Amsterdam

Amsterdam is amazing. For obvious reasons, I am not going to include every single thing I did this past weekend but I'll go through the majority of the activites that took place. This will also be a very long post, because we did A LOT in just a few days.

We had a flight late afternoon on thursday. This was my first time flying ryanair, and it was all smooth except for some turbulence along the way and the annoying advertising they have going on for the entire flight. We flew into Eidenhoven instead of Amsterdam because the flight was a little cheaper, so we had to take a Tram then a train to get into the city, then another tram to the hostel. We checked in and got settled before heading out. The hostel was mildly terrifying. The bedroom was fine, except for the water smelling like a fart (not exaggerating), and the bathroom was gross. It was out of a horror film. But anyway, we went to walk around and find somewhere to eat. We soon figured out our location was awesome. We were in the heart of the nightlife of the city, which is a change from Dublin where we have to walk 30 minutes to get to a bar. The food around us was also a lot cheaper than we are used to. For dinner, we went to an italian place where everything on the menu was 5 euro. The restaurants charge for water which is annoying, but it seemed food was generally less expensive than other cities.

After dinner it was off to a bar with live music. We had a great time listening to the band for a while before hopping to another bar/club type place. The crowd was really chill and fun, and everyone we met was from amsterdam or another part of the netherlands. We are used to meeting a lot of tourists in Dublin when we go out, so it was a nice change of pace. There was also a man sleeping on the couch at this club. He took his shoes off before passing out, which made it even more funny. I don't think he was a local. After dancing for a bit, we discovered the pancake house. Think ihop meets a crepe place meets a disco. It was fabulous. As I'll tell you later, we went back quite a few times. We called it a night after eating and prepared for the next day.

Friday we woke up at a reasonable time, then headed out to get food. we tried to find a certain sandwich place but ended up just getting pastries. We also decided to walk through the red light district. This was an interesting experience, but not really pleasant, especially at noon, during the "day shift". Afterwards, we went on a canal tour of the city. This was pretty cool, since I hadn't really realized how many canals and house boats there were in amsterdam. After the tour, a few of us split off because we had a reservation to go to the Anne Frank house. We had some time to kill, so we went and sat in a really cute cafe for a little bit before we had to be there. After a sandwich and latte, we headed to anne frank. It was a self guided tour, but it was actually bigger and better than i expected. There was a lot to read and look at, and was a very different side of the city than we had seen so far. We headed home to shower and relax after the tour. For dinner we chose a place that had a "tourist deal", most likely made to attract young people staying in hostels. I had an awesome steak, fries, and salad- I usually dont order steak but it was a great deal. After dinner we played cards in the hostel until it was time to go out. The night consisted of some bar hopping and pancake house again. This time I got a pancake all to myself. Here's a picture:

Delicious. It was an early night, but I was tired from the past two days activities.

Saturday morning it was pouring out, which ruined our initial plans of going on a walking tour of the city. We decided to wait it out and go on the later tour instead. In the meantime, we went to the Amsterdam library which had been reccommended to us- it had a great view of the city and a decent cafe for lunch. We then went back to the city center to catch the walking tour. It was a free, 3 hour tour, where the guide relies on tips at the end. Our guide, Jo, was pretty strange. She made a lot of awkward jokes that really weren't funny. I'm pretty sure she knew they weren't funny too, which makes it even worse. Nevertheless, she did a good job taking a huge group of people around. We got to see a lot more of the city this way, despite Jo's weird comments. at the end of the tour it was time to head back to the hostel to change and get ready for the long night ahead of us.

Saturday night was Museum night in Amsterdam. This means if you buy a ticket, you can enter any participating museum in the city for free, and they stay open from 6pm-2am. The trams also ran for free. We figured this would be a great way to go to a bunch of museums, and also save some money because each of them are individually kind of expensive. We went to an italian place for dinner, then headed to Van Gough as our first stop. It was definitely great to go on this night- there was a dj playing, and flashing lights on the walls. There were also a couple people painting a 3d picture on part of the floor. I really enjoyed it, and the van gough was pretty good as well. After van gogh we tried to navigate to a film museum, but ended up getting lost on the way. we finally made it there but it was a bust- just a weird movie in dutch was playing, and in another room there was a freaky projection of a group of girls on the screen singing, but their heads were moving and their eyes were creepy. ( I realize that was a terrible description but it was bizarre). After we left, we stumbled upon the diamon museum. This was also really cool- it included a short movie on how diamonds are discovered, had a diamond skull on display, and a display of the picture the Starry Night with diamonds put onto it in a pattern that made the picture look even more awesome. Outside the museum was one of those huge shoes that Amsterdam is known for. Here's a picture:

