Despite the content of the majority of my previous blogs, my trip to Ireland hasn’t been all about traveling around Europe with friends and family. Sometimes even I forget that the main reason that I’m here is to study. But have no fear. This past week has put me in my place. Well, sort of. Today begins the exam period here at UCD and classes finished up a week ago. So that means that last week, I had nothing but time to start my exam preparations. As I am the queen of procrastination, it should come as no shock that I managed to squeeze a few episodes of The O.C. into my study time in the name of taking a break, which sometimes lasted much longer than I had planned. However, I did manage to get some studying done and so far, I’m feeling okay about my exams. At least for the next hour. I tend to vacillate between calm and confident one moment, and a panicking mess the next. But that’s pretty much true of every semester when it comes to exam time.

I’ve mentioned before that academics here in Ireland (and from what I gather, all of Europe for that matter) are a bit different from what I have experienced in the states. My attempts to study last week made that quite a bit more obvious than it has been all semester. The education system here is much more independent, in which students are responsible for the majority of their learning. Lectures are useful for general information which will definitely be helpful for exams. Seminars are supposed to be a way to explore topics more thoroughly through discourse which is great, in theory. Unfortunately, I only had a seminar for one of my classes with an exam and it didn’t exactly prove to fit the description of a seminar. But, you have to roll with the punches and I’m sure that I will make do. Anyway, my point is that a lot of learning comes from the individual student’s efforts and I have made an attempt all semester to keep up with the slightly different pace, but perhaps not as much as I would have done at home. I mean, I’m in Ireland. I want to enjoy my time here and not be too bogged down with stress over my classes. But don’t fret, Mom and Dad! I’m not saying that I totally slacked off and didn’t read anything. It’s just a matter of revisiting important topics.

And there is the crux of the matter. With such a wide range of topics discussed over the course of a semester, and very little distinct exam information, who is to say what the most important topics are? This is the question that I kept asking myself during my moments of panic last week. My classes have gone over such a large amount of history and information that at points, I have found it difficult to pinpoint the key facts or theories. And, since everything is mostly lecture based, I haven’t had much of a chance to discuss my ideas and theories, so for all I know, I could be totally off base. For someone who has come from an educational environment in which discussion is key and exam tips have generally been laid out pretty clearly, this has been a little stressful, not to mention nervewracking. But on the eve before my first Irish exam, I keep reminding myself of something that one of my lecturers said in our last class; “You know more than you think you know.” I’ve gone to all my lectures and seminars, I’ve done the important readings, I’ve taken notes. I have all the pertinent information in front of me. It’s a little disconcerting not to know exactly how I stand in the class in terms of grades, but I’m confident enough to at least know that I’ll be fine in the end. I always manage to surprise myself, so here’s hoping that my lecturer was right!

Of course, with a whole week off, I did make a little time for fun in between studying and The O.C. Friday night, a few of my friends and I decided to reward ourselves for our studying and we headed to O’Neill’s for a few drinks and some live music. We even met a very nice couple from North Carolina, college basketball fans who had been following Butler during their NCAA run last year and the year before. It was fantastic to finally meet some fellow fans and they even bought us a round of Guinness as we chatted! On Sunday, the girls and I headed out to the Dun Laoghaire Farmer’s Market since Susan hadn’t been yet and we only have a few Sundays left together in Dublin. Unfortunately, it was cold and windy and altogether a very poor day for outdoor food markets. As windy as it was, the sea was more turbulent than I had ever seen it! It was really beautiful to see the waves crashing up on the rocks. A pretty awesome sight to see before I head back to Indiana!

Speaking of heading back to Indiana, I really can’t believe that I only have two weeks left in Dublin. I have exams Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, then I have all of next week to myself before my flight home on the fifteenth! I’m planning to make a trip out to Galway next Tuesday and there are still some things in Dublin that I’d like to see or revisit before I head home. Packing is probably going to be a nightmare, so it’s a good thing I have a whole week to do it, but knowing me I’ll probably save it until the last possible moment. I can’t wait to see all of my friends and family at home, but it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to Ireland and all the great people that I’ve met since I got here. But I’m not going to worry about that just yet. I have to get through my exams first, so it’s back to the grindstone for now!

Wish me luck!

Friday, April 20 – One expensive bracelet

11:50 pm-at home stay in bed, CABA, Buenos Aires, Argnentina

Where do I begin?  It’s probably been over a month now since I last wrote for my blog, which means that I’ve been really busy and pretty lazy about writing.  But there’s no better time than now to do a little re-cap of what’s been going on because I’m on house arrest for the weekend so I don’t have much else to do.  You’ll understand better in a minute what I mean by house arrest ( that might be putting it kind of harshly), but I was recommended not to leave the house for the weekend and it has nothing to do with being in trouble.

From here, I’d normally want to fill y’all in on my adventures in Mendoza, El Tigre, going to the theatre, asados, rugby games, kayaking, rafting, horseback riding, wine tours, classes, my internship, and all the other stuff that I’ve done since I last wrote.  But I’m not going to talk about the fun things, because, right now, that’s not the most pertinent thing going on here for me.  I’ll attach some pictures of all of these things and hopefully be up to putting in more detail later.  But right now, I’d rather talk about what has been probably one of the best/worst experiences for me in my living/cultural experience in Buenos Aires.

IFSA sponsored outing: sci-fi play

BsAs sunset

This morning around 9am, a happy bearded man (not Santa! hehe) came into my room, speaking English!, saying that he had heard about how pretty I was but didn’t realize I’d be such a natural beauty.  hahah what a flattering way to wake up, no? He came complete with an entourage of four or five others, and after asking me where I’m from (Arkansas), told me that he actually knows Bill Clinton and sees him when he comes to BsAs.  Aside from the flattery and kindness and popularity, this wonderful man gave me the best news I had heard in a while: that I could leave the hospital in a couple of hours.

Backing up a week, last Friday I was sitting in a park a few blocks from my house reading my book and waiting to go to my doctor’s appointment.  I scheduled it to follow up on a skin allergy I had and also to get some kind of decongestant because my head was full of pressure and I’d been coughing for the past week and a half-ish.  But as I was just sitting in the park, I started to feel this discomfort in my mid/upper left side of my back and I just couldn’t sit comfortably with it.  I assumed it was just a muscle cramp or something, but since it seemed to be getting worse as I walked to the doctor’s office, I let him know about it anyway.  He listened to my breathing and checked up on everything and then said I was good to go.  Since it was still a nice afternoon, I decided to walk home instead of figuring out which bus to take.

By the time I got to my apartment, though, the discomfort had changed to pain as I continued to cough on my way home and throughout the night.  My host mom recommended that I stay home to rest that night, and I agreed because I was only feeling worse (even though it was a Friday night!!).  She served me dinner in bed because, though I was still in good spirits, it hurt to get up out of bed and walk around with the pain.  I took some ibuprofen and had a stash of cough drops, and I remember, for maybe 15 minutes or half an hour, I felt like I was getting better and was really excited and even thinking about calling my friends to see what was going on.  But, after that freak incident of feeling well, the pain came back with vengeance and had spread to the middle of my back and a bit in my lower chest, and it began to be more in sync with my breathing and coughing.  It was difficult sleeping that night because it had become hard to breathe without pain, so I slept until around noon the next day.  I got short of breath walking to the kitchen to make a bowl of cereal that I picked at for a while, not having much of an appetite while my mind was focused on the pain.

