I went on a trip a while ago

In the middle of this semester was a 2 week "study break". Before this break came along, i had talked with my friend Alanna about going on a trip to Europe. After some discussion, we decided to go to Berlin, Germany, Lucerne, Switzerland, and then Milan, Florence and Rome in Italy.
The trip had a bit of an inauspicious start. Alanna and i arrived at the Dublin airport ontime, or so we thought, but soon discovered that we had both made the mistake of thinking that our plane was scheduled to leave at 6 the evening, while it had actually left at 6 in the morning. So we bit the bullet, each bought a ticket for the next morning, and slept in the airport over night. Things went smoothly once we were in Berlin. We saw the Riechstag, the Brandenburg gate, the Jewish Memorial, the remains of the Berlin Wall, now covered in art and graffiti, as well as several interesting museums. We stayed at St. Christopher's Hostel while in Berlin. In retrospect, St. Christopher's spoiled us as far as hostels go for the rest of the trip. It was secure, well maintained, and we even got what could be considered a typical American continental breakfast.

After just 2 days in Berlin, we took a train (on the slightly confusing Eurail pass) to Zurich and then a shorter train ride into Lucerne. Just the travel took up almost the entire day, but even in the evening, we could tell that Lucerne was beautiful. With all its hills, old fashioned bridges and character, Lucerne was a great place to spend just a day in. The swiss chocolate was also important to our enjoyment of Lucerne.

Our next stop was Milan. The journey to Milan was fun in itself, with the weather changing from spring to winter and then back to spring again in just the course of a few hours, as the train wound through the mountains. We arrived in Milan in the evening, and did end up having some trouble getting to our hostel "Hotel Greco Milan". While in Milan, we saw the Duomo (the Cathedral), a museum with a special exhibit of Magritte, and explored the massive castle in the center of the city.

We then moved on to Florence, which is in Tuscany. If i was forced to make a choice, i would say that Florence was my favorite stop on the trip. It was a smaller city than Milan, and maybe due to that fact, it was a very inviting city. It was easy to walk around and explore the city with all it's statues, markets, gelaterias, and restaurants. The Duomo in Milan was also remarkable; the dome atop the cathedral was the first large dome to be built in Europe after the pantheon was constructed in Rome. On our last morning in Milan we climbed a hill and were able to see the entire town, which was quite a sight.

The last stop on our journey was Rome. I had been to Rome once before, so this time i was really excited to see everything that i wanted to again, or see anything that i missed. Even though Florence was probably my favorite part of the trip because of the atmosphere, i cannot deny how fascinated i am by Rome and all of it's history. I guess Rome is one of the only places that i can be and feel like my four years of high-school Latin have really paid off. Everything in Rome is so monumental in terms of beauty, history, and even religious importance; it was the perfect grand finale to the Spring Break of a lifetime.

Dublin Head + a day at Powerscourt

Last weekend i rowed in my first regatta with the University College Dublin Ladies' Boat Club. It was amazing! First of all, i'm still amazed by the fact that i'm getting to row in January and now February. ON THE WATER. Rowing on the water at this point of the year in either Minnesota or Michigan would probably require some sort of steel-hulled shell (boat), which would definitely slow it down a little bit.




On to the regatta! It wasn't actually a regatta, but a head race, which is longer than the normal spring racing course of about 2000 metres (notice the -re instead of -er???!!). The Dublin Head was 3.8 km, starting at O'Connel Bridge and ending after Island Bridge, right before the weir (a sort of dam thing). I had rowed with that particular line-up of girls only twice before, on the previous weekend, but it had felt pretty good, especially for it being the first time i was in the boat and i was super excited to have even be chosen to race. The race was on Saturday morning and 2 of my friends even came down to watch it (a cute v-day-inspired poster in tow). I heard them scream my name as i went under O'Connel Street Bridge, but i stayed focus on the race, and we got through it with out any problems. Rowing through the city centre of Dublin was such a cool experience; we passed under haypenny bridge, and past such landmarks as the Custom House and the infamous Guiness Factory. We even beat the other boat in our category! It wasn't a major race or anything, but it was a great deal of fun, and i can't wait for more chances to race! Once back at the boathouse, we celebrated with valentines-themed and other special cookies and sweets that some of the girls had prepared, Yum! There was even a story about it (the race not the cookies) on the ucd website: http://www.ucd.ie/sport/news_160209_boatdublinhead.html




This Friday, i, along with my friend Alanna, went to Powerscourt, the traditional country home of the Powers family, of the whiskey brewing fame. It is a beautifully preserved estate, which has been open to tourists for the last few decades. Along with the beautiful house, there are beautiful gardens, which expand behind the house down into the valley below. They were designed with Versailles in mind, and this influence is clearly visible. The main Garden has a great deal of manicured shrubs and Classical-Style Statues of Greek and Roman Gods, in both marble and bronze. The focal point of the Garden is Triton Lake, a circular pond with a sculptural fountain of Triton, spewing a tall flume of water from his mouth. There is also a beautiful Japanese garden.




The day we went on couldn't have been more perfect; it was unusually sunny compared to the weather that we've had so far here. It's also just about turning to spring here, so early spring flowers like crocus were just starting to bloom and everything else was starting to really green up.




