A reminiscent man

Well it's only taken me three weeks to write this...but, with this being the final post for my study abroad adventure, I have no plan on what to write.  I'll probably ramble,and it might be long, but I hope it's enjoyable.

Somehow it still hasn't hit me that the entire study abroad adventure is completely over.  For four months I frequently thought about my return to the USA and how crazy it would be.  But once I landed, it wasn't crazy at all.  Everything felt normal at home, almost like I never even left.  Yet when I think about all that's gone on since leaving the country on January 19, the memories absolutely blow my mind.

I've completed a semester at a foreign university. I've traveled to 6 different countries. I lived with a foreign family for a weekend and got to see how Irish folk grow up.  I've made new life-long friends including one "abroad-bestie".  I spent 4 days in a country where I didn't even speak the same language as anyone else.  I've navigated the craziest bus map in the world in London at 2 in the morning.  I've learned to immerse myself in a new culture and become familiar with the cultural norms.  I could write an entire post just summarizing the things I've seen, done, and learned but I won't do that. 

However, I think the most important experience of my semester abroad was realizing (as anyone who has gone abroad realizes) that there is life beyond our American borders...millions of people live in different countries with completely different social norms and activities. And guess what? They love it!  I was one of many many Americans that failed to believe that people could be happy anywhere except the US.  Don't get me wrong, the U.S. is still my favorite country on earth, but I now see why there are people all over the globe that would choose their countries over ours any day of the week.

Four months ago I was extremely unsure about the whole 'study abroad hoopla' but I can look back and honestly say that I am so f'ing happy that I went I can't even describe it.  The entire experience taught me so much about myself and gave me so many life lessons it's ridiculous.  It also gave me the opportunity to do nothing but travel, sleep, play, and enjoy the occasional adult beverage for an entire season. 

I imagine that in the coming days/weeks/months it will start to hit me more that the semester is in the past.  I've been so busy getting over jet-lag, dealing with ridiculous allergies, surprising my girlfriend at school, and watching my best friend graduate college that I really haven't had time to realize that it's done.  As it starts to set in, I know I will get sad about it being over, yet even more appreciative of the time I got.  To anyone out there who is contemplating studying abroad or is nervous/excited/scared about the experience, take a lesson from me and do it without worrying about what will happen.  I promise it will be one of the best decisions you ever make.  

I have to end by paying tribute to those who made this a possibility.  To all my Arcadia friends that I've become so close with, thank you for taking care of me on a frequent basis. To my Irish roommates, thank you for welcoming me with such grace and involving me in your culture.  To one of my new best friends Mo, thank you for traveling Europe with me and being my right hand man every step of the way.  And most importantly, thank you to my parents who made this all a reality.  Without your continued support, none of this would've happened.  You do so much for me, I only hope I can pay it back soon.  I'm grateful beyond belief and your the best parents I could ever ask for.

To everyone who followed my adventures the past four months, thank you.  It really does mean a lot to see that you want to know what's going on in my life. This pretty much wraps the semester up, so God bless and happy travels to everyone! 

Study Abroad 2014 from Michael O'Halloran on Vimeo.
Video made my Mo O'Halloran

I will get around to making my own video at some point and will exchange it when I do

Weed, interracial fights, and amazing hockey

Well, somehow things are already starting to wrap up here in Ireland.  The last few weeks have absolutely flown by and I'm sure that the next 3 will go even faster.  Since my last post I've been to Amsterdam, Spain, and London so let's play catch-up.

Amsterdam
    What a freakin city!  Everyone always says how wild it is, but you can't truly appreciate the madness until you visit.  After getting situated at our hostel the first evening, we roamed around town and, of course, found a coffee shop.  I tried to tell the guys that marijuana is illegal in most of the U.S. so we shouldn't go in, but they practically dragged me through the door...nothing I could do.  If you're a stoner and you haven't been to Amsterdam, that's like being a surfer but only surfing in lakes...enough said.

