Otro Update

First of all, let me just start by saying that today's weather has been crazy!! We woke up to a nice, sunny day, then it started sleeting, then it hailed, then it snowed, then it rained all in one day! And by the end of the day it was sunny again!! Craziness!

snow? hail?

Anyway, the past couple weeks have been really great and fun. School is going well, makin' some stuff, like artists do. Being creative and all that biznezz. Pfft! But really, I am having a great time at school and loving all my classes for the most part. It is a little more intense, since my home university isn't an art school and I'm not used to taking 4 art classes at once and working on 4 different art assignments at one time, but it's a good intense. 

The Friday before last, we went to the Caher Valley for our Irish Studies field trip and it was so fun. I mean, we walked like a billion miles in this valley, but it was crazy-fun (in a "i never want to do that again" sort of way) because it was soooo windy. There were times when we would literally get blown back by the wind and we always had to fight against it to walk. We ended up at a beach at the end of the valley which was so beautiful and the wind was the worst there! But again it was so fun! We were all opening our jackets, holding it out like wings, leaning against the wind and it would actually carry us for a couple seconds! Crazy! 

This last Friday we went on a trip to look at some pre-historical sites, mostly a bunch of different kind of tombs, which got kind of boring by the end. It was some piece of rock that was covered by a bunch of grass, and some were barely even there and right next to someone's house--not very historical/magical looking at all =[ 

This is my Irish Studies teacher trying to shut me in the tomb

Other than that I've just been hanging out con mis amigos and going to the pubs every now and then. We do have a couple trips coming up, one to Dingle and the other to the Aran Islands, but I'm not really sure when. I think the Dingle trip is March 5th and 6th, but I'll have to find out about the Aran Islands. And mid-term critique is already coming up!! I feel so unprepared for that!! It's like in two and a half weeks!! Craziness!! I need to get my rear in gear!! I'll hopefully be posting a blog soon with the work I've done so far!! That's all for now. I'll leave you with some photos of some friends and I at pubs and hanging out and what not!! TTFN (ta-ta for now----in case you didn't know) [although, i know you know, olivia!!!]

the extremely windy walk through Caher Valley

Me, Caitlin and Meghan on the prehistoric tomb field trip

So they always have "discos" at Logues Pub in town, which basically consists of a DJ playing the same American songs over and over while all the college students dance and the locals watch. haha, jk there's a couple locals that dance.

this is my friend shawn...and me, wiping sweat off my face after dancing

my surprised face?

Mandy and I are sexy beasts

Meghann, Shawn and I

Mandy and I again

and being sexy beasts....again

My Maggie =]

Mandy, Arianna and I getting our groove on

Arianna and I

Just missing Becca to complete the "mexican group of BCA"

Kate, Maggie and I

No editing was done to this photo. I, nor anyone else, knows why I'm glowing

Meghann, me and Mandy

Just a little somethin' somethin'

So this blog is just gonna be a kind of everything blog about little trips, or cool little things that I haven't talked about yet. To start off, I'm gonna be showing some photos I've taken over the last couple weeks from walking around town and up in the mountains behind by school and such. (some of these photos I'm actually using for art projects).

some woods close to my school

same woods just on the other side

found a fridge in the woods

a plant that looked like butterflies

one of my studio mate's drawings--one of the butterflies came to life

the campus cat, TC, sleeping on my jacket.

he always sleeps on my desk cause it's right above the heater

and again

the view from the top of the mountain behind the town

some rock formations that i think previous students had built

i photoshopped the town out because it was for an art project

this was a different day/different walk

some abandon house

dead crab on a beach

also found a dead fox

"that's my boat"

a found a beautiful graveyard by bishop's quarter beach

the houses were also edited out of this photo for class

TC....in my lap

i think i'm gonna make an album on facebook just for my TC photos

he saw a bug in the window so jumped from my desk to the counter and tried to get it

he failed and then jumped back to my desk and went to sleep on my jacket

Mandy and I at a pub in Dublin

Found my true love in Ireland. Sorry Brandon

One of the grad students, Morris, had a house party which was a lot of fun.

Here's me getting down singing Respect by Aretha Franklin for karaoke.

So that's all the photos for now. A fun fact for ya--I tried Nutella for the first time here, and i'm addicted. I like live off bread and Nutella. I love it. I also tried crepes for the first time which were amazing....and i put Nutella on them...which was also amazing. Another interesting fact is that cow poo gets into the water tank sometimes which makes the water smell/taste gross and that happened yesterday so no one showered and it sucked and we couldn't have tea (or anything with water for that matter) cause it was undrinkable. Now there's a bunch of chlorine or some chemical in it to fix it, which is still undrinkable unless you boil it for awhile, but hopefully it'll be better soon. One reason you can feel happy you're not here. But other than that be jealous =]

Update....FINALLY!

