Half-Way!

I know I've been bad about updating and I'm sorry for that!  I've certainly gotten myself into a routine of school and such and things are going well.   I'm also pretty much at the half way point of my adventure here which is crazy, I can't believe how fast time is flying by.  Two weekends ago my friend Mari Walsh from high school came to visit and we had a great time!  We went back to had dinner at a nice Mexican place in cork (who knew!), went to the art museum, blarney castle and did a little shopping and adventuring through the city.  It was great to spend time with her and I am working on planning a trip down to Dublin to see her too!  I haven 't gotten out of the city in awhile but am really coming to love up on the little city that is Cork.  At first the place annoyed me, but now that I know my way around I have started to find some really awesome, cute and quirky shops and coffee places that I like to visit.  It is starting to get colder in Ireland, something I didn't quite expect, and I realize that I did not pack enough cold weather clothes.  Hopefully I can tough it out until my parents get here at Thanksgiving because everything is really expensive over here!  My classes are going well, although we are starting to have to do homework and such which is a bummer--aren't I on vacation?  The next half of my trip will surely fly:  This weekend is the jazz festival which is a huge event in cork, the following weekend in Halloween and two friends from home-Nori and Lauren- will be here!  The first weekend in November is my friend Alexa's birthday and my roommate from Denver, Allie, is coming to visit, then its off to Barcelona for a weekend, then my parents are here for two weekends and then it is December!  It is crazy to think about my time here in terms of weekends alone.

For my animal behavior class we are working on a project that takes place at Fota wildlife park which is a conservation park just outside the city.  Each student is given an animal to observe and we have to do a write up on their behavior.  I have the giraffe.  But the wild life park is an amazing place.  Most of the animals, besides the carnivores, are free to roam around in large enclosures with others species, making a more natural habitat.  Some species like birds, lemurs, wallabies and small rodent deer called mara, are just free to roam the park in general which is kinda neat.

I'm also still involved with the photography society and working on my techniques!  It's pretty exciting, but I have a lot to learn.  The choral society is working on A Ceremony of Carols to preform at our three night christmas concert in December, also pretty exciting!

Anyways I am excited for the jazz festival this weekend, and promise to take and post a bunch of photos, for now these will have to do!

Lemurs chillen in the grass

my giraffes!

view from the castle! So pretty

At the top of blarney castle!

Galway

This past weekend I took a short trip to Galway with a couple of my girlfriends.  It was interesting to say the least!  We arrived friday afternoon at about 1 after a 4 hour bus trip from Cork and proceeded to walk about the city of Galway after checking in at our hostel.  We toured a very beautiful church in galway and took a look through the various tourist shops.  We also got a nice Irish lunch at a hotel in the city center.  After being shopped out we went back to the hostel and got some pizza and prepared ourselves for a night on the town which turned out to be quite fun!  Once we returned to the hostel however, we realized that our new bunkmates were quite the crowd---2 of the 4 had already been in jail that night!  There proceeded to be a lot of awkward drunk singing by our new bunkmates and enough fear to keep most of us up for the night!  I guess thats what you get for paying 15E for a room!  Saturday morning we woke up and took a bus tour of areas around Galway.  Our first stop was the Ailwee cave system.  We took a tour into the cave which is in the side of the Ailwee (meaning yellow) mountain.  It was very neat!  There were remains of the European Brown Bear in the cave which has been extinct for thousands of years as well as an underground waterfall, impressive stalactites and stalagmites and fossils from when the area was under the ocean.  Next we began a scenic but somewhat long drive to the Cliffs of Moher, which were in a word, amazing.  We spent a lot of time at the Cliffs and I couldn't believe how impressive they are!  We lucked out with the weather and got to capture some great pics of the cliffs.  On one of the cliffs is the O'Brien's Tower, which is a three story tower, if you look at the building in the pictures it really puts the size of the cliffs into perspective as the three story building suddenly looks tiny!  We then headed down to the small town of Doolin and had some delicious Beef and Guinness stew before heading back to Galway, and then from Galway caught the late bus and headed back to Cork returning at about 11 at night.  It was a long day, but we got to see some really awesome things on the way and I had a lot of the fun with the girls I was with!