After the diamond museum, we set out to try to find the Aquarium. We made a pit stop at the pancake house first, then hopped on a tram. It took us a while to get there, but we got in line for what we thought was the aquarium. Once we entered the building though, after waiting in a long line, we realized we were at the museum of natural life- a kind of zoo type place, and that we were on a Dutch-only tour. We had about 30 minutes to kill before we could get on the tour, so naturally, i got a hot dog and sat on the floor to pass the time. Our number was finally called and we went to meet our guide. What I didn't realize was that the tour would be completely outside. And it was cold. really cold. our guide started speaking in dutch, but was interrupted by a drunk canadian in our group who requested she speak english. In fluent english she said "no, this tour will only be in dutch". About 75% of the group was english speaking only, so it was less foa tour and more of a walk through a zoo in the pitch black. We did get to see some swans, llamas, a zebra before it ran away, and all of a sudden we came upon a couple of elephants. We didn't get to see their faces though- only their butts since they didn't turn to face us at all. womp. It was strange to stop and think it was 1:30am in amsterdam, and I was staring at an elephant ass. After seeing a few more animals, the tour dropped us at the front of the actual aquarium. It can't really be called an aquarium- more like a room with some fishtanks. It was still fun, despite the annoying drunk canadians on our tour who almost got kicked off. After the aquarium, we decided our last stop of the night would be the red light district, since it is a very different experience at night. It was interesting- that's all I'm going to say. It was pretty late by the time we were done, so I caved and got a taxi instead of trying to figure out the confusing bus system and where we were. That concluded our saturday night.

Sunday morning we had to check out by 10am, which was probably good so we had to get up and leave anyway- we still had a couple things we wanted to do and the timing worked out perfectly. First was the I Amsterdam sign that every tourist goes to. We wanted to get a couple pictures, which didnt take long. Here's the group at the sign:

After the sign, we split up because some of us wanted to go to the anne frank house. Those of us who had already been did our own thing. We first went to a small museum about the things that happen in the red light district. It is not blog-appropriate, so I'm going to skip this part. Our final destination was Cafe Luxembourg, which my parents had been bugging me to go to because they have a special dessert called Tarte Tatin. it is a kind of apple crisp- a very thin layer of pie crust with apple filling on top. and it was delicious. picture:




After this we picked up our bags that we had left at the hostel, and caught a bus to the airport. We had a lot of time to kill before the flight, but it left on time. The flight was a bit longer than it had been on the way over, and the landing was terrifying. I really thought we weren't going to land straight- we were wobbling until literally the last second. We made it safe though, and headed back to the lovely blackhall.

That was a long entry, but the weekend was great. The next time I blog probably wont be for over 2 weeks- this weekend we go to Derry and Belfast in northern ireland, then the next day we turn around to go on our eurotrip; rome, florence, munich, prague. crazy!

Parents Part 2 and Gaga

So where I left off last entry was right after copenhagen we headed to Paris. The flight over we took easy jet, which is a discount airline similar to Ryan Air. Naturally, the crowd on the plane was full of characters. The flight went well, and we go to Paris around 10 or so. We checked into the hotel, which was a tiny building in the Opera district. The next morning we had breakfast there, which had delicious pastries, and went to do a double decker bus tour. This was my first time really looking at the city- and it is beautiful. Just seeing the buildings, cafes, and people is a really unique experience because Paris is unlike any city I had ever been to. Our first stop off the bus was the Louvre. We saw the mona lisa and some other great art- and the place was packed! I looked it up online and about 12,000 people visit every day. That is crazy. We ended up eating lunch at the museum since we were starving, then heading back onto the bus.