I went back to bed for the day, hoping to sleep off the pain to later be woken by my host mom who came in my room almost hysterical because I apparently was really freaking her out.  I couldn’t lay flat anymore because it hurt too much, so I had shoved my blanket behind me and struggled to find a position without pain.  My host mom insisted that we go to the hospital because I was only getting worse, but I was afraid to go and didn’t want to because I had run out of cash after paying for the doctor the day before, and obviously hadn’t been able to go to a bank since then.  But she said she couldn’t just let me stay there in pain, so around 5:30pm we got a taxi to the ER of the Hospital Aleman (German Hospital), a private hospital on the list of recommended places by IFSA.  My host mom was such a doll because she, without question, put the initial expenses on her credit card.  I have insurance through the program, so it all would be refunded, but she definitely did not have to do that for me.  We waited for the doctor, and when we finally were able to go in after maybe 45 min, I let my host mom do most of the talking.  The first round, I got X-rayed and struggled to take a deep breath as they requested.  They told us we had about an hour before the X-rays would be ready, so we went to a cafe across the street.  I ate for the first time since my cereal that morning (by then it was around 9pm), and my host mom’s friend who lives only a couple of blocks away came to keep us company and brought me a sweater.  I’m really lucky to have had my host mom be such a big support during all of this because it definitely would have been a struggle without her.

So after wasting enough time at the cafe, we went back to see what the doctor had to say about my insides.  Seeing basically nothing exciting, he sent me in for a CT scan and blood work.  Because my insurance is for travelers, we had to pay for everything beforehand and just keep receipts to file for the refund later.  So when we were going up to pre-pay the CT scan bill, I told my host mom she couldn’t pay for it because it was around $500USD, and I didn’t want her to have to pay so much.  We went back to talk to the doctor about it because by this time I was kind of freaked out about all of the expenses and how much the insurance would cover, but he said it was absolutely necessary, so my host mom said she couldn’t not do it for me.  So I went to get the CT scan, which was absolute hell having to lay down flat because that was when it hurt the most.  Then we went back to wait to discuss the new results with the doctor, me pathetically hunched over and crying off and on from the pain and the stress, and my host mom running around asking everyone who worked there different things to make sure everything was running smoothly for me.

Because they originally thought I had pneumonia (because that’s what all the symptoms pointed to), the doctors were really confused when again nothing different/exciting showed up on the CT scan results, which they said normally never fail to show the signs of pneumonia.  So this time around, the doctor requested a different kind of CT scan that would show the contrast of my insides by injecting some weird stuff in my IV.  But when we went up to pre-pay for this one, I was super freaked out by now because I knew it was going to be around the same price as the first one, if not more.  When they told us the final bill for this round, it was just under $1,000USD.  I told my host mom no way, and this time she actually agreed because she was afraid her credit card would max out and it wouldn’t work to pay for it anyway.  My pain was just getting worse as the time was going on because I was having to walk back and forth for the tests, and I was only getting more stressed about my host mom spending so much money on me.  So when she suggested we call the IFSA directors to help us figure out what to do, it was a big relief.  For some reason, I hadn’t even thought of that before because I didn’t think that it was really that serious.

But I whipped out my emergency numbers card that they gave us during orientation, and we called Mario, the head of everything IFSA in BsAs.  My host mom talked to him first to explain what was going on, and then she passed the phone to me.  I was reluctant to take it because I could barely hold back the tears from pain/stress/being scared out of my mind because they couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me.  But Mario surprised me by talking in English to calm me down and to tell me that the insurance would cover all of it.  This came as a great wave of relief, because I was afraid that they would only cover $500, which we had passed a while back.  So, I guess word was spread to Daniel, one of the program directors, because he showed up within the hour with a giant stack of cash from the IFSA office to pay for the next CT scan.  It was definitely a relief to not have to think about the money anymore.  When I was in the CT scan the second time around, with an IV in my arm and in pain because I was laying flat again, they injected something that hurt A LOT to make the picture come out in contrasted colors (or something like that).  But with pain on top of pain, I started shaking and crying in the tube.  When I finally was let out, I think I might have scared Daniel and my host mom because it probably looked like I had been in a torture chamber (which is what it felt like, at least).  This time they finally took me back to an observation bed to wait for the results so I didn’t have to go back in the waiting room.  The final test they took, and the easiest, was just a pee test, which turned out to show more than anything else had before.  They decided I had a urinary tract infection, which to me really didn’t make sense because it didn’t burn when I peed (sorry if that’s TMI), and I couldn’t see any way that that was related to the pain in my back.  The only thing I fought for was to get stronger painkillers than just the ibuprofen they were about to send me home with, but other than that, I was more than ready to get out of the hospital.  So Saturday night around 2:30am, we finally taxied home after picking up my antibiotics and painkillers at a 24 hour drugstore nearby (all of which Daniel/IFSA paid for).

Over the next few days, my host mom was the best nurse ever, constantly checking if I needed any food and just coming in to talk and see if there was anything she could do to make me more comfortable.  But, I know she could tell I wasn’t getting any better because I barely had any appetite, I only felt decent enough to talk if I had taken a pain pill within the hour, and I would get out of breath getting up just to go to the bathroom.  The pain was unbearable, but with the pain pills, at least it was slightly dulled enough so I could breathe a little better and maybe sleep for a bit before it came back to wake me.  I stayed in bed like this at home all weekend and into Tuesday early afternoon, when Mario and Daniel from IFSA came to check up on me and see if I was getting any better.  I guess they could tell that little had changed for the better because they insisted that I go to see a doctor right then.  Getting up and moving around was the last thing I wanted to do, but I couldn’t resist either because all I wanted was the pain to go away.

So Daniel cabbed back to the hospital to pick up the results from my all of the tests from Saturday, and Mario and I took a taxi back to the doctor I went to see originally on Friday.  I had to walk at such a slow pace because I got out of breathe so easily, that I joked with Mario that I felt like a granny, trying to keep the mood light even though I was slightly terrified.  After having spent 9 hours, NINE hours, in the hospital, only for them to send me home to feel worse, by this time Tuesday, I was scared they wouldn’t figure out what was actually wrong.  But when Daniel arrived with the paperwork, we all went in and as soon as Dr. Sarquis saw that we were there, he waved us back.  He went through the routine checkup tests, checking my blood pressure, heart rate, etc., but when he got out his stethoscope and asked me to take a deep breath to listen to my lungs, I teared up with the pain of trying to perform such a simple task.  He immediately sent me to get an X-ray, and one of the nurses brought me a fleece jacket as she directed us down the hall.  The X-rays were also gruesome, as they wanted me to stand up straight and push my shoulders back to take a deep breath, which seemed like one of the hardest tasks in the world at the time.  Mario and Daniel waited patiently and, with the nurse, they all walked me back down to Dr. Sarquis’s office.

There, Sarquis told me that he was sure that I had pneumonia, but he only was able to detect it because they had taken an X-ray from the side.  He said that it didn’t show up like normal on the front X-rays, which made more sense as to why they didn’t see it Saturday night at the hospital. Just to be safe, Dr. Sarquis still wanted a CT scan to confirm it.  The attentiveness and personal service that I received at his office was incomparable to anything I had gotten before.  He made the same tests that I had done at the hospital on Saturday in 9 hours happen in maybe 90 minutes.

