Salud a mis amigos y amigas! Fue a Madrid y Barcelona la semana pasada y mis experiencias son incrieble! Alright that’s enough Spanish for now! I’m back in Ireland!
I left Galway Thursday morning for Dublin after a fun filled three days with David Hermanny (friend from Marquette). I actually showed up to the Dublin Airport an hour and a half before my flight because I definitely not going to risk missing another flight. I made it to Spain Thursday night and met Rachel (Marquette friend))and took the metro to her apartment and arrived at ten! According to the Spanish culture, 11:00 pm is ideal time for dinner, back in Ireland, the pubs would almost be closing. That night we went to a few discotecas with most of rachel’s 16 roommates from all over the world! There were three others from Marquette, one from Mexico, one from Italy, a few from France, and an Irish girl as well! Overall, it was a lot of fun, but I was running on a lack of sleep from earlier in the week and it was hard to adjust to staying out until five in the morning. I was extremely tired after we got back, but we had a flight to Barcelona the next morning, so we stayed up the whole night because I know I would have slept through my alarm if we took a hour siesta.
Rachel and I left at six thirty in the morning to catch a flight to Barcelona. On the way, we decided to stop for chocolate churros but the San Gines Chocaleteria would not let us in even though the sign on the door of their store says they are open all day and open all night! Anyways, we got breakfast in the airport and I had a rough flight because of the sangria y cerveza from a few hours earlier. After landing in the airport in Barcelona, it took almost an hour to walk to the metro station. One thing I noticed is that both airports in Madrid and Barcelona were HUGE as it would take us 20 minutes to find our gate. After six hours of traveling we made it our hostel at 12:30 in Bareclona and all I wanted was a huge siesta.
After a three hour siesta, I had a lot more energy and was ready to explore Barcelona. We decided to head towards Las Ramblas. Before we got there, we passed la plaza de catalun(native language of Barcelona, not Spanish). It was a gorgeous mini-park with tons of pigeons, a few fountains, and some monuments of famous catalun leaders. Then we started to walk down Las Ramblas, which is the main pedestrian block, which leads to the Mediterean Sea. It was full of street entertainment, small shops, and people! The best entertainment was someone who dressed as ronaldinho and had almost as much skill as him. He would be juggling the ball to himself while posing for pictures with everyone who threw him some money. Las Ramblas was themed with the first set of shops being pet owners. Plenty of birds, rabbits, chicks, turtles, tortoises, even ferrets, and many types of fish were being sold right on this main block. Next were many vendors of plenty of beautiful flowers. Then, there were many artists selling their work as well.
Half way we down, we went to St. Josephs open market called el boqueria, and it was an incredible display of delicious food from stands of just gummy candies(oooohhhh), fruit smoothies, bread market, seafood, meat, cheese, nuts, fruit, vegetables, and even a few small bars! It was really cool to people watch from the vendors furiously trying to sell you their products. They were effective because the first stand I saw was smoothies, so Rachel and I immediately had to buy and thus paid two euro for them. While we walked further along, they were selling smoothies for only one euro, and they were the exact same. I found out the hard way but boy, those smoothies were delicious! After leaving the market, Rachel and I went across the street for a very traditional Spanish meal. We went to a tapas bar right across from las ramblas that rick steve recommended and the tapas really hit the spot. The bar was awesome because they had fifteen different tapas on display and you could pick which ones you wanted to try. I tried a few of the traditional tapas such as croquetas and the Spanish tortilla, which tasted like a omelet on bread. Also, they had very exotic seafood flavored tapas such as a crab cheese and an octopus with parsley! Rachel and I tried eight different tapas and had a cerveza and I just felt very cultured to enjoy some light appetizers over a beer in a very relaxed atmosphere. We walked down las Ramblas all the way to the coast to see a Christopher Columbus monument and walked along the harbor for a little ways. We then went to the Pablo Picasso museum and saw a glimpse of the art for every stage of Picasso’s life. His early life started with many portraits but as the years went on he became more and more abstract with his colors and drawing. It was really neat to see the gradual change in his work. Unfortunatetly, we didn’t get to see all of his work because the museum was closing. I wanted to keep looking but a few of the many security guards kept walking up to me and saying something that I couldn’t understand, and pointing me out of the room I was in. So then I would walk into another room before Rachel finally telling me that the museum was closing and we had to leave. Thus we left and went back to the hostel to meet Quinn.