Our next stop was Notre Dame. We walked through the church which was also huge, then strolled around the area right next door called the Left Bank. Afterwards, it was time to head back to the hotel for some downtime before heading to dinner. Something that we found very different from Dublin is the lack of taxis in Paris. It seems there are just not enough for you to walk out to the street and get one quickly. This is very different from Dublin, which has too many taxis for the demand. Another side note- there was no evidence of any riots or protests in Paris. As you all I'm sure have heard, a lot of unions in Paris are protesting the recent rise in retirement age from 60 to 62. We were kind of nervous that our flights would be off or that places would be closed because of the riots, but we barely even remembered what was going on because we never saw any of it. Anyway, that night we went to a little restaurant in the bastille area. I was finally able to get a delicious crepe which I had been craving since arriving.

The next day we had a reservation to go to the top of the eiffel tower. It took a while to get up because of all the lnes, but when we finally did, the view was gorgeous. Here's a picture:

After coming down, we headed to get lunch, but took a picture first with the tower in the background:

I look weird because it was freezing but it was really cool to actually be there. Next stop was lunch at a cute cafe. I ordered a sandwich which turned out to be HUGE. of course, I ate the entire thing, but still it was massive. The rest of the day was more walking around and sitting in a cafe. French people are just all so fashionable and skinny, I was jealous just walking down the street.

That night we met my friend Liesel who is studying in Paris for dinner in the bastille area. Dinner was delicious, and it was nice to hear more about what living in Paris is like. The next morning we got up really early to head to the airport, and so it was back to Dublin! My parents headed home from Paris, which concluded parents week in Dublin.

The past couple days have started Halloween celebrations, but the last part of this entry will be about the Lady Gaga concert I went to wednesday night. It was amazing. So fabulous. The set, the dancers, Gaga herself, it was just awesome. I'm so glad I went, and our seats were pretty decent. It was loads of fun. I'm having trouble uploading pictures right now but I will try again later.

Parents Week in Europe- Part 1

This is going to be a long blog, so bear with me. I'll try to add pictures to break up my ranting, and be brief unless something is very interesting. For both my sake and anyone reading this, I will write two blogs about the past week- here is part 1:

This past week my parents came to visit. The first few days they were here we stayed in Dublin. We didn't do much the first day they arrived, just lunch at Bewely's and dinner at the Millstone- both very good restaurants. The second day we got up and bought tickets for that touristy double decker bus. it worked out pretty nicely, and brought us around to the best sights. We first did a walking tour of Trinity College and saw the book of Kells, then jumped on the tour of the dublin castle. I had to go to class, but we met up later at the Porter House for food with some of my friends. The second day, our bus pass was still valid, so we did the guiness factory tour. Unfortunately, none of us really like the beer itself, but my parents did participate in the "pour the perfect pint" lesson. pictures:

After the guiness storehouse we swung by Blackhall so I could show them where I live. Not the best area, but the apartment is perfectly fine, considering I am a student in Europe. For dinner this night we went to a place called Elephant and Castle in the temple bar area. This was good as well, and I had an awesome dessert- two layers of chocolate fudge with whipped cream and raspberries in the middle. nom

The next day we took off for Copenhagen! We didn't get in until late, but we got right up in the morning and headed to do a boat tour around the city. A little background on the city- it is the capital of denmark, and has A LOT of water. The people are very clean and NEVER jaywalk- they will wait until the light is green even if there is noone in sight. Anyway, the boat tour was nice, but it was freezing. After this we walked around a bit looking for somewhere to eat. We got kind of lost and ended up at burger king. Another fun fact- Copenhagen is extremelyyyy expensive. It was unreal. But here is a picture of how pretty it is:

After lunch we went across the street to Trivoli- an amusement park and garden all in one. It was decorated for halloween and was great! It was a lot of fun to walk around and go into the different shops they have. The food also looked great. That night (friday) we met a friend of mine Caitlyn for dinner at a little local restaurant. It was a good meal- lots of meat and the guys next to us were pretty drunk. They made my dad take a shot of some weird alcohol they were drinking with their meal. Afterwards, Caitlyn and I went back to her apartment then out to a bar. A little after midnight, a Danish reggae rapper came on the stage. He was pretty good, I just wasnt expecting it at all. I took a cab home at the end of the night- our hotel was awesome and I wanted to spend as much time in a big comfy bed as possible.

