ADVENTURE WEEKEND!!!!!!

I think adventure weekend definitely got the best of me. I’m (miraculously) safe back in Dublin with a mean chest cold, more sore muscles than I even knew I had, and a pair of sneakers that are not even close to their original color, but it was all worth it. Adventure weekend was definitely one of the wildest weekends I’ve had here this semester!

Adventure weekend started Friday morning at 6:00 am when we had to get up to catch a 7:45 bus. That was an adventure in and of itself. I walked over to my roommate Lindsay’s bed where she was groggily attempting to force her eyes open and whisper-screamed “ADVENTURE WEEKEND!!!!!!” with a double handed rock on sign. It quickly became everyone’s motivational mantra for the entire weekend. I gave myself many self-congratulatory taps on the back for that on for that one.

We got to the Killary Adventure Center around lunch time. It’s set in the middle of Ireland’s only Fjord (a river valley between two mountains that formed from the melting of a glacier) and just like so many other of Ireland’s natural wonders, was mind-blowingly beautiful.  I still cannot believe I get to see places like that in person. For my afternoon activity I chose to do the zip line and high ropes course. The high ropes course involved two people shimmying up a huge pole and standing at the top of a wobbly platform that was about the right size for a melon. Then you jumped from the platform and grabbed onto a trapeze pole a few feet away (all of this done while harnessed to a safety line of course) and hung there suspended 40 feet in the air. My friend Sue and I were the first to volunteer. We both slipped off the pole … but that’s only because it was wet! We got it all nice and dry for everyone who went after is and was able to do it. Later we had dinner and at night there was team trivia! It involved a bunch of brain buster questions and a few activities – one of which was to make a male team member into “the prettiest girl in the world” and have all the guys do a catwalk for everyone. It was hilarious. Especially since most of the guys definitely liked it way more that they would ever admit too. There were guys in bikini tops and skirts wearing more makeup than any girl in their right mind would, and loving every second of it. I volunteered  to do challenge for my team where I had to hold a broom stick, step over it, bring it up over my head, put it and my arm behind my right leg, wiggle my right foot over the top, bring it up between my legs, and finally step over with my left foot to bring it to the starting position. I did it all in 13 seconds and won the challenge for my team! Who know I was so limber? I didn’t. Ouch.

The next day I chose hill walking for my morning activity. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I hear “hill walking” I think hiking up a path at a semi-leisurely pace, enjoying the scenery, and stopping occasionally for some photo ops. Oh no. Hill walking apparently translates to hiking up a huge mountain through mud and bog and with nothing even close to a path to guide you. It Was. Great. The “hill” was about 550 meters high and we estimated the whole climb to be somewhere around 5 miles. Once we got to the top, the winds were about 35 – 40 mph and we could barely stand up straight. The view from the top was absolutely amazing and completely worth nearly ruining a pair of sneakers (they’re a bit worse for the wear after this weekend). Not only that, but the sense of accomplishment from having climbed a mountain was awesome.  I definitely want to incorporate more hikes into my life.  For the afternoon activity my friends and I chose combat laser tag where we got to dress up in army gear and run around in the woods while shooting each other with machine-gun-shaped laser guns. It was basically every 11-year-old boys dream, and we were all definitely having just as much fun as 11 year old boys. My inner peace advocate felt kind bad for contributing to the appropriation of violence (I’m working on my fun sucking feminist persona, how does it sound?) but the chance to roll around in the mud and wear combat gear was just way too much fun for me to pass up. Later that night was the disco where we all pretended to be middle schoolers again and jumped around to music in the cafeteria. The only difference was alcohol and no chaperones!! Woo go crazyy!!  It was so fun.

The next morning I was hoping to do the Turf Challenge which is a 6 mile obstacle course where you have to climb rope walls, jump through tubes, trudge through bog, run through forest, and swim through the river. Unfortunately I woke up with a cold (probably from wearing wet muddy shoes for an entire day) so I opted for the less challenging giant swing and rock wall climbing. Not quite as adventurous, but still a lot of fun! Rock climbing, as it turns out, is not as easy as it looks, so it was still a challenging alternative. The giant swing consisted of being strapped into two big cloth seats and swinging from a starting point about 50 ft in the air. Scary, adrenaline pumping, and so much fun.