Then we went to dinner with Quinn and a bunch of his friends from Alicante who were down for the weekend. I had pizza and Sangria for dinner. Then we went back to the hostel and split a few pitchers of sangria. The hostel’s sangria was probably the best I had in all of Spain, probably because they put extra fruit in it and that was my favorite part of Sangria. After finishing, eating the fruit that was soaked in wine was by far the best tasting fruit ever! Then We went out for a drink at a local bar. The scene was a lot different from the traditional Irish pubs that I’m used to but it was still fun to hear the Spanish techno music for a little bit. I ran into a bit of trouble when I tried to order quinn and Raquel a cerveza because my Spanish wasn’t good enough as I asked for the cheapest beer and I think I ordered the most expensive beer because when I asked the bartender for the cheapest beer, she said something to me and I just nodded my head even though I didn’t understand because I didn’t want to make a big scene as a tourist entering a fairly local bar it appeared. I think she ripped me off but it was a good learning experience for the next couple days as I made sure to be the one to make the bargains.
The next day, we went to the famous Barcelona Cathedral, which was huge and under construction, which took away some of its appeal. However, the inside was incredible despite further construction. When you walk in, it has the typical cathedral feel with the center of the church having the altar, but all around the sides, they were little shrines dedicated to different Saints and people. A family name would purchase a little area of the cathedral and dedicate to a person or a gospel story. The artwork and architecture in some of these shrines were magnificent. Also, there was a courtyard in this cathedral where there were palm trees and a few pools of fish. Also, there are thirteen geese who live in this courtyard and the story behind the geese is that they represent the spirit of the thirteen year old Saint who is buried in the lower corridors of the cathedral. Each time they honked was supposed to remind us that the spirit of the saint is still alive and that we are disturbing its spirit.
After exploring the cathedral, we ran into a large crowd gathered outside the cathedral in a plaza, there were these break dancers who had a two song routine and they were pretty good, but me, Rachel, and quinn could have showed them up if we really wanted to. We decided to save our energy for the night. We then walked through an outdoor art exhibit market, many of the paintings were incredible but I decided to pass because they were too expensive. I instead went in a nearby gift shop and successfully bargained on a lionel messi baby blue fc barca jersey, which looks awesome. We then went back to the large outdoor market, ‘la boqueria’ for another very cultural meal. Quinn hadn’t seen the market so we walked around again, and I admired the gummies and made quinn get a smoothie. This time, he and I got the cheaper ones, but they were still incredible. We went to the bread stand and order a baguette and had it sliced in three. Then at the meat market, we saw the butcher slice many juicy slices of chorizo! Then we went and got three slices of a white Spanish cheese. We bought fresh strawberries and pineapple, and went to the plaza catalunya and ate our scrumptious meal outside.
After enjoying our meal, we walked over to la sagrada familia in the northwest of the city. It’s an incredible cathedral designed by Gaudi, most famous architecht in Barcelona. It was started before 1900, and is still thirty years from being finished. We didn’t walk inside because it was a little expensive but we just read all about it(thanks to Rick Steve’s travel guide) while we walked around the massive cathedral. I was quite impressed with all the intricate statues that are woven into the main pillars of the cathedral. We saw both side entrances nearly completed while the front main entrance was under construction. It was interesting to see the different shades of brown in the cathedral because of rust and discoloration over time. Upon leaving, we are walking towards the harbor when we cross a high rise bridge, we see a soccer game going on below us and watch for a few minutes. I loved watching youngsters probably fourteen years old with incredible skill. They could have beaten the MU soccer team because there were actually some goals scored. After, we went to el parque del ciudella, which was a huge gorgeous park which made you forget the fact that your in this huge city. It almost was an imaginary zoo tycoon game, because this park was filled with budding trees, gorgeous flower beds, and large fountains. They even had a huge elephant that looked real from a distance. We sat down in a grassy area and people watched for a while. The park was packed with people of all ages, there were groups of teens hanging out, playing volleyball, and hacky-sac. There were kids attempting to tight-rope walk between trees, however they were unsuccessful, it was still fun to watch. Also, there were couples having picnic in the park, such a relaxing atmosphere. After hanging out in the park, we decided to go to a restaurant to have a traditional Spanish meal by the harbor. We ordered paella along with the usual sangria, but we had to wait for a half hour before we could get it because we got there at six thirty and they don’t serve until seven because the typical Spanish dinner is at ten. The appearance of the paella makes it even more appealing. Shrimp, mussels, and other types of seafood are placed on top of fried rice and vegetables in a pie dish. It was quite the filling meal. Afterwards, we walked back to the hostel and relaxed for a little bit before going out with quinn and his friends. We went to another local bar and had mugs of cerveza. One cool observation I made from the bar was how popular foosball is. It replaces pool and darts in the Spanish bars. Also, in foosball in spain, the players look a lot more realistic and have legs instead of the square blocks in place of the legs in the states. After a drink or two, we left and headed for a discoteca but the cover charge was a little too steep for us, so we went back for a good night sleep.