This morning I went to mass at the campus church and it was pretty neat, there were a lot of students and the mass was geared towards younger people.  This week will bring some more school work and on Tuesday  I will be going on photographic tour of Cork with the photography society so that should be real neat!  On Friday my friend Mari from high school is coming to visit as she is studying abroad in Dublin so this weekend should be fun as well!

Mosaic in the church in Galway

Center isle of church--So pretty!

DU girls!

stalactites in Ailwee Cave

Cliffs of Moher

Cliffs

see the tower?  crazy!

I have classes?

Well I started my classes at Cork finally and its been quite a shock to my nonchalant fun loving party attitude that had really become quite comfortable.  I'm taking a good mix of classes while I'm here.  First I'm taking a philosophy course on reasoning and argument, its certainly something that I've never done before but seems like it will be interesting!  I also signed up for an English course on Chaucer's Canterbury Tales--this again is something that I usually wouldn't have signed up for but also something that I thought would add to my overall curriculum.  The first week these were my only two classes and I felt a little bit lost between the theory and early english text but this week I was relieved to begin my science courses.  I am taking a microbiology class entitled Transmission and Epidemiology of Infectious Disease which seems like it is going to be quite alarming but interesting nonetheless.  I am also taking a marine mammal biology class with a professor who seems like she has a lot to offer.  She has already offered me the chance to be on her alert contact list for strandings and necropsies of marine mammals which will be pretty amazing, and an opportunity I would not have gotten in Denver.  Finally I am taking an Animal Behavior--or Behaviour if you will--class which also seems like it will be great!  Although classes are interrupting my social life, I am actually really excited to get started and settle into a routine.  I also joined the choral and photography societies so that should help me integrate into the campus scene!
On September 23rd we celebrated Arthur Guinness Day-- the anniversary of the guinness company.  At 17:59 there was a worldwide toast to represent the year, 1759, in which the brewery opened.  This day was pretty amazing and involved all classes being cancelled (I guess the profs wanted to participate) and free or cheap guinness throughout the city.  I even 'suffered' my way through a couple guinness just to please my dad of course!  I don't have any pictures to post at this point, but hope to get up to Galway and the cliffs of Moher this weekend so look forward to that!  I do however have a link to a video (of poor quality sorry) of our worldwide toast on the courthouse steps of Cork!  If you look closely (hint: 1:20 ish) you can even see me!

Arthur Guinness Day- Cork 2010

Glasgow...kinda

So I just returned from my 'vacation' to Glasgow to visit my cousin Caralyn and it was quite the experience.  I arrived late on Thursday night and we pretty much just went to bed.  Friday morning we got up and I accompanied her to her first class, and walked around the Vet campus while she attended others.  After a nap we ventured down onto Byre road--a sort of commercialized street with various restaurants, shops and bars.  We had a nice dinner at a cute little Italian place (which made me want to take a trip to Rome!!) and then wandered up to the main campus of Glasgow university.  We then found some ice cream and a couple of nice bars to sit in and catch up. It was a great evening!  Saturday morning found Caralyn with a hurt knee-- she had recently had surgery but it was really bothering her.  Upon further inspection we determined that things were not looking normal and headed off to the hospital.  Hours of frusteration at socialized medicine later we came out with no definitive answer and a pair of crutches.  We opted to stay in a hotel in the Glasgow City Center for the night so that we might still be able to get a meal or something and so I could make my 4:30am bus the next morning.  I dropped Caralyn off at the Hotel for a much deserved nap and headed out down Buchanan Street, the main commercial street in Glasgow.  After some shopping I went back and picked her up and we headed out for an early dinner and went back to the hotel to catch up on some CSI.  I then woke up bright and early this morning and headed back to Cork.  It wasn't the trip that I had planned but oh well, you take what you can get and it was good to visit with her!
I start actual classes tomorrow, which is crazy because it means that I have already been here for a month.  I can't even believe how fast time is flying by.  I haven't exactly figured out what classes I am taking, so I guess that's what I will be doing this afternoon.  Although its kind of scary I think I am ready to get into a routine.  This first week is called Freshers week--for all of the incoming students and the city/campus holds huge basically parties like 24/7 all throughout the city and gives away all sorts of free things---so it might not be a routine quite yet but I think it will help to have some responsibility of classes.  I also booked a trip to Barcelona to visit some friends and am trying to plan trips to France, London and Italy.  The good thing about the study abroad program at DU is that I have friends all over the place to go visit and stay with!  Hopefully some of them will be coming to visit me as well-- we'll have to see!