I'm falling asleep as i write this....i'll fix any mistakes later :)

Snow Panic

Over the past week, Dublin has received the largest amount of snow since the early 90's (or the 1980's or since 'the big snow' depending on who you ask). The amount of snow in this 'snow panic', which is what it is being called on all the big news stations, is not quite the emergency-causing proportions that midwesterners might imagine. Although it has snowed at least a little maybe every other day over the past week, i can confidently say that there hasn't been more than 2 inches on the ground at any time. This hasn't stopped the Irish from celebrating the 'novelty' of it, though.

On the Monday, the snow was little more than small ice chips that only collected in small amounts, but that was enough to cause people to slow to a crawl on the N11, the major motorway that goes past UCD. The next day it did snow a little more, causing commotion all over campus. My friend Alanna, who's no stranger to snow being from New Jersey, and I watched from a window on the second floor of the library as students seemed to revert back to childhood, gathering whatever snow they could to make snowballs, throwing them at everything (outsides of buildings, insides of buildings, bicyclists, buses, people) they could.

It snowed again on Thursday, and this time it was totally respectable. It was perfect packing snow and i got to walk through an Irish winter wonderland on my way to the Tesco supermarket. I almost ended up getting pummeled by snowball toting children, but then they saw a bus and decided to throw snowballs at that instead.

I think my favorite part of this mini-reminder of the way winter is supposed to be was teaching my Australian floor-mate how to really make a snowman (you have to roll it!!), making the second snowman at crew practice with the rest of the girls from the Boat Club on Sunday morning, and giving winter-condition driving tips to some locals (stop before you think you need to, don't overcorrect when you start to slide, and pump the brakes).

I hope the snow is over and that it will be beautiful and springlike, with no rain from now on......just kidding, i know that Irish weather is anything but consistent (example: if i check 3 different weather reports for Dublin online, they will all be different and none of them will end up being correct). More later!

A little mishap on the Liffey

Everyone experiences small embarassments or little "fails" in their daily life. Tripping up the stairs in front of people, dropping your tray at lunch time in the cafeteria, forgetting what you were going to say in front of class - these are all small fails. Once in a while, you might expeience a bigger fail, like tripping up the stairs in Spartan Stadium, or in rowing, maybe, flipping a single. Flipping a single can be funny, tragic, or both. Either way, it usually is over pretty fast. What i did today, goes a little beyond that.

I just started rowing with the University College Dublin Ladies' Boat Club a week ago, so i don't know too many people and i haven't really been placed in any specific boats yet. I've rowed 3 times on the water now, twice in a pair, and once in a single. Today i went out in a single. I was both excited and nervous about this, since i hadn't sculled very much since high school. It was a little windy today, so it wasn't the best row, but i was doing pretty well considering. Over half way into my row i got caught in the weeds in the bend of the river and it took me a few minutes to get out, just because of the wind and where i was on the river. Now, i thought this was kind of embarassing, since a few boats passed me pretty closely while i was struggling for a few minutes. Once i got out, i thought to myself "well that was probably the worst thing that will happen all day, at least it's over!".

A little later i was back near the boat house and i decided to bring it in. I tried to bring it in the same way that i had the day before, from across the river. I checked and didn't see any boats coming, so i started rowing across the river, so i was probably at a 45 degree angle with the dock. All of a sudden i turn around and i see a double, coming straight toward me.I yelled "way enough!" which now that i think about it, probably is a completely different command here, but we both checked it down.....it was too late though. Their bow went straight over and onto mine and then we both stopped moving. I was scared that there was going to be damage, just because of the sound that it made when we collided, but it didn't look like there was any. That didn't make things too much better though, due to the fact that their boat was completely on top of my bow, and if i'd leaned over i could've given the bowman a high-five, except for the fact that would have been completely inappropriate at the time. Also, this double was a trinity double, which is apparently our rival school, so it would've been like if i'd collided with some double from Michigan, awesome.....So we tried to get out of this situation, by pushing eachother off, and both backing down, but nothing was working. Luckily, we were right in front of the boathouse and some guys from the club had seen this happen (along with other boats on the water, and at least 20 people just hanging out in the park right across the river) so they ran down and got into this training double, which is basically just a tub. They rowed out and after like 10 minutes of pushing my bow down, theirs up, and removing one of my oars, we were free.

I'm pretty sure both boats were fine, no one was injured, and i somehow managed not to flip the single, even though at one point i had one oar in, and had my feet out because i was sitting behind my seat, trying to shift the weight, but that was seriously the most embarassing thing i have ever had happen to me while rowing. I had only met 2 of the guys that were there before, so i was really worried that i was in deep trouble or something, but they didn't seem to think it was that big of a deal.

Ugh, so that's my epic fail, i only wish someone had a camera, because i honestly think it might've made it onto fail blogs. I'm going to go eat massive amounts of nutella now.

Walking Tour of City Centre Dublin

I went on a walking tour of city centre Dublin today, along with a few of my friends from Blackrock. We walked through St. Stephen's Green, through the Georgian neighborhood a little, through the main campus of Trinity, and up to the gates of Dublin Castle. The tour guide did a good job explaining the historic elements of what we were seeing, along with some cultural information.