On Sunday, we woke up, ate breakfast fast and left the hostel. We walked to las ramblas and relaxed for an hour, and then headed for the airport. We arrived in Madrid at around 5 after our flight was delayed a little bit. It just happens to be delayed when we show up kind of early to the airport. Rachel and I, along some of her roommates went to El parque del Retiro, to relax on a Sunday afternoon with the rest of Madrid because most of the shops and stores are closed on Sundays. Let me tell you, it was a party in the park! The park was huge, most similar to Central Park in New York, but it was a such a relaxing and comforting atmosphere as compared to the graffiti filled walls and the hustle and bustle of Madrid. In the park, there was plenty of entertainment, from jugglers, to a puppet show, to some musicians. They also had a small lake in the most popular part of the park, and there were tons of people who rented rowboats and were paddling around the lake, which was full of fish who would eat all the food that kids would eat. There were so many families, which was awesome to see because I would bring my family to this park every Sunday if I lived in Madrid. After walking around for an hour, we went across the lake to where many teens and adults were gathered on the other side of the lake. Sitting in an amphitheater, many locals congregated to form a drumming semi-circle. People would come and go with different instruments, mainly drums, but there was also a triangle, maracas, and other traditional instruments. The people who didn’t have instruments were rocking out and dancing to the beat. It was quite the scene to be apart of and kept changing because people kept coming and leaving. Afterwards, I grabbed a Napatolina, which is a chocolate filled donut, looks like a hot-pocket, and headed back to the apartment and went to bed early because Rachel and her roommates all had their first day of classes the next day and we had a long weekend.
Monday, I woke up and walked around by myself for three hours because Rachel had class all day, and my other friend who I soon met up with was also in class. Too bad, class is not as optional in Madrid as it is in Ireland. I walked through the gorgeous plaza del sol, which is the centerpoint of the city of Madrid. From there, I walked to the Royal Palace, and walked through the gardens surrounding it. Then I went up to plaza mayor, a square that used to be an old bullfighting arena. It was full of restaurants and shops along with elegant architecture. Then I walked toward the Parque del Retiro and walked through the botanical gardens and the Crystal Museum, both of which are connected to the park. If I studied in Madrid, I would go to the park every single day to study because it’s so peaceful and happening at the same time because there are so many different places to relax and things to do. After my stroll in the park, I met my friend Theresa Lauer from MU at Plaza del sol, and after attempting to fake I knew Spanish, she caught on and quit talking back to me in Spanish before laughing hysterically at my Spanglish. We decided to grab some lunch in the Plaza Mayor. Sorry Kathleen, but we went to cien montaditos but those euro sandwiches wouldn’t fill us up. We decided to get some bocadillos from a restaurant near the Plaza Mayor. We ordered cerveza along with a kalimari sandwich, a salchica sandwich, and a chorizo sandwich. I’ve never had a kalimari sandwich, but it was absolutely delicious. We sat in the middle of the plaza mayor and sat down and ate in front of the horse monument, because we were not allowed to eat anywhere near some of the outdoor restaurants. After a delicious meal and conversation, we thought it would be only right to get some gelato so I ordered some dulce de leche(They also had tiramisu but I only have that at kopps!) and Theresa ordered white chocolate, both of which were just right for a hot day in Madrid. I got sunburned actually, (sorry all you snow dwelling folks right now) We listened to some entertainers playing some instrument similar to the xylephone and then I took the metro with Theresa to her host family. Then I walked to the Real Madrid soccer stadium called Santiago