Even so, no amount of attentiveness could have prevented what happened while I was in the CT scan, but it was their great service that helped me recover from it.  As I said before, laying down flat was an absolute nightmare; so having to do the CT scan flat on my back was no exception.  The pain was unbearable, but I wanted to be sure that they got everything right so I could finally start to feel better.  But after laying down for maybe a minute, I started shaking and tearing up from the pain.  I was laying flat with my arms stretched above my head and the tube around my chest when I began coughing, which I couldn’t control, though I wished I could because it only made the pain worse.  As I began coughing, I was unable to breathe through my mouth and my nose was stuffed from crying, so I couldn’t breathe at all.  I was holding my chest trying to stop coughing to catch a breath, and the doctors came out to see if I was ok.  I could barely muster up the words in Spanish to say I couldn’t breathe and that I had to sit up.  They quickly pushed the button to get me out of the tube, and as I sat up I continued coughing and bawling and shaking, trying to get some air.  They brought in tissues, water, and an oxygen mask to help me regain some sort of composure.  I remember a male nurse walking by the room with the door partially opened, and when we made eye contact, I could tell from the look on his face that I probably looked as terrified as I felt, as I was wheezing and shaking with tears running down my flushed face.  After that incident, they didn’t try to take another scan, but rather told me to sit and rest for a few minutes with the oxygen mask still on.  When I came out to walk back to Dr. Sarquis’s office, Mario said I looked like a different person after having the oxygen.

When Dr. Sarquis came back into the room, they had a bag full of medicines and hand sanitizer and tissues for me.  He told me that he thought the best idea from there was to admit me to the hospital so I could get better faster, seeing as I got out of breath just getting up to go to the bathroom at home.  Having an IV with the antibiotics, he said, would speed up my healing process a lot.  Being that it was Tuesday and I had already missed my class from the previous Thursday, I was concerned about how much class I would be missing.  But I also knew that I wanted to get rid of the god-awful pain sooner rather than later.  So we loaded back up with all of the new X-rays and CT scans and information in a taxi back to the hospital.  With Mario’s help, I slowly walked down to the ER, trying to keep my breath.  It didn’t take too long for us to see a doctor, but when we did, she seemed almost offended that we were coming in to refute the diagnosis they had previously made.  She coarsely asked where the report was when Daniel showed her the new X-rays, and getting upset that the hospital’s pride was getting in the way of my treatment, I struggled to tell her that, because I’m obviously in need of urgent care, they probably didn’t have time to write up a report in the past half an hour.  After she looked over all of the results and consulted with other doctors, she came back in a much nicer mood to show me to the observation bed of the ER where I would be staying until a private room opened up.  Little did I know how long I would be staying in that hot, uncomfortable bed.

Though I absolutely hate needles, after they got the IV in me, I was beyond grateful for it.  They gave me a drip-bag of some sort of painkiller, and, for a few hours, I felt like I had been healed and was ready to go.  Mario and Daniel kept me company in between organizing everything with the insurance and the hospital to get me into a private room.  The dinner they brought me was a lovely piece of baked chicken and white and orange mush, which they told me was potato and pumpkin purée.  Even though all I had eaten all day was an apple, my appetite was not rushing back at the sight of this food.  I picked at the chicken and decided the mush served better for artwork, so I shaped it into a lion instead.  Mario told me I was horrible, but it was obvious that we both were happy to have the mood lightened and pain-free for a bit.  After entertaining me for a while, Mario and Daniel had to get going since it was getting late, which was probably for the better.  Not long after they left, the painkiller began to wear off and my fever and the pain in my lungs came back full throttle.  I remember the worst thing about the fevers I had at my sickest was how hot my face would get while my hands and feet were frozen.  I could feel the heat radiating from my head, even in my eyes.  And as soon as the fever broke, I was in cold sweats.  Obviously it wasn’t too comfortable sleeping in the same clothes and sheets after going through that a couple of times before they started my antibiotic drip.  I struggled to sleep after the pediatric ward down the hall quit crying and in between people moaning or puking on either side of me.  Needless to say, I didn’t get a lot of sleep the first night in my glamorous emergency room bed, with its plastic-covered mattress and pillow that looked/felt like it was made out of a chunk of wall insulation.

The next morning, my hopes were high to be moved into my own room, where I could take a shower and not have to walk down the hall carrying my IV bags just to go to the bathroom.  Mario and Daniel had put in so much effort to get everything cleared away between the insurance and the hospital to be sure it would be paid for, and now all was good to go.  Aside from the minor(aka HUGE) fact that there weren’t any beds available.  The hospital was overpacked.  And my spirits were shot down a little more when we found out that someone else had come in after me and was going to be getting the next available bed in front of me.  The director of the hospital even came to personally apologize and explain to me later that day that, because it is a private hospital and they receive donations, certain people have to have priority when they come in.  I understood his intentions in speaking with me ( he also said that they are doing all that they can do, but not all that they would like to do), but it was slightly upsetting that I was being pushed down the ladder just because I wasn’t from the right family.

Aside from the horrible food which happened to be the same thing again for lunch and dinner, during my second day in the ER bed, something happened that I think I will never forget.  At the time it was pretty traumatizing, but looking back now, I think all I can do is laugh (in horror).  Some time during the day on Wednesday, the bed to my right had been cleared out for about the third or fourth time since I had been there, and it had kind of become my entertainment to see who would be next.  But this time, they took the whole bed out to get the next patient, which I hadn’t seen happen before.  When they wheeled it back in, it was occupied by a very old lady who didn’t move at all and was laying there with her mouth slightly open and eyes closed as they were wheeling her down.  Maybe I was a little over attentive, but I was getting really bored and uncomfortable sitting in bed attached to an IV all day, so I had to find something to distract myself.  I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t hear much through the hanging sheet dividing us for a while until her daughter came in.  I didn’t see her daughter at first because I had given up on that for entertainment, until I was just around falling asleep for a nap and I heard the daughter’s voice trying to talk to the old lady.  She sounded really nice, but either way I was kind of annoyed that she was being so loud when all I wanted was sleep.  On top of that, I never heard a verbal response from the mom the whole time.  What I did hear was more guttural and scary sounding.  At one point, I think the doctors came in to give the old lady a nebulizer, again when I was trying to sleep, but after this started, sleep was the last thing I wanted to do because I was sure I would have nightmares.  Everyone was talking a lot and the nebulizer sounded really creepy, but the worst noises came from the old lady who still hadn’t responded in words to any of the people talking to her.  This might sound bad, but the best way I can describe the noises is in comparison to The Exorcist.  It was really scary to hear and not really know what was going on.  This obviously only made me want to get out of that hell even more.  Also, I soon realized that, though she had sounded nice through the curtain, the daughter was not so friendly.  While the doctors would come in to do stuff to her mom, she would stand back to where I could see her, and at one point I offered a sad smile when we made eye contact, but she quickly look away angrily.  Also, when my phone slid off my bed onto the floor of her side of the curtain, I assumed nobody was there to help because I didn’t hear anything.  I had to wait several minutes for a doctor to come by to help me because I couldn’t reach it with my IV in my arm.  But after the doctor helped me, he went over to talk to the daughter, and I realized she had been there the whole time, meaning she had to have seen it fall.  I wasn’t really upset, as much as frustrated, because I couldn’t do a lot for myself, and she was in no way willing to help.

