Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Life in Ireland

So I firgured I should update this thing because it has been about a week. But no major events have happened. Lets see what I have done in the past week. First, on friday I went to the Irish National Gallary of Art. It was very fun and I really enjoy all the history that goes wiht each painting. I always think how crazy it is to think that a painting has been around since the 1300's, maybe that is just the history nerd in me. This weekend I was supposed to go to a proffessional Hurling match. Which is a gaelic game and only really played in Ireland. It is a mix between hockey lacross, soccer and maybe some football, but bottom line it is very fast paced and dangerous. But the game was cancelled due to SNOW. Yep we got about an inch of snow and they had to cancel this match. That made my weekend kind of sad, but I did have a lot of fun hanging out with friends ad meeting more Irish folks. Now the school week a has started again and I am back into doing some reading and trying to focus on writing papers. So it is school I guess. The thing I cna't believe is that this is already my fourth week here..... Wow time flys.

Monday, February 15, 2010

The weekend in Wicklow


On Saturday morning kylen and I decided we should go out hiking in the Wicklow mountains, which are about 30 minutes out of Dublin. We get to the place we think we are going to hike but before we leave we talk to an owner of the youth hostel right across the street. He gives a different better route so we head out on a 30 kilometer journey starting at Saturday at 3. We start hiking and it is picturesque views, but the hiking is hard work. We get about 7 kilometers in and we decide to stop for then night and make camp by this stream and hilly pasture. It is absolutely amazing. We cook a wonderful pasta dinner and then are in bed by 10. Saturday night it dropped below freezing and I was the coldest I have ever been sleeping, it was a very hard night to sleep. It was all because I did not have a sleeping mat to protect me from the ground cold. We wake up Sunday right in the middle of these mountains surrounding us which is the best feeling. Then we head out bright and early on out 20 kilometer day. We hike all day until about 2 when we finally arrive in the small town of Grendalough. It is a quaint tourist trap with old church ruins. We get into to town and have to hang out tell four before we can catch a bus back to Dublin. Overall, the weekend was my favorite so far and allowed me to see more of Ireland then just the big city.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

It has been a few days

So classes are completly under way now. It has been quite a transition getting back into school mode after having almost two months off. But my classes seem good and not to hard. I am taking a Health and fitness class, an International relations, Intro to law, and the history of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, and lastly the History and culture of Ireland. All of these classes are with all Irish Students except the last which is all Americans. But out side of school lots has been going on too. On Tuesday all the American students from CIEE had to go to Immagration and get our immagration card (just like a green card for the US). We all had to wait there for over three hours, which sounds bad, but if we had not had an appointment it could have been as long as 10. So that night was not very much fun, but it is somthing we had to do. Then wednesday we just hung around tried to get a rough outline of places I want to visit and when so that was good. This afternoon was great though, it was a bueatiful blue sky day so a group of us decided to go to the Guinness Store house tour. This tour was very fun and historical becuase Arthur Guinness has had so much influence on the developement of Dublin since 1759. The reason it was important to go on a clear day because the tour ends in the gravity bar which is six floors up and completely glass all the way around. This allows you to see the whole city; which is amazing.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

First day of School

Monday Feb, 8 was our first day of school. I was a little stressed about going to a whole new system and not really have a finalized schedule yet. I got going and went to my only class for the day it turned out not that bad and not super different either. I think the semester will go well, but it may be some work for a few of my classes like the Elections and voting class which is following the UK's election which I know nothing about. After my one class I went to the grocery store to buy food and then basically hung out for the rest of the day with my room mate and some people in my study abroad group.

Sunday Feb 3


On sunday seven of the people in our group took a day trip to the coastal city of Howth. It is a small fishing town about fifteen minutes outside of Dublin, and it is absolutely gorgeous. We went there because it is a place with a famous cliff walk. So we set out to take this hike which went all the way around the peninsula that Howth is on and was just absolutely amazing. The hike a took about three hours and was probably around 6 to 7 miles. The views were great and really what I had in my mind of what Ireland looks like. After the hike we found a sea side take out restaurant and ate great fish and chips. Which were delectable. Overall it was my favorite day so far, it was great for me to get out of the city and experience more nature because I really need that as much as I can because I am not a city guy really.