Some of the other activities were kayaking, gorge walking, clay pigeon shooting, archery, tubing, and cliff jumping. Every single one of us had an amazing weekend and left happy, sore, and completely exhausted. I didn’t take very many pictures for fear of my camera ending up like my shoes (did I mention I stepped  knee deep into mud pit while trying to sniper my friends? I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t awesome) but I did pilfer some photos from my friends. Adventure throught the pictures here! And here's a video of me and Sue on the Giant Swing!

I’ve also found some semi-non incriminating photos from St. Patty's Day that you can see here!

This week I’ll be preparing for a test I have next Monday in my Irish Art class. I have to get ahead because this weekend I’ll be in Brussels and Amsterdam and I’m fairly certain I won’t be getting any studying done there. We’re also planning a small stop in Bruges which people have been raving about. I have absolutely no idea what’s there, so I guess I’ll find out where I get there! I’ll keep you posted.

That’s all for now, folks. I’m jealous of all the great weather you’re having back in the states. It’s finally starting to get warmer here. We broke 70 degrees the other day! Heat wave! I’m so excited for everything to start blooming. I’ve been wanting to post pictures of St. Stephen’s Green, a famous park right near my apartment, but have been waiting until it’s in the full swing of spring. That will hopefully be soon!

Until next time, ADVENTURE WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I Can Die a Happy Gal

St. Patrick’s Day in Dublin, Ireland. I don’t know if I’ll ever experience anything quite the same ever again. For those of you who don’t know, St. Patty’s Day is my Christmas. It is absolutely, positively the happiest most glorious day of the year. It is my favorite holiday. And spending it in the heart of what is the St. Patty’s day capital of the world will go down in my personal history of what was quite possibly one of the best days of my life.

Do I sound like I’m being overly dramatic? This is actually how crazy I am about St. Patty’s.

Friends from all over started arriving at our apartment by 9:30am. By 10:30 I had everyone doing Irish car bombs in my tiny sliver of a kitchen, and by noon we were out on the town! The city was in a state of absolute blissful mayhem. The streets were jammed with people in all sorts of Irish get-up, and I can safely say not one of them was sober. Even the children. Just kidding. We went to the parade, but after about a half hour of standing on tips toes and straining our necks to see it, we decided we’d be better off finding a pub to celebrate in than competing with people on ladders and kids on shoulders to see some floats. For the rest of the afternoon we bounced around different pubs and met up with the inordinately large number of PC kids who came to Ireland. At one point we were at a pub that literally could have been Olds with the number of friars that were there (that’s a reference that  the PC community will understand). Mid afternoon we grabbed some food and headed back to my apartment to crash for a few hours before gearing up to head back out for some more St. Patty’s Day insanity (car bombs round 2 anyone?) We only made it until about midnight until most of us were dead on our feet, but it was the happiest exhaustion that I’ve ever experienced. That night we ended up with a total of seventeen people staying in our apartment. That’s right, you heard me correctly, seventeen. You couldn’t walk without stepping on a person. It was the best. The next day we took a nice trip to the quiet coastal town of Howth for some beautiful scenery and a little recovery. It was the perfect way to end an amazing weekend.

I’ll try to post some photos from the weekend, but I fear that most of them will be incriminating. For those of you who would like to see for yourselves, try googling “St. Patty’s Day 2012 Dublin” and just picture me there in your mind’s eye. 

This week I'll be hitting the books before our adventure weekend in Kilary. My entire program will be over taking an outdoor adventure facility where we're rumored to be doing things like rock climbing, rope swinging, and some sort of activity involving a lot of mud. I'll be sure to keep you posted!

I hope that everyone back at home had the happiest of St. Patrick’s Days!