But the phone incident gives a good example of how that second day and night went in the ER bed.  To get up to go to the bathroom, after a certain hour of the day, it would be useless to wait for a nurse to pass by to help me get my IV bag down, because they never passed by.  So I would wiggle up onto my knees in bed to reach the hanging bags to get them down, and then carefully wiggle my way back around so I could get out of the bed to walk down the hall to the bathroom.  I remember at one point feeling absolutely miserable, and I’m sure it showed on my face, while I was sitting in bed during the day.  I needed to move the incline of the bed back down, but, of course, the control didn’t work unless you pushed on the plug a certain way, which I obviously couldn’t reach.  While I was struggling to figure out what to do, I remember two different nurses walking by and glancing at me, but not taking the time to stop when I attempted to ask them for help.  Eventually, someone finally stopped to help, but I think the ER nurses/staff just weren’t used to attending to someone who is there for a longer period of time like in the private rooms.  That evening before my second night in the ER bed, after getting my IV down myself to go to the bathroom, on my walk back from the bathroom, I asked my doctor, on the verge of tears, if they could possibly change my sheets since I would be having to stay there a second night.  She obviously said of course, and that was the fastest I’d seen any of those nurses get anything done.  So, I struggled through another night in the ER, trying to catch a couple hours of sleep after the babies quit crying and before the people around me started hurling up their guts again.

Around 6am Thursday morning, a nurse came to check on my IV and change the drip bag.  When he realized that I was flinching when he moved it, and I told him that my puffy, red arm that I could barely move indeed did hurt, he checked the needle and the area around it and told me it was infiltrated(?). (I thought I heard him say infected, because that’s what it seemed like to me, but when I said that to a doctor later, he quickly corrected me and said it had to have been infiltrated.  Mind you, all of this was in Spanish…)  So he left for a minute and then came back with a syringe full of something, and I was horrified that I was going to be stabbed again.  I asked him with huge scared eyes what he was going to do with that, and, thank god, he said was only going to inject it into a line that was attached to the IV.  But, just as I was feeling relieved to not be getting any more new holes in my arms, that relief was quickly taken away by the burning of whatever it was that he injected.  I winced as tears rolled down my cheeks, and he said he was sorry but that it should help with the swelling and pain.  The red swelling that had been growing above the IV did cool off a little and seemed to quit growing, but it still hurt like hell to move my arm.  I had even taken off my ring that I normally wear on my right hand because my fingers had gotten so puffy with all the liquids they were pumping in me.  I ended up having to ice my arm for the rest of the day after another nurse decided it best to just take it out.  It took around a week for the soreness and redness to go away and now I can finally straighten my arm out again without pain.  Just another adventure in La Guardia (ER) of Hospital Aleman.

However, Thursday morning was made much better with the news I thought I’d never hear: there was a private room available!! FINALLY! Even so, it was still kind of bittersweet because I thought as soon as I got up there and took a shower, they’d tell me I was good to go home.  However, when a cute male nurse came down the ER hallway to take me in a wheelchair to my new paradise, I was still grateful to get out of there.  He asked me a few questions about where I was from, why I was in the hospital, etc., but when I told him I had been in the ER for the past three days, he looked at me in awe.  So, I’m sure when he saw how excited I was to be in my own room, he didn’t think I was that crazy.  I told him it was like paradise compared to downstairs.  Another cute male nurse came in to check on my IV before I could finally take a shower (the first time in about three days), and he decided just to take it out because I was attached to empty bags anyway.  He came back later after I had showered to put in another IV in my other arm, but after having it in all day and nobody coming to attach a bag to me, I finally asked a nurse and they said I didn’t actually need it anymore–another unnecessary hole but at least this one didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the other.  Backing up in the timeline a little bit to the best shower of my life, after flooding the bathroom and a little bit into the room the first time I left the water on, I figured out how to work the shower without making a river, and it was absolute heaven.  All of the soap/shampoo/conditioner provided by the hospital smelled like different kinds of fruit/candy.  And once I was squeaky clean and in the lovely hospital gown, I was welcomed by Mario and Raquel.  Raquel brought nail polish so I painted my nails and she painted my toes for me because it was still difficult for me to bend that far over.  I’m pretty anti-feet, so I really appreciated that from her   After a nutritionist came in to ask me what I like, the comparison to the ER was only made that much more drastic when they brought in my lunch.  It was practically a four course meal: delicious vegetable soup, some kind of salad with ham/tomatoes/green beans, the main dish of some kind of meat with amazing sauce and rice, and for dessert a puff pastry with chocolate sauce.  This time I didn’t eat all of it because I couldn’t fit anymore in my tummy, not because it looked/tasted worse than baby food.

I spent Thursday sitting on the couch visiting with Daniel, Mario, Raquel, and my host mom, as they all came and went.  Some nurses came in to check my vitals a couple of times, but it was strange because for once I was pretty much being left alone.  When Mario first came in and saw that I hadn’t touched the bed, he joked that there was no point in getting a new room if I wasn’t even going to use it.  But I stayed away from the bed for as long as possible because I had already spent plenty of time sitting in one and it was the last place I wanted to be.  I’m not sure why, but sitting on the couch felt like a freedom/luxury that I had been deprived of for so long.  Simply the fact that I had options of where to sit and could walk around a little bit made it again that much better than the ER.  While Daniel, Mario, and I were watching some news program, Daniel and I looked over to see that Mario had dozed off.  Daniel joked that they were going to charge us double if someone else was sleeping in the room too.  Later in the day, a specialist came in to do some kind of fancy massage on my lungs that made me cough up some stuff (gross, I know), which actually felt better than having it stuck in my lungs.  But overall, the day was peaceful to finally be able to enjoy a little bit of quiet, watch some TV, and even be able to open the window to the beautiful jungle-like hospital garden with giant trees all around.  I could hardly tell I was still in the same building.

Thursday night, I slept much better, though it was still hard to get to sleep.  This time though, it was because it was hard to get comfortable and I was only kept awake by my own coughing.  I finally didn’t have to listen to the exorcist or babies or puking.  I even fell asleep to a movie on TV in English, which seemed like such a luxury.  Even so, I still didn’t get much sleep because the last nurse left my room around one in the morning, and the first one Friday came in around 7:30 to change my sheets.  Even if I could have slept well, it still wouldn’t have been for long.  But it just amazed me that after being in the room less than 24 hours, they came in to change my sheets without me even having to ask…a different world from the ER.  After I took a shower and crawled back into bed to try to sneak in a nap, another nurse came in with my breakfast.  I poured some juice and then started to fall asleep, until I was again awoken by another nurse with my antibiotics.  She insisted that I eat, so I took a bite and then shut my eyes again.  This game kept going on until we’re brought back to the beginning of this story with the happy man waltzing in speaking in English.

Soon after he came and gave me my prescriptions for two different antibiotics and a handful of other things, my host mom arrived to take me home.  I thought I would be so excited to finally get out of the hospital, but in the cab on the way home, everything just seemed so overwhelming and with every bump I was reminded of the pain in my chest.  Though I was a thousand times better than when I was admitted to the hospital, I soon realized that I was nowhere near well.  I was out of breath after walking the half-block to our apartment building.  I got to googling and talking to friends and found out that it can take several weeks to be completely healed after pneumonia.  I was going to easily tire for a while because my lungs still need time to get back to normal.

So, when I called my dad sobbing about an hour after I got home, begging to come back to the U.S., he made me realize something I hadn’t thought about before.  Obviously I knew I was emotional because the whole experience had been really stressful and scary, but he told me I just needed to rest because I was clearly sleep deprived.  Even though I knew it, I didn’t think about how little sleep I had gotten over the past four days.  I talked about it later too with one of my friends: I guess hospitals aren’t like you see in the movies, with people sleeping all the time.  My dad was beyond correct when he said hospitals are the last place to get good rest, but because I had been in bed the whole time, I hadn’t thought about it like that.

