Brno Way! and other Gallivantings

I'm STILL the worst blogger in the history of studying abroad. Excepting those who don't even attempt to keep a blog, I mean. If by chance you happen to see this, cheers to you for trying to stick by me, and my sincerest apologies for my lack of adventuring stories. It's largely been the amount of adventuring that has kept me from writing down my stories - I've traveled every weekend since the 17th of September, and when I'm actually in Limerick I'm furiously catching up on schoolwork or sleep. With stories this exciting (for me, at least) I also don't want to miss any bits or short-change you as my audience, and that takes quite a while...each of my weekends could have their own BOOK if I could manage it!

Solution (mostly my mom's, but I'll take some credit): I have half-finished entries about almost every weekend, so I'll start posting as I work on them, meaning they'll keep evolving over time. Obviously a bit out of date, but still good? For the moment, a quick run down of all the amazing places I've been blessed with the opportunity to see!

Galway, Ireland
Cork, Ireland
Waterford, Ireland
Killary Harbour, Ireland
Edinburgh, Scotland
Oslo, Norway
Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Berlin, Germany
Belfast, Northern Ireland
Cobh, Ireland
Adare, Ireland

Lots to write about! For now, this past weekend I was able to spend Thanksgiving with my parents!  They celebrated their 25th anniversary this summer, so they came over and toured the southern half of Ireland for a few days before ending in Shannon, a city about 30 minutes away from Limerick. We had Thanksgiving dinner in a castle (!!!), and spent the weekend wandering around Limerick, Galway, Cobh and Cork. Cobh (pronounced "cove," the "bh" makes a v sound in Irish) is a small village in the southwest of Ireland known for its huge natural harbor, which made it Ireland's biggest port in the early 1900s. The town is famous today because it was the last port of call for the Titanic before the ship headed towards America, and because when the RMS Lusitania was torpedoed 26 miles off the coast, the survivors, wounded, and dead were recovered by the fishermen of Cobh and brought to the town for care. Adare is a tiny little town about 25 minutes from Limerick, and it's exactly what you'd think of when you picture a quaint little Irish village - thatched roofs, church ruins, village park with a burbling little stream, everything! We didn't get to spend too much time there because it was a Sunday evening and everything was closing, but I'm absolutely going back. :)

THIS weekend, I made a last minute, executive decision to make one final travel splurge and head to Prague!! Not exactly Brno, like the title says, but still the Czech Republic, right? I'll have to come up with something a little more clever for the actual accounting. Prague, though, has been on my list of places to see the entire semester, but with my other trips it didn't look like I'd make it. Egged on by several friends and family members (my mother's response to asking if I should clean out my bank account to afford the trip was "Sounds like fun...Merry Christmas!"), I'll be hopping a flight Thursday and joining up with the WSA Prague tour! More about WSA when I get around to Amsterdam, though. Prague should be amazing, especially decorated for Christmas. I'm crossing my fingers for snow! I've heard the Christmas markets in Prague are absolutely incredible, and if they're anything like Belfast or even Galway, it will be completely true. Now that I finally have my camera back (!!!!!!!) there will be plenty of pictures!

Beklager, jeg snakker ikke norsk...

I'm keeping up pretty well so far with my mid-term resolution to update the blog more - look at me go! I'm still working on hashing out stories from my previous travels, but might as well not keep youall waiting longer than you have to for new stories!

hopefully real Norwegian trolls will be cooler
 than this guy - Dad doesn't look scared
 at ALL! <3 Disney World (circa 2000)

In case you didn't understand the title of this post (if you actually did, you get a prize. What, I'm not sure, but I'll figure out something), the translation according to BBC Languages is "I'm sorry, I don't speak Norwegian." You guessed it, I'm headed off to NORWAY!  As the birthplace of Road Dahl, Liv Ullman, Knute Rockne, and the inventor of the Swiss cheese slicer, I have high expectations for this country - I'm headed to the land of my forefathers for culture, cold, and MORE FJORDS!!! 

The previously mentioned prestigious citizens and geographic features aside, this weekend should be rather memorable for three reasons: 

1. My travel companions are the dynamic duo themselves, Jack "the Shanimal" Shannon and Brian "Murphy Shuffle" Murphy (and two of their friends from NUIG, but I don't know them yet).