Cheers, friends!

London and More

Mom is safe at home back in the States (at least, I hope she is) and I’m back on the homework grind before the next round of visitors make their way to the Emerald Isle. The rest of this semester is turning out to be just as wild and crazy as I’d hoped it would be!

Mom and I had such an awesome week. London is amazing! We got there Thursday night, and our cousins were nice enough to pick us up from the airport. They were so great to us the whole weekend! Friday morning we took an early train into London (her cousins live just outside in a town called Weybridge) and made our first stop to buy cheap tickets for an evening show on the west side. Then we traveled across town to Buckingham Palace where we made it just in time to see the changing of the guard after sprinting across a park and hopping two fences. It’s a good thing we’re agile. We jostled our way through the crowd and got a prime spot where I was able to get a few videos of it! Take a gander here and here. (Kevin, if you’re reading, the second one was taken with you in mind). 

After having our ears assaulted (Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad. I just prefer instruments that don’t sound like screeching animals. I know. How un-Irish of me. I’m over it) we roamed around London and saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. We also walked down the Thames where we found a cool little market and stopped for some fish and chips for lunch. How very English of us. Later that night we went to see The Ladykillers, which was very funny, and then headed home nearly half unconscious from all the walking and looking and ooh-ing and ahh-ing we did all day. Being a tourist is exhausting!

The next day we headed back into London with our number one destination being the one and only Platform 9 ¾. Oh yes. I stood in line with those 6 year olds and was just as excited as they were when it was my turn to pose at the little half-carriage sticking out of a fake brick wall. It was the best. But what we did next was next was probably my favorite part of the whole trip, and trust me, it’s hard to top anything Harry Potter related. We headed over to Abbey Road where I took the quintessential walking pose while crossing the cross walk. There’s a webcam right outside the Abbey Road recording studio that faces the cross walk that my dad had found online a few months earlier. We called my Dad to tell him to get on the webcam and  it was so cool! He watched us walk across Abbey Road and we talked to him on the phone and waved at the webcam while a very confused and concerned group of tourists carefully nudged away from us. It. Was. Awesome.  He was able to see us in London in real time. That one goes down in Conard family history for us. The rest of the day we spent roaming around. We went to Covent Square which is this cool market place where we got awesome paella cooked in a pan that was literally big enough to fry a whole cow (sorry to my vegetarian friends for the reference) and putzed around some cool arts-and-craftsy type shops. We headed back to Weybridge early enough to do dinner with our cousins before leaving for the airport. Their 9 year old son (the middle of three boys) set up a great disco ball for some mood lighting while we ate dinner. Fantastic. The boys were so intelligent and so polite! I wonder if I could raise my kids to have British accents … 

All in all, it was a fabulous week. Not only did I get the chance to explore more of Europe, but I got to share the experience with my Mom. It was very special. (Awwww don’t you just want to melt and throw up). But really, it was another great experience here and I know it won’t be the last. My friends start arriving for St. Patrick’s Day Festivities as early as Wednesday, and by Saturday this country will be rocking. I’ve already bought my Bailey’s and Whiskey. All I need now is some Guinness, my friends, and a whole lot of green and I’m ready for a St. Patty’s I’ll never remember for the rest of my life!

Cheers to St. Patrick!

 Check out all the photos from this week here! (I actually took the time to add some captions on the photos this time, so keep your eyes peeled for some commentary).

We've Been Having Some Crack

That’s right. Since my mom got here on Friday it’s been  nothing but great crack. (Are you nervous yet, Dad?) That’s actually an Irish expression for a great time. It’s supposed to be spelled “craic” but the shock factor would have been lost if you had been going “great crAYke?” It really has been great though. The first thing we did upon her arrival was to have a full Irish breakfast complete with beans, blood sausage, rashers, and eggs. Yum! I’m going to let your imagination decide what some of those things might be. I showed her all around Dublin, bought her her first REAL Guinness (I think that freaked her out) and then let her crash around 9:00. But what a trooper! She made it all day without dying from jetlag!