    After dinner we went down to ye old red light district.  Everyone says that there's just hot chicks standing in windows with red lights trying to seduce you....low and behold there are just hot chicks standing in windows with red lights trying to seduce you.  Who woulda thought?  It was rad.  They also had some weird fetish sections of the district, though.  For example, there was one street where all the rooms had women over 300 pounds in g-strings...so that was cool?  Great experience, but no I didn't come back with an STD, sorry mom.

    The city itself is pretty cool as well.  For the amount of people and buildings there, they do a nice job compacting everything into a small enough area that you can basically walk the whole thing in a day.  We took a tour of the Heineken factory, which was probably the coolest factory tour I've been to. They gave us a boat tour through the city after and offered Heinekens for $2.50...I immediately ordered two and everyone else on the boat looked at me like a robbed a homeless child...Stupid Americans I guess.

    Overall, a fantastic place to visit.  Where else in the world can you drink, play cards, smoke, and eat dinner all at once in a restaurant?  Pretty impressive.

Spain
    When Mo and I booked a four day trip to Ibiza, we didn't really think that a language difference could be an issue.  We found out the hard way as soon as we landed that it was indeed a massive issue.  I took two years of Spanish in high-school, but my teacher openly admitted that he only taught it because it gave him a bonus for his soccer coaching salary...needless to say I didn't learn a whole lot.  That led me to accidentally speaking French rather than Spanish to the bus driver when we first arrived. Epic fail.

    Once we finally got some idea of where to go, it took us about 3 hours to get to our resort (the distance between the airport and resort was roughly 10 miles) and at one point we were waiting at a sketch bus stop in the middle of nowhere with a homeless man.  Good memories but definitely don't want to make that journey again.

    When we got to the hotel, we immediately realized that almost everyone staying there was over the age of 40 and from mainland Spain.  Much like Americans travel to Key West or Hawaii during the winter months, Spaniards travel to Ibiza.  Wearing a "Team USA" tanktop and a backwards camouflage Coors Light hat definitely drew some bad attention, but YOLO.

    For the next four days, Mo and I drank and ate about as much as possible while only physically moving in order to change locations on the beach.  We played the all inclusive card extremely well to say the least.  Some great stories and videos were made, including Mo sleeping in the lobby of the hotel rather than the room after trying to steal and 30-pound seashell filled with tips.  Next time you see me, ask me to show you the 'cigar' video if you want to see possibly the funniest midnight video ever taken.

London
   On Thursday afternoon, Mo and I took off for the UK.  Our flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:05pm and we had booked the last bus of the night into the city at 11:30pm.  Of course, RyanAir dropped the ball and got us there at 11:45, putting us in a bit of a pickle.  Thankfully there were about 1000 other late passengers trying to get to the city, so we managed to catch a 1:30am bus rather than sleeping in the airport.

   As most ignorant Americans would, we didn't plan the route from the city center to our hostel (about 20 miles south of central London).  So there we were, standing in the middle of a downtown shitshow at 2:30 in the morning with absolutely no idea where to go.  Thankfully, we were able to pull some strings and a nice English lad helped direct us through the un-comprehendible London bus map and get us where we needed to go.

   As we got about 5 miles away from our stop, we entered the 'ghetto' of London.  As we stopped to pick up a seemingly nice young man, it turned out that he was about 1pound short of the bus fare.  While most people would give the guy a break at 4am, the bus driver wasn't having it.  They started screaming at each other (the bus driver was Jamaican, the young man was a moderately intoxicated African-American) and finally the driver decided to call the police...all because of 1 pound.

    This pissed off some other people on the bus, so all the sudden everyone started screaming at everyone else.  Some lady at the back was yelling "Do it for Jesus, have mercy!" while other people were threatening to literally kick the kid off the bus.  If you can picture me and Mo, two scrawny white Americans in a city we've never been to, at 4am sitting on a double-decker bus in the ghetto of London with an inter-racial fight surrounding us, you might get a pretty hilariously scary image in your head.