Today, Sunday the 29th, over a week out of the hospital, I am finally starting to regain hope for what I can do after I get better.  I have spent the last week mostly in my room, watching a lot of Mad Men on Netflix and not feeling so well, physically and mentally.

Monday, I went back to the hospital for my checkup.  Raquel came to get me in a taxi, and after a few hours at the hospital to hear that everything is progressing well, but that it’s still going to take a few weeks, I went to the IFSA office to talk to Mario.  I was basically dead-set on packing up and going home, and Mario could see that.  He was sad that I was so sad, and he told me it would ultimately be my decision, but he thought it would be better to wait it out a little bit.  He let me call from the office to my study-abroad advisor at Tulane, who I ended up talking with for quite a while.  Though my advisor, Josh, was telling me exactly what I didn’t want to hear, he really helped me at least take a step back before I jumped on the next plane home.  He reiterated that nobody here wanted me to leave, and that if I do stick it out, it’ll only make me that much stronger in the end.  I guess my pride got in the way a little bit after hearing that, because I didn’t want to feel like I failed at studying abroad.  hahaha

Even though everyone I talked to, my parents and advisors included, said that it is ultimately my decision and that  they understand why I would want to go home, I think it came down to my own disappointment in myself that I think I would have if I didn’t put in more effort to at least attempt to stick it out.  If I went home after two months with nothing to show of it but a bottle of wine from Mendoza and a mate gourd, and ended up wasting a whole semester, I think I would end up being disappointed in myself.  So, even though in the IFSA-sponsored cab ride home Monday from the office I almost fell asleep, and I didn’t feel up to going to my classes this week, I am going to do my best to take my time, but stick it out.

After all, I might be able to visit in the future, but my time now is already paid for, so there’s really no reason not to stay.  It is getting colder, which sucks because I hate the cold, but my tomorrow I’m Skyping with my stepmom to go through my closet and get a couple more things that they are going to send down to me.  I still want nothing more right now than to be home in the Spring weather, but I can finally see fun after sickness.  hahaha kinda corny, I know.  But maybe having a little bit more of my clothes here and a bottle of hot sauce will suffice for now until I can start enjoying myself again.  Last night (Saturday), I went out to eat with a couple of my friends, and probably ended up walking a total of six-ish blocks, and I didn’t feel like I was completely going to die when I got home!  I was definitely tired, but I saw an improvement from this past Monday.  I know it’s not going to be the easiest journey, but at least now I am ready to take it on.  Also, it doesn’t hurt that Mario calls me most days to check up on me, and he even invited me to come back to his Colonia plantation for a weekend (remember from one of my first posts?), which I am definitely going to take him up on.

I guess that’s all for now.  I wonder if anyone will actually read this whole thing… But for those of you who do, thanks I guess, and I hope I don’t scare anybody too bad.  I’m just here to share my experiences.

Thought I would take a break from writing and photographs and post a short video clip. Hope you enjoy the beautiful sights and sounds of Scotland that are a part of my life here!

P.S. Sorry for the sideways view on my face…I’m still figuring this video stuff out :p

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Here at the University of Edinburgh we have something called Innovative Learning Week. Classes are cancelled and the departments put on all these programs, trips, and events you can attend in the hopes that students will venture beyond lectures and acquire a new sort of knowledge by creative means. Most students just take that opportunity to travel or go home and visit their families but I looked into what they had to offer. Two particularly exciting opportunities I found were historic field trips, one and ecclesiastical tour to Melrose, Traquair, and Soutra Aisle through the School of Divinity, and the other to Stirling through the School of History, Classics, and Archaeology. The first trip was led by a Dr. Holmes, a former monk who gave up the holy life for a calling to teach theology; quite the character. Heading the second trip was Dr. Llewellyn-Jones, a most knowledgeable ancient history buff and brilliant lecturer.

Straddling the River Forth, Stirling was once the only gateway from the fertile central belt (wherein lies Edinburgh) to the rugged, mountainous north. Throughout history, kings, queens, nobles, clan chiefs, and soldiers fought for control of this area and because of that Stirling is littered with important remnants of Scotland’s past. It was here where some of the most significant developments in the evolution of the Scottish nation took place. In 1297, the Scots defeated the English at the Battle of Stirling Bridge under the command of William Wallace. In 1314 they fought and won again (this time led by Robert the Bruce) at the Battle of Bannockburn only a couple of miles away. Stirling enjoyed its golden age between the 15^th and 17^th centuries when its castle was the favored residence of the Stuart monarchy and the setting for the coronation of the young Mary, future Queen of Scots. The castle, standing beside a sheer 250 feet drop down the side of a crag, is quite the sight. Arguably the best in Scotland, its delightful gardens, endless battlements, hidden staircases, painted walls, the Stirling Head carvings, and the magnificent unicorn tapestries made it thoroughly inspiring.

Beyond the white and yellow washed walls of the great hall, gargoyles guard over the Royal Palace, one of the many building that belong to Stirling Castle

One of Stirling Castle’s many gardens; in it stood the most grand and beautiful tree I have ever seen

My favorite building: the Chapel of Stirling Castle

One of the 56 Stirling Heads, oak carvings that richly decorated the King’s presence chamber. Carved in the 1540s, they depict many of his courtiers, along with gods and heroes from Classical antiquity. Today 36 of the original survive and they  are  the supreme example of renaissance iconography in Scotland

Two of the 5 Unicorn Tapestries that hung in the Queen’s Inner Hall. Tapestries were extremely expensive and prized by the wealthy elites of the European Renaissance. These have been hand woven using techniques from the 1400; the originals, created in the 1500s, are displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

A statue of Robert the Bruce stands in the Castle Terrace, which looks out over the town of Stirling

If Stirling houses the greatest of Scotland’s castles (Edinburgh’s comes in a close second), then Melrose boasts the best of the Border abbeys. Tucked in between the Tweed and the gorse-backed Eildon Hills, the little sleepy town of Melrose charmed me with its high-standing Victorian facades and tweedy shops. However, it was its abbey that left me speechless. The red and pink-tinted stone ruins of Melrose Abbey soar above their riverside surroundings. It was founded in 1136 by King David I and was the first Cistercian settlement in Scotland. Its prosperity was made fragile by constant blows from the English; thus most of the present remains date from the intervening period when rebuilding abandoned the Cistercian austerity for the elaborate Gothic style. Aside from claiming the burial site of Robert the Bruce’s heart, Melrose proudly displays beautiful sculptural detail. Windows sprout delicate foliate tracery and angels playing musical instruments while the buttresses support crouching figures holding scrolls, mischievous gargoyles, and even pigs playing bagpipes.

The Eildon Hills looming over the pink and red stones of Melrose Abbey

 Melrose was built in 1136 and was the first Cistercian Abbey in Scotland. It is truly one of the most beautiful remains of history I have ever beheld

The ceiling boss of the abbey, depicting the head of Christ

Gargoyles prowled the highest points of Melrose Abbey, ready to spew water from their mouths when it rained

The courtyard

I can imagine Melrose Abbey must have been a place where monks and men felt God’s presence for hundreds of years

Finally, one of our more interesting visits was that paid to the obscure site of Soutra Aisle. Marked by only a small heap of rocks in the middle of the Borderland countryside (on what was a Roman road in ancient times), it was once one of the most important hospitals in medieval Scotland, the House of the Holy Trinity of Soutra founded c.1150. Recent archaeological investigation has unearthed ditches full of blood and body parts, anthrax spores, body parasites and evidence of opium, hemlock and medicinal plants from North Africa, telling us a lot about the life of the medieval hospital that once stood there and the Augustinian Canons who ran it. Fascinating…in my opinion.