The next day we headed to the museum Kunst. It is an art museum with a sculpture garden. The art was interesting, but had some weird paintings in it as well. /heres a picture:

After we were done at the museum, we took a walk to the best shopping area in town. It is pedestrian only an had a lot of cool shops and cafes. We chose a cafe that must be very well known/popular because it was packed. The food was great though and it was fun to experience an authentic cafe. After the cafe, we walked a little more and went back to the hotel to catch our flight to Paris.
So that is a very quick recap of the first part of the trip- I will write about Paris later because I'm sick of typing!

Recap of the past week

Since I last blogged we've done a few new things. Dublin actually has an Oktoberfest for a few weeks here. It's basically like the real Oktoberfest in Munich, but much smaller. It was fun- the beer was really strong and I tried a sausage which was awesome. I was only there for a little during the day, but apparently things got crazy at night. Later that day my friend Liesel came in, so we walked around the city a little so I could show her the sights. We went out that night to a pub and club and had a few bulmers. I'm not sure if I've explained Bulmers yet- it's called a cider and is kind of like alcoholic apple juice but doesn't really taste like apple. They also have a berry flavor and some others. It's delicious. Here's a picture of us at the Porterhouse (I look a little gross but oh well):

The next day we went to the guiness factory. I had already been there once before but the place is so huge, like 7 floors, that we saw a lot of things I missed the first time. We also took a lesson in learning how to pour the perfect pint. Our instructor was a young guy who liked his job wayyyy too much- he was flirting with all the girls in the group which was kind of awkward. Anyways, it was actually harder than I imagined to pour a pint of guiness correctly, but here is a picture of me trying:

We had lunch at the factory then headed home so Liesel could catch her plane.

This week was pretty standard- just classes and whatnot. On wednesday we went to a speaker at the national library of ireland. The topic was slavery in Ireland, and unfortunately did not really hold anyone's attention. It was mostly elderly people there who were really eager to listen, but bringing a bunch of college kids to a talk directed to old irishmen isnt very thrilling. The speaker was very knowledgable, but I didn't really follow what he was talking about.

Last night's event, however, was definitely better. We went to a play called B for Baby at the Abbey theatre. We had absolutly no idea what this play was about, which could be a good thing, because we didn't have any expectations. The plot was pretty weird- it was about two special needs people, and a woman who takes care of them but who really wants a baby. The woman "uses" the special needs man to "give herself" a baby (i'm trying not to be too explicit). you can see where I'm going with this- it was pretty weird and sad, but entertaining nonetheless.

This weekend will be a lot of free time, possibly including some halloween shopping. My parents come sunday, then next weekend we are doing some travelling!

Classes

So we've had two full weeks of real DBS classes already. I'll go through what I'm taking in a second, but let me preface this by saying DBS is VERY different from Elon. In the US it would be comparable to Kaplan (DBS is actually an affiliate of kaplan), or ITT tech. There's a lot more adults and immigrant in my classes, rather than irish kids my age. There definitely are some, but for example, my finance class has a 40 year old man in it, and his 25 year old girlfriend. Everything is just set up differently. The teachers seem to be pretty good however, so I don't mean to shed a negative light on it too much- it's just an adjustment from the Elon experience I've had. Here's my classes and a description of each:

Poverty and Exclusion- this class seems to interest me the most. We focus on issues of poverty, what constitutes poverty, etc. The people in my class however are interesting.....there are a lot of young irish girls who intimidate me, but there is also a pregnant woman who is due in 2 weeks. I'll definitely blog asap if her water breaks during class. This will be a good class, but some of the students are older and like to talk way too much. In fact, it surprises me how much kids talk while the professor is teaching.

Urban Studies- the exact same people in my poverty class are in this class. The teacher is different though, and can barely speak english. I have no doubt she knows the subject well, but she cant explain it at all. The other day the class started getting very angry with her, and it turned into world war 3. I understand and agree with the other students' frustrations with the teacher, but they were pretty much yelling at her. This would never happen back at home. crazy. I thought I would like this class if it had an urban regeneration type of focus, but right now we are studying the history of cities, which is pretty dull. Hopefully it will get better and look at more current issues.