   After about 10 minutes things finally calmed down and the man got off so that we were able to get to our stop.  I've never been so happy in my life. We saw our hostel started hoofing it to the door.  As we approached, I asked Mo one more time to see if he called to make sure that there was 24-hour check in.  He said he did.  Unfortunately, nobody answered the door and the reception desk was pitch black.  The hostel was basically the only residential building in sight, and the only other thing around was a train station.  Of course our phones were dead too, so now we were in another dilemma.  I was not about to make another bus ride back into central London to find a different hostel, so instead of strangling someone, I basically banged down the door.

   As I was gave up and we were walking away, someone finally woke up and let us in.  It was legit something out of a Hollywood film.  That about ended the problems for the trip, but we were content with not having any more.

   London itself is bloody massive!  It's very deceiving.  We probably walked a good 15-20 miles on Friday checking everything out.  We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, the Eye of London, Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the Globe Theatre, etc.  My mom also informed me that my great grandfather had a statue in by Westminster Abbey and we found him right next to Benjamin Franklin and Winston Churchill.

  I thoroughly enjoyed all of the history and scenery of London, but there were just too many people for me to want to live there.  It was NY on steroids which is hard to imagine.  However, you've got to add it to your bucket list because pictures of Big Ben and all the iconic landmarks don't do them justice.  They're mind-blowing in person.

   Since then, we've gotten back to school and finished up work for the semester.  Classes officially ended on Friday and now we have a week for "studying" and then two weeks of finals.  This coming week, I think the guys are gonna play some golf, go fishing, and roam a bit through Ireland.  With only a few weeks left, trips are coming to an end but there's a few more in store.  Based on my sub-par number of blog posts, this will probably be it until my reminiscent post on the final day of the trip, so thanks to all of you that care enough to keep track of my whereabouts and have read on a consistent basis.
   To end, gotta post about them AVS!  Nathan MacKinnon is a filthy human being and I'm loving watching all these games online.

Brian goes to jail...

Nope, I didn't actually go to jail.  But I bet that title got you intrigued though, didn't it?  Well, you're already reading this so you might as well continue.

First off, sorry for the time-off from blogging.  My busy schedule of waking up at noon every day and attending 3 classes a week has been really tough lately.  In all seriousness, time has simply flown by and I didn't even realize that it's been a month since I last posted.  So let's recap all that's gone on here the past few weeks.

After getting back from Scotland, we all took the week to recover a bit and actually do some school work.  I think I wrote one essay and thought my fuzzy little head was going to explode...I'm never going to survive another year at Denison.  The following week was RAG week here at UL.  Basically, every Irish college has one week dedicated to fundraising for charity (they call it charity week).  At some point in time, the country decided that raising money for charity consisted of getting drunk everyday and playing games...how this happened is beyond me.

So the whole week was filled with pints, wine, vodka, anything that people could grab while occasionally throwing a few euros to help out a needy kid. Not that students here need anymore motivation to not attend class, but nobody goes to class during rag week.  Heck, the students union had all day activities so why would you go?  There were egg eating contests, sing-offs, jumping castles, paint parties, concerts, etc. going from noon each day until midnight.  It truly was a wild week. Before you get all bitter with us, we did manage to raise a significant of money for those who are less fortunate, so it was all for a good cause.

Human bubble contest rather
than economics class #Ireland 

Once  the week ended, the entire student body went into hibernation.  The beginning of the following week was silent and I'm sure the alcohol consumption per capita got cut in half.  Most teachers also scheduled exams and essays for post-rag week so we had to do a little more work as well.

This takes us to last week, which was St. Paddy's week (no, Americans...it's Paddy not Patty).  My lovely lady Maddy came out for the week and we had a blast.  On Monday we went to Dublin for the parade that everyone watches on TV.  It was ridiculous.  There were more people on one street than I thought lived in the whole country.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed our fair share of alcoholic beverages to celebrate the Irish holiday.  Maddy also got to hear me go into Irish Brian mode when a police officer asked for my bottle and I instinctively said "sure lad, cheers" without hesitation.

