Sept. 21
It started off like any other Manic Monday, except this time there was more "mania" involved. With the three history classes I'm taking, we have to sign up for "tutorials", which are like smaller, discussion-based lectures (lame and boring usually comes to mind). Well, my friend Sammie and I had signed up for a Monday morning tutorial for our "Irish Emigrant Experience" history class and got to the classroom right on time (10 a.m.) We are a bit confused because the classroom is dark and well what do you know? Turns out it was cancelled last minute--no email, nothing. Frustrating Irish Moment of the Day! Grrr. After a frustrating moment like that, the remedy? NAP TIME! And for good reason I decided to take a nap: the roomies are starting to get sick, and I definitely don't want to catch that if I can help it! One activity that we've come to discover is that on MTV UK over here, they play the Top 40 every day at 12:30 p.m. We've come to make a habit of watching it weekly and writing down good songs that are popular over here, since chances are, the States haven't heard of them yet. Definitely lots of club jams, but fun, bubble gum pop music nonetheless. Then once we return and these songs finally make it over in the USA, we'll already know all the words because we'll be like, soooo European! Ha ha. Since this morning's tutorial was a FAIL, I went to my other class later in the day and then went to the library and chilled. The James Hardiman library at NUI-Galway is similar to Boatwright, but definitely a lot more sterile, less friendly and not as bustling. The design and attitude I felt in that library (and I can't believe I'm saying this) made me miss good ol' B-1. Who thought that I'd ever miss a library? There was a looong line to get on one of the computers to print off stuff; I needed to start printing off stuff for OKTOBERFEST! After our Human Sexuality class, we came home and got ready to go out. Unfortunately, we encountered an annoying misty and windy night. Fortunately, we went over to our friends' apartment from Fairfield and then went to GPOs night club. It was really fun! From the outside looking in, it didn't really look like a big place, but looks were definitely deceiving. It was packed with people, and finding the bathroom was a big ordeal in this cavernous place. It was like you needed to leave a trail of bread crumbs to find your way back through the crazy maze. When it was time to leave, we were dying for something delicious, naturally. And where was our first request? The crepes place. And what did we discover? CLOSED. *Commence sad face* Waaah. But it was probably for the best that it wasn't opened, because who knows what kind of creations we would have concocted at such a late hour in the night.
Sept. 22
Since I only have one class most Tuesdays (I know, what a hard life), I decided to cook up what I thought was a very Irish breakfast/brunch. And indeed it was yummy. I scrambled up some eggs, toasted some potato waffles with cheese and cooked up some baked beans. Now the beans part may seem a bit strange, but for two reasons I wanted/needed beans:
a) PROTEIN!
b) the Irish L-O-V-E beans over here; tons of advertisements for beans on toast, etc.
After eating a fulfilling meal, I thought it would be good to go to class, and surprisingly, it was more interesting than normal. Normally, my friends and I have a hard time staying awake in these big, lecture style classes, but this time I didn't nod off once! Yay me! WIN! I think that the way Richmond engages students more in discussion, etc. is the way I like to learn best. After my success in staying awake in class, I decided to try and print off stuff again, but once again, FAIL. Hopefully the third time is the charm. Later in the evening, I went to NUI-G's Ladies' basketball training. It was really fun to do team practice stuff, transporting me back to the days of Rebel basketball. I think I was the only American there too, which was odd. The Irish girls play differently...it's hard to describe. It seemed like they were much more stiff and not fluid, not to mention that some of their form made me cringe. I'm not sure how this will sound, but here it goes: I think they were different in playing ball than American girls because there weren't any black girls playing with them growing up, unlike the States. I hope to go back to training again in the next week because it was fun and it's a great way to meet Irish people. Though they made an announcement saying that this squad was mainly for people there the whole year, I would rather practice with a team that knows what they are doing than play a bunch of random pick-up games. When I got home, the roomies made some Mexican fajitas since we had been craving them lately. Yum. I've been trying to figure out OKTOBERFEST and Arthur's Day in Dublin, so hopefully plans will be developing shortly.