Bernabeu. Unfortunately the stadium was closed so I walked around it and went to the hall of fame store. Then I walked back to meet up with Rachel in her apartment. After a long day of sight-seeing, I was thrilled to have some crepes made by her French roommates. They were absolutely delicious served with nutella, jam, sugar, or a combination of the three. After finishing a liter of Don Simon boxed Sangria, I went out with some of Rachel’s roommates to a few discotecas for a fun night/morning. We got back at five in the morning and I got a few hours of sleep before getting up for my flight home. I slept a little later than I wanted to and rushed my goodbye to Rachel and her few roommates who were up in the morning. I initially planned on stopping at San Gines chocolateria, but had to skip it otherwise I probably would have missed my flight. After getting to the airport forty-five minutes before take-off, I later find out that it was delayed an hour and a half. (what I can say, ‘my life is a joke’ when it comes to flying).
I finally got back to Galway on Tuesday night at about seven. I needed that night to recover from the funky schedule that Spain lives by. But then it was Rag week in Galway, which I will describe in further detail in my soon to be next post. (I promise all you dedicated Brireland leaders) I hope you made past the first couple paragraphs. I’ll try not to make the posts as long as this but Spain was full of so many memories that I had to spill most of them.
Slainte,
Brian
Monday, March 2, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Cheers!
Hello all! Welcome to my blog where I hope to keep you updated on my travels in and around Galway, Ireland, as well as the rest of Europe. I’ll try to give you a brief update of many of the things, which I have done in Galway. I'll start with a few examples of funny cultural stories involving the clubs I'm involved in.
Me and two friends attempted to join the basketball club and on the first night of practice, we unfortunately realized that their club team is their varsity team. We were playing against 6-4 to 6-6 lanky europeans who were too thin to play gaelic football, rugby, or hurling (typical irish sports, and too uncoordinated for soccer. During practice, we ran a suicide, did pushups, situps, and also had to drills! We practiced 1 on 1 post defense, and contesting shots. Clearly after two weeks of not doing any sort of exercise, we were burnt out along with the other Americans who showed up! At the end of practice, we were told by the 6-8 intimidating coach, "guys, good practice today. We have a Galway cup game tomorrow. For all the Americans, we thank you for coming to training today but we ask that none of you come back tomorrow because I'm going to stick with the team we've got so far." We were laughing after hearing the news! Basically, I went to the gym hoping to play some basketball for fun but ended up suffering through a tryout, which was extremely tiring since I hadn't really exercised in a month and had been drinking almost every night before that point.
I joined the kayaking club and we had our first training session, which was a lot of fun. However it got colder while we were out there and towards the end. We all got out of the water and were told to get in our kayak on top of the fence of a bridge 20 feet above the water. I saw one of the professionals get pushed off and his full body went underwater before he got up. Then I had to go, and i was a little nervous especially when he told me I was going in backwards. I actually wanted to go because I was freezing by just standing outside the kayak in the thirty degree weather. It was quite the rush i got from the freefall but it certainly was cold going under the water. The next practice we had, we kayaked down the deceptively fast river corrib that was a test of some of the newly learned skills. Even though the river was moving extremely fast, we were told to constantly paddle to keep control of the kayak because if you lost a little control, the water could take you anywhere including one of the couple bridges we had to steer through. I'm reallly excited to continue to kayak because I can't do anything like that at Marquette.
