Monday, March 15, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
My Birthday!
So last Monday I turned 21, and it was pretty spectacular.
We got up early in the morning so we could do a day adventure to one of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor. The Aran Islands are located off of the west coast of Ireland, not far from Galway. In order to get there we took a 45 minute bus ride to the ferry port. From there we took the ferry to the island which was about another 45 minute journey. The island was beautiful! We rented bikes and explored! Fun Fun!
So....my birthday.....we started the evening out by walking down to a pub called Monroe's. The whole Dunaras gang came out to help me celebrate! My first drink as a 21 year old was actually a shot at a neighbor's apartment on the way to the pub. The entire apartment area was crazy on Monday night to kick off a charity event called RAG (Raise a Grand) Week. Basically, students from NUIG binge drink all week and proceeds go to charity. Another reason why Monday night was sure to be grand! Everyone was out! ...So where did we leave off...oh yes, Monroe's. At Monroe's Katie and Chelsea asked the bartender to make me a special birthday drink. She did and it was really good. With my drink, Katie and I split bacon cheddar chips (fries). NUM! After Monroe's we went to a few pubs and ended the last couple of hours of the night at a place called BAR 903. Overall, the night was a great success! And, I celebrated my 21st in Ireland, could it get much better?
We got up early in the morning so we could do a day adventure to one of the Aran Islands, Inis Mor. The Aran Islands are located off of the west coast of Ireland, not far from Galway. In order to get there we took a 45 minute bus ride to the ferry port. From there we took the ferry to the island which was about another 45 minute journey. The island was beautiful! We rented bikes and explored! Fun Fun!
So....my birthday.....we started the evening out by walking down to a pub called Monroe's. The whole Dunaras gang came out to help me celebrate! My first drink as a 21 year old was actually a shot at a neighbor's apartment on the way to the pub. The entire apartment area was crazy on Monday night to kick off a charity event called RAG (Raise a Grand) Week. Basically, students from NUIG binge drink all week and proceeds go to charity. Another reason why Monday night was sure to be grand! Everyone was out! ...So where did we leave off...oh yes, Monroe's. At Monroe's Katie and Chelsea asked the bartender to make me a special birthday drink. She did and it was really good. With my drink, Katie and I split bacon cheddar chips (fries). NUM! After Monroe's we went to a few pubs and ended the last couple of hours of the night at a place called BAR 903. Overall, the night was a great success! And, I celebrated my 21st in Ireland, could it get much better?
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Finally, an update!
Hey all! We really have not forgotten about you, I promise! We just truly have not done anything since our last post! Well, we did get our final paper topics... But that's really it.
Chelsea's sister is here for a while, so we are going to the Aran Islands on Monday to bike around and see the sights! It is also Camille's 21st Birthday so we will be going out to celebrate with some friends that evening as well. We will definitely have an update after this fun day!
Other than that, we both miss friends and family, a lot. (Camille says hi to Grandma!) Thanks to all of you for keeping up with us, we will try to update again very soon with something fun!
LOVE!
Chelsea's sister is here for a while, so we are going to the Aran Islands on Monday to bike around and see the sights! It is also Camille's 21st Birthday so we will be going out to celebrate with some friends that evening as well. We will definitely have an update after this fun day!
Other than that, we both miss friends and family, a lot. (Camille says hi to Grandma!) Thanks to all of you for keeping up with us, we will try to update again very soon with something fun!
LOVE!
Friday, February 26, 2010
"So Happy I Could Die"...
...a really good song by Lady Gaga, gotta love her! But Katie and I have spent the last 4 hours planning our April travels, and now that we finally have it all figured out, I think that we are both "so happy we could die". Ugh, it was exhausting! But we are going to see some really cool places!!!! I will tell you but you have to listen to what we did the past week first!
On Monday....Katie and Jack left in the morning to go on the Burren/Cliffs of Moher tour (the same one that Katie and I went on last month) and did a neat little overnight thing in Doolin. It sounds like they had tons of fun! But apparently the stores and such do not open until around noon in Doolin, so they were rather bored Tuesday morning. Katie, having gone on the tour before, was slightly targeted and teased by Desmond, the same lovely tour guide we had before! He is a cutie. But Katie, being the amazing friend that she is, inquired about the wildflowers, so Desmond is going to call her if they come out sometime in March or April so we can be sure to go see them!
On Tuesday....Chelsea hosted what we call "Family Dinner" and invited all of our neighbors over for fajitas. NUM! This was also nice because most of the folk that came over for dinner were to leave for London on Wednesday. Later that evening we also played some intense Bananagrams, Katie and I upset the rest of the players because we basically took turns winning. We are awesome English majors, no big deal...