Traditional Scottish band playing on Buchanan Street

Ashton Lane--

Italian Cocktails!

Can't forget dessert!

Hobbles.

Buchanan Street

River on the Glasgow Campus

So green!

Inis Oirr!

So the past two days I took my final Early Start class field trip to the Island of Inis Oirr--we would say Inisheer--the smallest of the Aran Islands.  The trip was certainly an experience!  We arrive on Thursday night at about 8:30 and proceeded to go to a hotel for a wonderful meal of vegetable soup, chicken, mashed potatoes, vegetables and carrot cake.  It was nice to have a home-cooked meal like this especially since it was pouring rain and about 45 degrees outside.  Friday morning my friend Alexa and I woke up early so that we could explore the Island.  We walked along the perimeter of the Island which is only about an 11km journey, but had a lot to offer!  We started at the beach and worked our way around the small airfield where a plane flies to the mainland and back once a day carrying either passengers or supplies.  We then wound our way through small roads and rock wall fields until we reach the Loch Mor which is the lake on the island.  Continuing on we found the wreckage of the Plassy Ship which ran aground during a storm in 1960.  We continued on down gravel farm roads until we came to the Teampall Chaomhan, a church and graveyard which date back to the 10th century(!).  The church is built underground and was covered by sand for many years so that people could practice their faith without being found out.  We then returned to the hostel to meet up with our group and go listen to a talk from a man who grew up on the Island and who has maintained his house as it was when he was growing up.  The house was so basic, with only two rooms- a bedroom and a living room with fire.  This house would have housed he and his parents as well as his two siblings.  HIs parents were fishermen, as are many who still live on the Island (only about 250 people inhabit the island year round) and he was a teacher in the local school before he retired.  It was very neat to see how simply he and others lived even fairly recently.  Next we ate lunch at the only pub on the island and got to sit outside overlooking the ocean because it was such a nice day.  After lunch we walked along the coastline and as it was low tide ventured out onto the rocks.  This is when we saw the seals!  Anyone who knows me will obviously know how excited I was to see the seals!  Alexa was just as excited as I was and we sat and watched the seals for about an hour.  After the seals we walked visit the Tobar Eanna which is a holy well.  The Irish believe in these Holy Wells and they are found throughout the country.  Each one is dedicated to a certain saint and said to heal a certain affliction.  This well was St. Edna's well and was meant to help combat infertility.  We drank out of the well and then went back to the hostel.  We had another meal at the Hotel, listened to some traditional music in the pub and went to bed.  We then got up early this morning and headed back to the city.

The weekend was certainly excting and interesting in a different way--there was no running water from 8pm to 8 am, no streetlights and no shops or stores.  Everyone just made do with what they had.  It was neat to experience that for awhile.

Seals!

Beach outside the hostel

Rock walls overlooking the lakes

Overlooking the town on the Island

Shipwreck

Alexa drinking out of the well

Holy Well

Ocean at daybreak

Using kegs as fences!

