Warpcon!

Well, I had a great weekend in Cork! I was excited to tell you blog-readers about it but I didn't get a lot of sleep over the weekend so I've still kind of been recovering. It's Tuesday night and I'm still pretty tired, but we're having a movie night in room 301 with the other Canisius girls and we're watching Step Brothers! But I had a really great weekend starting on Thursday so I'll tell you about it.

There's a society I joined on campus called Nothing Specific Society and on Thursday night they had a big party for their 3rd birthday. Me and Melissa went and Nick and Joseph, two of the guys from Canisius, stopped by too. It was an awesome time and I got talking to a lot of new people. It turns out that a lot of the members from FanSci overlap with the members of NSS, so I saw a few people that I'd met at game night and it was a great opportunity to talk to them! I ran into Hannah and Hillary, these two girls I met who are from Toronto, and I talked to my friend Eoghan for a long time, he's really cool and he runs the Dungeons and Dragons campaign here so we talked about that for a while and I think he wants me to play in his campaign while I'm here, which I'm really excited about because I love D&D and it'll be a great opportunity to hang out with people!

Me and Joseph at the NSS Birthday party - notice the birthday hat!

So yeah, Thursday night was fun and then Friday afternoon I had to leave pretty early for Cork to go to Warpcon!!! Which is a gaming convention at Cork college. It was cool because a bunch of people I met at the Nothing Specific party also came to the convention.

Friday night of a con is always kinda weird. It's like, you're never quite sure what to do and it was particularly strange not really knowing anyone that well. This was the first event I really went to since I've gotten here without at least one person that I know better, like Melissa or Nicole or people from Canisius. So Friday was a little uncomfortable, I didn't have much to do at the con and I was staying in the hostel with five other girls. But on Saturday I feel like things really came together. We went over to the con pretty early because there were gaming events going on all day. There was a session of D&D that I got to play in with a group of people in the morning and then I spent a lot of the day playing board games and stuff. Some of the other FanSci people were really into Magic the Gathering and played that for most of the weekend, so I had to find other stuff to do, but there were a few people that I really got to have some good conversations with and get to know, especially the other girls in my hostel room- Sharon, Hannah, Hillary, Josie, and Hazel. They're all really nice. There are like eight Hannahs in FanSci so I even got an official nickname here in Ireland. Since all the Hannahs are different nationalities we have nicknames based on it... like they call Hannah from Canada... "Hanada". So they're calling me "Americanna," hahaha. I love it. On Saturday night we went out with all the people from the con and it was really fun. We got the best chips ever (chips are fries) and we went to the Cork college bar. I kinda bonded with my friend Jarad, who's from America also, and we sang Sweet Home Alabama together, hahaha. Everyone danced a lot and it was crazy fun.

My friends Jarad, Hazel and Sharon

Also my friend Fergal is from Cork originally so he knows everybody and he introduced me to a bunch of his friends. Spending an entire weekend with Irish folks nonstop was kind of interesting. I still don't think I'm getting an accent but I'm definitely picking up on all the local slang. There were also some kind of culture shock moments and it was kind of funny! Eoin was hanging out in our hostel room and he was like "why would you put peanut butter and jam together?? that's so weird!!" That was nuts to me so I made him try it and he was totally weirded out by it, haha. Then later at the bar, one of Fergal's friends mentioned that he loved peanut butter and chocolate together, but he had never heard of Reese's cups! I just happened to have half a bag of Reese's pieces in my pocket so I gave it to him and he got SO EXCITED, it was hilarious. He was like running around the bar, having all his friends try the Reese's pieces, yelling "it's like smarties but with PEANUT BUTTER!" I love Irish people, haha. We all stayed out really late and then chilled at the hostel talking until really early in the morning, it was great.

I didn't stay super late on Sunday because I was so tired so I took the early bus home. After more board games, that is! Ticket to Ride is a really fun game actually. Though I might just be saying that because I totally won, haha. So yeah, I took the early bus and it took forever to get home and I was tired and hungry. But I'm just so pleased about this weekend! I really feel like I moved from knowing people here to being friends with them. And when I got back on Sunday night, me and Melissa had a girl date at an italian restaurant with the best spaghetti carbonara I've ever had haha.