2. My part in this adventure began less than two weeks ago in the middle of nowhere next to Ireland's only fjord via smartphone at approximately 2:30am.

3. With roughly 12 hours until I leave Limerick, we still have no accommodations, no itinerary, and no plan - and I LOVE it! (I do have the emergency number for the US embassy in Oslo, so we're good to go)

Wish me luck, and Alt for Norge!

***EDIT MONDAY 24 OCT: Due to a history essay due Thursday afternoon, my post about Norway will have to happen after that, since I procrastinate like crazy.***

to Arthur!

the man himself, Arthur Guinness

What’s the most important holiday of the year in Ireland? Arthur’s Day! Okay not really, but it sure felt like it! Arthur’s Day commemorates the birthday of Arthur Guinness, the original brewer of (you guessed it) Guinness beer. Every September 22^nd, pubs, bars, and clubs all over Ireland throw huge parties and concerts to celebrate the day, with more advertising than I’ve ever seen for a holiday!

I first heard about Arthur’s Day the day I arrived in Dublin. After seeing bits of the city, our jet-lagged group collapsed in the lounge of our hotel where Arlene (one of the IFSA staff) was waiting for stragglers to arrive. She told us a number of places to go in Galway and Limerick, things to see, cities around Ireland we should visit, why Irish people complain about the weather in every conversation, etc. She was ASTOUNDED that none of us had ever heard of Arthur’s Day, and went on and on about how it’s the best holiday ever and Limerick was throwing a HUGE concert with amazing acts and it was going to be absolutely  great!

 When Arthur’s Day rolled around, the whole Limerick group purchased tickets for the event/concert taking place at Dolan’s Pub, one of the places Arlene had recommended.  As I’m sure you can imagine, the festivities stared early in the day, even for a Thursday. I have class until 3:00pm on Thursdays, and walking between every class I saw students carrying plastic cups of Guinness out from the campus bar! Guess Ireland doesn’t have much of an open container law?

 Arthur’s Day’s most important tradition is a toast at 17:59 (or 5:59pm, if you’re not used to military time) in honor of the first batch of Guinness being brewed in the year 1759, so we made sure we were downtown by about 5:30pm. We walked in the door of Dolan’s and were greeted by Arthur Guinness himself! He looked pretty good for being 252 years old, and once the bartenders told us we’d get a free pint of Guinness for “making yourselves known to Arthur,” we immediately took the photo op!  Who can turn down free Guinness, especially on Arthur’s Day?  

The rest of the night was a huge mix of toasts to Arthur – who was pretty well drunk by the time we left for the evening – and moving between the concert in the Dolan’s Warehouse and the traditional Irish music, or “trad” music, performance in the regular pub.  To get to the concert initially, we were told to walk around the block to an alternate entrance where they were taking tickets. I had just gotten my full pint of Guinness, and since the doormen usually guard the real glass pint glasses like the Crown Jewels, I was nervous about this whole idea. We walked up to the front door and the man said “the door’s just around the corner on your left, be sure to take your drink with you!” Strange, but Marion and I were ecstatic about getting real glasses out the door of a pub! BIG deal.  The concert wasn’t actually all that amazing and the girl singing was dressed like Harry Potter a bit, which was definitely weird, but everyone celebrating was really friendly and welcoming! I even capped off the evening at Dolan’s with a Jameson and Coke – a little pricey, but when better than Arthur’s Day in Ireland??

ATTENTION, ATTENTION!

UL library (not my picture, I'm not THAT good)

Dear family and others,

I am indeed alive, and currently back in Limerick, Ireland! I apologize for the SEVERE lack of blog entries - I've had the opportunity to go on several wonderful trips and it's just overwhelming to think about sitting down and attempting to summarize them in a few paragraphs when I want to write BOOKS - which obviously I don't have time to do, which compounds the problem - and so on and so forth.

However, having recently (within the last few hours) returned from a weekend trip, I think if I keep along the track of NOT writing things down, I never will because they'll get so gosh-darn overwhelming.

