Greetings from Galway

Arrived in Galway yesterday morning via the train. It is the oyster "festival" but I didn't put together that in Ireland "festival" doesn't mean, "put up tents and close streets" it means, "hey! there's oysters at the pubs for a little less money than usual." I didn't try any oysters, which made me very sad, but there's still another day here in the West, so maybe for lunch. There was the oyster opening competition, but I couldn't find it. Did see the parade though!
Marching band made up of school kids playing fife (or some kind of flute/recorder like instrument) and drums. And Glockenspiels! Smaller kids with Oysters on their heads.
Old cars.
Northern Ireland adult marching band.

The shucking competitors.

Walked around Galway, a cute little town with quite alot of shops and pubs and galleries. It's right on the atlantic coast; they've built a park area near Galway Bay with some foot paths to take in the views of the ocean. It was raining a bit, so the water was quite grey, but I was still very awe struck. "I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean..." Thank you, Lee Ann Wolmak. (funny bit of trivia an Irish pop singer, Ronan Keating, recorded that song too...) While I was feeling small, I met a sweet Italian guy called Luca. He is in the process of starting his violin making career (how cool is that?) here in Galway. We had some coffee, both agreeing it was too weak, and just chatted about life and Irish culture and the cost of cigarettes (he's the smoker...). Luca and I checked out the city museum, mostly because it was free. Met back up with my friends from DIT at the hostel, and met some more really cool people. Irish kids here from Dublin for a girl's weekend. A Texan travelling around Europe after a year teaching English in Spain. Brothers from Wyoming backpacking their way through Europe. We swapped traveling stories and college stories. Luca and the backpackers gave us some very good tips on traveling and where to go. All in all, "great craic"

Galway report and pictures to be continued.... I know y'all're sitting on the edge of your seats in anticipation!!

Dublin Up?

As many of you know, I pretty much bleed Black and Gold. If I drove a VW van, I'd have the entire back door covered in "Damn right, I'm a Boilermaker" and "Hoosier by birth, Boilermaker by the grace of God" bumper stickers. As such, I find Mrs. Tiller's cheer, Boiler Up! very appropriate in almost any circumstance. Like, at freshers induction when the DITSU guy says, "hey lads, whats the craic?" my gut response is to yell, BOILER UP! Or at the pub, when everyone has gotten their pints Cokes, and decide to toast, I feel the need to throw in a BOILER UP! along with the Irish, "slainte." And finally, when walking down the street, and the kids from Kerry are celebrating their win in the All-Irelands, what could be more appropriate? Boiler Up, Kerry!! So I've decided one of my goals for this semesters is to come up with a DIT cheer to use at these oh-so-important times.

Possibilities:

Dublin Up!
Rolls off the tongue, but it doesn't differentiate between the 15,000 other colleges in the city. It could work, but, I think we can come up with something better.

D-I-T *clap* D-I-T *clap*
Would be great if there's need for a defensive stand, but I haven't even been to DIT's basketball court yet, so not so sure if the need will arise.

So that's all I've got so far... any ideas, dear readers?



Irish translations and pronunciation:
craic "crack" yes, like the drug

slainte yeah, idk how to spell that one phonetically, just check out the link

lads = guys, but not quite as gender neutral as "guys" has become in the US. If the group leaned a little more to the female side, he might not have said lads, but I was one of maybe 10 girls in the room. Oh, and, "girls", is used to refer to anyone female under the age of, like, 30, and is used as a term of endearment for the fairer sex.

ditsu = "dit-sue" Dublin Institute of Technology Student Union
If you took the Purdue Student Union Board (PSUB), the Purdue Student Government (PSG), and Pablo, and painted them in bright blue, neon green, and pink AND gave them Irish accents, you might get ditsu.

Long week

It's been a long week of errand running and queue (they don't call them lines here) waiting. On Monday, I moved into a new house. The flat I was in earlier was just temporary. The new place is pretty swanky. Its on 3 floors with a really nice kitchen, and 3 balconies and 2 patios. It was built in the last 3 years, I think. I'm living with 2 other Americans and 3 Irish girls right now. One more girl will be moving in soon. There'll be 7 of us in total, that'll be interesting... But we're getting on so far.
On Wednesday, I had to go to the GNIB, the Garda National Immigration Bureau, to register. They gave me a resident card which allows me to leave and re-enter the country. It cost a cool 150euro. But now I'm free to go where ever for the time I'm here.