The first couple of pictures are of sculptures in St. Stephen's Park. The first one was done as a memorial to all of the Irish who died during the famine of the mid-eighteen hundreds, caused mostly by the potato blight. The second sculpture is of a Protestant Irish hero parliamentarian Wolfe Tone, who believed Ireland had the right to be independent and spear-headed the Irish rebellion of 1798. He is credited with being the major figure behind the Irish republicanism movement.

The first picture of buildings is from the Georgian district, and is actually the childhood home of Oscar Wilde. The second picture of buildings is a shot from the main entrance of Trinity College.

The last picture is of Libby, Ingrid, and myself at the obligatory tourist destination, the bronze sculpture of Molly Malone with her cart of cockles and mussles.

This tour was right down my alley, as i'm such a history nerd. With two Irish history classes, i'll probably be fed up with this kind of stuff by the end of the semester!

p.s. the pictures are in the opposite order that i thought they were, but i'm too lazy to fix it.

OMG CULTURE SHOCK!!!

One of the orientation presentations from the first few days when we were here was about "culture shock". Apparently, some of the symptoms can include: depression, tiredness, compulsive handwashing, emotional swings, etc., etc.

Well, I luckliy haven't experienced any of these symptoms (except maybe the tiredness, but c'mon, i'm a college student), but there have been a few cultural differences i've noticed since i arrived here.

I think that the main "shock" that i've noticed is the general pace of life. Even though Dublin is a big modern city that is completely identical to any U.S. city in most respects, the people in general have somehow retained the slower, more relaxed pace of life that we in the United States seem to have discarded several generations ago. As one of my friends professors said, a lot of people in Ireland operate on "ish"-time. As in, if a class is scheduled for 11, it's totally fine for the professor to come in a little late, especially if it's a friday or a monday, or if there was any kind of holiday special event on the previous day that might make a trip to the pub necessary.
This is not a bad thing at all, it's just a little interesting to adjust from the American schedule of everything starting more or less on time, immediate results, and fast or express versions of just about everything, to a more relaxed schedule. I guess i'm just going to have to learn how to "chill out", even though i've always thought of myself as pretty laid back in general. I don't know if a high-strung type-A person would be able to handle Ireland.

President Obama!!

On my second day here, i attended a study abroad orientation, where an "Obama Inauguration" gathering was offered. Well, today i, along with a couple hundred and some other American students and faculty members attended that event, and it was exciting, fun, and at the very least, interesting.

It was scheduled to be held in the Student Services Center, which is kind of like MSU's student union, at 4:30, but as we were watching before the coverage on some tv's in the food court area, we could tell that it was getting close to the actual swearing in, so when they finally did let us into the room, it was kind of a bum rush. It did end up being worth the wait though. The had couches and rows of chairs set up, American foods like onion rings, sandwiches, small fried chicked wings, and of course oriental dipping sauce, as well as American beverages like Coke and everyone's favorite American-brewed Belgian-owned beer, Budweiser. The Study Abroad advisor for UCD, who is definitely Irish, organized the event and was wearing a button that said "G0 Obama OK". She's a funny lady....at the end of the event when everyone was leaving she asked a few of us "What are you all doing later?" when i said "I don't think much of anything, i have a 9 am class tomorrow." she seemed dissapointed that we weren't going to some sort of American party or out to a pub to celebrate; the Irish seem willing to use any excuse to go have a pint, even the inauguration of a foreign president.

Anyway, once we were admitted to the reception room, there did end up being a few minutes before President Obama (I love being able to say that!!!) was sworn in, in which we were coached by one of the faculty members to shout "Yes we can!" in unison for the tv camera of a local news station.

Everyone did quiet down when the swearing in began, and it remained that way until the end of President Obama's (oh my gosh that's not going to get old) speech, with the exception of a few outbursts of applause at the appropriate moments, a few jeers whenever the camera panned to former (YESSS!!!) President Bush, and a few laughs at the awkward "SSashaah" of Pastor Rick Warren's otherwise eloquent blessing.
I found President Obama's speech very powerful, even from thousands of miles away. Our small crowd's reaction mirrored the reactions of the crowd in Washington D.C. Parts of the speech rang even truer than i think they ever could have at home, like when Obama talked about the immigrants from a multitude of other countries and their difficult journeys, but ultimate successes in making the United States into one of the strongest countries in the world. Oh, i could go on, but i'll try to not make this post too long.....

Although i envied all those at home, and especially those in D.C., i do value the experience of watching such a uniquely "American" event in another country, and then being able to hear the reactions of people from other countries. When i did ask a few people from my dorm that are from various parts of the world what they thought of the transition, they uniformly agreed that Obama would be a definite improvement over Bush, especially in areas of foreign policy, but i have also heard people bring up issues like how ideas that Obama has developed in order to improve OUR economy might not necessarily help other countries or even hurt other countries, as we turn to more protectionist policies in order to recover from such a great economic collapse. Ugh, again i could babble on, but i think i'll end on a happy note.....YES WE DID!!!