Twenty One

I never thought I'd see the day, but I made it to my twenty first birthday. I turned twenty on Space Mountain in Magic Kingdom, and twenty one in Ireland, twenty two better step it up!

I started off the day going to a market in the city called "The Milk Market" (http://www.milkmarketlimerick.ie/default/) and I loved it! It was this huge outdoor market with all these vendors selling everything from antiques, books, to clothes, produce, other food, jewelry, flowers, anything you could imagine! There were groups of children playing instruments for money all the way to old men sitting in a corner playing instruments, it was so interesting! Of course when I saw the cheese stand I had a mini heart attack so I bought myself pesto gouda and some garlic salami. They were both absolutely delicious! This market is so interesting, I can't wait to bring my parents there and show them, it's the epitome of Irish culture.

Then to move further into the day, I was told to come down to Colleen's apartment before we left for the night because she had a surprise for me. She baked me a red velvet cake with cream cheese icing from scratch!! It was so delicious and it meant so much to me that she did that!! I'm very lucky to have people taking such good care of me :)

So, later that night we needed a place to celebrate my birth and where better to do that than at O'Connell's?! Ana, Hannah, Colleen and I headed out and spent the night there, while some other friends joined us for a little while. We had a great time and the bartenders that we made friends with treated us very well. We always have such a great time there. Last time we were there we made friends with a group of older women who were such a blast and we actually saw them there again last night so it was a lot of fun to get to hang out and dance with them again. They're just all so nice!


The pictures below are of the sash that Colleen bought me, the cake she made, and the drink that one of the bartenders gave me since it was my birthday. It was a great night shared with a lot of great people. As the Irish would say, "it was good craic" (crack). This coming weekend I will be taking a weekend trip to the Ring of Kerry and then the following weekend I will be going to Dublin! I have a lot of fun things coming up so I will be keeping everyone posted!

I kissed the Blarney Stone today, what did you do?

That's right ladies and gentleman, I went to Blarney Castle today and kissed the Blarney Stone! My friends and I used the same tour bus company, Barret Tours, that we used for the Cliffs of Moher tour to go here. My lord I cannot believe how beautiful this country is. I cannot get enough, every where  I go I find myself just stopping and staring at how amazing everything is.

Colleen and I have gotten very close to two girls, Ana from New York and Hannah from St. Louis, and so we went with them and a few other girls we have made friends with. I was blown away by how old everything was but yet it was still there and in good enough condition to walk around in. Just walking through the rooms thinking what life would have been like back then was so fascinating. Here are some of the pictures I took today..

 The Castle.

This is from inside the lookout tower that stands next to the castle. 

Colleen and I in front of the castle. 

 I could not believe my eyes when I saw this date

Beautiful Gardens

The view from the top of the Castle.

This is the video of me kissing the stone, it was a lot harder than I expected!! Mam mom, I don't know how you made it up that castle!!! You go girl.

All of us after we kissed the stone!

Ana, Hannah, Colleen and I found this small pub in the city called O'Connell's that we have been going to because we made friends with all of the people that work there. If we go on a Thursday or Friday we are pretty much the only people there so we do whatever we want and we have such a great time! They treat us so well because we are American and we make their boring night at work that much more fun! They gave us meal stamp cards and instead of stamping them for ordering food, they stamp ours with each Guiness we buy. And I can't forget the best part about this place, they apparently  sell the cheapest pint of Guiness in all of Ireland. It's only 3.30! I'm loving this city and I'm very thankful to have such great people to be sharing this with! These girls are so sweet I wish you could all meet them!! This is us at O'Connell's..

In case I haven't made it clear enough, I love it here and I love the people I'm surrounded by. Oh also, my one flat mate bought a microwave!!!!!! Life is great. Miss everyone and love you all! Cheers!


(My next post will probably be from a 21 year old Amanda!)

"Want to go to the Cliffs of Moher tomorrow?"

I cannot believe the life I am living right now. Colleen and I decided Friday night to take the Barret Bus Tour to the Cliffs of Moher on Saturday, I mean how unreal is that? Well anyway, so we took the bus tour with a few friends there and made a few stops along the way.

So the bus picked us up in the Limerick city centre and we were off. Our first stop of the day was the Cathair Chonaill Stone Fort. This is a picture of Colleen and I infront of it.

