So it's been about 2.5 weeks since I've returned from Ireland, and I must say life is quite different. When my dad asked me what I did today, I was able to perfectly recite my mundane schedule, right down to what time I woke up and my special trip to buy stamps for a few postcards I'm mailing. This is when I realized it; I'm becoming an old woman.
Since returning from Ireland, it seems I've adopted the lifestyle of an 80 year-old woman without even realizing it. Here's how I know:
My days start at the same time everyday, 9:13 am when my internal clock wakes me up. After washing my face and returning to bed for a few more minutes, our cat, Jack, walks in and I pet him for about 7-9 minutes. Sometimes I talk to him, and yesterday I'm pretty sure I heard him snoring. Clearly, I've become the neighborhood cat lady.
Then, I'll eat a banana and go for a walk around the neighborhood. We have nice trails here in Crowfield so I like to take full advantage.
After, I'll usually come home and eat some cereal while I check my e-mail and pretend to be productive.
Then I'll ususally go to the gym (get there about 11:00 or so, peak time for retired folk) and pretend I know all the regulars. I've been going at the same time for the past two weeks so I'm hoping the retirees will soon begin to accept me.
After an excellent session with my ipod and nike sneakers, I'll get back in my car and crank up the radio. Usually either rap or "easily listening". Depends on the day.
Then I'll run silly errands to keep myself occupied. For example, I purchased stampes today (felt good to be productive) and tomorrow I plan to get gas after the gym. I hope I have time for it all.
Once I return home I'll eat some fruit and wait patiently for my dad and sister to arrive home. In this time I'll usually blog, check my facebook, or think about all the productive things I plan to do later in the day. I also like to update my facebook status to say interesting things like "I think I'm turning into a cat lady" or "Sarah MacDonald likes a nice tax refund check". Gotta keep my loyal followers on their toes.
Lately, this is also about the time when I eat some tuna fish from a can, which I kindly share with the cats. Apparently this makes them stick their nose up at their dry-food dinners, though, so I've been instructed to cut back on the tuna-sharing in the afternoons. Whoops.
When Kelly comes home I'll talk to her about her day and what she learned in English class, then I'll either go for another walk or go to my room and check email until dinnertime.
Dinner is always at 5:00 pm and Dad, Kelly and I will have a salad with either fish, tofu or veggie burgers while we watch Gilmore Girls. During commercials, we discuss the best parts of our day and what Kelly learned at school. At this time, I also pet the cats again, for about 6-8 minutes.
This is probably the best part of all of our days, and I look forward to 5:00 pm more than anything else.
After dinner I'll go for a walk around the neighborhood (I bring my sweet ipod to keep me company) and come home and make tea for Kelly and I.
Then it's time to check my facebook (I'm a pretty dedicated facebooker, I never miss an evening) and watch a movie in my bed. I think it's important to establish a strict bedtime regimen.
The next day I'll wake up at 9:13 and do it all over again. This is, of course, until I start working at Chick-fil-A, which I'm sure will open up a whole new portal of blog-worthy happenings.
Stay tuned for those, folks, but in the mean time keep checking my blog. I hope to post some looong overdue blogs about some traveling I did while in Ireland. Should be interesting :)
Until then, Cheers!
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Galway; the West of Ireland
So I recently realized I never got the chance to blog about two trips my school took me on (Northern and Western Ireland) as part of the study abroad program.
This blog is about our second trip; Galway.
Galway is in the West of Ireland, and is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We’ll get to that later.
Galway is also a college town, which means almost everyone is under the age of 30. Quite a contrast to the city-slicking, career-focused inhabitants of Dublin (aka-“Little Manhattan”).
Our first hour in Galway was spent in Eyre Square, a common meeting spot among the college kids. Students were strewn out on the lawn, basking in the sun (another rarity in Dublin), and a guy was playing his guitar and singing loud enough for everyone to hear. Students tossed their Frisbees and ate their sandwiches, while we took pictures and raved about how much we had missed the sun.
Then, our friend Kellie Herson (from Wisconsin) who attends the university in Galway, picked us up and took us on a walk to her residence at the college. She lived in what can only be described as a colorful, private living community, with each house painted a crazy different color (peach, teal, canary yellow, etc.) and a guard standing outside the gate ready to check our I.D.’s. Oh, and of course the ground was littered with beer cans galore, since the week prior had been “Rag Week”, a week full of partying and crazy outfits. That’s really all I know about the celebration, haha, but it seems like they had a good time!
After, we made our way back to the bus and checked into our hotel.