MEANING THAT: starting tomorrow when I hole myself up in the UL library for hours and hours upon end, my study breaks will be filled with telling stories of my recent adventures to Galway, Cork, Waterford, Killary, and Edinburgh, as well as hopefully some interesting anecdotes about life in general in Ireland.

You'd think I'd have gotten around to this stuff sooner, but obviously not. SOON I promise! :)

[The Cliffs of] Moher Adventures in Ireland!

Stone Fort

Above all else, I’ve discovered that Ireland is windy.  My new friend Sarah called Friday evening and asked if I wanted to join her and some friends on a bus tour the next day to the Cliffs of Moher and a few other places.   I’ve been told several times I need to see the Cliffs, so why not?  After a few registration mishaps, I met Sarah and her roommate Steph Saturday morning to catch our bus at the UL flagpoles.  Because the bus tour was through an independent company and not the school, I assumed the other passengers would be a mixture of people of all ages and from a bunch of places – as it turned out, they were all students at UL! Another study abroad company, AIFS, had booked most of the tour seats so my entire bus was other undergrad students from around the States.  The bus ride started out a little weird because all of the AIFS students knew each other and the only seats available were spread throughout, meaning I couldn’t sit near the only people I DID know. One of the reasons I decided to go was to meet more people at UL and what better way than having to meet people? I never did learn my seatmate’s name but she lives in Virginia, studies in South Carolina, and has no real interest in rocks. Luckily I LOVE rocks, because that was kind of the focus of the tour!

Our first stop was a stone fort. Located somewhere in County Clare (I have no idea where precisely we were), the fort was in a farmer’s backyard. Everywhere you look in Ireland there are stone ruins from various times, so the farmer thought nothing of it until he was digging around and came across more evidence of human occupation. It turns out that the fort we saw is the oldest and most complete in County Clare and they think all of Ireland! I was fascinated by the limestone used to build the fort and how it has stood up over time (for the non-geo people, limestone wears away fairly quickly relative to most other rocks) but it didn’t prove to interest most of the rest of the group for long – maybe because some of the “stops” on the guided tour were like number 8: “The Elderberry Bush.” Not really the most interesting way to present information, but still cool. The café proved the be the best part of this particular stop; we all opted for coffee to warm up from the wind, and the snacks looked incredible! It was most likely the BEST mocha I’ve ever had in my entire life, and Sarah and I split a small cheesecake made with Bailey’s – YUM. The cheesecake was more fluffy and kind of like Cool Whip than I’m used to and the crust was a little crunchier, which made for some incredible cheesecake!

Sarah and I at the tomb

Our driver stopped again about ten minutes up the road and informed us that we were about to see some crazy rocks – PERFECT! We had stopped at the ruins of a tomb, but not a tomb like you might imagine.  Shaped like a miniature Stonehenge almost, the tomb would have held only cremated remains, and only those of very important people in the society. Lesser people were also cremated, but not given the big memorial site.  Our guide said the horizontal stone is estimated to weigh over two tons, causing many archaeologists to speculate about how in the world it was placed on top. My guess? It was built like the pyramids – aliens helped them. The rocks surrounding the tomb were really amazing also. The landscape is described as “limestone pavement” because there’s not really much else! Huge limestone sheets are separated by tunnels and such cut into the rock by the movement of wind and water with almost no soil or vegetation anywhere. There’s a little bit of ground cover that can grow in the cracks as soil and debris gets stuck, but for the most part you just see grey rock. It’s especially astounding seen from far away – on the drive to our next stop there was a giant hill on the opposite side of the valley that looked like it was covered in snow, but the guide said it was all limestone!

From the limestone pavement we headed down towards Galway Bay and into a little town along the very edge where we stopped for lunch at Monk’s Pub. Galway Bay is known for its fishing and other sea life, and how could I say no to fresh seafood?  For the foodies in the audience, I had delicious fresh fish and chips served with a salad of a bunch of different fresh vegetables paired with a “Bailey’s cream coffee” (pictures included, don’t worry!). Sarah’s roommate Steph and Steph’s friend Lauren turned out to be from Perth, Australia, leading to interesting discussions when Halie mentioned s’mores. S’mores turned to Peeps (yep, the garishly-colored marshmallow things) which led to the Easter bunny vs. Easter bilbys and then to numbats. The last two are Australian animals, and if you haven’t heard of them, Google them. It’s worth it, cross my heart!