I'm also doing the frisbee club, which has been a lot of fun. We have training(practice) twice a week for an hour and then we basically have to go to the pubs for a few pints after practice. The culture here hasn't been too hard to adjsut to but I couldn't see myself doing this my whole life primarily because i don't think i can afford it. Many americans are overwhelmed by the sheer fact that its common to be drinking every night of the week. In fact, at the pubs, mon. through thursday, the pubs and clubs are busiest because the students all go out every one of those nights. However, many of them go home on weekends so the nightlife dies a little bit but is still a lot of fun. I realized after a few weeks that I simply can't afford to go out every night! By playing frisbee, I'll get the opportunity to travel cheaply all over Ireland when we have tournaments. This weekend, I'll be at Limerick staying at one of our teammates houses there. You can't beat cheap traveling so I am going to try and take advantage of every weekend opportunity I can.
I'm also in the mountaineering club, which takes day trips almost every sunday to different mountains in Ireland. Last week, I hiked up a 2000 ft maamturk valley in Connemara National Park. I bought some cheap hiking boots, windpants, and was all ready to go. However, the winds were absolutely vicious with gusts aroudn 100 mph. When our group needed a break, we basically just leaned against the wind to hold us up. I will have pictures up soon from my adventure there. Another club that I participate in is the badminton club, just another excuse to do something that isn't offered at Marquette, and its a lot of fun. It's also a reason for me not to go out every night and spend lots of euro. However, they charge 2 euro every time you want to go into the rec center here, which is outrageous in my opinion. I'm not going to pay 200 euro for a semester pass, so I've been doing my best to sneak in during rush hour to play badminton, basketball, and the occasional work out. I won't bee too active in many of these clubs, but its something to do if i have some free time, which is more than I thought I'd have.
I haven't dedicated myself to schoolwork like i usually do in the states. Its really nice having only one exam in just about every classes and thats it. I have a few presentations and projects that I have to do but other than that, there is not much required of you at all. Many of the local Irish students don't attend class so lectures are about half full on a good day. Every class is a giant lecture so the teacher's don't provide as much individual help. Basically, going to class is pointless here because every teacher puts the material they go through in class on blackboard(MU's version of D2L). Therefore, the classes essentially rely on you using many textbooks to learn the material. Most of my classes have multiple teachers throughout the semester so you can't really ever get comfortable in the class. I need to self-teach myself the material and i will probably wait until the last minute because all i really need for these courses to transfer over is a 40 percent. However, I will definitely achieve greater than that(for you mom)! The classes I am taking are managerial accounting 3 (class way above where i should be, so its kind of diffficult to understand everything), management of organizational behavior, intro to supply chain management, Climate change (a class just for fun), and a Irish culture class, which has very interesting. Its basically a class explaining the irish culture renaissance through literature, arts, dancing, and sports. I have been attending most of my classes unless they interfere with traveling. However, they usually don't because I have one class on Thursday and 0 on Fridays. That might change when visitors bombard the Niland house.
Speaking of the Niland house, (where i live) it leaves a bit to be desired. However, I can't complain too much because of its prestigious location in comparison to some of the Americans I have met here who live 30 minutes from the city center. it sits one block east of the city center where all the shops, bars, and restaurants of Galway are located. Our apartment has a few housekeeping issues but I’m not too worried about it. Everyone takes their turn cleaning up and no one complains in the apartment. Our showers are horrible because the water is very weak and it’s always cold! We have to turn on the hot water turbo boost and wait ten minutes for it charge up and then we get 5 minutes of hot water maybe. The first days, our landlord Oliver left the heat off, so it was freezing in my bedroom, especially since the window in the room is impossible to fully close. Also, our internet is an ethernet cord that is connected to all thirty apartments in the house, so it is incredibly slow, and often fails to work when I need most(i.e trying to book our hostels for Scotland the night before we left took about 4 hours when it only needed to take about 30 minutes) Some of our appliances are really nice and a few others could use an upgrade. The washing machine is also a dryer, but it takes 3 days to wash any clothes, which is good for me, because then I’ll feel better about wearing the same jeans 5 days in a row. The stove and oven are very old and you can’t see the temperature that you are trying to set the stove to. I unfortunately burned my first pizza in the oven probably because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I haven’t cooked a whole lot other than ramen. Most of my meals involve fruit(grapefruit, orange, clementine, or apple) and a sandwich(pb+j or hot ham n cheese) because we have gone out to eat a few times and money is going down the drain with so much time spent at the pubs. I've also been fortunate to have an awesome roommate Alex volunteer to cook for my other roommate and I, provided we help out a little on supplies and dishes. I have nothing but praise for his cooking so far, especially the beef stew served on Sundays, fajitas, and BBQ chicken wings, . For the most part, my health has been perfect over here, probably because its never been freezing cold over here. Sorry all of you in the States, but you can't complain because it's warmer there now than it is here.