I also went to the freshman electrical engineering induction at DIT Kevin St, not a whole lot of new stuff there, but I got my DIT id card, and my class schedule. No classes on Friday, so far!! Their schedule is up in the air for like the first two weeks, so anything could happen. No 7:30am classes at DIT either! My earliest class is 9am, 9am!! back at Purdue I'd have 1.5 lectures by then. Classes start tomorrow, and I'm excited and nervouse all at the same time. I hope I don't go to the wrong room like I did my first day at Purdue.

Glendalough

Last Saturday, the 17th, I went to Glendalough ( pronounced glen-da-lock) as a part of the DIT international student orientation. Here's some pictures from it, the rest are on my picasa page, http://picasaweb.google.com/boilerbugle.
It was a great trip with the group. There are 2 lakes on the sight which I didn't get to see because of time. Lots of hiking and things can be done around the lakes.
Glendalough is in county Wiclow. The Medieval monastic settlement was founded in the 6th century by St Kevin and destroyed in 1398 by English troops.

Picutures!

These are from Friday's walking tour with DIT int'l students. I start registration tomorrow, meeting with my advisor to settle what classes I'll be taking. Classes start next Monday, the 21st.

This is the bell tower at Trinity college. Trinity is the oldest college in Ireland and the most prestigious. Trinity houses the Book of Kells, an Illuminated manuscript of the Bible. I saw it last year, and it's amazing. The monks who made it most have worked forever. It also houses the oldest harp in Ireland.

My tour group, we had people from six different countries in our group.

More Trinity.

Dublin castle.

Atop one of the buildings at the castle. Note she's not blindfolded.

More castle

A cat we saw on the grounds. It looks like a cat a friend of mine had when we were growing up.

the great shower drama of 2009

First, I have to start with the fact that I forgot I needed to bring towels (not that they'd fit anyway), and had to beg the landlady to borrow some. The ones they gave me were like Super 8 towels, get the picture? I go to turn on the water, and it comes out of the faucet, nice and slow. I pull the little nobby thing water starts coming out this hand held shower head thing I hadn't noticed. Turn water off. How does this work? I look up and notice another dial with handle behind it and numbers. Ahhh, maybe that controls the shower! But of course, I was only halfway there... Turning nob and handle produces no results. Then I brush against this string hanging from the ceiling. I fearlessly pull that string!! Noise begins eminating from the linen closet... Confused, I have a sit and try to think this out. Maybe the combination of string and top nob will turn on the shower. BREAKTHROUGH!! A steaming rainfall of smell removing liquid fills my bathroom! I've made this pictorial guide for those of you who encounter weird showers in the future.

First day rundown

This is my first 18 hours or so in the big D, all times local.

8:00am Land in Dublin Airport, get in queue for passport check
8:15am fear for deportation because I forgot my return flight info, but I charmed my way into the country
8:45am all luggage in hand, meet Prof. Hayes (he had a sign with my name, how cool is that?) we drive back to the city in his Volvo.
10:22am arrive at lad lane apartments, meet landlord, drop luggage
10:24am back in Hayes's car, heading to DIT Aungier St. for international student orientation
10:25am check in to orientation
11:15am stifle a "boiler up" at tea break, feel that might be way too hard to explain
12:20pm starving, begin wondering if this orientation is worth the free lunch
12:45pm bite into chicken curry and rice, lunch was worth it
1:55 pm begin counting how many times people say, "you could start your own society or club"
2:17pm "you could start your own society or club" count: 3
2:44pm "ycsyosoc" count: 4
3:15pm "ycsyosoc" count: 6
3:40pm outta there, exhausted, walk back to apartment
4:15pm arrive at lad lane apts, only got lost once
4:16pm chat with landlord, gives me info on a cancellation for a house with some Irish and American girls, tell her "I'll think about it, but need shower and bed for now"
4:25pm finally can relax after moving my luggage from one flat to another, turn on TV, "Friends" is on, want bed
5:03pm Decide I can't sleep if I smell, the great shower drama of 2009 ensues
5:50pm Face moisturizer leaked, need sleep....
11:56pm wake up and post this

This post may sound a little debbie-downer, but so many things went well, meet some cool international students from all over, including tons of Americans, and 2 people from Kazakhstan! Just really needed a shower and sleep.

Only one suitcase??

I leave for Dublin TOMORROW!! I'll be spending the day packing, on the phone with Purdue financial aid, and (hopefully) taking pictures. The family was here this weekend; it was good to see them. My aunt and uncle gave me a great gift: real Euros. Gretchen is so creative! Here I go to give the Purdue University financial aid a call, wish me luck!