New friends! From left: Steph, Lauren, and Halie

With full (almost to bursting!) stomachs, our guide trundled us back onto the bus to start the trek up to the Cliffs of Moher. He thoughtfully took the scenic route which gave us the most incredible views of the coastline, the surf, ruined castles, cows, sheep, waterfalls, and more. We were allowed two separate stops to “stretch your legs and you’re very welcome to take a few photos if you like,” which I did like, thank you very much. The views were stunning; beaches running from the hills all the way to the ocean, giant round boulders left by glaciers that our guide referred to “giants’ footballs,” more SHEETS of limestone pavement, and at the second, a cliff face dropping straight into the ocean at least 200 feet below us. The wind at the cliff stop was so strong that I was getting blown from side to side while walking, and we had to crawl on hands and knees out to the edge to avoid being blown straight off the cliff! Note to self: next time I go sightseeing here, I’m packing a headband and bobby pins. The pictures are pretty funny because my hair is OUT OF CONTROL!

Oh you know, just falling off a cliff

the Cliffs of Moher

Danielle and Halie being blown down the hill

From our first glimpse of cliffs, we headed straight up to the Cliffs of Moher; the reason I came on the trip, and WORTH IT. There really aren’t words for these cliffs. Ranging in height from 120 meters (almost 400 feet) to almost 220 meters (just a little above 700 feet), they are one of the most spectacular things I’ve EVER seen – no wonder they’re in the running for one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World! The geology major part of me loved that every single layer of rock was visible from ocean level up to the very top. When I say ocean, the cliffs look straight out over the Atlantic Ocean, with the Aran Islands just visible on the right side (that’s the islands where Irish sweaters are from).  Again, the wind was absolutely unbelievable. Halie and I had a difficult time walking up to the observation paths, but it was nothing compared to the wind at the top! On the far side of the observation tower built by the O’Briens the wind was so intense that I was leaning forward at at LEAST a 60° angle (from the ground, not from vertical) just to stay standing up! One of the girls said she snapped a few pictures of us trying to stand in the wind that I’ll post once I find who took them. Looking out across the ocean, you could see a huge rainshower headed in toward us (which was really cool watching it stir up the water as it moved!), so we hightailed it back along the path – helped by the wind, of course – to the underground/in hillside visitors’ center to warm up with tea and hot chocolate and wait out the rain before heading home. For an impromptu trip, Saturday turned out to be one of the best adventures I’ve had in Ireland!

PS_If the title of this post doesn’t make sense, it’s because “Moher” is pronounced like “mower” like what you cut the grass with. If you say it quickly, it’s kind of like “more” – at least in my head. J

Life in Limerick

Dia is Muire dhuit!

the entrance to Dromroe Village

Translation: The blessings of God and Mary on you!  Your response should be something along the lines of the Irish for “The blessings of God and Mary and St. Patrick on you.” My lecturer pronounced it for us but my translation skills weren’t quite up to taking that one down yet, so it’s quite all right if you don’t get it right. But anyhow.

This weekend marked the end of my third week in Ireland. It’s crazy how time is already flying by! I feel like I just landed Dublin, because I’m DEFINITELY still getting my wits about me. I’m starting to feel comfortable in Limerick; I’m understanding the bus schedule, I can find the Starbucks and the campus bar (that sounds very un-adapting-like but they’re amazingly good reference points), I’ve (eventually) found all of my classes, and I’m getting the hang of using Euros (they’re feeling less like Monopoly money which is both good and dismaying). There’s an unimaginable amount of things I’m NOT used to, but I’ll take my victories where I can get them!

