Abroad & Alive

Dia dhuit (that would be 'hello' in Irish Gaelic!). Here's the recap of the last few days. Decided to try and keep this journal at least semi-regularly updated while I'm in Waterford, Ireland for four months. I want to have some memories to look back on, in my own words.

Tuesday/Wednesday, 19/20-01-2010:
Day o' travel. Left Buffalo at 11:41AM. Definitely cried at goodbye with Mom (she started it). Arrived to JFK. Met up with Elizabeth, Garrett, and Jenn. Wandered about and got to our plane.
Left about 5:45PM. Hottest flight ever (never been so uncomfortable on a flight). Wicked cute baby in front of us that loved Elizabeth and I. Played trivia with Garrett, watched 'The Ugly Truth', and watched (some of) '500 Days of Summer' all on our in-flight TVs. Ended up feeling incredibly nausea and ill with about an hour or so left on the flight.
Arrived in Dublin about 5AM or so local time. Still pitch black & was misty rain (as we expected). Immigration guy was super helpful & we had no problems (which we had been prepared to have). Got on our bus to go to Waterford. Started to not feel so great again about a half hour in. The bus ended up getting filled with high school students (no school buses over here!). Waited till they got off to get sick. Definitely vomitted more than once in plastic bags. Awful, just awful. The most winding, twisting, bumpy, up/down/all-around roads are in Ireland and definitely felt every move of the bus.
Arrived in Waterford at about 11AM or so? Don't really know. Met Joe who is our college supervisor while here. Good guy. Gave me a ride to our housing because I apparently looked like death (and felt like it too). Cute apartment building (all students). Went to our rooms (we were all in different ones, which we won't stoked on then but are OK with now). Took a few hour nap (I wanted to sleep off the nausea; didn't happen).
Met back up with Joe & the other four at about 4PM. Got the low down on our school-related work (papers, internships, expectations, etc.). Then set out to explore a bit of the city. The city centre has TONS of shopping/food and is prety awesome. Had a sandwich with just ham & butter with water to drink for dinner, much to scared to try and eat anything else (especially not the greasy stuff all around).
Came back to the building and went up to Elizabeth's room. Met her roommates (Sinead & Dan). Both are super, super fun. Ended up hanging out there for the night. They had friends come over who got high (weed & many other drugs are completely legal here) and were soooo entertaining. Elizabeth & I were dying laughing at them/with them. Good guys. Went to bed (finally) at like 1AM.

Thursday, 21/01/2010:
Had planned to meet up with everyone to go out. Without a cell phone or alarm clock, ended up getting woken up at about 1:30PM by Elizabeth. Got ready. Headed out to immigration to get registered. After a bit of wandering & asking for directions, found the Garda station. Turns out the guy couldn't do our papers then. Sad.
Went back to the shopping district. Picked up cell phones from Meteor (one of the popular companies here) and they have decent plans (we get free calls/texts to others on Meteor, and have 25c text to US & 50c per minute calls to US. However, Mom edited her Verizon plan back home so she calls me and it's cheaper for her while not charging me anything). Also got a cute rain coat & soft purple blanket from Penneys (not JC Penny's, just Penneys). Did a tiny bit of grocery shopping at Dunne's (just enough for the night).
Came back to the building. The five of us got together and made pasta with alfredo & chicken for dinner. Delicious. Split up a bit and then Elizabeth, Garrett, and I decided to go back out on the town. It started with wanting to buy alcohol (which they stop selling at 10PM here, yea! yea!) and ended with us deciding to go to bars/pubs.
First stop was Wacky Apple. Awesome joint. Dark, relaxed, laid back, cool bartender. First drink in Ireland? Coors Light. Yea, you read that right. Second drink was Bulmers (Irish cider, like a sweet champagne taste almost). After WA (which closes at midnight, yea! yea! Brutal here!) we went to some little bar. Met an older drunk Irish man who had us try Power's whiskey (sipping whiskey) and who also had a wicked thing for Elizbathe (HILARIOUS to Garrett & I). For the record, Dana does not do whiskey. Made it through maybe 3/4 of it, cringing the whole time. Ended up leaving that bar and going in to the lounge next door (which we later found out was connected from the inside as well). This lounge had a live cover band and it was pretty fantastic. At one point in the night met a boy from Amherst, NY and found out he too is here for the semester and staying at the same place as us. Insane. The guy he was with also developed a thing for Elizabeth and is now trying to ask her out on a date via text. Funny.
Story of the night. Went to the bathroom the first time we were at the bar/lounge. Drunk girls were singing Sarah McLachlan in it. When I went back the second time, approxmiately 40 minutes later with Elizabeth, they were still in there. And had recruited strangers to sing with them. I wish this was a joke but it is not. Fantastically hilarious.