On Wednesday....Katie and I got up early in the morning to go to our classes for the day. English, history and then more English. Jack meet us on campus after our last class and we took him to have some lovely crepes at Zatsuma! Jack liked the crepes so much that he insisted that we go back on Thursday....
On Thursday....We ate more crepes....really that's about all we did.....well, I guess that Katie and Jack went for a walk to the bay....but that's not really that eventful.....really.
Early Friday morning....We said our farewells to Jackie Poo Poo Bear (insert sad face here). However Katie and I decided to spend the evening booking various buses, trains, flights, and hostels around Europe....wanna hear? Okay!
Well.....On the 4th of April we are leaving from Paris via train to go to Marseille. We will be spending 3 days in Marseille from whence we will take a bus to Barcelona (this was particularly interesting to book because the bus site was in French, let's hope we got the right date/time!!!). After our 4 day stay in Barcelona we will be taking a flight to Rome. ROME! Somewhere Katie and I desperately wanted to go but had not planned on....however, after looking at prices in Norway and Scotland, it made sense to spend that money in Rome instead, since our desire to go there was much stronger than that for Oslo and Edinbourgh. So ROME! From Rome we are flying to London where we will spend an eight hour layover to end in Belfast, but it is saving us about 50 euro, so that is certainly worth it to both of us. Finally....we will arrive in Belfast where we will spend a night and then the following morning we will take a day tour to see the lovely Co. Antrim coast and Giant's Causeway, leading us to Derry. From Derry we are catching a bus to take us back to Galway, our home away from home. In case you have not been keeping up with the days...our return to Galway will be on the 14 of April. This will give us about 6 days to say goodbye to the city that we love. And to hopefully see some wildflowers!
On April 20, in the late afternoon, we return to you....tired.....cultured....grown individuals....AND WE CAN'T WAIT. We love it here so much, but after planning all of this we both realize that it will be leading us back home. Which is something we are certainly looking forward to....
In case you haven't noticed....I like ellipses.....
On Monday....Katie and Jack left in the morning to go on the Burren/Cliffs of Moher tour (the same one that Katie and I went on last month) and did a neat little overnight thing in Doolin. It sounds like they had tons of fun! But apparently the stores and such do not open until around noon in Doolin, so they were rather bored Tuesday morning. Katie, having gone on the tour before, was slightly targeted and teased by Desmond, the same lovely tour guide we had before! He is a cutie. But Katie, being the amazing friend that she is, inquired about the wildflowers, so Desmond is going to call her if they come out sometime in March or April so we can be sure to go see them!
On Tuesday....Chelsea hosted what we call "Family Dinner" and invited all of our neighbors over for fajitas. NUM! This was also nice because most of the folk that came over for dinner were to leave for London on Wednesday. Later that evening we also played some intense Bananagrams, Katie and I upset the rest of the players because we basically took turns winning. We are awesome English majors, no big deal...
On Wednesday....Katie and I got up early in the morning to go to our classes for the day. English, history and then more English. Jack meet us on campus after our last class and we took him to have some lovely crepes at Zatsuma! Jack liked the crepes so much that he insisted that we go back on Thursday....
On Thursday....We ate more crepes....really that's about all we did.....well, I guess that Katie and Jack went for a walk to the bay....but that's not really that eventful.....really.
Early Friday morning....We said our farewells to Jackie Poo Poo Bear (insert sad face here). However Katie and I decided to spend the evening booking various buses, trains, flights, and hostels around Europe....wanna hear? Okay!
Well.....On the 4th of April we are leaving from Paris via train to go to Marseille. We will be spending 3 days in Marseille from whence we will take a bus to Barcelona (this was particularly interesting to book because the bus site was in French, let's hope we got the right date/time!!!). After our 4 day stay in Barcelona we will be taking a flight to Rome. ROME! Somewhere Katie and I desperately wanted to go but had not planned on....however, after looking at prices in Norway and Scotland, it made sense to spend that money in Rome instead, since our desire to go there was much stronger than that for Oslo and Edinbourgh. So ROME! From Rome we are flying to London where we will spend an eight hour layover to end in Belfast, but it is saving us about 50 euro, so that is certainly worth it to both of us. Finally....we will arrive in Belfast where we will spend a night and then the following morning we will take a day tour to see the lovely Co. Antrim coast and Giant's Causeway, leading us to Derry. From Derry we are catching a bus to take us back to Galway, our home away from home. In case you have not been keeping up with the days...our return to Galway will be on the 14 of April. This will give us about 6 days to say goodbye to the city that we love. And to hopefully see some wildflowers!
On April 20, in the late afternoon, we return to you....tired.....cultured....grown individuals....AND WE CAN'T WAIT. We love it here so much, but after planning all of this we both realize that it will be leading us back home. Which is something we are certainly looking forward to....