Roommates: Nik (left) and Matt (center)

My living arrangements are definitely helping to facilitate my adjusting. I was assigned to the student “village” of Dromroe which consists of eight or nine apartment building-types with between 8 and ten apartments in each one. Most of the apartments hold six students, but of course I can never be normal – my apartment is on the ground floor of my building and it’s a disability apartment. Because it has to be wheelchair-accessible, all of the light switches and counters are extra low and the apartment is very open and roomy. My bedroom in particular is one of two in the apartment for wheelchair-bound students, and is almost twice as large as my friends’ rooms.  Each person in Dromroe gets their own bathroom (HUGE perk in itself), but mine is especially big because again, it has to fit a wheelchair (even BIGGER perk!). I was excited and a little nervous to learn earlier this summer that my roommates could be Irish students, international students, graduate students, you name it. I wasn’t sure how that would go, but it turned out wonderful so far: the two girls, Jillian and Meabh, are both first-year Irish students, and the two guys, Matt and Nik, are graduate students from Philly and Bulgaria, respectively.  Having Matt in the house has been the biggest blessing I could ever imagine. I love meeting people and learning about cultures and such, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone who thinks in American – and even better, in Pennsylvanian!  That may sound silly, but it’s comforting to be able to talk football or American Idol or even just rag on him about saying “water” funny, without having to explain every other word. Case in point, I was telling a story about a night out and referred to a guy at the bar as a “jag-off” (I’m from Pittsburgh? How could you tell?); the blank looks I got from my Irish and Bulgarian roommates were almost comical, but Matt just went right on with the conversation, saying how rude and irritating this particular person had been. Thank God for Philadelphia – and it’ll be awhile til I say THAT again!

the Shannon River (it's SUNNY!)

The weather has been much like expected, meaning the days are in the 50° to mid-60° range and mostly cloudy. It rains on and off but usually only twenty minutes on, thirty minutes off, five minutes on, two hours off, and so on.  I’ve been surprised at how little it’s rained since I’ve been here, actually; I was expecting downpours far more often than we’ve had, and there’s been fairly long periods of blue sky and sun almost every day. Some of my pictures you might not even believe were taken in Ireland! I’ll get larger amounts of photos up soon hopefully, but I’m still trying to figure out where exactly they GO on my computer when they leave my camera. Puzzling to be sure, but I’ve been asking around for someone who knows HPs better than I.  

Last but not least, a challenge for you, dear audience.  As many people remind me, Limerick is not only a city in Ireland but also a format of poem. I’ve not seen many limericks since I’ve been here – only one on the side of a building – so to make up for it, hit me with your best shot! There will be a prize for the best one, probably along the lines of a postcard of sheep or something similar, so I’m expecting your best efforts! I really appreciate the comments and emails from everyone, and I apologize if I don’t respond promptly (or at all, sometimes I just completely forget). I get crazy busy and wrapped up in figuring out another culture that’s close but just different enough to throw you for a loop now and then, but I really do love hearing from you!

Sláinte!

(That one means “health!”, kind of like a “cheers!”)

Dublin' the Fun!

Spending two and a half days in Dublin shouldn’t be allowed - there is FAR too much to see to manage in that short a time! My semester here was arranged through the Institute for Study Abroad at Butler University (BEFORE Butler beat Pitt basketball), and my first few days in Ireland were an orientation to Irish culture with the IFSA staff in Dublin. It turned out to be a really great introduction, because it allowed me time to ease into a new country before being thrown into a new university as well. The staff planned roughly equal amounts of meeting time and free time, giving us the opportunity to explore Dublin a bit on our own. 

Trinity College

Upon arriving in Dublin on Monday morning, we were immediately whisked off to our hotel, the O’Callaghan Mont Clare. I’d been awake for roughly 24 hours by this time so I was dragging quite a bit, but fortunately breakfast was the first order of business. Geoff and Maria explained a little of our orientation schedule over breakfast, including that it had changed quite a bit because of the hurricane and the scattered arrivals of our schoolmates over the next few days, and then turned us loose from 10am until we had to meet back at the hotel lobby at 5:45pm for a bus tour of the city. We all looked at each other and went “okay….what now?” Only one of the kids in the group had ever been to Dublin before, we were all severely jet-lagged, and we had no clue in what direction to even begin. A shower and walking around sounded good to me, so a few of us set a meeting time, took our bags upstairs, 
and tried not to fall asleep in the shower (or maybe that last part was just me). With the basics taken care of, I set off for a jaunt with my new friends: Katie, a fifth year senior (YES!) from Purdue; Jack and Brian, both juniors at “Fordham in the Bronx” from Connecticut; Peter, a junior from DePaul; and several other students.