So sorry for taking so long to post an update. I realize my last post was on January 19th which was forever ago, but I've actually been pretty busy. Since then, I've been on a two trips: one to Galway and the other to Dublin.

The Galway trip was only a day, but was pretty fun. I ate at Supermacs which is the Irish equivalent of McDonalds and was surprisingly pretty good (their sodas are so small!!!) Afterwards, we walked up and down Shop Street which is literally a street with shops. It's a super cool street filled with every type of shop you can imagine. There are colorful buildings, pubs, cafes, street musicians/artists and even a cool little farmer's market. It was really fun. I even went to see a movie, which is good cause I was having withdrawals...just kidding!! But it was fun!

My friend, Maggie, and I walking down Shop Street

Some guy handing out store catalogues to passing cars

Kennedys Pub!!!

Some pretty church

Amazing hot chocolate from some pub

Our next trip was a two day trip to Dublin. We stayed in a hostel called Barnacles which was pretty nice, I've never been in a hostel so I don't have anything to compare it to. We left bright and early at like 7 in the morning on a Thursday and all day Dublin was spent in museums and galleries. I know I should have this appreciation for all art, which I do, but there is such a thing as too much art--particularly when it comes to museums and galleries. Also, most of it was modern art which sucks because it's the type where there'll be one pencil mark on a page and it'll be called "art". And then it was freakin hot in every museum we went to which made it suck a billion times more. Sorry for being such a Debbie Downer--on the brightside there were a couple redeeming qualities to these museums. One of the museums had these musical pieces that were beautiful and also had a gorgeous garden. Another one did have some amazing paintings, amazing stained glass art, and a cool statue. But that's pretty much it! Oh, and i found another Kennedy's Pub =]

pretty [boring] museum

so i took photos of the cobblestone

and again

the museum with gorgeous stained glass

and a cool fountain

i forget the story of the fountain, but these people (sister's i think) are

being turned into swans. (i'm sure you know it, Olivia)

another Kennedy's Pub!!!

So after the galleries we split up in a few different groups and went to different galleries (I went on the one that was photography based, obviously). And that wasn't even that cool either!! I felt that most of the stuff was a waste of space. The first gallery we went to was amazing though, because it was historical photos of Ireland and those were awesome. But a couple of the other galleries were these huge rooms with like two photos in it--like what's the point? 

After that, we had free time. It was so much fun! Our hostel was in Temple Bar which, if you don't know, is "kind of a big deal". haha! It was next to a bunch of pubs and things to do. My friend, Mandy, and first went to a movie and saw Black Swan, then we went and got milkshakes (we'd been craving them for soooo long) and then we went pub hopping. All the pubs had awesome traditional Irish music and we met a lot of interesting (drunk) people. I also found a type of alcohol I like (yay)! And don't worry, Mom, I'm not gonna become an alcoholic, I promise. Anyway, I had tried Bulmers (an alcoholic cider) before, but I didn't like it, but it turns out they have flavors of Bulmers. I tried the pear flavored one and loved it!! Apparently there's also a berry flavored one which I want to try. So that was all fun and good...

The next morning we had one more museum to go to and then the rest of the day was ours until we left around 6. This museum was super cool though because it was a history museum full of cool stuff from Rome, Egypt, Ireland (obviously), and a few other places. Everyone was super excited about the bog people (look it up NOW). They are awesomely creepy....or creepily awesome. Either way it was cool. So after that I went off on my own to take some photos for an art project. I went on a search for cathedrals and graveyards (I had no such luck with graveyards) but I found three cathedrals and they were all so gorgeous! And I also went to Dublin Castle, but I could only stay a wee bit since I had to get back to the bus =[ Oh and guess what I found? Another Kennedy's Pub!!! 

yes, we found the starbucks. and yes we went to it

for you, Olivia, my dear

the first Cathedral I found, and i'm blanking on the name right now

I feel like it's something like church's cathedral or something

and again

and again

and again

St. Patrick's Cathedral

and again

and again

a pigeon flying off a fountain at st. patrick's cathedral

oh i found a door for Adrienne!!

I forget the name of this one too, which I stumbled upon by accident. 

I think it's like St. Augustine's or St. Jude's Cathedral I think

another Kennedy's Pub

Dublin Castle

and again

So that's what I've been up to the last couple weeks. School's been going good. Had/Have my first critiques this week so we'll see how that goes. I like the environment here because it's very "do what you want as long as you can back up why you want to do it". So even if something is completely ridiculous, you can just B.S. something. And as Olivia and my mum know from my letter writing to Wonka and that bean company, I can B.S. really well. =] just kidding!! but really! 

anyway i didn't take any photos from going out in dublin, but mandy did so i'll steal a couple pics from her and post them. i also walked to the top of the mountain behind the school and i've been walking around town talking pics which i'll post in another blog since this one is really long. enjoy!!!