The beginning of this week has pretty much been chill after so much going on this weekend. I got some stuff done on Monday, cleaning and getting groceries and adult stuff. But now I'm really excited for FanSci tomorrow. And in two weeks, me and Melissa and Nicole are planning on going back to Cork. I know, I was just there, but I spent the entire weekend on the campus. I only walked through the city like twice but it seemed really lovely. So we're going to go back and do the touristy kind of stuff and also visit Blarney Castle while we're down in the south of the country. I'm pretty excited about it! It'll be the weekend before Gabe comes so it'll give me something fun to do to make the time go by faster!

I guess when I got back from Cork to Galway, I felt like I'd returned home. I know this city and I know people here and it's pretty awesome.

Irish Lessons

Dia duit! That's how you say hello in Irish. Actually, I think it's more literally translated as "God with you", maybe? Irish seems like it's a very poetic language, rather than literal, when it comes to what its phrases actually mean. In any case, I started my Irish lessons today and I really like it. I mean, I've only learned to say really basic things so far, like go raibh maith agat (thank you). And it's more about speaking than reading and writing so it's kind of weird to try to spell things out, but I'm sure we'll do a little of everything. I think it's really cool to say things in Irish. There's a whole building on campus that's not bilingual, everyone speaks in only Irish all the time and all the signs and stuff are in Irish. So neat. Also my friend Charles from Sailing club is in the class, which is pretty cool. We hung out with sailing club last night at the meeting, although they were mostly talking about the trip this weekend that I'm not going on. I felt a little bummed out because it sounds like the trip is gonna be awesome, but I'm still psyched about going to Cork this weekend and there are other sailing trips. My friend Dierdre is already getting me hyped up about the trip for regionals in March. I guess it's like the biggest sailing competition and all the sailing teams from all of Ireland compete and some guys come up from Scotland too! So I'm already planning on that

Also, I don't mean to rub it in to my friends back in Buffalo, but it's really starting to feel like Spring here. I mean, it's definitely not super warm yet or anything, it's still more or less winter coat weather. But it feels like life is starting to come back to this country. Like, when we first got here, when it rained (which it is wont to do), it was still cold enough that the rain was really unwelcome and uncomfortable. And now, it's not like the rain is ~warm~, but it feels more... hydrating. Like it's nourishing the ground. And it smells like Spring, it smells like... life. I guess I'm not too surprised because here they celebrate the beginning of Spring on 1 February, which is coming up. But I'm really glad because the days were awfully short when I first got here and they're already starting to get longer.

Anyway, we're trying to cook chicken goujons in crappy Niland House stove.

Why Spar is Better than Number Ten

There are a number of cornerstores all over Galway... originally we thought Number Ten was the best one because it's open late, but recently it has come to our attention that ACTUALLY Spar is WAY BETTER than Number Ten, so here are some reasons:

-Number Ten does not even sell wine!
-Spar sells classy Bulmers!
-Number Ten's batteries are more expensive than Spar's batteries
-Spar has TIM HORTONS
-Spar has sparkling apple cider in plastic bottles!
-The lady who works at Spar is really nice and definitely likes us
-Spar sells Reeses' AND Reeses' Pieces!
-The only thing Number Ten has going for it is that I like the name "Number Ten"
-But everything else about Number Ten sucks!