Upon the dark hill of Soutra Aisle stands what was once one of the most prominent hospitals of the Medieval Ages. Run by the “Master & Brethren” of the Augustinian Order, this “once powerful” place of care for pilgrims and wayfarers left behind coagulated blood, preserved parasites, and other bodily remains that give us a clue into medicine in one of the mankind’s darkest ages

With that said I bid thee fare well! I think the University of Edinburgh will be happy to see my week was “innovative” after all, wouldn’t you agree?

Scotland is perhaps the most beautiful place I have ever stepped foot in. Nothing compares to the quaint fishing villages along its eastern coast, ancient religious sites of the south, the painted forests of the west, and the impending glens and mountains of the Highlands to the north. Around every corner of its hills and lakes stand ruins of once strong fortresses, holy sites that drew thousands of pilgrims, and isolated castles in vertigo from the eroded cliff faces that threaten their foundations from falling into the sea. The country’s history is embedded in the soil and woven into the landscape.

At every opportunity I have clambered onto a train or coach and taken off to explore all that Scotland has to offer. While it takes me nearly 22 hours to drive from my home in Ohio to Rice University in Houston, I can drive across Scotland in merely 3.5 hours, making day trips quite feasible and rewarding. Of course I don’t have a car, but I purchased a youth Railcard which grants me travel by train for very cheap and I have found that I quite enjoy travel by railway.

My first destination: St. Andrews, Scotland’s oldest university and town. Visitors are usually drawn here by the world-famous Royal and Ancient Golf Club. However, what called to me was the role of St. Andrews in the history of religion; after all I have no idea what ancient golf would even look like and have no inclination to find out. Its location on a wide bay on the northeastern coast of Fife make it absolutely stunning and an automatic hit for beach-lovers and those who can afford the luxuries of a wealthy and prestigious academic town. If anything I would say St. Andrews is confident, poised and well-groomed…if a little snooty.

St. Andrews from the West Sands beach

The photograph St. Andrews is known by, showing the Royal and Ancient Golf Club

A piece of St. Andrews oldest golf course

A part of St. Andrews University campus

What I find truly worth the exploration is not the dominance of gown over town but the way in which St. Andrews was founded. They say the custodian of St. Andrew’s bones, St. Rule or Regulus, had a vision in which an angel ordered him to carry five of the saint’s bones from Patras, Greece, to the western edge of the world. Here he was to build a city in his honor. Unfortunately, he was shipwrecked on the rocks close to the present-day harbor. Struggling ashore with his precious cargo, he proceeded to build a shrine to the saint. Today stands the ruins of what once was one of Scotland’s grandest cathedrals. At the time, St. Andrew became Scotland’s saint and the town its ecclesiastical capital.

The ancient cathedral of St. Andrews, where St. Rule landed and built a shrine

A shot through the cathedral window

However grand it may sound, St. Andrews is quite small. Containing three main streets it really was not too difficult to see in a day. My friends studying at the University of Edinburgh with me were saying how they didn’t know what students there did and that they themselves would get bored quite quickly. Nonetheless, I think the long stretches of sand on either side of the town and the quiet atmosphere of the living there would be enough to keep me quite content. I cannot say St. Andrews beats Sir Walter Scott’s “own Romantic town” of Edinburgh, but perhaps today (though I certainly do not believe it so) William and Kate’s romantic city take precedence over Scott’s.

The ruins of St. Andrews castle

East Sands beach

Wind-swept grasses covering the dunes

The West Sands, where a scene from Chariots of Fire was filmed

It seems I got carried away again. I will continue with my day adventures in the next entry. Oban, Stirling, Melrose, Roslin, Turnberry, and Aberdeenshire…you will have to wait to receive your due. Until then, or as the folk of the northwest would say farewell: “Beannachd leat.”

Hey everybody! Sorry for the delay between posts, been pretty busy with plenty of things lately! Since the last post we’ve had a few more weeks of class and about 10 days off for Easter break, which was a very nice change of pace. I’ll start with a little from my Easter holiday for those of you interested in hearing about some travels.

The first day of the break, April 7^th, actually fell on my birthday and we celebrated it in a little town called Rochester (same name as the town I grew up in…) which is about a two hour ride north of Melbourne. Me, Cam and Pat all spent the Easter/birthday weekend up in rural Victoria with our friends Tess, Xavier and Eliza from college. It was definitely nice to see a whole different side of the country by getting out of the city and it felt a lot more like home! While we were there we got to play with Xavier’s lambs, ride (and drive) the paddle steamer boats in Echuca, and saw a dragon parade in Bendigo. Not bad for only the first three days of holiday!

After our country Victoria trip, we headed back to college for a few days before hopping on a plane up north to Cairns for the remainder of the break. After seeing other people’s pictures and hearing their stories about the beautiful water and tropical climate of Cairns, we couldn’t have been more excited to lay around in the sun for the next 5 days! However, when we arrived, it was raining. And it kept raining…and raining…and raining. 5 days of holiday. 5 days of rain. What a rip-off! We decided that we had come too far though to let a little (a LOT) rain get in the way of a good time. To take advantage of our rainy conditions the second day there we booked a Daintree rainforest day adventure. This turned out to be a very informative and fun tour! We drove about two hours north of Cairns to cape tribulation while driving on a terribly small two lane road overlooking the beach the whole time. I sat in the front seat and it literally felt like a rollercoaster! The day was filled with a lot of highlights including seeing the spot where Steve Irwin was killed, stopping at the Mossman gorge, doing a crocodile spotting cruise, walking on the beach, trekking through the rainforest, and many more! I would definitely recommend doing a day trip like this if anybody heads up to Cairns any time soon. We spent the next few days exploring the city in the rain before our snorkeling trip on Sunday. Sunday’s Great Barrier Reef snorkeling trip was possibly the coolest experience of my life! Although the weather didn’t cooperate with us at all, forcing the boat to rock quite a bit and upset more than a few stomachs (including Cam’s unfortunately), it was still a great experience. Pat and I made 4 trips out of the boat each, at two different reef locations. We saw a sea turtle, stingray, plenty of nemo’s and other cool fish, and even had a 5 foot shark swim underneath us! This was advertised as one of the main draws of Cairns and now I can understand why! This day alone made the trip for me, and I am very glad that we had the chance to experience it.

Since I took so long between posts, I’ll make sure to get another blog up within the next week to talk more about things around college and experiences in Melbourne. I’ll also make sure to post some of our rainy Cairns pictures once I get them loaded! Other than that, getting excited for my parents to come visit, they arrive next Friday and are staying at college for the week! It will be nice to see them and I’ll be sure to keep them busy while they’re here. That’s all for now, expect to hear more very soon though!

Cheers,

Dan

Hello everyone!

This week you’re gifted with another video! I spent the first week of my Easter holidays in Berlin with some friends. Enjoy the video and the pictures! This weekend, I’m headed to Kingussie, Scotland to stay with a host family before welcoming my actual parents to London. Talk soon!

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So for the past 10 days my parents have been in Chile—prepare for the worlds to clash!! Well, tectonic plates clashed the second day they were here (minor earthquake) but other than that, we had a great time together here!