Proabably the best part of the experience so far has been traveling. So far, I have made it to Connemara National Park and also, the Burren and Cliffs of Moher twice. Check out my facebook for a bunch of pictures. I should have a lot more up in the near future. Ireland's landscape is just incredible to witness the stark contrast of rural farmland with snow capped mountain, with lakes, forest, and the ocean. The views are just breathtaking from all the day trips we have taken so far. This past week, I visited Scotland for 5 days! I had a blast spending two days in Glasgow, two in Edinburgh, and one in an airport(on accident). We missed our plane on Saturday night and had to pay 60 pounds for a sunday afternoon flight to dublin, which so happens to be delayed! We attended a Celtic football club soccer match at 3 and left a little bit early to run to the hostel, and then to the train station for the 5:00 train! It just so happened that there are two trains on platform 15, and we get on the wrong one, which went to the middle of nowhere. We even asked if this train was headed to prestwick international airport and got two verifications. However, the lady who collects our tickets after we leave the station tells us we're on the wrong one. So we went back to the main station and got on the right train an hour late at 6. We get to the airport 5 minutes after the flight leaves and with RyanAir airports, they are in the middle of nowhere so the next flight was not until the next day at 11:40. My roomate Dan, and two girls from Marquette we were traveling had a great night spending fifteen hours in the prestwick airport. It was the coldest night of sleep I ever got. I woke up once with my winter coat and my hands were frostbitten. It was so cold I could not believe! We got woken up three times by security once, a coffee shop the other time, and then just the crowd of early flights! Ryanair is not on my good list right now. Besides that one mishap, Scotland was so much fun. We also took a 12 hour day trip up to Lochness with a bunch of photo stops along the way. The views were incredible as well. We got to see her where Mel Gibson filmed Braveheart, took an hour boat cruise on the Lochness in search of the monster. In Edinburgh, we took a scary tour of the underground vaults, which were filled with 13th century torture stories and haunted ghosts and gyspies that lived here. In Glasgow, we saw the soccer game and it was awesome just to be at the game because there was so much passion for the game as well as camaderie.
Overall, I'm really excited to travel again. Actually, I'm going to Madrid and Barcelona in 9 days to stay with my friend Rachel from MU in Madrid. Also i'll be meeting quinn in barcelona with rachel for the weekend! Then we are going to spend thursday night in madrid and friday through sunday in Barcelona then go back to madrid for monday and tuesday. I'm really excited but I may need to brush up on some Espanol! (especially so i don't get on the wrong train and miss another flight). Hopefully my future posts won't be as long and unorganized as this but its a good idea so I can actually remember what i did over these 5 months when I look back on it next year.
Cheers,
Brian
Me and two friends attempted to join the basketball club and on the first night of practice, we unfortunately realized that their club team is their varsity team. We were playing against 6-4 to 6-6 lanky europeans who were too thin to play gaelic football, rugby, or hurling (typical irish sports, and too uncoordinated for soccer. During practice, we ran a suicide, did pushups, situps, and also had to drills! We practiced 1 on 1 post defense, and contesting shots. Clearly after two weeks of not doing any sort of exercise, we were burnt out along with the other Americans who showed up! At the end of practice, we were told by the 6-8 intimidating coach, "guys, good practice today. We have a Galway cup game tomorrow. For all the Americans, we thank you for coming to training today but we ask that none of you come back tomorrow because I'm going to stick with the team we've got so far." We were laughing after hearing the news! Basically, I went to the gym hoping to play some basketball for fun but ended up suffering through a tryout, which was extremely tiring since I hadn't really exercised in a month and had been drinking almost every night before that point.