Also I'm cool because I have a sonic screwdriver

My Week in Review

Well, I've been here for three weeks now and I guess I'm still adjusting. I've done some cool stuff but it has also been hard in some ways. Meeting people is easy, I've met a lot of people who seem really great and who I really like. But making friends is tougher. I don't feel like I've really made a lot of friends yet, because I don't really have a mastery on that awkward transition where you move from saying hey to someone when you run into them in the hall to calling them to hang out. There's lots of people I like, but there's not really anybody yet who I really spend time with outside of the allotted time we're supposed to spend together for a club (sailing club) or a society (FanSci). That being said, I'm still hopeful for this changing. I was supposed to go sailing yesterday and I didn't make it, partly because I've been feeling sick the past few days and partly because it was freezing and raining and going out on the lake sounded really awful. But once I really jump into things with them, I'm hoping to get to know them better. FanSci especially has a few members that I just think are really great, and they invited me to come up to Cork with them this weekend for a gaming convention, so I'm hoping that'll be kind of a turning point for me. Like, after going up there and living with them all in a hostel for a weekend, we'll be more apt to do stuff together afterward. Hopefully! Another thing that has been frustrating and really bringing me down is my internet situation over here. The internet at my house is really hopelessly bad. Even on a good day, I can barely use Skype and on a bad day, I can forget about even being able to check my email while I'm at home. It just kills me because internet is the only way I can get a hold of people from home. I was hoping with Skype I'd be able to call people whenever I wanted and the fact that I can't is making me feel really homesick. I've been using the wireless internet at school, which is a lot better, but with the time difference it's kind of awkward to walk all the way to campus at midnight to be able to call someone at home when it's 7 for them. So I guess I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about that. And while I've definitely started to get a hang of the food situation, my eating habits are still far from being back to normal and I think it's weirding up my body a little.

So no, it isn't a cakewalk over here but in the past week, I have definitely done some fun stuff too! Last weekend I got invited to a house party with the sailing club and, like I was saying, everyone seems really nice and I want to get to know them better. After the sailing club meeting last week, me and Melissa got to hang out with Charles and Aidan for a while and chat and it was a nice time. Aidan started to teach  me some basic stuff about sailing, like some of the fancy lingo, and it got me really excited to try it out. So it sucks that I didn't go yesterday, but hopefully I'll get another crack at it soon.

On Wednesday, I had to register for my seminar classes and it was pretty much a huge nightmare. I've only ever done online registration... but we had to actually queue up, outside in the cold. I got there hours before registration opened and there was already a huge line in front of us. The people who worked at the college seemed really irritated that we were queuing up so early, but I don't know what they expected because there were only three spots available for visiting students in each seminar. So once registration did open, the more popular classes were filling up within seconds. Luckily, I got the classes I needed - an English seminar called "Film and Shakespeare" and Irish language for beginners, which I'm really excited about. Wednesdays are also good days because FanSci has game night in the evening, so I went there and hung out for a while and played some board games with a cool guy I met named Barry. And after game night, another friend of mine, Fergal invited me out with them to the pub so I was pretty excited that they wanted me to come along, and that's when they convinced me to come to Cork with them! We had a couple drinks and talked about Science Fiction, it was a pretty good time too. (A lot of people here are pretty into Doctor Who so that gives me something to talk about people with. Melissa's friend Peter is also really into DW and Torchwood, he's like a closet nerd, and we like to chat about it. We're trying to get Melissa into it, he had us over one day earlier in the week to watch a few episodes and it was fun.) But overall, that's kind of what we do. We go out to pubs a lot and talk to people and listen to music.

Saturday there was also an anime convention at the school. It was a small one and I didn't really know a lot of people, but it was pretty fun. For one thing, I met LittleKuriboh and MasakoX - which I'm sure means nothing to anyone reading this blog but they're internet personalities that I look up to, so that was exciting. And they're awesome guys and really funny!

I also got to play video games and wear my Amy Pond costume! Not a lot of people recognized it - I guess it is pretty obscure, especially when I don't have a Doctor to go with it... but I think it came out well anyway.

And yesterday and today I've been feeling really sick so I haven't been doing much other than sitting around at home, playing my banjolele. Yes, I just wanted to brag that I have a banjolele now. It. Is. Awesome. I've been practicing a lot but I haven't started busking yet. But I'm planning to do some street performing and some open mic nights. It's SO COOL. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of me with it yet, but expect one soon. And maybe something extra special too. But yeah, my banjolele is awesome. It plays the same as a ukulele so I don't have to learn anything, but I want to memorize a pretty good portfolio of songs and hopefully I can go out and busk with it soon. Can't wait!