Friday, 22/01/2010:
Woke up not feeling so hot. Possibly due to the alcohol, more than likely due to the odd sleep pattern/lack of sleep. Got ready and met up with Kate, Jenn, and Garrett to go to the other WIT campus to get our international student papers. A bit of a walk, but was super fun. Went past Waterford Crystal as well as a multi-sport complex. Beautiful area; not as consumer driver as the City Centre, but what you expect of Ireland (hills, green, quaint houses).
Made it to the campus to find the office closed for lunch. Awesome. Hit up the student cafe/restaurant for our own food. Tried a ham sandwich & some spring onion and cheese chips. Bad. They like to put shredded yellow and white cheese on stuff here, and it is STRONG. Do not like at all. The chips were a bit too onion for me. Probably ate only a 1/4 of my entire lunch. Still had time to kill so hung around on campus (I napped, they played games on cell phones). Finally went to the office only to have to fill out a 3-second paper. Fantastic. Found out we can't get our student ID cards because no one knows our registration information (we're only partially/temporarily registered so that's just great(not)).
Began to walk back towards the city. Ended up back in the shopping district to finally pick up converters for our wall plugs (need to go get another one as 1 is just not cutting it with all the stuff I have to plug in). Went to Spar, a mini mart type place right by the apartments. THERE WAS TIM HORTON'S!! Well, OK, it was only a little section disply (like the mini one's at Top's) but still, holy crap! IN IRELAND!!! Made my day, can't stop talking about it. Garrett & I decided to finally eat again (seeing as lunch was a bust) and got meatball subs thinking they'd be OK. Yea, not so much. It's not marinara sauce but instead like a sweet sauce. They once again used yellow and white cheese which was nasty. Also, there were strips of onions on it? WTF? Barely ate 1/4 of it as well before putting it in the fridge and pretending it wasn't there.
Hooked up with Garrett & Elizabeth to finally go real grocery shopping at Lidl (a German version of Aldi's is the best way to explain it). Good times in the store. Ended up getting a lot of bulk food to split amongst ourselves, and thus save money all around.
Decided to do group taco night. All got together in Elizabeth's room again and went to town. Once again, delicious. However, the shredded cheese was once again nasty and sorta ruined the taco for me (thankfully I put only a tiny bit on because I had a feeling it wouldn't end well).
After dinner, proceeded to plan the trip for Saturday to Kilkenny. Originally booked a hostel (which we had been told was the best) but then found out the bus line doesn't run on Sunday's back to Waterford till amost 11PM. Considering we start internships Monday morning, not the best plan. So ended up deciding on the 10AM bus in and the 6PM bus back.

