Fin

I am done. Two papers, eight exams, and one heck of a week later, I find myself bumming on my bed with a couple of warm shock blankets, the heater luxuriously turned to ON, and dreams of chocolate fudge brownies swimming through my head (not going to happen). I've had a major test every school day for the past week and a half and I am exhausted. This means that I am officially done with four of my seven courses. The other three have finals in May...minor details....

This also means that the month of April is essentially free for travel (and studying on the train). In trying to organize it all, I have a newfound appreciation for the wondrous magic that travel agents work. My friends and I spent a lot of time researching our trip. This is the first occasion that I've ever planned a trip (or trip segment) like this on my own and it was a huge learning curve.

Essentially I made every dumb mistake in the book. A Common Sense Guide to Traveling for Dummies? Yeah, didn't read it. Here are a few lessons I learned:

1. Large cities ACTUALLY have multiple airports...which really aren't that close to each other. The cheap flight from Paris to Milan flies out of Paris you say? It flies out of Paris-Beauvais, which is actually 1.5 hours away from Paris by bus, about a quarter of the way up the country. Better rethink that connecting train--and pay closer attention to which Paris airport you're actually flying out of.

2. Sometimes no connecting train on your travel day will get you in before your flight. As in, no train that day leaves before 6 am. Which is why it's kind of important to check this out before you book your flight.

3. Putting in your travel date to a transportation search engine does not necessarily bring up flights/ferries/trains on that travel day. Small print, big importance.

4. It's a lot less sketchy to book directly through an airline rather than booking through the third-party website that found you the cheapest price.

And thus it was. At the time, I was actually quite upset with myself for the sheer number of planning hiccups I made on my segment of the trip. I felt guilty because I thought I was holding my friends back and didn't know what to do. We needed to trim costs down and I was frustrated because I couldn't find cheaper accommodation in St Malo. Train ticket prices kept rising. Every airline's booking process was pretty sure that I also needed to book a hotel...and a rental car...and travel insurance...and an actual seat. The aisle, or the cargo hold, or the wing for that matter, are NOT IN FACT acceptable methods of traveling on a plane. That said, we got all of our flights booked and our ferry and it was an excellent learning experience.

We are going to be backpacking starting April 1st. Backpacking as in, everything I need is going in my purple backpack. Which means we have the finals week scenario all over again: same outfit for a week? I've been wearing this dress for two.

That said, computer access will be dubious and this may be my last post for the next 3 weeks or so.

Happy St Patrick's Day (+2 days)!

Every time I log into Blogger, I receive the option to look at my blog's stats: how many people viewed it, when, from what browser, on which operating system, from what country. And never have so many people viewed my blog in a single day as they did yesterday, following St Patrick's. 

I would say that I was too busy recovering from St Patrick's revelries to post. That wouldn't be honest. My 9 am archaeology course was only 50% full, so I know many international students were themselves recovering. That said, I did have an action-packed Paddy's Day.

First, let me say that in Ireland, it's not just St Patrick's Day--it's St Patrick's Weekend. The streets were blocked off all weekend for a street festival, complete with food vendors and a stage set up for trad with ceili dancing out front. Lots of energy, great craic.

St Patrick's Day itself is a national holiday. This meant no classes. Instead, a few friends arrived at my apartment around 11:30 that morning, bearing gifts of Ireland-themed face paint and cheer, prepared to deck ourselves all out for the parade downtown. Green t-shirts, tacky budget scarves, flag-capes, and hairbands with flags sticking out of the temples like feelers. Fun with face paint, culminating in Wymana's face-turned Irish flag. It's the only time in your life--no holding back. I was flaunting more spirit for Ireland than I've ever flaunted for the US.

Walking downtown, I felt out of place. Could I possibly be...more spirited...than most? The first time in my life that I have ever been more conspicuously spirited for anything, disregarding the Harry Potter premier? When we arrived downtown, the place was so packed that I couldn't feel awkward. Green everywhere, people crushed against each other on the sidewalk, heavily-accented swearing. Good thing I am taller than most--even then, it was hard to see the parade. 

The parade lasted for 2 hours and by the end, we were all ready for food, drink, and trad. We ended up at a pub across the river called Sin e, one of Cork's heritage pubs offering live trad music til late. It is a small, atmospheric place lined with posters, seats clustered together (you better like your neighbor), and just dim enough to make you feel like you're drinking at night. Downstairs for music, upstairs for large student groups in Paddy's gear brandishing beer and hugging boxes of snack cereal. A group of French guys were drinking a round of whiskey, their friend asleep on the table. A bored-looking bartender came by and woke him up. We decided downstairs next to the music was best. I wished that I could contribute, but unfortunately pre-requisites in that particular setting actually include "being able to sing."

After returning to my place to make a more-or-less traditional meal of colcannon and sausage, my friends and I decided that we wanted to go out. Turns out that clubbing in unicorn leggings was so fun on Friday night that I was really bummed when the bars all kicked us out around 2:30...all weekend, I couldn't stop thinking: Wymana still has moves to bust. Paddy's Day we did not find dancing until late. We did, however, in our search hit a few more heritage pubs. The Holy Cow, the Bodega, the Crane Lane, and finally ended our evening in the Bailey. The Crane Lane looks like a theatre-converted bar. Packed with people, cool atmosphere, excellent music, no dancing. The Bailey's a go-to for the dancing when we can't find anywhere else. Twas fun. However, I think Americans party harder on St Patrick's. Which in a way makes sense: after the Great Famine hit and emigration really accelerated, New York had a larger Irish population than any city in Ireland. And St Patrick's has become a celebration of Irish heritage.

