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
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.
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.
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