My parents are big travelers, and that is probably partially where I learned it from, so when they learned I was going to study abroad they were all about coming to visit me.  A month ago, I was kind of nervous about them coming here—I was still getting in a groove and was not 100% confident with my Spanish skills but all the same figured it would work out. It was a great week and a half! My host family here has been more than amazing, so I was somewhat excited for their meeting to see how they intereacted and as expected it was great. Two great families together = no language barrier. My parents are lacking in the Spanish language area—my mom knows known and my dad learned during this week that he remembered way more than expected from his high school classes! I did a lot of translating, which originally I was nervous about but turned out to be great. You really recognize how much you have learned when you are forced to translate! We did a lot of exploring in the Valparaíso and Viña del Mar area, and I showed them all my favorite spots which was also fun. Overall, I think they had a great time seeing how I live here and how well I am getting along here.

Over the weekend, we did a mini international bus trip just to put some more stamps in their passports—we went to Mendoza, Argentina! The bus trip to Mendoza was through the Andes and only about 6-7 hours long. Typically, a lot of people go through the night so they can wake up and save some travel time for activities, however we heard that the bus trip is worth seeing since you have to travel through the Andes Mountains to get there—and we definitely heard right! Due to Chile’s awesome bus system, you can pretty much travel anywhere easily in bus and thankfully, with my schedule this semester; I have no classes on Monday OR Friday—traveling is very easy! We headed out on Friday morning and came back Monday morning. The views out the window were gorgeous!

Once we got to Mendoza I was thrown for a bit of a loop with the Argentine accent. People tell me that Chilean spanish is more difficult to learn because of the modismos and the fact they blend a lot of words together, however when you’re used to it, it becomes a lot easier than the slurrying of the Argentine accent. Don’t get me wrong, they’re both unique in their own sense just definitely hard to get used to!

We did a lot of fun things in Mendoza, visited two vineyards and an olive oil fabrica and also visited the huge Parque San Martín that is in Mendoza which has a great zoo! Funny thing about their zoo, is that you can get a lot closer to the animals than you can in the states which is awesome! We ate at some amazing restaurants and visited all the plazas in the city. If you visit this city at all, the plazas and streets are lined with trees and it is gorgeous! I especially appreciated the fall temperatures and the colors of the trees. Another fun thing was we saw the tallest mountain in all of South America, which is located in Mendoza. I am already planning to go back with some friends and go hiking and paragliding and hopefully skiing later this winter.

My parents left yesterday and although it was bittersweet, they know I am doing well adjusting to life here and will be home (eventually )

For the most part, British food is the same as American food, but there are some foods that seem unique to the British palate or are food obsessions.

1) Curry
In Leeds, there are curry shops everywhere! Some of them are chain restaurants, like Jaldi-Jaldi, but the smaller takeaway (carryout) shops dot every corner. Chicken Tikki Masala is the #1 British food right now, not fish & chips (I’ll get to that later). For those of you who don’t know what curry is, it’s an oriental dish that is made of bite-size portions of meat simmered in a sauce & served with rice or noodles. The sauce is what makes it curry, and it’s full of spices and usually thick. I absolutely love it! My perception of its popularity may be a little skewed though, since my second family has a Jamaican heritage and likes things spicy (in general, the British are known to have a bland palate). I don’t think curry is very popular in the US, but if you want to try something new & amazing, find a good Indian restaurant.

2) Potatoes
I live in catered student housing, meaning I eat most of my meals in a cafeteria. So I’m not positive whether potatoes are a British food obsession or of they are just trying to fill is with carbs. Either way, they serve them every night & occasionally at breakfast. Most popular are chips (our equivalent to steak fries), but we also have them boiled, mashed, mashed then deep fried as fat stick, served as hash browns, or oven baked to crispy goodness. They haven’t served scalloped potatoes yet, so maybe that is an American thing.

3) Fish & Chips
Fish & chips is to the UK what pizza is to the US. If you don’t feel like cooking, get fish & chips takeaway. Skip the ketchup (ok, only sometimes…I still love the sweet, tangy dip), and go for salt & vinegar, freshly squeezed lemon juice, or a sweet chili sauce. All the above are delicious!

4) Pastries
When I hear the word pastry, my thoughts go towards a sweet dessert. Here, pastries are often meat filled and served for lunch. Instead of stopping at McDonalds for a quick bite, find a local pastry shop. Prices are really cheap, although its not the healthiest option, and you can eat on the go. While you’re there, see of they also sell flapjacks. Flapjacks are not pancakes, but rather oat bars, and extremely good!

5) Mint
Mint is something I would consider unique to the English palate…or at least it doesn’t really fancy mine. It’s most often served with lamb, as a dipping sauce or baked into the gravy of a mint pie. I’ve tried both ways, and neither was really a favorite, but perhaps it’s just me.

6) Tuna
Growing up, we didn’t eat a lot of tuna, so maybe that’s why I don’t fancy it. But tuna seems to be on every lunch menu here. They serve it traditionally on a sandwich…but the huge shocker for me was a tuna jacket potato. Jacket Potato = Baked Potato Why would anyone in their right mind want tuna on a baked potato? Curry jacket potato, yes please! Chili jacket potato, yum! Cheese jacket potato, yes! Tuna jacket potato……..what?!?

7) Scones
Loveliness! That’s all I need to say. In the US, I was used to the dry, hard, triangle shaped scones served at Starbucks that definitely must accompany a drink, but are good none the less. Here, scones are much lighter, softer, and just plane delicious. They remind me more of a sweet biscuit, which Britain doesn’t really an equivalent of. Biscuits & gravy is a crazy concept to them, because what they call biscuits we call cookies (or tea biscuits), and they don’t often use a white gravy. I was so happy to introduce that recipe to the Miller family! Nana & Pops, you would be well received in their house!

8) Spreads
The British love sauces and spreads! At the grocery store, a full isle will be dedicated to fruit preserves, chutneys, and other sauces. At a really nice restaurant we went to for Rachel’s birthday, once they delivered our meals the server came back with a plate full of spread & sauces for us to put on our plate. Oh, and they have marmite, which is a dark brown, sticky, salty, & savory spread made from yeast extract. I haven’t tried it yet, but it’s common knowledge that you either love it or hate it.

9) Custards
Pudding (which refers to dessert in general & not just the milk-based food) is often served with a custard, yoghurt, or other sauce to pour on top. It doesn’t matter if it is cake, pie, brownies, or sometimes fruit…drench it! I personally love this, since brownies in a bowl of milk and tres leches cake are some of my personal favorites. Ambrosia is a popular brand of rice puddings & custards that I love.

10) Italian-Style Pizzas
Although there are some US chain pizza restaurants (Pizza Hut & Dominos), I think Italian-style is more popular. By Italian-style, I mean thin crust and amazing toppings. I think I prefer it this way, because the toppings are usually fresh & the main attractions, as opposed to focussing on lots of crust, sauce, and cheese. But I also miss stuffed crust…which in my book reigns supreme.

The last time I wrote, I was just about to embark on the second IFSA-Butler trip of the semester: the trip to the Killary Adventure Center out in County Galway. And, as the title promised, it was definitely a weekend full of adventure! You may or may not have noticed the Hunger Games reference in my title (my friends and I went and saw the movie the night before the trip. Absolutely loved it!) and I have to say, there were a few times I felt like I could have been a tribute! Not that I ever felt like I would have to fight to the death or anything, but there was definitely some swimming, climbing and various other forms of serious athleticism going on. I even got to channel my inner Katniss Everdeen with a bow and arrow! But I’ll try not to get ahead of myself!