The hotel was NICE (we were lucky with our program-they always put us up in a swanky hotel), complete with a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, workout facility and two restaurants! Our second night was spent in the Jacuzzi/swimming pool area. Naturally.
That evening we all went to dinner at the hotel, provided by our program (again) where we had three courses and got to choose our appetizer, entrée and dessert. I had salad, fish, and chocolate cake for dessert. Can’t complain! :)
That night we went to a bar we’d been to for lunch earlier in the day with Kellie. I think it was called the Cellar or the Attic, or something like that?
Anyway, they had mixed drink specials that night, so I tried my first “Sex on the Beach” and a sip of my friend’s Cosmopolitan. Both delicious! And both very affordable.
A bunch of us went to the Cellar/Attic (including Julie’s parents) so we sat at one long table and shared sips of one another’s mixed drinks. It was fabulous!
Then, we went to a place called Quay’s, where they had balconies where one could wave like a queen. You better believe we did it. haha.
After such a fun night, we were all incredibly tired so we returned to our hotel for a long, glorious night of slumber.
The next day we ventured to Kylemore Abbey, an old monastery in Connemara. The ride to the Abbey was glorious, full of Irish countryside, amazing hills, valleys, and lakes. We were all asleep on the bus (the ride was rather windy so we didn’t want to get sick) and when we woke up it felt like we were in another world! SO beautiful! See pictures below.
After exploring the Abbey and taking a ton of pictures, we ventured to the old church on the grounds, then to the Kylemore Abbey “gardens”. I use quotations because the gardens looked like they hadn’t grown anything in over a century. But we pretended to smell the nonexistent flowers and had a good time traipsing around the grounds.
After, we boarded the bus and made our way back to the hotel for yet another night of banter (Irish slang for “fun”).
That night was spent in the Jacuzzi/steam room, where we sweat every toxin out of our bodies until we almost passed out from heat stroke. Hahaha.
Then we jumped back in the Jacuzzi and chatted for a while, before retiring to our rooms. I went to Lara and Jacque’s room for a middle school sleepover type of party, where we ate digestives (try them! they are delicious cookies!) and painted our nails. We also watched television, something we’d been without for far too long.
The next day we ate breakfast and boarded the bus to meet our ferry, which was to take us to the Aran Islands.
The ferry ride wasn’t too bad. Smelled of fish (surprised?) and I foolishly decided to get a coffee and attempt to drink it outside on the boat. Bad idea, but luckily the coffee didn’t spill and I was rewarded with a burst of energy for our bus tour of the Aran Isle.
Our buses were actually large minivans that took us to Dun Aengus, an old fort (actually it’s an archaeological gold mine) at the top of a very, very steep and rocky hill.
The view was spectacular, though (pictures below) and the trek up the hill in my Penney’s boots was well worth the walk. We (Ashley, Deven, and I) also got to talk a lot about our futures, where we’re headed and what we’ve enjoyed about college so far. It was a nice walk :)
Once we got to the top, I couldn’t believe how steep and dangerous it was! There are literally cliffs over the water, with no fences, allowing silly tourists (like ourselves) to sit and dangle our feet over the edge while taking pictures to show our friends. (If my mom were there she would have had a heart attack.)
After, we went to the gift shop and I got some yarn for Kelly so she can knit me a sweater, like the ones sold on the Aran Islands, haha. They’re famous for their wool sweaters, which are beautiful.
Then, our bus took us back to “town” and we walked around and enjoyed the island a little bit. Of course, we went to lunch (I got soup!) and had to visit the Centra to get candy and top-up our cell phones, but mostly we walked around and took pictures. There wasn’t much time for anything else.
Our ferry then took us back to the real world, where we went to our hotels and freshened up for the night.
That evening, we went out dancing to a night club called Cuba, where the handstamp they give you says “Castro” and pictures of the man line the walls as you enter. I’m not even joking. I wasn’t sure what to think.
But, the music was bumpin’ and they had different musical themes on each floor. Not too shabby and I’m pretty sure the entrance was free.
After a long, long night of dancing, we headed back to our hotel in a taxi cab and fell asleep for our journey home the next day.
After four days away from Dublin, it was sure nice to be home, but nothing can compare to the beautiful countryside of Galway. The West of Ireland is absolutely beautiful and hopefully the pictures can do it justice…
This blog is about our second trip; Galway.
Galway is in the West of Ireland, and is easily one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. We’ll get to that later.
Galway is also a college town, which means almost everyone is under the age of 30. Quite a contrast to the city-slicking, career-focused inhabitants of Dublin (aka-“Little Manhattan”).