Sept. 23
Went to class and printed some papers out in the library but once again, FAIL. I didn't have my passport information that you apparently need for on-line check-in for flights. Frustrating Irish Moment of the Day! Came home for some lunch and some Gilmore Girls, what a great combo for a pick-me-up in the afternoon. Then I went back to school to print and do some booking for travels, such as I booked a flight to Paris for my "fall break" at the end of October! Since NUI-G doesn't have a "fall break" per se, rather just a bank holiday on a Monday making a 3-day weekend, I decided to take full advantage of that and the fact that I don't have Friday classes. I'll be going to Paris and then traveling around western France with Martha and Rachel. Yay! After spending far too long sorting travel arrangements and such out, I went to the gym and dropped a note off at the Irish language center about the language course. Hopefully I can still sign up for the class! It will be awesome to learn a new language that not many people know about or have ever heard of, and yes, it is Irish, not Gaelic. Unfortunately, I missed Societies Day. Societies are like clubs without sports, so like dance clubs, International Student clubs, etc. Waah. But I'll be contacting them later, so hopefully I can be put on their mailing list, etc. Then I came home and packed for Oktoberfest and Dublin! A crazy weekend is brewing...
Sept. 24
Bryeanna and I were up very, very early to catch our 5 Euro (yep, that's right. 5 Euro!) bus from Galway to Dublin. Once we were dropped off in the city centre of Dublin, we were a wee bit confused about where to go to catch another city bus to the UC-D campus. Dublin is definitely a LOT bigger than Galway! We made it to campus, had lunch and hung out for the afternoon. Then it was time. Time to prepare for Arthur's Day. For those of y'all who may not know, Arthur's Day was the 250th anniversary of Guinness. To prepare, we played some drinking games with Noah, Mary, Lauren, Bryeanna and Noah's roommates. Then we hopped onto the bus and went on down to the city centre. Little did we realize that it would be so CROWDED! The bus had a hard time navigating through the crowded streets. Time was ticking closer and closer to the official toast to Arthur Guinness at 17:59 (aka 5:59 p.m.). We jumped off the bus and ran to the closest pub. Unfortunately, the closest pub was so crowded that people were strewn about the streets drinking Guinness. We tried getting a real pint from the tap at the pub, but to no avail. Fortunately, there was a Tesco across the street. We sprinted into the store and purchased some cans of Guinness--not as authentic or ideal, but we were desperate. We made it in time for the toast! After we finished that, we decided to trudge onto the pub we were wanting to get to the first time, Messrs Maguire. It was huge! Similar to the King's Head and The Quays in Galway, but much larger and busier, probably because of this historic day. After a long afternoon and night of toasting Arthur Guinness, we returned home and went straight to sleep, after a quick stop to McDonald's, of course.
Sept. 25
I had to get up early to get to the Dublin airport to catch my flight out to Memmingen, Germany to get to OKTOBERFEST! I can't believe it is here already! Unfortunately, Bryeanna and Mary missed their flight out of Dublin to Munich! They overslept and had to catch a later flight. What a shame. Fortunately, I was on a flight with Jeannie and Kaitlin, so we were able to hop on a bus from Memmingen to Munich easily. Well, getting ON the bus was easy; it was a little confusing when I got off the bus in the city centre of Munich. I was so confused, I sent a text to Courtney that said: "I think I'm in the wrong place. The signs say 'Munchen', not 'Munich'". Oh Lord. Well, luckily for me, I'm a pretty independent traveler and decided to buck up and figure out how I was going to get to the hotel. And how did I do that? By following all of the people dressed in lederhosen and other traditional German attire! I then made it to the Oktoberfest festival grounds and figured out how to get to our hotel. When I arrived at the hotel, I tried looking for Courtney and Liz, but it turns out that they were at the same hotel, just a different location in Munich. Oops. Then I waited for Patty and Amy to arrive. Once everyone arrived, we decided to go exploring down by the festival grounds. We were so overwhelmed by the amount of people there! Literally thousands. And the rides! So many fun rides and tons of delicious smells of German food. But then again, there were plenty of unpleasant smells and sights too, due to the debauchery of Oktoberfest. When in Rome, I suppose. Or rather, Munich. We got our first GIANT pretzels of the day, which were amazing. As we munched in Munich, we scoped out the area in preparation for our planning of THE BIG DAY tomorrow. We then met up with some other Richmond kids and went to a bier garten, where we also made some new German friends. We decided to call it a night after our first stein, in order to prepare to wake up early the next day.
