I’m trying get back into the swing of things this week after a wonderful holiday during Spring Break. Unfortunately, when one comes to study abroad in Ireland, you only get one week off from class, so I was limited in what I could do and where I could go. St. Patrick’s Day occurred during my Spring Break which gave me an opportunity to travel in Ireland before I left the country. The biggest celebrations take place in Dublin, so my friends and I decided that was where we had to go. I could not believe how packed it was everywhere we went. It made things difficult, especially when we got lost and had to ask for directions because no one was from the area and were unable to help us. So much went on in Dublin that day, the biggest event being the St. Patrick’s Day parade. A lot of people show up to this, so I recommend that if you want a good spot to see everything, you need to get there early. We showed up for the parade about a half hour before it started and there was no where to stand to get a good view of the street. Once it started it was so hard to see anything that we only stayed for about 15 minutes before finding something else to do. Much our time that day was spent in the Temple Bar district in town. The area was full of people and there were tons of pubs with live entertainment. Overall, it was a good experience despite all of the crowds and street traffic.

The next day I headed to Rome for a five day holiday. My friends are there for the semester, and I figured it would be a good chance to catch up with them and see bunch of amazing sights. The first day and a half that I was there I walked around the city on my own because my friends were on holiday in Spain. I was pretty satisfied too with everything that I saw and felt that I saw almost everything that I wanted to see within two days. Some of the sights I saw include the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, the Spanish Steps, Piazza del Popolo, and several cathedrals. All of these places were very busy with tourists and vendors that it was a bit overwhelming at times.

On my second day in Rome my friends arrived home and we went to out to dinner. It was a good time, and so nice to finally see some familiar faces. I never really realized how much I had missed my friends until I saw them again. The whole few days that I got to spend with them were so much fun and made my experience in Rome so much better. It was good to catch up with them and learn about how their own study abroad experience has been going so far. My friends also knew all about the masses during Holy Week at the Vatican and had got tickets so we could go to mass at St. Peter’s for Good Friday and Easter Vigil. It was a rather special and unique experience to be able to go to mass with Pope Benedict and have mass being recited in several different languages. I also could not believe how early we had to get to the Vatican to wait in line before mass to get good seats; it was almost disaster when people began pushing when they opened the doors.

The disappointing part of the holiday was having to leave on Easter Sunday early in the morning. I have never traveled before on Easter and have always been with my family, so this made the day less fun than usual. It was a long day of traveling home, and after 3 buses and 2 planes I was glad to get home in the evening. My Spring Break was quite an eventful one and I really enjoyed my opportunities to travel and see my friends, but at the end of the week I knew it was so good to finally be back at the place that I call home.

ughhh huge cockroaches!!!  i’m sitting here in my room trying to finish up packing (going to fiji for spring break tomorrow!) and get some last minute school work done before i leave (i’m missing 2.5 days of study in Australia to go abroad and i don’t want too much extra catch up work waiting for me when i come back) and there is this nasty cockroach flying around my room.  that’s right… flying… and it’s huge and nasty………..  plus it’s the second one of the night!! right before i saw this one on the wall i trapped one in a cup on my window sill and managed to get it out the window.  unfortunately my roommate pushed the window out to far and now we can’t close it and there are no screens on the windows at st. johns so the cockroaches must be flying in i presume.  i seriously find the cockroach problem repulsive.  it’s a good thing i don’t live in new york.

On a lighter note, I saw “The Vertical Hour” at the Sydney Opera House last Wednesday.  I wasn’t sure what to expect because I hadn’t heard of it and didn’t look it up before going.  I was pleasantly surprised to find I was quite enjoying myself.  First off it was neat just watching a show at the opera house and walking around The Rocks and Darling Harbor at night.  Second I really did like the play.  It was political and the kind of play that really made you think.  Additionally I was keen on the music they played before acts.  I haven’t looked it up yet, but I plan to.  It was some sort of rocking violin music…

Another fun trip I’ve experienced during the IFSA Butler study abroad in Australia program was surf camp!  The accommodations, food, and bus were somewhat “ghetto”; but more or less what you could expect of an actual camp.  It was about 3.5 hours north of Sydney and the beaches were gorgeous!!  The instructors were helpful and I had heaps of fun and met many other international students (I suppose the aussies already know how to surf or don’t need surf camp).  I was able to stand up while riding the white wash and could usually catch the waves, however I had a bit of trouble trying to put the two together.  I think I wiped out more than I actually surfed, but the trip was great and I didn’t burn much.  If I did I would have been surprised because I put on more suntan lotion last weekend than I ever have in my entire life.  The ozone is literally gone here.

Not surprisingly I still haven’t figured out how to resize the pictures.  Since I’ll be on a plane in about 12 hours that will have to wait until after spring break.  However I can’t see the cockroach anymore so I’m going to finish once last accounting problem and get some sleep.  I’ll write all about Fiji as long as I don’t get attacked by cockroaches in my sleep.

Just to let you all know RAG week is something that I have been excited for since I came to study in Ireland. I heard about it at orientation and was told that it would be the most fun week of the whole semester. RAG stands for raising and giving, and the whole purpose of the week is to raise money for charities. It has become one of the biggest traditions at the University of Limerick over the years.

The way that UL gets money for the charities is by having all kinds of events where the students buy tickets to participate. Last week the tickets went on sale, and my friends and I queued starting at six am even though the tickets didn’t go on sale until ten because they have a limited number. Only the evening events have tickets that you have to purchase beforehand, and the other events during the day you can pay on the spot or they are free. The evening events that the university hosts are concerts on campus and dances at venues in the city center.

