to a Connacht rugby game and it was soooo much fun! People are really into their rugby here. It was just a crazy good time, even though I didn't know what was going on most of the time. Rugby is complicated. But we were playing Glasgow and there was this big group of really drunk Scottish guys and they were all wearing kilts. And when Connacht beat Glasgow 37-8, one of them like jumped up over the fence and onto the field and totally tackled the Connacht mascot and put him into the dirt. It was the funniest thing that has ever happened hahahahaha. I'm really anxious to go to another game now! I guess Ireland'll make a rugby fan out of me. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures from the game, but here's one of my celebrating in my new Connacht hat.

Go Connacht!

Anyway, this was a really long blog so I hope you're all satisfied! I'll write more soon and post adorable pictures of me and Gabe.

Taking Galway by Storm

Okay, maybe "by storm" is a bit of an overstatement, but I've had some good luck with my banjolele the past couple days!

I had been looking forward to Wednesday like all week. Wednesdays are probably my favorite nights of the week anyway, because I have FanSci game night and then three euro pints at the College Bar and open mic night. This week was particularly awesome because my friend Fergal ran a Call of Cthulhu game for me to play in, which is a roleplaying game I'd been wanting to try for a while, and it was really fun. I was also planning to play at open mic night for the first time and play I did! I was awfully nervous but I think it went pretty well. It's hard to know exactly how I sounded when I'm up there, but people definitely thought the banjolele was cool and it seemed like they got pretty into my song. (I played "Fight" by Ben Kweller which is really catchy and twangy.) Like, everybody clapped along at the end part and they seemed to like it! I didn't make it into the semifinals but this one bloke came up to me and asked if I'd be interested in jamming with his band, which sounds awesome! I haven't heard back from him again about it but I'm pretty excited. After open mic night ended, my friends wanted to go to this club but I wasn't really in the mood for clubs... I was in the mood for banjolele, haha. So I did some street performing on Shop st at like midnight, haha. It was mostly just fun, some guys came and talked to me and we ended up hanging out on the sidewalk for a little while and I was trying to teach them a few chords. I just love things like that, chilling with people spontaneously.

Last night I didn't really have much to do so I went out busking again, earlier this time and trying to get more tips before everyone was too drunk. I played for like an hour and made like 16 euros, which is awesome by the way. But it's also just really fun to be around on Shop st when people are out and about. I like it when people kind of get into it, even if it's only for like thirty seconds, haha. But people are definitely nice and they interact with you and say hi, so that makes it fun. And I'm not complaining about 16 euros in an hour haha. So I'm gonna keep learning more songs and keep doing that, it's a pretty sweet gig. Unfortunately I don't have pictures yet still because I'm a jerk but I'll take some soon, and I do have some videos that I'll have up after I get good enough video to upload them.

So it's been a banjolele week in Galway, and we're soon to head off to a fun weekend in Cork!

Being American in Ireland

So, this weekend ended up being a little more frustrating than I had originally intended. My computer got a virus and it was awful... so I spent much of Friday night and pretty much all of Saturday trying to fix it. Although to be honest, it gave me something to do, because I have spent literally all day so far today sitting around doing nothing. Okay I did laundry. Anyway, it was a crisis situation with my computer because it's the only way I have to keep in contact with everyone from home, but I did fix it! I was also freaking out about losing my files because all my artwork and stuff is on there, including the photography exhibition I wanted to put up this summer. But I didn't have to wipe the drive or anything. I will not explain exactly how I fixed it because that will be boring for most people who do not know a lot about computers, but rest assured that dad helped me, it is fixed and I feel like a genius, to great relief.

We had an American party last night, which I suppose will probably continue into tonight because we are going out to watch the Superbowl later. People do watch it here, but its just weird because it doesn't start until like 11:30 local time, which means we will probably get kicked out of the bar before it is over. We'll see what happens. Go Packers!

I am settled into my new room and waiting for Melissa to get home. She went to Bundoran with the surfing trip this weekend and it seems like she had a good time but I am eager to hear stories and we were gonna cook together. I am kind of upset that I haven't left the house today but sometimes it happens. The weather here hasn't been good. Not like Buffalo, but cold and rainy and very windy. Like, I almost got comically knocked over by the wind. I'm not even that small.

Last night was really awesome. I hung out with the other group of Canisius people, not the ones from my old room - Nicole, Danielle, Katie, Nick and Joseph. We had a great time and went out dancing at the American themed bar here, to go along with our American party. It's called Coyotes and it's pretty comical actually... it's plastered in all this crazy Americana stuff and like American licence plates from all the different states. And bull horns. And a mechanical bull. Because that's what I do in America, haha. Also, this happened.

I don't think I could explain this if I tried, but it is kind of par for the course over here. Haha, that's great craic!

Roommates!

Well, through a series of events, I have moved - just to another flat in Niland House - and now I have a new roommate.

It is Melissa! Also all of my roommates are gone for the weekend, so that basically means I can be super lazy when it comes to putting all my crap away in my new room.

More pics from Warpcon

Hazel put up her pictures and there are a few really nice group shots so I figured you could see more of my friends!

Our hostel room- me, Josie, Sharon and Hillary's chin

Girls of FanSci - Ayla, Hannah, Hillary, Hannah, Josie, Hannah (me), and Hazel in front!

I think you can tell that we had a fun time! In other news, I can count to ten in Irish. Yesterday was FanSci game night and it was fun to go and actually know people there! I also went to the open mic night at the college bar which was surprisingly fun and actually I knew a bunch of people there too. I think now that I realize how awesome Wednesday night open mic is, I'll play my banjolele next week. Patrick wants me to teach him how to play, hehe.

So yeah, things are good over here. Thank God it's Thursday, right? haha