In case you haven't noticed....I like ellipses.....
Sunday, February 21, 2010
REUNITED
On Tuesday evening, Camille and I were reunited in our apartment once more. Jack and I waited up watching TV until her and Lizzi arrived around midnight or so. Then we moved next door where we celebrated the first day of Lent with some grilled cheese :)
The following day we took Lizzi and Jack to our history class, where they got to experience our crazy and very stereotypical Irish professor. After that was just a long day of walking around in city centre, trying to figure out the details for our trip to Cork that was taking place early the next morning. As per our usual, our travels started as a struggle; we missed our bus. However stressful that was for Katie, we made it onto the bus that left two hours later with no problems. Our hostel in Cork was great and very close to the city centre. Cork was fine, nothing too special really, unless you had lots of money you wanted to spend at Monsoon! Which, unfortunately, we do not. But we had Kebabs for dinner and they were delectable. Later that night we went down the street to a pub, where Jack got his first Guinness in Ireland and us girls had some Bulmers to go along with the massive amount of crisps (fries) that we ordered at a semi-sketchy place nearby.
Thursday was spent in the lovely town of Blarney, where we toured the castle and grounds. The castle was average, I mean, for a castle, ya know. Although it did have a terrifying series of stairs that you were forced to take in order to get to the top, way too small for any normal sized person to climb, especially when you are carrying a backpack. At the top, we had all decided that we were not going to kiss the stone because really, that thing is so gross. Imagine all of the people that have touched and put their mouth on that. Ick. Confirming our decision was the man in front of us who had an incredibly obnoxious cough. But... as we were about to begin our dangerous descend, Jack had a change of heart, convincing Katie to come along. So we did it. And it was gross, but probably worth it for "making memories" that Jack is so fond of.
The grounds of the castle were gorgeous, lots of trees and soon-to-be flowers. Camille was horribly depressed by the fact that the flowers were in this stage of development, and has committed to traveling back to get them in bloom. In one part of our tour, Camille and Lizzi made their wish on the Wishing Steps by going down and back up a flight of outdoor stairs with their eyes closed and their minds on only that wish. We have a year or so to see how it works out for them. Good luck! :)
We made it back to Galway on Friday night, again, no meat. So we ordered a pizza! And relaxed while watching Zombieland!!!!!! Great movie. Therefore recommended. Lizzi left on Saturday morning, and the rest of the day and Sunday were pretty much spent on the couch, with Camille and Jack playing Sporcle for about seven hours....
Katie and Jack will head out tomorrow for an overnight Cliffs of Moher tour and Camille will enjoy her day of no class. That's all for now, more later... Hopefully ;)
The following day we took Lizzi and Jack to our history class, where they got to experience our crazy and very stereotypical Irish professor. After that was just a long day of walking around in city centre, trying to figure out the details for our trip to Cork that was taking place early the next morning. As per our usual, our travels started as a struggle; we missed our bus. However stressful that was for Katie, we made it onto the bus that left two hours later with no problems. Our hostel in Cork was great and very close to the city centre. Cork was fine, nothing too special really, unless you had lots of money you wanted to spend at Monsoon! Which, unfortunately, we do not. But we had Kebabs for dinner and they were delectable. Later that night we went down the street to a pub, where Jack got his first Guinness in Ireland and us girls had some Bulmers to go along with the massive amount of crisps (fries) that we ordered at a semi-sketchy place nearby.
Thursday was spent in the lovely town of Blarney, where we toured the castle and grounds. The castle was average, I mean, for a castle, ya know. Although it did have a terrifying series of stairs that you were forced to take in order to get to the top, way too small for any normal sized person to climb, especially when you are carrying a backpack. At the top, we had all decided that we were not going to kiss the stone because really, that thing is so gross. Imagine all of the people that have touched and put their mouth on that. Ick. Confirming our decision was the man in front of us who had an incredibly obnoxious cough. But... as we were about to begin our dangerous descend, Jack had a change of heart, convincing Katie to come along. So we did it. And it was gross, but probably worth it for "making memories" that Jack is so fond of.
The grounds of the castle were gorgeous, lots of trees and soon-to-be flowers. Camille was horribly depressed by the fact that the flowers were in this stage of development, and has committed to traveling back to get them in bloom. In one part of our tour, Camille and Lizzi made their wish on the Wishing Steps by going down and back up a flight of outdoor stairs with their eyes closed and their minds on only that wish. We have a year or so to see how it works out for them. Good luck! :)
We made it back to Galway on Friday night, again, no meat. So we ordered a pizza! And relaxed while watching Zombieland!!!!!! Great movie. Therefore recommended. Lizzi left on Saturday morning, and the rest of the day and Sunday were pretty much spent on the couch, with Camille and Jack playing Sporcle for about seven hours....