Our next stop was Poulnabrone Tomb. This was not what I was expecting at all, but it was really neat. The whole ground was covered with these limestone rocks. The entire surrounding area was the same way. The guide was saying that after carbon dating some bodies from this area they found that they dated back about 6,000 years old. 

Some of these pictures are out of order but here is one of Colleen and I jumping off the Cliffs of Moher, no big deal. 

And here is the infamous meal. I would not stop talking about this meal for the rest of the day. I don't know if it was because I was starving or because it was just that good, but this plate of bangers and mash was heavenly. We went to a pub called Gus O'Connel's in a really cute small town called Doolin. That's also a glass of Smithwicks, my drink of choice here.

This is another picture at the Cliffs of Moher.

So, being young adventurous girls we decided to climb past the "Do not enter" signs and explore. We were sitting inches from the edge of the cliff but it was the most exhilarating thing I've ever seen. And as you can probably gather from the pictures it was super windy all day.

These are the two girls Colleen and I have gotten really close to. On the left is Hannah and she is from St. Louis, and the one between Colleen and I is Ana and she is from New York. This picture was at the forts and tombs of Burren in Caherconnell. 

This picture is from a set of cliffs that were on the side of the road. Our tour guide told us about how beautiful it was, pulled over, and gave us a chance to get pictures. 

And here are the pictures of the Cliffs of Moher. I do not think these pictures or what I have to say would do these cliffs justice. At one point I was taking a picture and as I put the camera down I remember thinking, "My god, there is no way this camera is going to be able to show everyone at home how amazing this is." It literally took my breath away. Just being somewhere like this, realizing how epic this place is was extremely humbling. 

So the impromptu weekend trip was a success, and next on the agenda is the Ring of Kerry the weekend of the 30th. Now onto attempting some homework, ugh.

I guess I have to go to class

Alright so I survived my first week of college classes in another country! I anticipated having trouble food shopping, understanding what the heck people are saying, and even learning to cope without a microwave but I never even thought about how different their educational system would be. They split their classes up between one large lecture and then smaller tutorial groups, so my schedule is very different than what I'm used to. I will have class for an hour and that is spread out through the whole week. They also grade a lot differently, the entire grade is based on the midterm and final and there is no work due in between! That will take some getting used to but I'm really not worried about it. They also list the building, floor and room number for your class differently than what I'm used to. For example next to one of my classes I will see "FG061" and so the F stands for the Foundations Building, the G means it is on the ground floor and the 061 means it's in room 61. In the beginning I was so totally confused by this but it actually makes things much easier because you can tell someone "I need to find S205" and they can point you right to the building, room and floor.

I am loving the classes that I picked. They all seem pretty intense but the material that will be covered looks so interesting!
The first class I'm taking is International Management and that seems interesting but I need to get used to the fact that when the professor refers to our home country they are talking about Ireland and not the US. The Irish legal system and policies are pretty foreign to me as well so this class will take some getting used to.
My next class is Irish Language and in this class I will learn how to speak Gaelic. The one interesting I've learned being here is that NO ONE calls it Gaelic, it's almost looked down upon. They all call it Irish, so in this class I will be learning to speak Irish and I will also get a look into Irish history and culture.
The next one is Marketing Communications, and this class is pretty much just an Advertising class. I really think I'm going to like this one because the professor seems really interesting, but just like my Management class I am running into trouble when they talk about Irish advertisements that I am not familiar with.
I am also taking Management Principles which is a basic management class. This professor seems very knowledgeable but a little intense, it's one of those classes that you do not want to miss.
Lastly, I am taking Marketing Intelligence which is basically a class about how to apply marketing information to real life. This class seems pretty useful so I'm looking forward to that.


So that is what my week has been like. It's pretty funny actually, I was sitting in my classes thinking about how excited I am to get into them and then I found myself thinking that I don't want to miss any classes to travel because I think I'm going to learn a lot from them. I'm sure I will get over that very quickly! :) 

Pictures of the campus and Limerick City Centre

 This is the view from my bedroom window.

 Limerick City Centre

 Student Centre

 The bridge I will walk across everyday to get from my complex to classes

 The Shannon River

 The Laundromat

 The front of my complex

The building that I'm living in