One of the wildest parts of the day was a brawl that broke out on one of the main streets.  We're not exactly sure what happened, but some innocent guy started getting beat up and ended up getting kicked square in the jaw, going limp instantly.  For those of you who are interested, someone posted a video to barstool.

By 8:00 that night, we were pretty much all passed out.  After starting at 8:30 in the morning, it was quite a long day.  On Tuesday, Maddy and I roamed Dublin a little and then headed back to school.  I got to eat my first real burrito since January and it was literally heaven in my mouth.  All was pretty relaxing at school Tuesday night and Wednesday, but Thursday night got a little rowdy.  Not going to post that story online, so go ahead and ask me about it in person.  Did I almost get arrested? Yes, yes I did.

Friday I learned a great life lesson...For those of you who don't know, Carbonara is a popular pasta here so I decided to make it for us for dinner.  The sauce consists of 4 eggs, heavy cream, and cheese (what else could an American ask for).  I forgot about the whole '4 eggs' part, and decided it would be a good idea to heat up the sauce before mixing it with the pasta.  After about 45 seconds I smelled something burning so decided to stir the sauce a bit.  That's the moment I realized that I had turned our pasta sauce into scrambled eggs with cream.  I knew there was at least one life lesson I needed while studying abroad...thank God I got it out of the way.

After Maddy left on Saturday morning, the rest of the kids in our program went to Bunratty Castle, The Cliffs of Moher, and then a Munster Rugby match. Bunratty was pretty cool, except there were a lot of Germans there with horrid teeth.  You'd think that I wouldn't mind it with the last name of Styerwalt, but eh, I'll stick with the US of A. Anyone who hasn't been to the Cliffs needs to add it to their bucket list.  Pictures and videos cannot do justice to how amazing they are.  Hopefully this picture at least gives a little glimpse:

While the views were magnificent, the weather was a different story.  Most of us thought that people were exaggerating when they said that wind gusts could blow you off the cliff.  They were not exaggerating.  It went from sunny and breezy to hailing sideways with 100mph winds in an instant.  People were actually almost getting blown off their feet, and my friend Stephanie was huddled up in a ball on the steps leading away from the cliffs because she couldn't stand up.  So touché Ireland, I believe your crazy weather stories.

After heading back into town and getting some dinner, we all went and froze at the rugby match.  The stadium was pretty empty and it started torrentially down-pouring in the second half, so it wasn't anything special.  But it was the first rugby match I've gone to live, so I'm glad I went.  Yes, Munster won.

That pretty much leads us to the present time.  The last few days I've been back to class and starting to get work done for the end of the semester.  It's absolutely unreal that everything is already starting to come to an end, it feels like we just got here.  Next up in terms of traveling is Amsterdam this coming weekend.  I'll either have an epic blog to follow, or none because it will be too inappropriate to post.

Moral of this writing: I'm living it up here as best I can.  Don't worry, mom, I'll make it home in one piece.

Welcome to Pound Town

As some of you might have noticed, the guys and I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland last weekend.  Let me start by saying that getting into a fight with a Scottish native who's twice your size isn't the best idea.  Thankfully I had Patrick Foley (aka Gor) to make sure I didn't get my face kicked in. Foleys rule.

Here's a somewhat brief rundown of the trip:

We landed in Edinburgh at about 11pm Friday night.  After checking in to the sketchiest hostel known to man, we went to a local bar for a few pints.  By that point everyone there was already hammered and the place closed in half an hour.  We stayed and had a good time, but had to go find somewhere else that was open later.  We ended up in a nightclub called "whistle binkies" where there were probably 100 blackout 30-year-old weirdos having the time of their lives.

Upon entering the bar, we immediately got the feeling that people weren't appreciating our company, but as all good Americans do we didn't give a shit and stayed.  As we were enjoying some local beer, I noticed that one guy sitting across from us was staring us down intently.  I slyly mentioned my observation to Cam, and from there things got weird.  Cam glanced over at him a few times and every time he did, the crazy Scot was giving him a death glare.  Cam finally decided to stare back, and they had a nice awkward 30 second stare down before the local opened his mouth and said "get the fu*% out of here", to which Cam subtly replied, "excuse me, I can't hear you. Is there a problem?"