Sept. 26- RICHMOND TAKES OVER OKTOBERFEST
This is it. The day we've been planning and waiting for: Richmond takes over Oktoberfest! We were up before the sun rose (for about the third or fourth day in a row for me) and at the Hofbrau tent at 7:30 a.m. There were tons of people lined up outside of all of the beer tents before we arrived, I can only imagine what time they rolled up! If you're claustraphobic, this is NOT the place for you--very crowded and smoky. Ugh. Any who, we sucked it up and battled through the long line. When it was our turn to get in, we sprinted and got an awesome table--right by the traditional German band! Yet right as we were settling in and gloating about our epic table, we discovered our table was reserved (or something, I mean who reads German?!). Uh......oops? Never fear! Our beer maid said that we could stay at that table until the reservation came at 3 p.m. HALLELUJAH! I mean I guess it's ok to stay at the same table from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. right? So we're all chilling at our table, anticipating the unknown like children waiting to see what Santa brought them on Christmas Day, and all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, there are cheers upon cheers echoing throughout the entire tent, and mind you, these aren't "tents" but more like gargantuan halls filled with thousands of people and many liters of beer. Then, the heavens opened up and all of a sudden our beer maid was back with probably 12 steins of beer, and those are heaaavvy! What a champ. Remember, this was at 9 a.m. I think this was earlier than Pig Roast, which is quite a feat. Speaking of Pig Roast, this was like an international Pig Roast on crack, with a small portion of the "Richmond bubble" transported into Germany. Essentially, heaven. I was happy that I got to meet up with a lot of friends, since I won't be seeing most of them until January. Well, as the day progressed (i.e., much beer drinking and pretzel eating), I went to the bathroom but somehow got lost on the way back to our table. This was around 1 or 2 p.m. I guess I thought that my group left, so I went outside and wandered around the festival grounds looking for them. Then I ended up on the Munich metro in the hopes of running into them there or back at the hotel. It was scary being lost in a foreign country, where I definitely had no idea what the German people were saying or what the signs meant, but I toughed it out and figured out how to get back to the hotel. This, of course, all came at a price: a lost mobile phone and about 80 Euro. Oops. I guess this was one of those "learning experiences". I'm extremely grateful that my friends looked for me, but to no avail. Despite losing money, my phone and myself, I still had a GREAT TIME! It is definitely a "once in a lifetime" experience, that is, unless we have an Oktoberfest reunion...
Sept. 27
Once again, I was awake before the sun rose. I haven't slept in days. I am tired. And hungry. But I must get home to Ireland. Since we weren't entirely sure how I was going to get from Munich/Munchen to Memmingen for my flight, I had to get up early with the Spain girls and ride the metro to the central station and figure out how to get a train from Munich to Memmingen. Luckily, it all worked out well and I met up with Mary and Bryeanna at the train station. After a short but boring ride through the German countryside (Ireland's countryside is waaay more beautiful, not that I'm biased or anything...), we made our way to the airport. On our flight to Dublin, we were seated near a bunch of rowdy yet friendly Irish guys. At least we had an entertaining flight home as opposed to a hellish one that it could have been had we been extremely hung-over, etc. We took the 5 Euro bus from the airport to Galway; this bus ride was very crowded and a strange French lady sat next to me who needed to go back to kindergarten (one of the few German words I actually know and understand) to learn about "personal space"--she kept creepin' in on me. No, no, no. Things I do not like. When we got back to Galway, I wanted to check out the Galway Oyster Festival. Sadly, I did not get to check it out because it seemed like an older people's event with expensive events that required ticket purchases, etc. Not your average fair or anything where you can just mill about and try out things. Oh well, perhaps when I am older (and richer).
Well that about wraps up a very cultural week! I would have posted pictures, but when I started to upload pictures, my computer is freaking out on me saying that there isn't enough hard disk space. I am FURIOUS. Hopefully I can fix this myself, otherwise a trip to the Apple store (if Galway has one... I hope!) is DEFINITELY NECESSARY. This week was definitely one to remember, even if I don't remember everything of every second of every day. Oh cultural life in Germany and Ireland--essentially centered around imbibing.
AH so exciting!
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