During the day starting at about eleven is when everything starts. There is a whole list of activities to participate in everyday which include things like games, eating contests, and a whole bunch more. My favorite so far has been watching my guy friends do boat races. It was quite a hilarious site. All in all you can fill the day pretty easy by going to all kinds of events, and it can be hard to get motivated to go to class.

The week isn’t even over yet and I’m already pretty exhausted from all the fun, but I know that Friday will be a nice day to rest up because I don’t have class. On Friday there is only one event all day because the university expects that students have had a pretty crazy week. This event is the wrap up party at the Stables pub on campus. It’s a good way to end the week without being too wild. This week has been incredibly too much fun already, and I know I will have good memories of it when I return home.

I’ve been told several times that when you study abroad there are 5 phases you typically go through.  I don’t remember all of them, but I do remember it included a honeymoon phase, a low period of frustration, and then getting used to your new surroundings. Sounded unlikely to me, however it has actually happened somewhat like that.  At first I was uber excited about everything and ready to learn and explore everything new. I thought it would just be like that all semester, but the honeymoon is definitely over.

Initially I couldn’t imagine leaving and wanted to stay forever. I still think I go to the best college in the universe (st. johns of course) and there are a lot of things I want to do here, but I know I’ll be glad to be back in the states once the semester is over. I still cant believe I’ve only been here a month! It’s going to be weird saying goodbye to all my new friends, for now I’m going to just try not to think about it. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

Finally I can access any site on the web from my room.  The only downside is that I can’t access the free mb Sydney uni alots us from St. Johns and I can’t be on the internet at the same time as my roommate for some reason. Fortunately that really hasn’t been a problem. Unfortunately I haven’t figured out how to save my pictures as a small enough file to be able to post them here.

Anyways enough of the boring stuff, on to o-week!  O-week is a giant week long event coordinated by the student union for everyone going to uni.  Every club from the Capt. Planet Appreciation Society to Brewsical (for people who like brews and music) to the sailing club have tents set up on campus for students to peruse and possibly join.  I personally didn’t join any, but there were a lot of interesting ones.  During this week there are also meet and greets with the faculty and various orientation information sessions.  I didn’t attend any of those for two reasons. Firstly, as a study abroad student I’m not really in any of the faculties and I’ve already been to a billion study abroad australia orientation lectures that they had done the previous week for the foreign students.  Secondly, living at a residential college I had a completely different o-week experience from the rest of the uni students.

The residential colleges are somewhat similar to greek life. It’s a community of students that have their own sports teams and their own social events separate from the university.  The freshers are initiated into the college during o-week and there is a lot of inter-college camaraderie and competition.  My o-week experience included getting a st. johns silly fresher tshirt, free jager hat, and every day was pretty much packed with activity. We learned the songs of the college, played sports, and went to mixers and had meals with the other colleges. Some of my favorite events were the pool party my college hosted, a pub crawl, and a bad taste cruise around Sydney Harbor. I’ve never seen outfits as ridiculous as what people had for the cruise, it was hilarious. For anyone from Hartford reading this, the pool party was a lot like spring fling, most of o-week was actually. We had a giant slip and slide, a blown up obstacle course and jumping pit, and of course a pool which was pretty disgusting by the end of the day.

O-week ended last Sunday, and this week classes finally start for Australia study abroad programs here at St. Johns. I have to go to the international office soon to change some of my courses, but I will be taking Buddhist philosophy; reality, ethics, and beauty (another philosophy class); management accounting; and learning in outdoor education.  For the outdoor class we are going on field trips, which is going to be awesome! We are spending a weekend in the blue mountains and taking a day hike in the royal national park. Surprisingly we only had to pay $50 to be able to do all that. Unfortunately the hike conflicts with an adventure weekend butler had arranged for us, but I’ve already talked to them and to my teacher and I know it will all get worked out. I’m either going to leave the butler trip one day early in order to go on the hike, or possibly go on the farm stay weekend instead.  Either way, butler was extremely helpful in working out some options for me, which I am very grateful for. Too bad not everything is that easy to work out.

Well, I have been in studying in Ireland now for a little over a month, and I have yet to feel anything but happy to be here. I’m finally starting to feel a bit more settled now and have begun to get more into the routine of things and find my own way around. I have even begun to explore other parts of Ireland outside of Limerick. In Ireland, is it extremely easy to travel to other towns, and it is fairly cheap if you ride on Bus Eireann.

My first trip that I took outside of Limerick was to Killarney. It is a small town that hosts a number of fun things to do in such a beautiful part of the country. In the area there is a large national park, which I visited with some of my friends. While we were in the park we decided to take a horse carriage ride through the park, which was a little expensive, but was so much fun and gave us such a good view of the Lakes of Killarney. We also found other fun things in town like live music and shopping. It was a place I wish I could have spent more time exploring, but maybe I will get there again before I leave.

Last weekend I went on a trip to Northern Ireland. It was sponsored through the IFSA Butler study abroad in Ireland program and was totally free. That’s a great thing about going with the program because many times they plan little trips for you, and all you need to do is sign up. Anyways, during our weekend we stayed in Belfast, and got to explore things there. I would most definitely recommend the Black Cab tour with all the murals, and also the shopping was great too. In addition, we traveled to Derry to see things like Giant’s Causeway and Dunluce Castle. Both were quite amazing despite the windy weather. The weather almost did ruin parts of the trip because strong winds and rain don’t make sightseeing too fun.

I still have quite a lot yet that I would still like to see in Ireland, and I have the whole semester to travel still with my new friends and everyone who comes to visit. Spring break is coming up soon, and I will also get a chance to travel around Europe as well. I can’t wait for all there is still left to explore!