From there, the guy proceeded to introduce us to who he said was the bar owner (BS), we all made a few not-so-smart comments to him, and as he leaned over to talk shit to me, he oddly bit my ear.  All I wanted to do was punch him in the face, but thankfully Cam and Pat are brighter than I am and realized that you don't get into fights in a foreign country, especially when you're one of the smallest guys there.
We managed to get back to our Stephen King designed hostel safely, and decided not to return to Whistle Binkies for the remainder of the trip.

On Saturday we roamed around Edinbugh and checked out a ton of cool places.  The amount of history in the city is unbelievable, and us American's simply can't understand until we see it.  This was one of the coolest views ever from a castle overlooking the city

We went out Saturday night, and once again got some crazy stories.  We were planning on just having a few beers and then getting some rest, as we were traveling to St. Andrews on Sunday to play golf.  We ended up meeting some crazy Scottish guy that was so hammered he couldn't stand up. After talking with him and his girlfriend for a while, he got thrown out of the bar so we tried to get him into another one, but that didn't work.  After they left, we started talking to another older couple next to us.  It turned out that the older gentleman was the head greenskeeper for all of the courses at St. Andrews. They were just in town for the night and gave us some good tips for playing on Sunday.  What a small world we live in.

On Sunday, we had an hour and a half bus ride before arriving in St. Andrews.  It was a perfect day for golf and the hostel was much nicer than the first one (might make a separate post about that).  We got to play fifteen holes of the Strathyrum course for 12pounds (ridiculously cheap for golf, especially at one of the nicest locations in the world).  It was one of the coolest, yet worst rounds of golf I've ever played.  While we were chipping on the 12th hole, the greenskeeper and his wife that we met the night before showed up to talk with us.  They walked the entire course looking for us just to make sure we got in okay and didn't have any troubles.  I, of course, shanked my shot and he just laughed hysterically at me.  

After getting to play an easyish course, we walked the old course since it was closed for play.  I  must say that I truly have an appreciation for pro golfers.  You can't truly understand the difficulty while watching on TV, but the bunkers and fairways were absolutely insane.  I stood in a bunker that was as tall as me...I haven't seen anything like that before in my life and this picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice.

On Monday, we returned to Edinburgh and flew back to Ireland.  We walked more in two days than I think I ever have in my life so we were all exhausted by the time we got back.  We also realized how horrible the dollar is compared to the pound.  While we thought we were doing a good job not spending too much, our bank accounts said otherwise.  Scotland really pounded us ;) so keep that in mind if you ever travel to the EU. 

This is the first weekend in a while where we've gotten to hang out and just relax.  As of now, no formal trips planned but we're hoping to go on some soon.  We also haven't gotten to see much Olympic action besides team USA losing to Canada and then getting stomped by Finland today.  We're starting to miss our electronically driven country, but we know we'll be back soon enough.  

Lung cancer, anyone?

Well, I've somehow been in Ireland for over a month already.  I often find myself wondering what's crazier: the fact that we've been here for a month, or the fact that we have 3 to go.  Either way, I feel like I've become very accustomed to the Irish culture and I'm loving every second.

A few weekends ago we got the opportunity to go on a homestay visit.  Basically everyone in our program got divided up into pairs and got to live with an Irish family for the weekend.  Unfortunately, my partner never showed up for school, so it was just me and a lovely 70-year-old couple.  Joan and Jackie have been married for 48 years and they still live in the same house that Joan (the mom) grew up in as a kid.  Needless to say, I got a true Irish experience.

Their home is a little cottage on a big piece of land about 10 minutes away from the small city of Charleville.  The square footage is probably the equivalent of one or two American classrooms and included two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a small living room.  They have no heat besides a small fireplace that barely warms up the living room, so you can literally see your breath in every other room.  Joan seemed to enjoy a few cigarettes (about a pack or two a day), so those probably keep her warm.  In order to sleep, I wore a long sleeve shirt and a hoodie, with 2 quilts and that seemed to do the job.