Our first hour in Galway was spent in Eyre Square, a common meeting spot among the college kids. Students were strewn out on the lawn, basking in the sun (another rarity in Dublin), and a guy was playing his guitar and singing loud enough for everyone to hear. Students tossed their Frisbees and ate their sandwiches, while we took pictures and raved about how much we had missed the sun.
Then, our friend Kellie Herson (from Wisconsin) who attends the university in Galway, picked us up and took us on a walk to her residence at the college. She lived in what can only be described as a colorful, private living community, with each house painted a crazy different color (peach, teal, canary yellow, etc.) and a guard standing outside the gate ready to check our I.D.’s. Oh, and of course the ground was littered with beer cans galore, since the week prior had been “Rag Week”, a week full of partying and crazy outfits. That’s really all I know about the celebration, haha, but it seems like they had a good time!
After, we made our way back to the bus and checked into our hotel.
The hotel was NICE (we were lucky with our program-they always put us up in a swanky hotel), complete with a swimming pool, Jacuzzi, workout facility and two restaurants! Our second night was spent in the Jacuzzi/swimming pool area. Naturally.
That evening we all went to dinner at the hotel, provided by our program (again) where we had three courses and got to choose our appetizer, entrée and dessert. I had salad, fish, and chocolate cake for dessert. Can’t complain! :)
That night we went to a bar we’d been to for lunch earlier in the day with Kellie. I think it was called the Cellar or the Attic, or something like that?
Anyway, they had mixed drink specials that night, so I tried my first “Sex on the Beach” and a sip of my friend’s Cosmopolitan. Both delicious! And both very affordable.
A bunch of us went to the Cellar/Attic (including Julie’s parents) so we sat at one long table and shared sips of one another’s mixed drinks. It was fabulous!
Then, we went to a place called Quay’s, where they had balconies where one could wave like a queen. You better believe we did it. haha.
After such a fun night, we were all incredibly tired so we returned to our hotel for a long, glorious night of slumber.
The next day we ventured to Kylemore Abbey, an old monastery in Connemara. The ride to the Abbey was glorious, full of Irish countryside, amazing hills, valleys, and lakes. We were all asleep on the bus (the ride was rather windy so we didn’t want to get sick) and when we woke up it felt like we were in another world! SO beautiful! See pictures below.
After exploring the Abbey and taking a ton of pictures, we ventured to the old church on the grounds, then to the Kylemore Abbey “gardens”. I use quotations because the gardens looked like they hadn’t grown anything in over a century. But we pretended to smell the nonexistent flowers and had a good time traipsing around the grounds.
After, we boarded the bus and made our way back to the hotel for yet another night of banter (Irish slang for “fun”).
That night was spent in the Jacuzzi/steam room, where we sweat every toxin out of our bodies until we almost passed out from heat stroke. Hahaha.
Then we jumped back in the Jacuzzi and chatted for a while, before retiring to our rooms. I went to Lara and Jacque’s room for a middle school sleepover type of party, where we ate digestives (try them! they are delicious cookies!) and painted our nails. We also watched television, something we’d been without for far too long.
The next day we ate breakfast and boarded the bus to meet our ferry, which was to take us to the Aran Islands.
The ferry ride wasn’t too bad. Smelled of fish (surprised?) and I foolishly decided to get a coffee and attempt to drink it outside on the boat. Bad idea, but luckily the coffee didn’t spill and I was rewarded with a burst of energy for our bus tour of the Aran Isle.
Our buses were actually large minivans that took us to Dun Aengus, an old fort (actually it’s an archaeological gold mine) at the top of a very, very steep and rocky hill.
The view was spectacular, though (pictures below) and the trek up the hill in my Penney’s boots was well worth the walk. We (Ashley, Deven, and I) also got to talk a lot about our futures, where we’re headed and what we’ve enjoyed about college so far. It was a nice walk :)
Once we got to the top, I couldn’t believe how steep and dangerous it was! There are literally cliffs over the water, with no fences, allowing silly tourists (like ourselves) to sit and dangle our feet over the edge while taking pictures to show our friends. (If my mom were there she would have had a heart attack.)
After, we went to the gift shop and I got some yarn for Kelly so she can knit me a sweater, like the ones sold on the Aran Islands, haha. They’re famous for their wool sweaters, which are beautiful.
Then, our bus took us back to “town” and we walked around and enjoyed the island a little bit. Of course, we went to lunch (I got soup!) and had to visit the Centra to get candy and top-up our cell phones, but mostly we walked around and took pictures. There wasn’t much time for anything else.