On Friday morning, we got up at the crack of dawn to take a nice, long bus ride across the country to the Killary Adventure Center, which is located in the one of the only fjords in Ireland. In case you didn’t know, a fjord is a narrow body of water between cliffs or mountains that has been formed by glacial movement and, at least from what I’ve seen, they’re absolutely gorgeous!  Since this was an all IFSA-Butler Ireland trip, they booked the place just for us, which meant that I got to meet a lot of people who are studying in other parts of the country! After the very long bus ride, we checked into our rooms and got to choose one activity for the evening. A few of my friends and I decided to hit the water for some kayaking and gorge walking. We weren’t really sure what they meant by gorge walking, but we were feeling optimistic and adventurous, so we figured why not check it out? I was a little nervous about the kayaking, at first. I’ve kayaked many times before, but my last few trips included an unplanned swim so I was really hoping not to embarrass myself on the very first night! I knew there would be plenty of time for that when it came to the climbing wall.  Anyway, we got down to the boathouse, changed into wetsuits, helmets and some extra shoes and hit the water. Since it was fairly windy (and quite chilly), I was a little cautious at first, but I eventually got the hang of it. Just like riding a bike! We floated down the fjord a little ways and stopped to check out some mussel farms before we turned around. As we paddled back towards shore, our guide said to us, “Okay, so we’ll put the kayaks up, walk over and do the short cliff jump and then we’ll finish off with the gorge walk!” You might be able to imagine the looks of concern that passed between my friends and me. This was the first we had heard about a cliff jump. Now, I wouldn’t say that I’m afraid of heights but I don’t tend to make a habit of jumping off tall things like cliffs. I was nervous, but I also figured that I would never again have to opportunity to jump off a cliff and go swimming in a fjord, so I was all for it! And it was totally worth it. The water was so cold that it was physically shocking, but it was exhilarating! The gorge walk was pretty incredible, too. We climbed up from the water through a stream running down the side of a gorge to get back to the road. I’ll probably never do anything like that again. Thank God they had extra shoes for us, though! We were soaked to the bone by the time we were finished.

Since we had the whole day, we got two activities on Saturday. In the morning, my friend Amy and I decided to give the zip line and high ropes course a shot. Both were really cool. I have always wanted to try a zipline, and I was not disappointed! It was almost relaxing to fly freely through the air. The high ropes course definitely required more strategic efforts. They had us do a challenge they called the Trapeze Jump. We each had a partner, and one at a time, we each had to climb up a pretty narrow pole onto a platform that looks like it’s meant to hold one person. Then the partner joined at the top. I climbed first and then Amy followed and by the time we were both on the platform, both of us and the pole were shaking like mad. Again, I’m not  really afraid of heights but it was a very small platform, high above the ground. And it was shaking. We were wearing harnesses, so we were totally safe, but my heart was still pounding. But they don’t call it the Trapeze Jump for nothing. The next step was to jump from the platform and grab hold of a trapeze hanging a few feet away. It was definitely much easier than shimmying up the pole, but unfortunately, I missed the trapeze so I just had to hang out in midair for a minute before they lowered me back to Earth. Amy did much better though and she managed to hang on! Next, a few of us tried the moving climbing wall which was way harder than it looked. Especially considering my complete lack of upper body strength. They tell you that it’s all in the legs, but you still have to hold on pretty tightly. I was very proud of myself, though, because I almost made it to the top. Apparently, Amy and I had not gotten enough climbing in the morning because after lunch we decided to do the climbing wall and the giant swing. We were actually way more interested in the giant swing, but we had to do the climbing wall first. I tried, but my arms were pretty tuckered out from the morning’s activities (plus there was my complete lack of upper body strength). I didn’t make it too far. But, again, I was proud of myself for trying! The giant swing was fun, though. We were strapped into a two person swing, so I felt like a toddler being buckled into a swing at the park, waiting for Mom or Dad to underdog me! Once we were strapped in, we were lifted up a pretty hefty cord and when we got to the top, we had to release ourselves for the big swing. It was so much fun! It felt like being on a roller coaster. And since we had a very small group, we got to go a few times. It was a nice and relaxing way to end the day of activities, especially since it required so little effort on our parts after a strenuous day of climbing! On Saturday night, they threw a disco that featured a 70 year old DJ and a cash bar and felt like an awkward, but fun, middle school dance. It was definitely entertaining, to say the least.

Sunday was another half day, so we only had time for a morning activity and Amy and I opted for archery and clay pigeon shooting! The archery was super fun. Like I said, I got to channel my inner Katniss and pretend that I was hunting game rather than just aiming at a target. I wasn’t even as bad as I thought I would be! No bull’s-eyes, but I got the second innermost ring on my first shot! The clay pigeon shooting was another story. I never thought I’d handle a 20 gauge shotgun, but apparently this weekend was a time for many firsts!  However, I was not very good with the gun. Plus, since I was still short one contact from my spring break mishap, I couldn’t see out of the eye that I was supposed to be aiming with. When mentioned this to the instructor, assuming he would let me off the hook after several failed attempts to take down the bright orange target, his simple solution was to switch to my left hand. Sure. Why not. Let the right-handed, half-blind girl handle a firearm with her left hand. No big deal. But, believe it or not, it actually worked! On my very last shot, I finally got a hit. Yet another moment of pride for my weekend. IFSA-Butler had been hyping up this trip from the application process, and it definitely lived up to expectations! I had been wary of what they exactly meant by “adventure” but I loved every minute of it, and everyone else I talked to felt the same! I would have loved to try some of the other activities like the hill walk (aka, mountain climb) or the turf challenge (5K through an obstacle course of muddy bogs) but there just wasn’t enough time. But I was so glad that I got to try some fun, new activities that I probably wouldn’t have gotten to do otherwise. I only wish that I had been able to take more pictures, but I didn’t want to risk carrying my camera around the whole place.

Fortunately, Adventure Weekend was not the last exciting moment of the semester! My dad got to come and visit a few weeks ago. It was so great to see him and to show him around the city! I took him to revisit a few of my favorite places like Howth, Dun Laoghaire and the Guinness Storehouse and we checked out a few new places like St. Patrick’s and Kilmainham Gaol, which was incredible. It is so amazing to think about all the history and tragedy that was housed within those walls. On Easter Sunday, Dad and I took a bus tour out to the Cliffs of Moher. We stopped at a few ancient castles and other famous sites along the way, but the Cliffs were, with good reason, the highlight of the trip. Even with the wind and rain, it was hard not to be in awe of the sight. Five miles of cliffs overlooking the sea from immense heights. It was truly incredible, very deserving of being the most visited tourist spot in the country.  Fortunately, I didn’t have too much class work to do over the long weekend, so I was able to treat it like another mini spring break! We got to spend some time listening to great music and drinking some great Guinness.  It was the definition of great craic! I was so glad that he got to visit and experience the place where I’ve been lucky enough to live for the past three months!

Unfortunately, after Dad left it was back to reality for me. The semester is definitely winding down. I am officially finished with all my classes for the semester. Next week is revision week, followed by one week of exams. I already have one exam completed and on Wednesday, I submitted my final essay for another class, so I’m two classes down and three more to go! Just a few more weeks to go! It’s been a little difficult adjusting to the Irish style of classes and learning how to study for my exams, but I think I’ve gotten the hang of it and I’ll be done before I know it. Less than a month and I’ll be back in Lawrenceburg! I’m excited to see all my friends and family, but I’m going to miss Dublin so much! I can’t believe how quickly time has passed. I feel like I have been able to do and see so much, but there are still things that I really want to do. Fortunately, I really lucked out with my exam schedule and I have an entire week between my last exam and my flight home, so I’ll be sure to fit in any last minute activities and have plenty of time to say good-bye to the city that I have come to love!

Sláinte!