As is true in most places in Ireland, there wasn't a lot to do on the weekend so we were either enjoying a homecooked meal, or watching sports at a nearby pub.  While it was nice for a few days, I definitely would be bored out of my mind if that was the way I lived every day.  I also got laughed at for not eating 5 potatoes in one meal.  One night we had an Irish stew and on the side each of us had 5, regular sized potatoes.  When I only finished four, and could barely move, Joan laughed at me and said "Not a big potato lover are ye?"  Sorry Joan, no I don't normally eat a month's worth of potatoes in one meal, but thanks for asking.

Overall, I appreciated the weekend.  Some people didn't enjoy it, but I enjoyed getting away for a while.  It happened to be the same weekend as Dave Hallman's tragedy, so it gave me a lot of time to reflect on how blessed am I to live the life that I do.  When I headed back to school on Sunday, I felt for the first time truly a part of the Irish society.  There's no need to be stressed, fast-paced, or worried about too much.  Easy livin' is the name of the game here.

A great friend, teammate, and comedian. RIP David

It's weekends like this that make us step back and truly understand what's important in life.  Fancy cars, plasma TV's, and large bank accounts mean nothing compared to relationships with friends and family.

While I only got to know Dave for a few short years, I can't think of one bad memory.  He was always a person that could make you laugh with just a few words (even if they weren't always politically correct), and a person that would never be scared to tell you how he truly felt about a certain situation.  He was a fierce competitor in the pool and an amazing teammate and friend outside of it.  He was a hell of an NHL Xbox player and I'll miss him beating the crap out of me in it.

My thoughts and prayers go to Dave's family, his girlfriend Sarah, and the members of the senior class that were closer to him than anyone else.  While I was fortunate enough to call him my friend, there are plenty of people who knew him on a much deeper level and are hurting more than ever today.

From what I have heard through the grape-vine, the Denison community was stronger than ever yesterday in the relentless pursuit of finding Dave, and the mourning of his loss when he was found.  While I'm thousands of miles away, I have never been more proud to call myself a member of such an amazing school.

I can't wait to be reunited with him some day and I'm confident that he's looking down at all of us with a smile on his face.  He will never be forgotten and will leave a lasting impact on the lives of everyone who knew him.

You were the man, Dave.  Rest in peace.
Sempre Avanti.

I'd rather be in Ireland

I've got to start by saying, what a horrible SuperBowl.  I don't think anyone saw that coming, but as us Notre Dame fans say...there's always next year.  I've been in Ireland for a little over two weeks now and, while it seems like time is flying, it also feels like we've been here for months.

The weather is exactly what everyone thinks...windy and rainy just about 24/7.  It's a miracle if the sun comes out for more than an hour each day.  The Irish culture is also pretty stereotypical: what do you do when there's free time? Drink!  Luckily, I haven't had any more nights like the one I had in Dublin, but there's still been some rowdy adventures.  The first morning after my Irish roommates moved in, I woke up with this note under my door:

The really unfortunate thing here is that everyone drinks a lot and their alcohol is insanely expensive.  A 20-pack of Coors light costs about 30euro here, which is roughly $40USD.  So all you kids complaining about buying a case of Natty for the weekend, just enjoy one for me and stop whining.  

This past weekend a lot of the abroad students traveled to Kylemore Abbey and Galway.  The scenery was truly unreal and made the US look like a dumpster.  More pictures will be posted to Facebook but here's a rough idea of what we were dealing with:

A few of us guys have scheduled a trip over Valentine's weekend to go to Scotland and learn how to play some bagpipes.  This weekend, we'll be on our homestay visit where I'll get to see the true life of an Irish family.  

Classes have started here and it's way different from the U.S.  There's basically one or two lectures per week for 50 minutes and their grades are based primarily on two or three assignments or exams for the whole semester.  Every Irish student also knows every class they will take each semester before they even enter campus.  They are very specialized and only take classes that are designed for their major...so they are amazed that us Americans can pick and choose any classes we want. 