I joined the kayaking club and we had our first training session, which was a lot of fun. However it got colder while we were out there and towards the end. We all got out of the water and were told to get in our kayak on top of the fence of a bridge 20 feet above the water. I saw one of the professionals get pushed off and his full body went underwater before he got up. Then I had to go, and i was a little nervous especially when he told me I was going in backwards. I actually wanted to go because I was freezing by just standing outside the kayak in the thirty degree weather. It was quite the rush i got from the freefall but it certainly was cold going under the water. The next practice we had, we kayaked down the deceptively fast river corrib that was a test of some of the newly learned skills. Even though the river was moving extremely fast, we were told to constantly paddle to keep control of the kayak because if you lost a little control, the water could take you anywhere including one of the couple bridges we had to steer through. I'm reallly excited to continue to kayak because I can't do anything like that at Marquette.
I'm also doing the frisbee club, which has been a lot of fun. We have training(practice) twice a week for an hour and then we basically have to go to the pubs for a few pints after practice. The culture here hasn't been too hard to adjsut to but I couldn't see myself doing this my whole life primarily because i don't think i can afford it. Many americans are overwhelmed by the sheer fact that its common to be drinking every night of the week. In fact, at the pubs, mon. through thursday, the pubs and clubs are busiest because the students all go out every one of those nights. However, many of them go home on weekends so the nightlife dies a little bit but is still a lot of fun. I realized after a few weeks that I simply can't afford to go out every night! By playing frisbee, I'll get the opportunity to travel cheaply all over Ireland when we have tournaments. This weekend, I'll be at Limerick staying at one of our teammates houses there. You can't beat cheap traveling so I am going to try and take advantage of every weekend opportunity I can.
I'm also in the mountaineering club, which takes day trips almost every sunday to different mountains in Ireland. Last week, I hiked up a 2000 ft maamturk valley in Connemara National Park. I bought some cheap hiking boots, windpants, and was all ready to go. However, the winds were absolutely vicious with gusts aroudn 100 mph. When our group needed a break, we basically just leaned against the wind to hold us up. I will have pictures up soon from my adventure there. Another club that I participate in is the badminton club, just another excuse to do something that isn't offered at Marquette, and its a lot of fun. It's also a reason for me not to go out every night and spend lots of euro. However, they charge 2 euro every time you want to go into the rec center here, which is outrageous in my opinion. I'm not going to pay 200 euro for a semester pass, so I've been doing my best to sneak in during rush hour to play badminton, basketball, and the occasional work out. I won't bee too active in many of these clubs, but its something to do if i have some free time, which is more than I thought I'd have.
I haven't dedicated myself to schoolwork like i usually do in the states. Its really nice having only one exam in just about every classes and thats it. I have a few presentations and projects that I have to do but other than that, there is not much required of you at all. Many of the local Irish students don't attend class so lectures are about half full on a good day. Every class is a giant lecture so the teacher's don't provide as much individual help. Basically, going to class is pointless here because every teacher puts the material they go through in class on blackboard(MU's version of D2L). Therefore, the classes essentially rely on you using many textbooks to learn the material. Most of my classes have multiple teachers throughout the semester so you can't really ever get comfortable in the class. I need to self-teach myself the material and i will probably wait until the last minute because all i really need for these courses to transfer over is a 40 percent. However, I will definitely achieve greater than that(for you mom)! The classes I am taking are managerial accounting 3 (class way above where i should be, so its kind of diffficult to understand everything), management of organizational behavior, intro to supply chain management, Climate change (a class just for fun), and a Irish culture class, which has very interesting. Its basically a class explaining the irish culture renaissance through literature, arts, dancing, and sports. I have been attending most of my classes unless they interfere with traveling. However, they usually don't because I have one class on Thursday and 0 on Fridays. That might change when visitors bombard the Niland house.
