( Nostalgic shots of UCC. )

And a random final shot of the apartment. Somebody had abandoned this cart inside the building, for whatever reason, so of course we had to hijack it. (Anna, Mary, and Liz.) I b'lieve this was the night Mary moved out of her apartment, back near the beginning of spring break.

May 13
Went to a Eurovision party last night with Heather and Anna. Eurovision is this show where 24 qualifying European countries select a band to represent them in competition. It can get... scary, to say the least. As in really cheesy, campy scary. I voted for Moldova, but my second choice (Serbia) won. Russia, Finland, Germany, and Slovenia were also really hot. Apocalyptica performed the exceedingly impressive main show, complete with acrobatics and a sword-eater who swallowed what looked like a light saber--successfully convincing me that I need to see one of their concerts before I die.

May 15
There were two yolks in my breakfast egg this morning! My little egg was gonna be twins. ...Is this possible? (Note: this happened a couple of times while I was in Cork.)

Well, our apartment may be haunted. I was washing the dishes in the kitchen. Two of the flatmates were watching the telly in the living room. We all heard a girl's voice say, quite loudly and distinctly, "I love you!" The flatmates thought it had come from the kitchen; I thought it had come from the living room. We investigated all the present laptops to see if it could have been someone's sign-on alert. No dice. It hadn't come from the TV. None of us had said it. The windows were closed. Bethany (flatmate) said it sounded like a doll had come to life. Creepy creepy.

May 17
My last final was yesterday, hooray!

It's gonna go up to 68 degrees F here today. Wild.

I saw a sign for this thing called Flip-Flop Friday: Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women. I kinda wanted to add the sub-subtitle: By Putting Them In Impractical Footware, Apparently. 'Cause seriously, they leave your toesies unprotected, keep you from running really well... I wonder if it was deliberately ironic. Anyway, the little flip-flop pins cost 2 euros.

May 19
I don't know why I keep buying things. I'm 600 euros under what I expected I would spend this entire trip; I had to wire money to myself. Sigh.

I'm missing a lot of cool stuff (pagan convention, MedRen event) by flying back to the States as early as I am, and I'm definitely not looking forward to the high temps, but I'm really kinda ready to be home. And home, sad to say, is not in Cork. =(

May 22

Intarwebs has been highly uncooperative these past couple days. I disapprove.

I've been looking all over Cork for a carton of the Bailey's-flavored Hagen-Dazs ice cream, and I got my claws on the very last one in the Centra on the way back from campus! Gyahaha, 'tis MINE! And 'tis YUMMEH!

That is all.

May 25
I am back in the States! The worst thing that happened on an almost 24-hour trip from Cork to Chicago was that I lost one of the little ball ends on my spiral. I kinda love taking my big ugly bag as a carry-on: I think all the buckles, buttons, zippers, and pockets make security guards cry a little on the inside when I plop it before them for inspection. They kinda paw half-heartedly at it, which is fine by me, particularly when I'm smuggling in a giant-ass liter-bottle of water (they've amped incoming security to include water bought even in the duty-free stores beyond the first security check).

I've lucked out thrice on this trip: 1.) Didn't get mugged in Stab City (aka Limerick), 2.) The lady right behind me got pulled from the line in the airport for a body check, 3.) I didn't suffer excruciating pain from the pressure change on the plane. Yay!

Saw POTC3: At World's End as a sort of last hurrah with Anna (hahaha, for once we got a film before the States [well, for seconds, I guess, 'cause it was the same deal with Smokin' Aces]). It wasn't quite what I expected, but in ways that could be a good thing. Got lots of Barbossa, though, which was loads of fun. And if I respected Hans Zimmer before (I did), I'm pretty durn close to worshipping him now.

Photos from my road trip up north with friends Anna and Heather.

( Read more... )

I'm so happy to be in an English-speaking country that I don't even care that some of the accents are completely indecipherable. As long as they're indecipherably English. Anyway, have some photos.

( Our trip in pictorial summary. )

Took a bus out to Shannon yesterday to meet my mum at the airport. She came in time to celebrate my birthday with me before we fly out to France.

I've got horrible pain all down my left side: aching, stiff knuckles from being rapped on the hand; two bumps on my forearm from poor blocking during dagger training with Panda; a mass of hello-I-shall-be-your-bruise-tomorrow on my upper leg, most likely from Quinny's metal spearhead; that damnable patch of rawness on my thumb that had just finished healing from Foulksrath. And the customary joint aches. This will make traveling FUN.

