Long time no blog

I know I've been really bad at updating this, mostly because the website gives me a really hard time about signing in and whatnot. So finally I managed to sign in and a lot's happened since my last post. I'll try to stick to the more interesting things, in chronological order.

I went to Paris for 5 days at the end of February with my friend Zach. We saw a lot of sights: Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge, Notre Dame, the Seine, etc. I had a really awesome fresh baguette and we went in about 6 different pet stores. Pictures are on my flickr site: HERE.

The weekend after that our program went on a field trip to Belfast with our history professor. We saw all the political murals from the times of "the troubles" and went to the transport museum to see an exhibit about the Titanic (which was built in Belfast). Considering it sank, you'd think they wouldn't want to advertise that. We had Indian food for dinner and I got a dish I actually liked. It was cool.

About two weeks ago, we picked our bands for the final music video. I'll be doing a song by The Dirty Epics called "The Cure". All the bands are Irish, mostly based in/around Dublin. The song I'm doing is very pop-punk and it's a girl-fronted band, so that'll be cool.

And now, the present. I just got back from spring break last night. My friend Briin and I went to Milan, Italy for two nights, then we met up with our friends Betty and Katie in Tarifa, Spain. Tarifa is the southern-most point of Europe and it's known for being really windy. It had beautiful beaches, but was insanely windy, so we didn't really get to enjoy them (not warm enough anyway). From Tarifa we took one day trip to Morocco, but it was really scary so we only stayed for about 3 hours. As soon as we got off the ferry in Morocco there were guys everywhere trying to get us to pay them to give us a tour around the city. They were relentless, and obviously going to send us down a dark alley to get knifed. We took another day trip from Tarifa to Gibraltar, and that was pretty enjoyable. We walked/hiked to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar. There are these apes that live on the rock and we hung out with them for a little while. They sort of attacked Betty (probably by accident) and were trying to open my backpack at one point. They're obviously very used to people. It was really cool.

So, in the last month I have been to: Paris, France; Belfast, Northern Ireland (U.K.); Milan, Italy; Tarifa, Spain; Tanger, Morocco; Gibraltar (owned by Britain) and back to Ireland. I've spoken English, Italian, French, and some really bad Spanish. My favorite Spanish word I learned was "hamberguesa". And I also learned that a small donkey would be a "burrito". Hahaha. Spring break was awesome AND educational. So that's a pretty good recap for what I've been doing up until now without delving into gross detail, I'll try to have some more pictures up soon. Ciao ragazzi!

THE LATEST

On Thursdays I have my History, Politics, and Artistic Expression in Ireland class (long title) with professor Tommy Graham. He's really cool and it's a cool class, so far we've mostly gone on walking tours/field trips around Dublin while he lectures simultaneously. This past Thursday we went to the Irish National Gallery (I'm not sure that's the right name, basically it was a fine arts museum) and the Museum of Natural History. The fine arts museum was okay, pretty small in comparison to most museums I've been to in the States, but they had some cool stuff by modern/recent artists. The Museum of Natural History was basically like the taxidermy section of Tom's Tropicals. Our professor said it hadn't been changed since 1916, and mostly it consisted of just stuffed dead animals. And not even ones that had been killed and stuffed for scientific purposes or to be put in a museum; animals that were like taken from people's homes and whatnot. They were poorly done in a lot of cases, and the bullet holes were visible. Rather disturbing. The cases were all dusty and they weren't arranged in any particular way except like species, and I don't think they were really even labeled with information besides the name. The bummer was we weren't supposed to take pictures in there, but if I go back (it's free anyway) I probably will because it was so bizarre.

Right now I am sitting at the bottom of the stairwell of my apartment building because I can't get on the wireless in the building. I have to sit right by the door to pick up the office wireless signal, and it's rather cold and the floor is stone and hard. The internet situation here is so crappy. Ughhhh...

Lots of photos

Today after class, some classmates and I had lunch at Castle & Elephant, a restaurant near Temple Bar. The service was a little slow and the prices kind of high, but it had a nice atmosphere. The funny thing was apparently it's a chain restaurant with the only other location in Greenwich Village in NYC. I had a burger with pesto, mozzerella and tomato on it and it was pretty good.
After that, Briin and I walked all over the city and took pictures. We covered some serious territory. We went to College Green, St. Stephen's Green, and lots of places in between. We spent about 3 hours exploring the city. Here are the photos:


















I'm hoping to go to the Dublin Zoo later this week, which is in Phoenix Park (haven't been there yet.) I'll update again soon with some new pictures.

Quick Dublin Pics

Hey

First post from WITHIN Ireland. I intend this blog to be mostly pictures, because every time I type something and read it back it seems so boring and lackluster. If I don't want to read what I write, certainly no one else will, so I will try to keep this as painless as possible. I'll write more when something interesting happens or there are pictures to tell the story. 'Til then, I'll keep it brief.

Yesterday: Got into Dublin, moved in, unpacked, napped, bought groceries, ate, watched TV.
Today: "Orientation", walked around a bit, toured the gym, got a little lost, ate ice cream, went to pub.
Tomorrow: Class, ?.

7 DAYS

Counting down 'til blast-off.

IRELAND BLOG

This will be the official Ireland blog to chronicle my adventures in Europe. Because apparently when you leave America, it's important to blog. So your friends and parents can read it.

I am getting a head start, because I won't be in Europe until January. But this will remind me to post, and to have adventures worth posting about. And pictures too. Yup.
AND today is Friday the 13th. I also want to take this opportunity to remind myself to post pictures from the first two times I was in Ireland, for fun comparison. And also, whatever happened to that picture of me with those guys in Victoria, B.C.?