Our ferry then took us back to the real world, where we went to our hotels and freshened up for the night.
That evening, we went out dancing to a night club called Cuba, where the handstamp they give you says “Castro” and pictures of the man line the walls as you enter. I’m not even joking. I wasn’t sure what to think.
But, the music was bumpin’ and they had different musical themes on each floor. Not too shabby and I’m pretty sure the entrance was free.
After a long, long night of dancing, we headed back to our hotel in a taxi cab and fell asleep for our journey home the next day.
After four days away from Dublin, it was sure nice to be home, but nothing can compare to the beautiful countryside of Galway. The West of Ireland is absolutely beautiful and hopefully the pictures can do it justice…
Saturday, May 1, 2010
What I'll miss...
Over the past few days I've compiled a list of all the things I’ll miss about my time in Ireland...
1) Ease of traveling (the DART, the Luas, Ryanair, etc.)
2) The historic parts of Dublin, mixed with the newer, more modern parts, like Temple Bar next to the Parliament building.
3) The lady’s voice on the Luas. So musical! hahaha
4) Howth.
5) The Howth market on Sundays!
6) Fresh fruits and vegetables from Moore street (10 bananas for one euro!)
7)DICEY’S on a Wednesday :)
8)Strawberry beer at The Porterhouse. Also, mixing strawberry beer with chocolate beer. It’s quite the delicacy :)
9)The Smithfield hooligans!
10) Lord Chauncy’s marketing class
11) All the wonderful French, German, and Spanish friends I made.
12) Crunchie bars (luckily, Kelly said they sell them at World Market, so I won’t be totally out of luck!)
13) Walking everywhere in the city. Especially with my ipod!
14) BULMERS.
15) Living in one apartment building with our gigantic study abroad family
16) Writing and receiving letters/postcards. I think I’ll continue this in the States, and probably for the rest of my life.
17)Running through Phoenix Park on a nice, sunny Dublin day. Those sunny days were rare toward the beginning, but the last couple weeks were absolutely beautiful.
18) The pub culture.
19) The Dublin girls/Dublin fashion
20) Seeing signs in Gaelic
21) The insane amount of café’s. It’s so easy to find a place to sit and talk, or just read a book.
22) Lack of homework, leaving more time to get to know people, travel, and focus on the other things.
23) Seeing everything for the first time. I’ve lived in Charleston for a while, so I have to make myself take a step back and really look at how beautiful something is.
24) The excellent dance music in all the dance clubs (specifically, “Bulletproof” “Rude Boy”, “Ego” and anything by Cheryl Cole.)
25) Hearing people say curse words on the street like it’s no big deal.
26) The sound of the traffic lights telling pedestrians to walk.
27) My Dublin family :)
1) Ease of traveling (the DART, the Luas, Ryanair, etc.)
2) The historic parts of Dublin, mixed with the newer, more modern parts, like Temple Bar next to the Parliament building.
3) The lady’s voice on the Luas. So musical! hahaha
4) Howth.
5) The Howth market on Sundays!
6) Fresh fruits and vegetables from Moore street (10 bananas for one euro!)
7)DICEY’S on a Wednesday :)
8)Strawberry beer at The Porterhouse. Also, mixing strawberry beer with chocolate beer. It’s quite the delicacy :)
9)The Smithfield hooligans!
10) Lord Chauncy’s marketing class
11) All the wonderful French, German, and Spanish friends I made.
12) Crunchie bars (luckily, Kelly said they sell them at World Market, so I won’t be totally out of luck!)
13) Walking everywhere in the city. Especially with my ipod!
14) BULMERS.
15) Living in one apartment building with our gigantic study abroad family
16) Writing and receiving letters/postcards. I think I’ll continue this in the States, and probably for the rest of my life.
17)Running through Phoenix Park on a nice, sunny Dublin day. Those sunny days were rare toward the beginning, but the last couple weeks were absolutely beautiful.
18) The pub culture.
19) The Dublin girls/Dublin fashion
20) Seeing signs in Gaelic
21) The insane amount of café’s. It’s so easy to find a place to sit and talk, or just read a book.
22) Lack of homework, leaving more time to get to know people, travel, and focus on the other things.
23) Seeing everything for the first time. I’ve lived in Charleston for a while, so I have to make myself take a step back and really look at how beautiful something is.
24) The excellent dance music in all the dance clubs (specifically, “Bulletproof” “Rude Boy”, “Ego” and anything by Cheryl Cole.)
25) Hearing people say curse words on the street like it’s no big deal.
26) The sound of the traffic lights telling pedestrians to walk.
27) My Dublin family :)
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