Katie and Jack will head out tomorrow for an overnight Cliffs of Moher tour and Camille will enjoy her day of no class. That's all for now, more later... Hopefully ;)
Friday, February 19, 2010
Katie's Time with Jackie Poo Poo Bear
Let me just start by saying that I got up SO early to catch the bus to Dublin to pick up Jackie at the airport. So early. After getting coffee at the airport (because let's face it, I need my coffee...) we checked in to our hotel. It was a struggle getting there because Jack insisted on bringing nearly everything he owns with him, making it hard to walk around efficiently. We toured Grafton street and pretty much bummed around for the rest of the day. Jackie had to go to bed early to try to beat the jet-lag, which he thankfully did.Saturday was a little more eventful; we toured Dublin Castle, which was awaesome! The history of the place is amazing and I had been learning about a lot of it in one of my classes so that was pretty exciting. Plus I had been looking forward to touring the castle since the last time I was in Dublin. We also visited St. Patrick's Cathedral that day, altho
ugh we did not go inside because it was a tad expensive. But the grounds were beautiful and we got some cute pictures together :)And Saturday was definitely a disturbing night, as our neighbors were "busy" ALL NIGHT LONG. I swear I didn't sleep at all, which is obviously not okay, making me sleepy and slightly on the cranky side for Valentine's Day.... But not too much, our day was still wonderful! It was our first Valentine's Day together, and we celebrated with lots of Butlers Chocolate, a couple hours in a museum, and a delicious Italian dinner. When we got back to our room for the night, our neighbors were "busy" again so we decided it was time to switch rooms.Monday was spent relaxing and walking around the city a little more (not much to report) and we caught a bus back to Galway on Tuesday afternoon! Tuesday evening we got pizza with Chelsea and Jack got to meet the group when we all went to the Cellar for some drinks! Then we came back and awaited Camille's return! I missed her tons, and she had a huge bear hug for Jackie :)
Camille's time in England...
...was AWESOME!!!!!! Last Saturday (the 13th) I headed to Nottingham, England. My flight left at 8:00 am from the Dublin airport so in order to get to the airport at the correct time I had to leave from Galway at 3:30 in the morning!!!! But there was barely anyone on the bus with me so it was nice and quite and I had a set of seats to myself. I slept. My journey through the airport was very similar to my previous journey to England. I was frisked going through security. But other than that I made it on the plane just fine, and without worrying about the size of my carry-on having learned on my previous flight that it fits just fine. I arrived in Nottingham around 10am and met Hannah and Lauren (my future roommates!) at Costa Coffee where we enjoyed some caffeine and catching up! They took me back to their flat then where I got tackled by Tyler and big hugs from everyone else! It was nice to be able to visit all of these people because they are away for an entire year from Luther, so I hadn't seen any of these people since early September. Also at the flat was Lizzi, who was visiting the Nottingham gang on her winter break from school in Aix, France.
On Valentine's Day Lizzi and I as well as a couple of others accompanied Kathy Reed-Maxfield to Newsted Abbey, a BEAUTIFUL house and garden. We took a nice walk there and ended with some tea and talk in the Abbey cafe. FUN. Later that day, back at the flat, we experimented with chocolate truffles and sugar cookies for Valentine sweets. I also shredded massive amounts of cheese to make the sauce for our Alfredo that was to be dinner. A dinner needed to feed 15 people (so I shredded LOTS of cheese)! But we had a very nice Valentine dinner followed by our heart-shaped sugar cookies and chocolate ganache (because they didn't harden into truffles) for dessert.
Most of the next two days were spent hanging out with my Nottingham loves and reconnecting and relaxing. It was lovely.
Lizzi followed me here to Galway and we are having a lovely time here as well!
On Valentine's Day Lizzi and I as well as a couple of others accompanied Kathy Reed-Maxfield to Newsted Abbey, a BEAUTIFUL house and garden. We took a nice walk there and ended with some tea and talk in the Abbey cafe. FUN. Later that day, back at the flat, we experimented with chocolate truffles and sugar cookies for Valentine sweets. I also shredded massive amounts of cheese to make the sauce for our Alfredo that was to be dinner. A dinner needed to feed 15 people (so I shredded LOTS of cheese)! But we had a very nice Valentine dinner followed by our heart-shaped sugar cookies and chocolate ganache (because they didn't harden into truffles) for dessert.
Most of the next two days were spent hanging out with my Nottingham loves and reconnecting and relaxing. It was lovely.
Lizzi followed me here to Galway and we are having a lovely time here as well!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
