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. 

A Comparison

Today, as we were hearing reports of snow and severe weather happening in Minnesota, this is what it looked like here:

The grass is really still that green

As much as I have mentioned the cold, dreary weather of Ireland, it really does have it's moments. Like today, when it was a sunny 57 degrees. 

Final excursion (and other fun stuff!)

Last weekend we went on our final group overnight excursion of the semester. First stop: the Rock of Cashel, a  group of Medieval buildings including a 12th century round tower, High Cross, and 13th century Gothic cathedral. 

After a walking tour of the town of Kilkenny, we checked into the hostel we were staying at for the night. We had an included group dinner at a place called Kytelers Inn, where our meal of chicken, potatoes, chips (because there couldn't be only one form of potatoes), vegetables, and Bailey's cheesecake was delicious. That night we found some fun pubs in town 

The next morning we left Kilkenny and headed towards Cork. On the way we stopped in the town of Cobh and visited the Cobh Heritage Center, a museum that commemorates the thousands of emigrants that left Ireland from the Cobh harbor during the Great Famine. 

We arrived in Cork in the afternoon and were given a walking tour of the main sites. My favorite area was the English Market, a covered food market with a huge array of different vendors. There were many interesting sights and smells to experience there. 

A building at University College Cork. 

The colorful streets of Cork. 

The next morning we visited Blarney Castle, located just outside of Cork. My favorite part was that at 9am on a Sunday morning, we had the place totally to ourselves, so we were like a group of little kids exploring the castle, making our way up the narrow, winding staircase to the top. 

(Photo courtesy of the wonderful Tommy O'Loughlin) 

We each kissed the Blarney Stone (yes, I know it's rumoured Irish pee on it on dumb Americans feel the need to kiss it anyway), which was actually more treacherous than I had been expecting. You can't really tell from the photo, but you have to hang down really far to reach it. Luckily there is a nice old Irish man who sits up there all day to assist people like us in achieving this goal. We are now all full of Blarney! 

Monday through Wednesday of this week were very busy and a little stressful as the "study" potion of "study abroad" was in full force. We had our Experiential Learning Projects due, and I presented on the topic of the Irish-language television channel TG4. I also had a history paper and and another paper for our Seminar class due. But I really can't complain, because by 2pm on Wednesday I was already done with class for the week. Going back to having class on Thursdays and Fridays next semester is going to be a rough adjustment. 

A big event we had been looking forward to for awhile was "Poteen Prom", which took place on Thursday night. Poteen, pronounced "po-cheen", is basically an Irish version of moonshine, something we may have sampled earlier in the semester. There wasn't any poteen actually involved in Poteen Prom, but it just had a nice ring to it so that's what it was called. A few weeks ago, each of the boys picked a random name out of a hat and asked that girl to prom. It was quite the source of entertainment over the past few weeks as the guys came up with their creative ways of asking their dates. My date was Drew, and he and two others arrived before the dance with newly-created mohawks, which sadly they have since gotten rid of. 

We took pictures beforehand in Cottage 6, then braved the rain on the short walk to the main lodge for the dance. JP opened up the large banquet hall and bar for the evening and a very fun night was had by all. 

A few of us and our dates

Joe and I 

Bethany, Me, and Ellen 

All of the guys

All of the girls

Earlier in the week, I heard from Alex, one of my friends from high school who is studying in London right now, that he and a friend were coming to the Galway area for the weekend. They needed a place to stay, and the Park Lodge is very accommodating of our friends and family so they stayed here. They got in late Thursday night during the midst of all of the Prom craziness, but Alex was unintimidated by the group and joined right in on the fun, busting out the dance moves with the rest of us. 


On Friday morning we had our final music class at the studio in Spiddal. We all had been dreading getting up and going to class, but it ended up being really great. The focus of this class was singing, and we learned a few songs, one of them in Irish. It really is such a bizarre and difficult language, so it was pretty comical hearing all of us try to pronounce the words. When it came time to participate and sing along, I had been expecting everyone to be pretty unenthused, considering it was early in the morning after a late night at prom the night before, but to my surprise the whole group sang along with gusto. It's a moment from the trip that I think will stand out in my memories of my time here. I looked around the room, this beautiful, spacious recording studio we were in, and took it all in. I remember thinking, Here I am, singing this song in Irish with these amazing musicians accompanying us, with this crazy group of incredibly fun people that I am blessed to have gotten to know so well over the past three months. It also kind of hit me then that we have so little time left now, and I want to make it an unforgettable couple of weeks. 

Grindelwald and Geneva

On our last morning in Interlaken, we rode a train to the ski resort town of Grindelwald. The train followed the path we had driven on the day before on the mopeds, and then went up further to the base of some mountains. We didn’t have too much time to spend there, but were able to follow some paths and hike a ways outside of the town. The views were beautiful. Grindelwald is the starting point for climbing the north face of the Eiger, so we were surrounded by some pretty impressive mountains. 

There were some really cool views of Lake Geneva covered in fog on our train ride:

  
After catching the train back to Interlaken, we stopped by the hostel to grab our stuff and then caught another train to Geneva. We had plans to stay with Ellen’s cousin, who is working in Geneva and lives right across the border in France. He met us near the train station and we made our way back to his apartment. After settling in, we headed out to a delicious Indian meal with him and his roommates. After traveling for a week, it was nice to stay in a more homey place. The next day we explored Geneva a little, but it was sort of a rainy and miserable day so we cut our visit a little short. That day Ellen's aunt and uncle had arrived for a visit, and that night they made us all a delicious dinner at the apartment. It was a great, relaxing last night to our trip. The next day, Saturday, was a very long day of travel. We took a bus to the Geneva airport, flew from Geneva to London and had over a four hour layover in the Gatwick airport, then flew to Dublin. Right as we got off the plane in Dublin, we ran into another group of six people from our program returning from their trip and were all very excited to see each other. After taking a three-hour bus ride from Dublin to Galway, then the drive from Galway to Spiddal, we finally arrived back at the cottage late Saturday night. 


Overall our break was so much fun, and I am so happy I got to visit the places I did with the people I was with. 


But now it's good to be home. 

The Moped Adventure

After our hike on Wednesday morning, we headed to the train station to meet Brady, Joe, and Billy, three of the guys from our program who were staying in a different town in Switzerland and coming to Interlaken for the day. After some brief confusion (there are two train stations in Interlaken and they arrived at the one across town from where we were and couldn't get ahold of us for awile), we reunited and talked about our plan for the afternoon. As we were walking through town, we passed a place that rented out ATVs and mopeds. That caught Brady and Billy's eye, but us girls weren't too sure about it. But after talking to the rental guy, who said we could double up and each pay half price and described the scenic road that led out of town and towards the mountains, we were convinced. After a quick practice drive, our group of eight people and four mopeds hit the road. 

Kelly and Brady leading the way

I don't think I stopped smiling during our entire two hour ride. The setting was absolutely beautiful, driving through this valley between snow-covered mountains, colorful trees, misty cold air, green fields, little chalet houses, cows wearing actual jingling cowbells, babbling streams, waterfalls flowing down the rock cliffs- it was perfect, an unforgettable experience that I was lucky enough to share with some great people. 

At one point Billy, who I was riding with, said something like "Can you believe we're here, as part of our semester of school?!" It really was sort of mind-boggling, thinking about how we were just mopeding through Switzerland on some random Wednesday afternoon in November. We are so, so lucky to be having these experiences.