Anyway, I'll try to blog more regularly in the future. I guess that's about all I have to say about the past week, other than it's foggy and I can prove it.

Filler!

I'm sorry I haven't written anything in a week, and I promise I will soon. But in the meantime, here's an awesome picture of me and Melissa battling with a lightsaber and two sonic screwdrivers.

Photos from the Burrens

The Burrens, made of limestone

The Cliffs of Moher

The Burren

So, things have been going pretty well across the pond! I've taken a few nights off from going out to let myself recover. I've had small bouts of homesickness as far as that goes, but I've also had a couple fun evenings in. Wednesday was the Societies fair and I joined a few. I think the ones I am most excited about are Photography Soc and FanSci. I haven't done anything with Photo Soc yet but they seemed very nice and they liked my Nikon. I guess they do photography trips and have like little photo challenges for different weeks, where you have to like take a close up picture of hands or something specific like that to practice your technique, and you can put your pictures in your own little online gallery for the soc. It seems cool and I've been getting pretty serious about photography since I got here. I went to a meeting of FanSci on Wednesday night, which is like the Science Fiction and gaming club. They were awfully fun, I played some games with them and it was a great time, and this one bloke wants to run a game of Dungeons and Dragons next week and he invited me, I'm pretty excited. Last night I also just stayed in and had a girls night with Melissa... we ate pizza and chicken fingers and just sat around and talked about boys and, y'know, stuff girls do haha. It was really relaxing and we're gonna try to do it once a week. My classes have also been pretty good, although only half of them have started yet. Celtic mythology in particular is going to be really awesome. We're learning about all the classic Irish legends and the popular folklore here, like fairies and the banshee. I am so interested, I can't wait to start reading the book and everything.


Theoretically, though, this blog entry is supposed to be about my vacation adventures! I've started exploring the country of Ireland and it's absolutely beautiful. Nicole and I don't have classes on Fridays, so we're trying to spend some of our Fridays doing mini trips around Ireland. Today we took a tour through the Burren, which is an area around Western Ireland in County Clare that's very rocky and it has all these rocky mountains. They're all made of limestone because apparently like 4 million years ago, the entire area was underwater and it was like a huge tropical sea! I think that's so cool. It made me wish that I had a way to go back and see what everything here was like back then. (Where are you, Doctor??) But anyway, it was really pretty and we stopped at some pretty impressive places. The best one, obviously, was the Cliffs of Moher. It was just breathtaking. I felt like I was literally on the top of everything. It's difficult even to describe, but I took some awesome pictures. I was told that like everyone hops the fence to get a closer look at the cliff, so I did it. I got really close to the edge, like a few inches away, and it was amazing. (Can't yell at me now, I already did it and I didn't die! When I told Gabe about it, he commented that you don't normally hear the phrase "I could have died today! It was awesome!") We also went to the top of O'Brien castle, it was so windy I felt like I was just gonna blow away into the ocean. It's probably good I didn't, but it just felt so alive to be up there! The cliffs were so tall and the moss was so green and the sun was so bright and the ocean was so, so blue... the bluest blue ever. And the whole trip got me to thinking about how old things are. We went to a Stonehenge-esque burial ground called Poulnabrone that was 5,000 years old. And in the Aillwee Cave, the stalactites had been forming for about 10,000 years. Let me say something about the Aillwee cave also. It was pretty impressive... not really because it was impressive to look at, after seeing the cliffs being in the cave was almost like "why are we here looking at this rock." But I went from being inches away from a cliff face 400 feet above the ocean... to inside a mountain, standing underneath 370 feet of solid limestone. Actually I was probably at around ground level and it was a mountain above me, but it just felt like I was standing in the center of the earth. The whole thing was just... something. It made you think about how old things are. And it was gorgeous. I'll be anxious to put up a few of my pictures once I finish going through them all.