On Saturday my friend Angelica and her roommate were visiting from Italy (!) and the four of us explored Dublin, went to the Guinness Storehouse, got dinner in a pub and went to see some live music in Temple Bar. Angelica, being the spoiled Italian that she is, was a bit skeptical of Irish food (“What do you eat over there anyway? Potatos?” If I had a penny …) But I’ll be damned if that Italian girl didn’t eat every last bit of her Irish breakfast AND her dinner of bangars and mash! She’s definitely got a new appreciation for the Irish. Ha!

On Monday I skipped class to go on a bus tour with Mom (corrupting the youth, so she is!) We traveled to the west coast to see the Cliffs of Moher, stopping in a few counties on the way. The cliffs are absolutely incredible! We also saw the Burren, which is a huge expanse of exposed limestone right next to the ocean; a bunch of other little villages and ruins, and lots and lots of green countryside. They don’t call it the Emerald Isle for nothin’. Unfortunately I haven’t had the time to load my pictures yet, but I’ll load a big batch of them after we get back from our trip to LONDON!

That’s right. A girls’ weekend in London! Wild, right? We leave tonight (Thursday) around seven and will get back around midnight on Saturday. I can’t believe how lucky we are that we get to do this. We’ll be staying with her cousins who live a twenty minute train ride outside the city center. Free and convenient. We couldn’t ask for anything more. And if there is one thing that I absolutely positively must do in London if I do not a thing otherwise, it’s go to Platform 9 ¾. DREAM COME TRUE. I mean, this one is right up there with kissing the Blarney Stone and becoming best friends with Lady GaGa (still working on that second one). It’s going to be such a fun weekend! I can’t wait to see what London has in store for us. I’m sure it’ll be great craic!

Cheers, friends!

Un Corazon Cantado, Pero Una Cartera Triste.

A happy heart but a sad wallet. That about sums up Barcelona. I spent more money than I’m even willing to admit to myself, but it was completely worth it! I had the best time seeing new things and catching up with friends. If I got to do it over, I would spend it all again!

Barcelona is a really awesome city. My traveling partner Lea (a friend from both PC and Trinity) and I did so much in just two days that it’s making my feet hurt just thinking about it. I’ve got a lot to share with you, so get comfy. This is going to be a long one.

Before I jump into story time I want to take a minute to clear something up that I know is very confusing for everyone – 20:00 military time is actually 8:00 regular time, not 10:00. I know. Lea and I made the same mistake (Scott, you should pay attention to this). We were racking our brains trying to figure out why we had a six hour flight to Spain and a two hour flight home. Could it be air currents? The time difference? Nope. Just faulty math. We realized our mistake when the captain of the plane ever so elegantly announced “Ooooookay folks iiit’s about 7:45. Weeeee will be landing in about fifffffffteen minutes. Pleeeeeease remain seated during our descent. ThankyoufortravlingRyanairwehopeyouenjoyedyourflight”. Light bulb! We had been preparing ourselves for a mad midnight dash across Barcelona in order to make it out with our friends, but instead we arrived in plenty of time. A happy mistake!

After finding our way to the hostel and getting settled we ventured across the city to meet up with our other PC comrades, all the while congratulating ourselves on figuring out how to use the metro. Yup, the same metro that 11-year-olds and illiterate people also know how to use. We were so proud. Our Barcelonian friars took us to a bar where four of us shared a humungous vat of Sangria. Yes. A vat. With spigots. I’ve never seen such a beautiful thing. We then stumbled, I mean walked, over to this cool club called Catwalk where we danced the rest of the night away (and a good portion of the morning).