Finance- the men in this class smell terrible. I literally could not breathe the other day it smelled so bad. I know europeans generally don't shower or do laundry as much as we do at home, but it's reallyyy bad. This class is basically all foreigners but the teacher is decent. It is funny though that this is a year long class, so I will actually only be there for the first couple chapters of the course. I'm glad I won't have to take this class at Elon since it is supposed to be hard, but I may have to do some outside reading on what finance actually is since I won't be learning much of the subject.

Marketing- this class is HUGE. This is my class with the most irish students in it. The teacher is pretty good and very relaxed about abroad students missing class to travel. It gets boring sometimes but I think I'll pick up some good info and the teacher makes it easy to follow along and whatnot.

Baby Guiness

I would like to go on a short rant about the best drink ever created: baby guiness. It is a shot of heaven. I don't mean to sound anything like an alcoholic- if it didn't have alcohol in it, I would take many of them one after another simply because it tastes so good.

The baby guiness is a shot of Kahlua and Baileys. You pour about 2/3 of the shot glass with kahlua, then pour bailys on top of that- being careful not to mix the two. The result is literaly a baby guiness. it is great. heres a video on how to make them:

http://www.5min.com/Video/How-to-make-a-Baby-Guinness-1448

and a picture of a few of us with baby guinesses at midnight on jordan's birthday!

Galway

This past weekend we went to Galway. Galway is located in the west of Ireland, about 2 and a half hours from Dublin. The west is a little different from Dublin in that more people speak the language of Irish, and have a different accent than Dubliners. We got on the bus at 9am thursday morning and met our adorable bus driver, Bart. Bart is from Galway originally so he was able to give us a lot of history and stories throughout the weekend. The drive look a really short time since there was no traffic, so we were at Galway before noon. Since we could not check into the hotel until 3, we had some time to walk around the city center. It is a pretty small city, but packed with people- both tourists and locals. We went to an awesome place for fish and chips and walked into some shops before it was time to go. Thursday night was pretty uneventful- we were all pretty tired from going out on wednesday so Dawn and I booked our Lady Gaga tickets, the I went to bed.

Friday morning we got up early again, then headed to the bus. The first stop was in the middle of nowhere- Bart wanted to take us on a hike that was once used as a pilgrimage trail and led to a church that St. Patrick once visited. This hike turned out to be painful- the trail was a steep incline of rocks, and when we were almost towards the top it started downpouring hail. It was terrible. There was nowhere to hide and I got completely soaked. It was not ideal. Anyway, there were some good views, heres a picture:

It was nice to see the country side, but not my favorite hike.

We loaded the bus again and headed to our other destination of the day- Kylemore Abbey in Connemara. On our way, Bart pointed out a leprechaun house on the side of the road! I was very happy to see this. Anyway-This was a gorgeous abbey that has been used as a girls boarding school in recent years, though it is stopping operation next year. We had lunch here and were able to walk around for a bit. Pictures below are the outside of the abbey, and dawn and me with the lake in the background.

After this, we headed back to the hotel for dinner. A quick note about the hotel- in each room, there are two beds. Except one bed is a queen size and one is a twin. I don't understand. I know some european hotels are like this, but why? do they assume one person is a lot bigger than the other? its weird. Anyway, friday night we went to a pub in city center to hear some traditional irish music. We didn't stay out late but it was really fun because in Dublin we usually only go to clubs or larger places.

Saturday morning was another early start. We headed out to take a ferry to the Aran Islands, which are 3 islands off the coast. The one we went to is the largest, called Inish Mor. The ferry was packed and was about a 40 minutes ride. Luckily, the waters weren't too choppy and noone got to sick. Once on the island, we loaded into 2 vans to take us around. Our first stop was the site of what used to be a church and burial ground. The second, and main stop, was Dun Aonghasa fort. This is an old for set up very high that was once believed to be used as defense. However, they recently believe it was used more for ceremonial purposes rather than warfare. The views from the fort were amazing! The cliffs are such a high, abrupt stop that you can only go close to the edge if you are laying on your stomach. Picture:

After seeing the fort, we headed back into town for lunch and killed time before leaving. We then took the ferry back to the bus, and bus back to the hotel for dinner. After dinner we went into town again and went into a couple pubs. Sunday was just the bus ride back and saying goodbye to bart.

All in all it was a good but exhausting weekend. I'll blog in the next couple days about my classes. This weekend Liesel is coming for a night! then mom and dad come the weekend after. crazy!