In sum, I expected St Patrick's to be crazy here. Definitely people were out in droves, hitting the pubs that afternoon. But the day itself wasn't crazy--people almost had more energy for the weekend festivities. The most surprising thing was probably the sheer number of couples snogging on the sidewalk...and how many students seemed energetic in archaeology the following morning.

Correction: I have actually been clubbing in unicorn leggings.

Spring Sprang?

Take a moment and consider: would you have used 'sprung'? I was thinking about this the other day and realized that I use 'sprung' and 'sprang' about the same amount. English: I'm glad it's my first language.

In any case, spring is here. Or, at least, it has been for the past 4 days: no rain, hardly a cloud in the sky, warm enough for shorts. My roommate came back from class with a sunburn. It is possible that Ireland can, in fact, have a certain amount of weather stability. Look out: I may actually come back with a tan.

Aside from the weather, another pivotal event marking this week was...wait for it...the submission of my archaeology essay! It was a huge weight off. I walked down to the Connelly Building today (where the Archaeology office is) and dropped this fancy little package of assessment form-title page-fact vomit-where the facts were before they were vomit into this big wooden drop box and it was wonderful. Not only that, but in the process I met another engineer from the US studying abroad. The first. It was kind of like what I imagine winning a few thousand dollars on jeopardy feels like.

The combined effects of this meeting, the AR Paper: Submitted, and the sun all put me in a springy mood. So I made my first pie for dinner. It wasn't the most masterful piece of cooking art. I didn't make enough dough...didn't have the right sort of flour...nor the right sort of sugar...nor did I actually have a pie dish. I just lined a too-large tray with foil and kind of tried to turn up the edges to contain the fruit juices. Which worked--more or less. It just looked kind of like my pie caught the plague. 'Twas delicious, however.

For those of you curious, I did not actually go clubbing in the unicorn leggings referred to in last week's blog addition. Yet, I shall forever bear their vivid memory, burned into my brain.

Looking forward, this coming weekend is St Patrick's Day weekend. Yep, the whole weekend is apparently crazy and filled with events. We have Monday off of school. To illustrate this, my history professor was talking about Ireland's role as a peacekeeper in the UN, found it funny, and said "You go out Paddy's Day weekend and you'll be sure to see a lot of peacekeeping." So we'll see what happens, I guess. In any case, I'm jazzed to be in Ireland for St Patrick's Day.

Thursday Again

Wait, what? Thursday again? The days are flying by so fast, I'm losing track. Summer plans in motion, end-of-term assessments in motion, t - 3 weeks of class until Easter Recess. It is officially crunch time.

This past week has been defined by extensive study sessions: library sessions between classes, evening dates with my word processor and set of reading notes. A single study lamp on to set the mood, a bit of light jazz to spice it with cozy. I am trying so hard to bust out the essays.

That said, I have been out 'n about a bit, chomh maith. This evening, I went downtown to do some much-needed shopping. 'Twas raining, Wymana was grumpy. She'd been walking around in the rain (and subsequently damp clothes) all day. Then she stopped in Penney's, a department store for super-cheap clothes. Her two friends decided she needed to try something on: a pair of unicorn print leggings. Very unique. The only unicorn print leggings I have ever seen in my life. "Here," they said. "You can go clubbing in this." "Very funny," I say. "I might as well poop skittles."

So I went ahead and modeled the unicorn print leggings for them, imagining a vibrant start to the beginning of a propitious modeling career. All rainbows and unicorns. Wymana was in a much better mood after this.

Post-shopping, I had a lovely time at a UCC book club and didn't get back to my apartment until after 9 pm. (Note that most UCC events happen Thursday nights, as the majority of Irish students leave for the weekend. Friday = max exodus of students with suitcases to the bus stops). At this point, I realized that I hadn't had dinner, nor what one could really call a lunch. I was starving. More than that, I was severely behind on my vegetable intake for the day and needed to take care of some near-expiration bean sprouts in the fridge. So I made possibly the spiciest curry that I have ever had in my life. There's a scene in the Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs where Dark Helmet shouts "MY BRAINS ARE FLYING INTO MY FEET." Well, make that the dinner edition and it's an accurate representation of my curry. My southwestern family would be proud.

Ceili Sunday

I spent my Sunday afternoon today at a ceili. Not at some fancy ceili venue--nope, downtown in the middle of the street. A ceili is Irish social dancing, much like OSU's country western nights. There's line dance, set dancing, waltzing, two-step, and plenty of other partner dances. I didn't know how to do anything, but I didn't need to. A) It's too much fun to be embarrassed at how awkward you are; and B) There are plenty of lovely people to help you along. Half of the instruction was in Gaelic and that was lovely, too. I turned to my friend and told her, "Yep. 'Agus.' I got that." I can tell when someone is connecting two phrases in Gaelic. Actually though, many of the words used to give direction dancing I had heard before in my Gaelic class. So really, going to the ceili was just like studying for my Spoken Irish class...kind of. Well, it's why I'm here. I had great craic, met wonderful people, and it was an overall wonderful experience. In fact, it's probably the most fun I've had all winter. I also figured out how to properly swing someone ceili-style, which is very fortunate because I've accidentally butt-grabbed people on two separate occasions trying to swing them. Both cases were very awkward.