Jack and Brian, two of the NUI Galway students

The hotel ended up being located only a few blocks from Trinity College, making our first stop a tour through the architecture of the buildings – they’re crazy old! The college houses the Book of Kells, which Jack explained to me is an extremely old copy of the New Testament Gospels, one of the earliest/in best condition written copies of anything in the world and one of Ireland’s national treasures. Nine euro seemed a bit pricey for a tour of a library just to see one book (even if it IS really interesting and old and famous), so we opted out of the tour and continued along our way. We ended up wandering around Dublin admiring the multicolored doors and the sheer number of Guinness signs, and pointing out differences and similarities between the States and what we’d seen of Ireland so far – there’s always a McDonald’s to be found, but you have to find an internet café to get any sort of wireless internet. That’s one of the biggest overall differences I’ve noticed so far, that you have to pay for EVERYTHING. It’s not quite as much as France where I had to pay to use a public restroom, but it’s not far off. Even in the hotel where we’d paid to be staying, we had to purchase wireless access by the hour. Very weird. 

Our tour of the city turned out to be on ducky boats! The company was called “Viking River Splash Tours,” and you guessed it – we had to wear Viking horns and roar at the “Celts” on the sidewalks as we passed. Our guide was wonderful, and he had a sense of humor very similar to my grandpa’s which made for some interesting jokes; right before we went under a stone bridge connecting two sides of one cathedral, he told us we couldn’t yell at any Celts because there was a dentist’s office on the other side, and the dentist had 

Oscar Wilde's birthplace

complained that the yelling was scaring his patients and creating uncomfortable situations! He showed us the house where Oscar Wilde was born, an old garage covered in graffiti that is actually U2’s recording studio (the graffiti is left by fans – some of it was really amazing artwork), and much, much more. Geoff and Maria took us to an apparently famous restaurant chain for dinner called Wagamama’s – who knew the Irish eat Chinese food? I was a little surprised because I figured they’d want to introduce us to” traditional Irish food,” but Maria explained we’d have plenty of time for that once we got to our respective schools. I had some sort of chicken and dumpling soup, and Brian and Peter and I split a tray of duck dumplings…yum! It was almost like being in Beijing again. The desserts were very strange-sounding, but since I’m in a new country and should try new foods, I ordered lemongrass sherbet and tried a bit of Brian’s white chocolate and ginger cheesecake. The entire time we were at dinner, Peter and I kept saying, “I’m SO excited…for BED!!!” so while some of the group hit the pubs after dinner, the rest of us (the jet-lagged half) immediately headed for the hotel and bed. 

Shamrock in the Guinness foam!

Day Two in Dublin started our actual IFSA orientation. We trekked through Merrion Square Park to the office for a morning of introductions, academic advice, and a visit from a Garda officer. The Garda is the Irish police force, a fairly small organization but they handle all of the law enforcement issues, including our immigration appointments that would take place once we arrived in Limerick. We had lunch at a restaurant called The Exchequer, which was much more along the lines of typical Irish food than the night before: I had a corned beef, cheese, and gherkin sandwich along with potato and leek soup. It was delicious, but definitely a little strange. The highlight of the day came after lunch, when we got to tour the Guinness Storehouse! The Storehouse is the original location of the Guinness brewery, known as St. James’ Gate Brewery. Arthur Guinness picked the location because of its easy access to water and signed a 9,000-year lease on the property – you read that right, NINE THOUSAND YEARS! Guinness is only a little over 250 years into that time, so they assured us that the future of Guinness is safe. A copy of that lease is framed and displayed in the floor of the Storehouse for all to see. The inside of the storehouse is open and glassed in all the way to the top in the shape of a Guinness pint glass – very cool. The tour part goes through the ingredients involved in and process of making Guinness, followed by a trip to the bar at the top with a 360° view of Dublin and a free pint of Guinness! My first pint of Guinness in Ireland was at the Storehouse and it was FREE! Pretty great start to the trip, I’d say. We followed our Brewery trip with a pub crawl back to the hotel, dinner from the “Euro Saver” menu at Mickey D’s, and bed – what better way to see a city like Dublin?!