The next day we met with our friends for breakfast (two poached eggs over spinach on some kind of wonderful bread with Hollandaise sauce .. heaven) and toured around the city a bit. We went to a beautiful park (name unknown) with a really cool labyrinth in the center which, after a thousand wrong turns and a few frustrated curse words, we totally conquered. Then we headed down to the beach where we sat in an outdoor restaurant/bar by the water and shared calamari and €12 mojitos. I actually heard my wallet growl at me. Then we got dinner (very fancy “smashed” eggs with potatoes and chorizo .. muy deliscioso) where our very fluent friend helped us order while I gave the waiter a blank stare and managed an “Uhhhhhhh gracias”. Unfortunately, all of our friends had midterms this week, so while they slouched off to study Lea and I headed back down to the water and went to the Ice Bar. It’s a bar made completely out of ice – everything from the walls to the sculptures to the glasses. They give you a huge parka and gloves to wear while you sip your drink in what is basically a tricked out igloo. It was great …. for about a half hour. Then we couldn’t feel our fingers and were nearly falling asleep in our parkas, so we called it a night and headed back to the hostel.

The next day Lea and I were on our own while our friends had class, but our friend Christine was nice enough to plan out the whole day for us. What a pal! We started off visiting Park Guell. It was designed by Antoni Gaudi to be a residential area for Barcelona’s richest. No one actually wanted to live there because of its distance from the city and its location on top of an enormous hill, so it was turned into a park. The tile work on all of the monuments and fixtures was unbelievably beautiful. It makes you stop and appreciate not only the beauty of the work itself, but the incredible mind that was able to craft such a brilliant thing. Beautiful feels like an understatement. The rest of our day was filled with more Gaudi genius. We saw the Sagrada Familia, an enormous church that was started in the late 1800’s and is still being built today. Construction is predicted to be complete in 2026. It was absolutely breathtaking. After the Sagrada Familia we went to see two of the Gaudi houses: the House of Bones and Casa Mila. I had learned about these houses in my Civ class, which is why I can’t remember a damn thing about them. Postmodernism … flowing  natural forms .. that’s all I got. All that unnecessary information leaves your head as soon as you leave class. Every single lyrics to ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’, that’s that stuff that stays. When I was looking up at the slides of these houses in class I never thought that a year later I’d be standing in front of them in person. So wild! We ended our ‘tour de Barcelona’ with a stop at La Boqueria – a huge food market that’s famous in Spain. There was an incredible amount of food and everything looked so amazing and fresh. We got some fruit and sangria and took it down to the water where we snacked and rested our weary feet while enjoying the view.

Later that night we met up with friends for dinner at a little hole-in-the-wall food place (aren’t those always the best?) where we had mind-blowingly delicious Spanish food. The kind of food that makes you want to moan with joy while you eat it. We had patatas bravas - fried potato wedges covered in four different kinds of mouth watering sauce, followed by grinders with freshly cooked chicken, homemade bread, fresh veggies, and an assortment of sauces. Oh, the gut busting joy! After dinner we headed to a bar called Chupitos which means shots in Spanish. This bar has hundreds of different shots, all with one main ingredient: fire. Yes, you read that right. Pretty much any shot you order gets lit on fire. We had a boy scout shot, where you roast marshmallows over the flaming bar, take a shot that tastes like a Somoa cookie, and then chase with the roasted marshmallow. I know. We also did a Harry Potter which consisted of an orange slice covered in sugar on top of a fruity tasting shot, all lit on fire. I’m not exactly sure what the Harry Potter part of that was, but it was awesome. Afterwards we headed over to a cool club that had an open bar for an hour (Wooooo Barcelona!!!) and then headed back to the hostel to get a little sleep before venturing home on Monday.

So that was Barcelona! Vibrant, lively, and beautiful. I even got a little color on my face from the sun! That concept doesn’t exist in Ireland. My bank account is currently not on speaking terms with me, but it was money well spent! You can see all the pictures here! Lea also has a ton of photos, so I’ll make sure to swipe some from her and post another album once they go up.

Now that I’ve taken up a substantial amount of your time, I have to finish an essay before my Mom comes tomorrow morning! Any bets on how many pints it’ll take before I have her on stage singing with the band? I’m going with four. (Just kidding, Mom! Pack some advil!)

Sionara, amigos!