Saturday, 23/01/2010:
Woke up and got ready to meet down in the lobby at 9 to walk to the bus station. Ended up seeing the American boy I met in the bar again with a girl. Turns out they, along with 2 other Americans and a Canadian (the rest of the North American students here) were also going to Kilkenny. So crazy/funny. Finally got all four of us together (Kate, Elizabeth, Garrett, myself) and headed across town to the bus.
Got on said bus and went for another long, windy, up/down/all-around drive. Began to feel awful about 30 minutes in. Not cool. And then it happened. We missed our stop because I had counted how many away it was. Ended up in Carlow, but thankfully a bus going back was only 5 minutes away. The nice man let us on for free, understanding the situation. And thus, we made it to Kilkenny.
According to Kate's Ireland book, the best restaurant in town was Langton so we went. And it was AMAZING. I had a grilled chicken panini (chicken, mozzarella, and honey mustard mayo). DELIIOUSLY AMAZING AWESOME!!! It was the first meal (outside of the ones we cooked ourselves) that I a) liked the taste of entirely and b) my body did not reject later. Perfect start to the day. Everyone else loved their meals as well, and I definitely agree it's the best eat in town.
First stop, Kilkenny Castle. A CASTLE!!! I SPENT THE DAY IN A CASTLE!!! It's soooo cool. Toured it for a bit, asking questions and reading up on history. It blows our mind so much history is all around here (when in America we think things from 1910 are old, try 1500s!) and so beautiful. Beautiful gardens/grounds. Also they had on display large angel statues that were painted (sorta like the Buffalos painted around the city). We got to sign one, the Kilkenny Angel, which is also apparently going to be moved around Ireland on display.
After the castle, decided to explore the town. Asked a women in a shop places to go and she suggested the old churches. Checked out two of them (Catholic and Dominican). So insane. The Catholic church had a crazy old cemetery on it's grounds and the Dominican church had wicked awesome stained-glass windows. Very beautiful, traditional, old, and awe-inducing.
Explored the town all day. Went in shops. Bought some postcards to scrap book with. Kate began her pint glass collection. Got an eclair from an actual pastry shop (insanely perfect in my mouth). Stopped in at a local pub for a drink (well, Garrett tried the local beer which he said was good and the rest of us did not).
Hopped the bus home and slept the whole way back practically. Woke up just as we reached Waterford. Got back to the building and decided to have grilled cheese & tomato soup. Elizabeth (thank God) had bought white cheese which turned out to taste just like American yellow (though it's not called that) so I could enjoy a sandwich. Seriously, the cheese here is so not right most of the time and it makes me really sad because I LOVE cheese.
Everyone else decided to go out at 10PM but due to exhaustion I opted out. Everyone else so far as taken a day/night off somewhere, and tonight is mine.
So here I sit, uploading pictures, writing this, watching Comedy Central, and just being.

Here's some general things that are spread across many days:
All our roommates go home on weekends. They live anywhere from 1-4 hours away, but they all go home. It's odd. Also, I've only briefly met one of my roommates (Emma) and have not met the other at all (Damien).
Heat & hot water. Oh god. My room sucks for heat as my heater does not work well, if at all. The building itself is not well heated and thus hallways are freezing too. It is NOT fun, at all. Now, to get hot water you have to set a timer thinger. I (thankfully) got a hot shower on the first try, but no one else seems to be able to work it properly. I'm scared it may have just been a fluke and I will later on tonight finally experience the freezing cold shower that everyone else has had. It's just so weird to us because we're used to these things just happening/being there. But no, because they use sooo much electiricty here (as in all outlets have on/off switches) you have to turn on things/preheat them all.
The internet is awful. Have to plug in to the walls, no wireless here. It is as slow as dial-up in my opinion. Apparently it's just the way the building's internet is, as Sinead said back at her house her broadband is wicked fast. It really sucks. I tried to Skype with mom and grandma last night but the calls kept getting dropped after 30 second. I could hear mom's voice a bit but I never once got her video up. Apparently video chats are just too much for the internet to handle here.
The style here clothing wise is much different. VERY rarely see any girls in jeans & a hoodie (besides us). Very much in to knee high boots over pants/leggings. Always with accessories (especially scarves or headbands). Not necessarily dressed up, but always put together.
They serve their beer cold just like us. Also, they have a big selection of beer and liquor. Have no idea where the myths of the opposite came from.
The weather is doable. Today was chilly for sure and foggy. Have had a couple sunny days and only one truly rainy day (one was misty at best). Should have packed more hoodies, have no idea why I didn't.

Till next time,
D