Over a month...

Wow, sorry for the long delay in updating! I have now been living in Belfast, Ireland for over a month. It's crazy to think about; some times it feels like I've been here for months, and sometimes it feels like I just arrived. Since my last post I've tried out the fencing and swimming clubs. Fencing is a no, it was me and about 10 awkward guys who I can best describe as the boys who are last to be picked in gym class. For the most part I enjoyed the swim practice and was able to keep up; not sure if I will be a regular, but I am going to try to attend some practices. I've been on a few weekend trips away from Belfast, a couple more coming up, and have a few I'm currently planning. Although I never realized how stressful finding plane/train tickets to and from different countries as well as places to stay and things to do in those countries could be!! I just finished my 5th week of classes, and the readings are starting to build up.

Last weekend I traveled down south to Cork with a few friends who are studying at NUI Maynooth outside of Dublin. It was an interesting and fun weekend. Let's just say it was my first experience staying in a hostel, and I learned that I'm not a good 'hostel person'. I'm going to try not to judge all hostels off of this one, but I can't guarantee anything. I was in a room with 6 other girls, thankfully they were all from our group. I slept on a bottom bunk that was missing most of the springs on the right side of the bed so all night I kept rolling into this hole and couldn't get out. The other people staying on our hall were up all night screaming and jumping around, so there was very little sleep going on at night. And surprisingly around 3am some random girl punched in 'our' combination to the lock on our door and entered our room, stood looking around for a few moments then walked out. She's lucky she walked out when she did because my friend Sarah and I were about 5 seconds away from jumping her! The bathroom situation was interesting as well. The showers run like the sinks in public bathrooms where you push a button and get about 5 seconds worth of water and then it stops. So it was uhh quite the adventure to take a shower. There are some other hostel stories that I could add, but I will refrain.

So what was I doing in Cork, besides trying out hostel life?... We spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon on the Blarney Castle grounds. I climbed the very narrow, steep, and spiral staircases to the top of the castle to lay on my back and lower my self down a couple feet to kiss the Blarney Stone! Now apparently I am granted the gift of Eloquence for 7yrs. It all happened very fast, in about 6 seconds, I'm pretty sure I smacked my nose off of the stone. After the castle we walked down Daffodil lane, at least that's what we named it; there were hundreds of bright daffodils along both sides of the path leading through the fields. We were blessed with amazing, Spring like weather, which made our time outside even better! Saturday night we spent the evening in a traditional Irish pub called Sin é and listened to a Trad band play all night...... Sunday we took a bus an hour away to a small fishing village called Kinsale that sits on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. We walked the path along the water to a fort and then back for a delicious lunch outside at a small café. We then jumped back on the bus and headed back into Cork, our group bus left at 6pm, and we arrived back in Maynooth around 10pm. I was up at 5am Monday morning to walk to to train station in the dark; took the train to Dublin where I jumped on another train back to Belfast in order to attend my 10am class (which I was 15mins late to due to my train arriving in Belfast 20mins later).... The weekend was definitely a new experience/adventure for me! I've decided that my travel experiences are providing me with great material for a fairly decent book or standup comedy act, and I'm sure I will gain even more stories as the semester continues.

Blarney Castle... the top left corner of the castle is where you hang upside down to kiss the stone 

(there are 2 metal bars attached to the stone)

 My turn to kiss the stone...

 fort ruins in Kinsale looking out to the water, there were tons of sailboats out for the day