Speaking of the Niland house, (where i live) it leaves a bit to be desired. However, I can't complain too much because of its prestigious location in comparison to some of the Americans I have met here who live 30 minutes from the city center. it sits one block east of the city center where all the shops, bars, and restaurants of Galway are located. Our apartment has a few housekeeping issues but I’m not too worried about it. Everyone takes their turn cleaning up and no one complains in the apartment. Our showers are horrible because the water is very weak and it’s always cold! We have to turn on the hot water turbo boost and wait ten minutes for it charge up and then we get 5 minutes of hot water maybe. The first days, our landlord Oliver left the heat off, so it was freezing in my bedroom, especially since the window in the room is impossible to fully close. Also, our internet is an ethernet cord that is connected to all thirty apartments in the house, so it is incredibly slow, and often fails to work when I need most(i.e trying to book our hostels for Scotland the night before we left took about 4 hours when it only needed to take about 30 minutes) Some of our appliances are really nice and a few others could use an upgrade. The washing machine is also a dryer, but it takes 3 days to wash any clothes, which is good for me, because then I’ll feel better about wearing the same jeans 5 days in a row. The stove and oven are very old and you can’t see the temperature that you are trying to set the stove to. I unfortunately burned my first pizza in the oven probably because I wasn’t paying enough attention. I haven’t cooked a whole lot other than ramen. Most of my meals involve fruit(grapefruit, orange, clementine, or apple) and a sandwich(pb+j or hot ham n cheese) because we have gone out to eat a few times and money is going down the drain with so much time spent at the pubs. I've also been fortunate to have an awesome roommate Alex volunteer to cook for my other roommate and I, provided we help out a little on supplies and dishes. I have nothing but praise for his cooking so far, especially the beef stew served on Sundays, fajitas, and BBQ chicken wings, . For the most part, my health has been perfect over here, probably because its never been freezing cold over here. Sorry all of you in the States, but you can't complain because it's warmer there now than it is here.
Proabably the best part of the experience so far has been traveling. So far, I have made it to Connemara National Park and also, the Burren and Cliffs of Moher twice. Check out my facebook for a bunch of pictures. I should have a lot more up in the near future. Ireland's landscape is just incredible to witness the stark contrast of rural farmland with snow capped mountain, with lakes, forest, and the ocean. The views are just breathtaking from all the day trips we have taken so far. This past week, I visited Scotland for 5 days! I had a blast spending two days in Glasgow, two in Edinburgh, and one in an airport(on accident). We missed our plane on Saturday night and had to pay 60 pounds for a sunday afternoon flight to dublin, which so happens to be delayed! We attended a Celtic football club soccer match at 3 and left a little bit early to run to the hostel, and then to the train station for the 5:00 train! It just so happened that there are two trains on platform 15, and we get on the wrong one, which went to the middle of nowhere. We even asked if this train was headed to prestwick international airport and got two verifications. However, the lady who collects our tickets after we leave the station tells us we're on the wrong one. So we went back to the main station and got on the right train an hour late at 6. We get to the airport 5 minutes after the flight leaves and with RyanAir airports, they are in the middle of nowhere so the next flight was not until the next day at 11:40. My roomate Dan, and two girls from Marquette we were traveling had a great night spending fifteen hours in the prestwick airport. It was the coldest night of sleep I ever got. I woke up once with my winter coat and my hands were frostbitten. It was so cold I could not believe! We got woken up three times by security once, a coffee shop the other time, and then just the crowd of early flights! Ryanair is not on my good list right now. Besides that one mishap, Scotland was so much fun. We also took a 12 hour day trip up to Lochness with a bunch of photo stops along the way. The views were incredible as well. We got to see her where Mel Gibson filmed Braveheart, took an hour boat cruise on the Lochness in search of the monster. In Edinburgh, we took a scary tour of the underground vaults, which were filled with 13th century torture stories and haunted ghosts and gyspies that lived here. In Glasgow, we saw the soccer game and it was awesome just to be at the game because there was so much passion for the game as well as camaderie.
Overall, I'm really excited to travel again. Actually, I'm going to Madrid and Barcelona in 9 days to stay with my friend Rachel from MU in Madrid. Also i'll be meeting quinn in barcelona with rachel for the weekend! Then we are going to spend thursday night in madrid and friday through sunday in Barcelona then go back to madrid for monday and tuesday. I'm really excited but I may need to brush up on some Espanol! (especially so i don't get on the wrong train and miss another flight). Hopefully my future posts won't be as long and unorganized as this but its a good idea so I can actually remember what i did over these 5 months when I look back on it next year.
Cheers,
Brian
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