Probably my last day of weapons training was yesterday, too; we had a guy called Sean come in and train us. Went over the basics and improved them. Did some dagger training with Quinny, because A.) Panda was talking to Sean, B.) I knew Quinny took martial arts. Alas, poor Quinny, taking it easy on me because we were using metal saxes and I = female, and me not taking it easy on him because he = notfemale. Then Panda came, and we tried three-way fighting. Quinny left to do sword training, tossed Panda his second sax, and then I diiied horrible deeeaths many, many tiiimes. Also, daggers against spears? Dumb idea. No wonder nobody else does double daggers. The closest they come is sword-and-dagger. ~_~

My mum came to weapons training, snapping pictures and making people self-conscious. XD She came with us to the campus pub, too, and bought me a drink.

Will probably not be reachable via intarwebs for the next week or so, because I just checked Internet cafe prices in Venice (I have to register for next semester's classes while away) and it's awful. Just awful. 2.50 euro for 15 MINUTES. I cry.

Spent the last two weeks romping about the islands and a wee bit of mainland Europe with Anna and some friends we made who live in the same apartment complex as us, all American exchange students who, through some weird coincidence, also come from our home college or neighboring school.

And spring break here? A month long. Yeah. Fantastic.

( Some impressions + a few enormous photos )

My shoulders are stiff, my muscles ache, my bum is sore, my knuckle is rubbed raw, my right wrist is useless, and my body is battered and promises numerous bruises and welts by tomorrow. I am once again reduced to hobbling about like an old woman, unable to freely swing my limbs beyond a certain point lest I invite more protest from my joints. The result of a glorious weekend spent sleeping in a castle and bashing people with big sticks. Life is pain; MedRen is life!

Here's how the weekend went down:

( Friday )

( Saturday )

( Sunday )

Photos of St. Patrick's Day in Cork!

( Trivia: There were never any snakes in Ireland. )

Bhí sé ag cur clocha sneachta inniu!
It hailed today! Well, it was more like sleet, but I don't know the Irish for "sleet."

Nothing terribly exciting has happened since last I wrote.

I've taken my aural, oral, and written exams for Modern Irish.
I've taken my Religion & Mythology midterm.
I finally, finally registered with the Immigration Office, so I'm not an illegal alien!

Now I have to write my history essay and start my sexuality final/paper. I'm uber busy and stressed out this week, but after Friday, all will be wunderbar. It's just because I'm going to Foulksrath this weekend, then traveling to Scotland (here we come, Nessie!), England, and VI-EN-NA (<--I know this isn't a country but we're not going anywhere else in Austria) with friends the day after I get back, so I won't have time for anything until a few days mid-April, after which point my mum will arrive and we shall fly off to Paris and various tourist-y cities in Italy.

If I have time tonight, I shall post photos of past events. :D

Wow, it's been a while since my last update.

Kendra, my friend from Texas, has come and gone. I had a most excellent time while she was here and hopes she feels the same. During her stay, we went to a club called Purgatory. I'm not sure if this is commonplace in the States, but here some clubs have this system in which they do not actually have a permanent establishment with a sign; it seems that they rent space in a different club or pub for one night out of the week. Freakscene has Wednesdays at the Qube and Purgatory has Fridays at An Cruiscin Lan. It was in Purgatory that I saw my first real Gothy types in Ireland.

St. Patrick's Day was cute, what with all the parents gussying their kids up in green (one kid wore a turtle suit!), but honestly, I think people make a bigger deal of it back home. Maybe it just seems that way because Chicago and New York are so much bigger than Cork, but still; they didn't even dye their river green! Pictures will be up once Photobucket decides it feels like cooperating again.

Tonight, I went to see the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie with pretty much the majority of MedRen for Anne's birthday. Not a great film by any stretch, but it was fun, and obligatory for old fans. Apparently TMNT was big in Ireland, too, but because of odd BBC censoring practices, it was called Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles or something, and Michelangelo's nunchuks were replaced with a grappling hook because they thought his original weapons were too violent. o_O; I'm happy that there was such a focus on Raphael, because he was always my favorite turtle. :3

Don't believe anyone who tries to tell you that there are no malls in Ireland. There are; they just call them "shopping centres." Also, paper napkins are referred to as "serviettes."

I love that we were easily the oldest people (excluding parents) in the cinema for TMNT. I also love that we're all dorky enough to have spent a good chunk of time swiveling between two flat-screen TVs that were playing nothing but trailers, every other one of which was for the next Harry Potter movie. I especially love when people you originally considered "too cool" for normal interaction reveal themselves to be dorkastic to the nth degree. :DDD