Last night, we all got the opportunity to sign up for different clubs/societies that interested us.  I joined skydiving club, racing and motorsport club, swim club, and outdoor pursuits club.  

Skydiving club is going to be insane.  They do jumps every week and have a trip to France to dive their as well.  The first jump is 160euro but after that, every jump is only 20euro.  Stay tuned for some sweet GoPro videos of that.  

Racing and motorsport club meets on Tuesday nights throughout the semester.  We go to a nearby massive racetrack and do real life racing in go karts.  I was told that they go up to 100mph but we'll see how true that is.  This will also lead to some solid GoPro footage.

Swim club is pretty self explanatory...I'm going to get my fat ass into a speedo and try to burn off a Guinness or 2 a few times a week.  More than likely won't have GoPro footage of this...sorry. 

Outdoor pursuits club is for rock climbing, caving, and hiking.  There's a bunch of different trips throughout the semester, but one of the coolest ones is over Easter break when we have the opportunity to go to Malta for the week and rock climb.  From what I've heard, Malta is one of the coolest places on the planet, so that could be sweet.  

I'll end with a few memes that will hopefully make some Bronco fans smile.  It was a rough night, thankfully the beer helped me not truly understand what was going on.  Next blog will come sometime after Scotland. Stay classy everyone.

Phones need to shower too

One week after departing for Ireland, I have more memories than I can remember.  It all started when I left DIA on Sunday afternoon.  Mom and I watched the first half of the Broncos game at the airport, and I was told there would be TV's on the flight to watch the second half.  What a filthy lie...the plane was from the 18th century and smelled like a dead cat.  Thankfully the Broncos destroyed the Patriots so I wasn't missing much.

The second flight (from Washington DC to Dublin) was much more relaxing as I got the whole row to myself and got to sleep/watch 'We're the Millers'.  Landing in Dublin was unbelievably surreal...while I was immediately anxious yet upset about leaving home, I was excited as hell the second I landed.  Meeting up with my fellow abroad-mates was nerve-racking, but turns out they're an alright group and we have some fun together. 

At first I thought jet-lag was a myth, but about 3:00 in the afternoon changed my mind.  Pat, Cam, and I (3 of 5 Denison students here this semester) did everything we could to stay awake...and we did a damn good job.  We made it all the way to 6:30pm but by 6:31 the whole room was passed out.  The next few days consisted of orientation, alcohol, and more jetlag. 

Nothing too exceptional happened during that time with the exception of alcohol.  It's the second night that we're in Dublin and we're ready to rage.  The whole group headed to the bars to order a few pints of Guinness (which is fantastic here).  I'd like to think that I'm not the biggest lightweight on the planet, but Tuesday night was borderline insane.  After maybe 4-5 drinks I was feeling good, but nowhere beyond my limits.  Next thing I knew it was 7am the next day.  My clothes were still on, my bed was SOAKED from the top to bottom, I was drenched in some liquid, and my phone was lying broken on the bed.  Original thought was that I peed the bed...minor issues with that are: none of the sheets were stained, it didn't smell, and the amount of urine needed to produce that much liquid is physically impossible.  Therefore, I must've tried to either swim in the River Shannon or take a shower while talking on the phone.  Either way, the night was a complete disaster. 

Needless to say orientation was hell the next day.  I had to sit in the front row and almost threw up on the program leader.  I managed not to do that, but I did leave my orientation pack (with my ID, acceptance letters, valuable things) on the bus and had to call him at 10pm to track down the bus.

We're all getting settled in here at the University of Limerick.  This place is 10x nicer than Denison and costs about half...something is wrong with that.  I have my own bedroom with a queen sized bed, shower, and bathroom.  It's a little different than the triple-stacked bunk beds in beaver hall with one bathroom for 6 guys, and I enjoy it. My Irish roommates are absolutely hilarious. There's 3 girls that seriously know how to drink.  More posts to come about them soon.

That's about it here. It's going to be one heck of a semester and I can't wait for what's to come.  Enjoy the freezing cold temperatures and feet of snow that you all are getting back in the states.