University of Limerick! From left: Marion, Liz, and Katie

We Apologize for the Delay

Hello from Limerick!

I'm alive, promise! After a full week and some in my new country, I’ve been there and done that and I’m ready to head out – kidding! I’ve been a number of places and seen a huge number of buildings, statues, people, etc., but I can tell it’s only the beginning. In which case, I’ll attempt to start from the beginning.

At last update, I was in an elevator at O’Hare airport, heading down to the train into the city of Chicago. I got directions to Millennium Park and walked around sightseeing for a while, backpack and messenger bag in tow.  I’ve been to Chicago twice, but both trips were before the park was built. The park is only about 5 blocks away from the Chicago Tribune building, which happens to be my favorite in the entire city. I love the bits of famous buildings and other parts of history stuck into the outer walls, and they’d added a few since the last time I’d been there – a piece of twisted metal from the World Trade Center and one other that I can’t remember. I found a very…. unique hot dog shop en route to the train station again, where they had hot dogs representing a number of different cities around the country. There was no Pittsburgh hot dog, so I figured I had to try the Chicago-style since I was IN Chicago. The verdict: ballpark peppers are no joke.

Back at the airport, I made several friends in the longer-than-Heathrow-at-Christmas airline counter line who were on a weeklong tour of Ireland sponsored by their local rock radio station. They – and their trip itinerary – were a little strange, but the huge wait was a lot more entertaining with stories of motorcycles breaking down mid-road trip. One of the men told me he’d been to Pittsburgh once; he and his wife had driven through the night on their motorcycles from Kansas City, MO to Pittsburgh and appeared on their friend’s doorstep at 7am with no advance notice and a bottle of wine. Interesting way to see a new city, I suppose.

 The rest of my O’Hare adventure consisting of finding several kids from my program and talking all about how excited we were and how amazing the semester would be and how we’d meet up to make big dinners together – and then realizing they were ALL headed to NUI Galway, and I was on my way to the University of Limerick. That turned out to be the theme of our IFSA orientation, but I didn’t find that out until later. Two of the girls were from the Chicago area, and it turns out they had gone to high school with my friend Prashansa! Definitely a small world.  It turned extra bizarre when they started boarding our plane – every time someone’s row was called, the rest of us would go “See you in Ireland!…well that sounds weird.”

The seven hour flight was about the same as any other plane ride, except that all of the electronic messages were also written in Irish, and the flight attendants all had at least a hint of a brogue. The guy sitting next to me turned out to be from Dublin, had just graduated from Ashland University in Iowa, and offered me three pieces of advice: Live it up, keep an open mind, and go to the Porter House Central.  I’ll do my best! Upon landing in Dublin, I met up with Jess and Bailey (the Chicago girls) and started to wait in the longest customs line I’ve ever seen.  Lucky for us, about ten minutes later a staff person came through the line calling for study abroad students and ushered us into our own line consisting of about fifteen people total. The customs people were very pleasant, aside from taking my picture for immigration records – after almost 24 hours of traveling, that’s just cruel.  We were met by Geoff and Maria of the IFSA Dublin office, who quickly ushered us onto our “coach” (bus) and we headed into Dublin to begin the adventure!

The Moving Walkway is Nearing Its End

Welcome to Chicago O'Hare! It is currently 9:22am (Chicago time) and I've already been awake for six hours and two minutes. After navigating the wilds of O'Hare, I've come to the conclusion that it is more confusing than the Paris airport, and the signs aren't even in French! After about an hour, I finally found the international terminal, but I'm still waiting for my airline counter to open for the day. There's a man in a green polo pursing around behind the desk, so it's looking promising.



Update: the counter doesn't open until 3:45pm. That means I have minimum SIX HOURS to hang by the check-in. In which case I have called my dear co-FYM Kyle (hails from Chi-Town) and received directions to the metro. Might as well make it worth the wait, right?

And so begins the life of a traveler.

PS_We in Pittsburgh love our sports teams. Some might even call it an obsession. But never have I seen a parking garage elevator turned into a shrine like this one: