Looking Back, Moving Forward...

A lot of travel time yesterday meant a lot of time to reflect on this past semester and what it meant for me. I kept a journal throughout the past months and it was fun reading through it on the plane, remembering things that I had already forgotten about. I spent almost the entire three hour flight from Newark to Minneapolis writing, about some of the highlights and low points of my time abroad, my favorite moments (that took up quite a few pages), how different my first impressions of the group were from what I know now, some things I learned, some ways I changed, and the many things I will miss about Ireland. I thought I would share some of the things I learned or realized during my time abroad: 

Filling all the empty space in my suitcase with Smartwool socks was one of the best decisions I ever made. 

I was incredibly happy living without a lot of material things or a big living space. 

Most of the time, the best plan is having no plan. 

I do not regret any of the times I put doing something fun over homework and studying. 

Making an effort to get to know people is easy, and so worth it. 

Washing the dishes is fun when the soundtrack to a Broadway musical is playing (Annie's "It's a Hark Knock Life" was a chore-time favorite in Cottage 6). 

While it's important to "live in the moment" and stop taking photos from time to time, some things are just too good not capture on video (like our award ceremony night). 

Umbrellas are overrated.


History is so much more interesting when you can physically walk around and experience where the history you are learning about happened. 

Creating your own fun (like Cottage Olympics or Poteen Prom), is the best kind of fun. 

When given the choice between doing something and not doing it, as Nike would say, "just do it." For example: Swimming in Galway Bay on December 1st? Just do it. Playing football in the freezing rain and mud on Thanksgiving? Just do it. Going out for the third night in a row? Just do it. Riding on the back of a moped in Switzerland? Just do it. You get the idea.

Recipes are open for interpretation, especially when you only have about a third of the necessary ingredients. It usually turns out pretty edible, and sometimes even delicious. 

And cliche as it is, I learned that making the most out of each day is important because time goes by so unbelievably fast. 

Well friends, that is all for now. Thanks for following! Maybe if I'm lucky there will be another long-term adventure in my future and I will blog again. Until then, Slán go fóill. 

The Past Week

My week in Ireland with my parents was really great. It was fun for me to show them around some of my favorite places from throughout the semester. When they arrived at the Park Lodge on Friday they got to meet some of my friends, and Rory, JP, and Geraldine were around so they got to meet them too. Here's a quick recap of how we spent the week: On Saturday we drove around the Connemara region, seeing Kylemore Abbey, the town of Cliffden, the beautiful landscape, and coming across the coral beach Rory brought us to a couple of weeks ago.  

On Sunday I showed them around Galway, going to Mass at Galway Cathedral, walking around the Christmas market in Eyre Square, and visiting some shops. From there we drove to Ballyvaughn, where we were staying for the night, which is pretty much directly across Galway Bay from Spiddal. The drive there was really beautiful, and Mom and I jokingly described what we were seeing to Dad, who unfortunately was too busy trying to stay on the narrow winding roads to appreciate the scenery.  

The view from the window of a B&B we stayed in

On Monday we moved on to the town of Killarney, stopping at the Cliffs of Moher on the way. It was comically windy, and for a moment I thought we might actually get blown off the cliffs. Seriously, we could barely even walk it was so windy. But the sun made an appearance and the visibility was good, so the Cliffs were as stunning as ever. From there we successfully boarded a drive-on ferry to cross over into County Clare, and made it to Killarney by the afternoon.  

Trying to not get blown over! 

On Tuesday we drove around the Ring of Kerry, which looked a little different than when our group was there in September. It was still beautiful, with some brown and maroon and orange colors in addition to the green fields. 

Wednesday we drove to Dublin, stopping at Bunratty Castle on the way, somewhere I hadn't been yet. We dropped the rental car off at the airport (Dad was very relieved at this point) and took a cab into Dublin to our hotel. 

Thursday was a busy day in Dublin. We visited Kilmainham Jail, one of my favorite (and most educational) places from when our group was in Dublin. Next we visited in the Old Jameson Distillery, somewhere I hadn't visited yet. It was a cool building and a pretty interesting tour. Dad got to participate in the whiskey tasting at the end. We ate lunch at the Brazen Head Inn, the oldest pub in Dublin. After that we walked around Trinity College and took in the Book of Kells and the Long Room at the Library. We stopped by the National Museum of Archeology briefly and visited the "bog bodies." 

Overall it was a great week. The weather could have been better, but I think it was pretty typical for December in Ireland. I enjoyed seeing the countryside from the vantage point of a car rather than the bus we drove around in all semester, eating some delicious meals, staying in cozy B&Bs, and catching up about what we have all been up to the past few months. 

We thought we were going to be on different flights on the way home, but realized once we got to the airport on Friday morning that we were on the same one after all. We arrived in Newark around 11:30 yesterday morning, and were supposed to have different flights from there. My flight to Minneapolis wasn't scheduled to leave until 7:30pm. For some reason, an 8 hour layover didn't seem like a big deal when I booked my flight months ago. However, we were able to easily get me switched onto the flight my parents were taking, so my layover time got cut in half and we all left around 3:30pm! It all went smoothly, and we arrived home in the evening. When driving home from the airport I realized it seemed like I had been gone a lot longer than four months, probably because I didn't live at home over the summer either. I also realized that since I lived at school last summer too and was in Peru for part of last Christmas break, this winter break is the longest I will be at home since before college started! As much as I know I will miss studying abroad, I am so happy to be home. 

Thank you to everyone who has kept up with this blog throughout the past months. I have so enjoyed sharing my stories with all of you. 

Check back soon for one last blog post with my final thoughts about my study abroad experience! 

Movin' Out

My time with the CSB-SJU Galway '11 study abroad group is officially over as of today. After many goodbyes, I moved out of cottage 6 this morning. We woke up before 5am to say goodbye to a big group leaving for the airport then. I didn't know I was capable of producing tears that early in the morning, but there were not many dry eyes among the group when they got in Rory's van to drive away. After going back to bed, I woke up again at 6am to say goodbye to another group leaving. A few more people departed throughout the morning, and my parents arrived around 10:30 to pick me up. Our first day driving around Ireland was a success, just because of the fact that Dad remembered to stay on the left side of the road and we are all still alive. It was only a little bit scary. 

I'm sure the overly sappy blog post about my experience this semester will be in the near future. It's a lot to process at the moment that my time with the group is over. 

But for now, I get to spend the week with these guys (unfortunately just my parents, not the horse). 

Polar Bear Plunge, and saying Goodbye

Yesterday, December 1st, a group of us decided to take a little swim in Galway Bay. It was a cold but beautifully sunny day, and the water was of course freezing. 

I thought we would just quick run in and then run back out, but we actually stayed in the water for almost five minutes, splashing around and jumping in the waves. After a few seconds my legs were numb from the cold so it didn't really bother me anymore! 

It was a very memorable way to spend our last day together as a group. The rest of the day was spent packing and cleaning up the cottage, which was quite sad. At night we had a little award ceremony with some very comical awards handed out, which brought up some great memories from the trip. The rest of the night was a final get-together at the pub, with a lot of reminiscing, laughing, and  of course, dancing.

This morning my parents got here! It was so strange seeing them here in our cottage. They have gone to the hotel they're staying at in Galway for the night and will come back to get me in the morning. Our next door neighbors, the boys of cottage 5, left this afternoon. Everyone stood outside in the pouring rain to say goodbye when Rory arrived to drive them to the bus station, and there were definitely a few tears in people's eyes, including mine. 

How did these months go by so fast!? 

School's Out!

Well, it's not even December yet and I am officially done with classes for the semester. I hadn't really thought of it this way until right now, but I guess I'm now on Christmas break! The next time I will be in a classroom is January 16th, over six weeks from now. I love college. 

(This is across the street from where I live, on a walk yesterday afternoon. I'm going to miss that view!)

I'm so glad we have a few days left here now that classes are done and we can just relax and have fun. Okay... so we've been having fun pretty much constantly all semester, but now we really have no obligations and can enjoy our final days to the fullest. The past few days have been packed with writing a 10-page theology paper (on which rests our entire grade for the course), preparing a presentation for history class, studying for the history final, and writing a literature reflection paper on the poetry of Seamus Heaney. I of course procrastinated all weekend, which left a ton of work to do yesterday. But now it's all done. Pretty soon I'm going out to lunch with some of the girls to celebrate our last day of school, and tonight I'm sure there will be plenty of festivities to celebrate one of our final nights at the cottages. I really cannot believe this week is already here. On Friday my parents are arriving, which I am very excited for! It's bittersweet (although right now, the class-being-over part is just sweet). 

The Coral Beach

Rory is the wonderful and very funny man who drives us when we need a ride to Galway, and has become a great friend to all the students on our program. Last Sunday afternoon, he took a group of us to a coral beach about a thirty minutes away from Spiddal. From a distance, it looks like any normal, sandy beach:

But up close, you can see that the "sand" is actually comprised of tiny pieces of coral: 

It is one of the only beaches in Europe that is like this, and it was pretty awesome. We spent almost an hour walking around on the rocks and enjoying the chilly but sunny late afternoon.  

As of today I have only 5 more nights in Cottage 6. The time truly has flown by...

Thanksgiving

For being in a country that doesn't recognize the holiday, we sure celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday. 

We had plans to play a football game at the hurling field in the afternoon. When the time came to leave for the field it was pouring rain, cold, and very windy, so the size of the group sort of dwindled. However, enough of us braved the Irish weather to form two teams and attempted to play while sliding around the muddy field. The ground was so slippery it was easier to play barefoot than in shoes. Running around in the pelting rain, cold mud squishing between our toes, it was difficult to do anything that actually resembled playing football. Eventually both teams scored once and we decided we were so cold so the first team to score again would win...and we did! We were a little wet and muddy after all of this:

A few short hours later we were all cleaned up and ready to feast. Thanksgiving at the Park Lodge has been a tradition for the past 27 years, as long as there have been groups of Bennies and Johnnies coming each Fall. This was definitely the largest Thanksgiving celebration I have experienced, with about 65 guests in attendance. There were the 29 of us, Mike and Jane our directors, Brady's family, the man who drove our bus on excursions all semester, Rory our taxi driver, our five professors and their guests, the Foyle family (owners of the Park Lodge), and some other friends. 

Cottage 6 girls

The evening began with a hot port reception, then Tommy showed a slideshow of pictures from the past three months, which he did a very good job on. The Foyle girls then performed some songs on their fiddles and recorders for us, and then our Theology professor Br. Colman said a blessing. This was the first year he taught our group, making it his first Thanksgiving, so he had some students fill him in beforehand about the traditions of the holiday. Dinner was amazing: a course of shrimp, salad, smoked salmon, and bread was served, then a soup course. Then the traditional meal of turkey (plus ham too!), stuffing, mash potatoes, sweet potatoes, roasted potatoes (we are in Ireland, afterall), gravy, carrots, peas, and mushrooms. For dessert there was pumpkin pie and flaming baked Alaska. Before Halloween we bought a pumpkin and painted it instead of carved it, and it had been sitting outside our cottage since, very well preserved still. Earlier in the week, Geraldine called our cottage to ask if she could use it for the pies, so that was our contribution to the meal. 

I also helped by making the place cards, all 60-something of them: 

After dinner we presented thank-you gifts to Jane and Mike, our bus driver, Rory, the Foyles, and our professors. Then came some traditional Irish dancing we have learned in class, with way too much spinning around after a full Thanksgiving feast! After a quick rest we all somehow got a second wind and the rest of the night brought more festivities and dancing. 

I thought Thanksgiving abroad would involve some level of homesickness, but instead I was reminded of how many things I have to be thankful for this year in particular: the many travel opportunities and beautiful places I have experience, a group of 28 new friends that have made my time in Ireland so memorable, the many things I have learned in my classes, the incredible hospitality of the Irish people I have gotten to know, and the love and support of my friends and family back home. I cannot believe this semester will be over in a little over a week, and I am so, so thankful that it has been all that I hoped the experience would be.