Underground church in the graveyard

Weekend in Killarney

This past weekend a few of my friends and I took a little trip to Killarney, a little town considered to be Ireland's biggest 'Touristy' destination. It was my first hostel experience and although I was a little nervous at first it turned out to be no big deal.  I think it helped that we were all in the same room and didn't have any strangers with us!  We got to Killarney on Friday afternoon after about a 2 hour bus ride from Cork City.  We then wandered through the town and found some food and a couple of pubs with live music.  Saturday morning I got up and went horseback riding in the national park while the others rented bikes and toured the park by bike.  The horseback riding trip was breathtaking!  We were gone for a little over 2 hours and saw a lot in the park.  There were lakes, mountains, and castles.  It was certainly the kind of images of Ireland that I have been imagining.  I was alone on the trek with only a guide who turned out to be my age and we had a lot of fun.  I will have to say that riding over here was an experience--they kind of just get on and go.  We were flying through the fields and forests, through rivers and across busy roadways, it was quite incredible.  I do have a couple of battle wounds from getting branches to the face or getting a little to close to trees as we passed by but oh well.  Saturday afternoon (after a nap)  I went back into town to look around at all the neat shops and meet up with the rest of the gang.  We again found some food and hit the pubs.  We even found a Bruce Springsteen tribute pub where they played all Bruce all the time--needless to say we stayed there for quite sometime :)  Sunday morning I got up and went to church which was also a very different experience.  The church was a beautiful building and I was excited to go to an Irish mass.  The service literally took 32 minutes from start to finish.  There was no music, no prayerful pauses and barely any time for responses.  The priest just flew through the process.  It was a little weird and felt very rushed but oh well.  Hopefully I will be able to find a church that is a little more like our masses but perhaps that is just how they do it here.  We then hopped back on the bus and got into Cork around 1:30.  The weather has started to be more like I had anticipated--rainy, cloudy, chilly--but I am still enjoying it.  Actually we've been in a period of drought since I've got here and it has only rained one day.  This week's forecast looks a little different though with rain everyday--good thing I brought the rain boots!  My class is going well and this weekend we are going on our second field trip to Inisheer--one of the Aran Islands-I'm really excited for that.  I then only have one more week before actual classes begin.  I can't believe I've already been here for over two weeks!  I guess its time to get into school mode--something I'm not sure I'm ready to do!  Well here's a few pictures I managed to snap on my ride and throughout the weekend.

Bulmers--my best discovery yet

Misty beginning to the ride--

'Strauss' and I

Kind of hard to see but rainbow over Killarney national park

National Park--so pretty

More of the lakes

The gang!

Bunratty Castle and Folk Park

Alright--well I just returned from my class field trip to Bunratty Castle and Folk Park.  It was a long, thirteen hour day, but very interesting.  The castle and folk park were set up as a reenactment of a traditional Irish village.  All social classes were represented with houses that would have belonged to poor, middle class and upper class farmers, as well as landlord quarters.  Additionally there were churches, schoolrooms, bars, barns, and shops that would have been seen in those times as well.  All of the buildings were originals and were furnished with furniture, tapestries and the like from the time period.  There was also the Bunratty Castle on the grounds which was maintained in very good shape and still contained some original pieces.  This castle was different than seeing Blarney because of its contents--it was much easier to get a sense of what life would have been like in the time period.  Tomorrow I am heading off for the weekend to Killarney--should be fun!

Irish Flag over the top of Bunratty Castle

View from the top of the castle

More views

Irish Fertility stone--each castle had one so that the women of the castle would be successful in producing heirs to the castle and property

Chest in the bedroom of the castle--dated 1663!

Sweet Irish Wolfhound

For you Dad!

Church in the folk park

Bean a Ti -- 'Woman of the House'  making bread by the fire

Sheep

Doctor's surgical chair that was placed in the living room of his house.  Very low success rates as you could imagine

Bunratty Castle

Tapestry from inside the castle

House of a landless laborer

Working watermill in the Folk Park