Population: 400

I find it funny that I can go to the grocery store and run into three faculty members in a row. You'd think it's the only store in town or something...

;)

photog

first photography assignment. well, some of the better shots anyway
(It was about place. I went around handing this frame to people and asking them to hold it up to something they thought represented Ireland. They didn't always understand what I wanted, but it turned out to be a great study on people!)

In case anyone was interested, Chelsea put up a video from our set dancing excursion.. I can't say we were doing it properly though. In fact I'm pretty sure none of us knew what we were supposed to be doing.
link: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=445275392120&ref=notif¬if_t=video_tag

My, what big hills you have

Went for a hike this morning before lunch. It started out as a walk for mixed media and ended in me scaling the mountain. (I say "mountain" because, technically, it is, but really they're more like big hills.)

Things I did to get to the mountain:
climbed over a wall
through blackberry bushes and hazelnut trees (45 mins) - very scratched.
through some ferns and blackberry bushes
up a steep wild grass and fern and rock field
Over a barbed wire fence
up very steep layers of limestone (actually pretty easy)
more wildflowers, more ferns, can't see where I'm stepping
More trees. Sticker bushes! more blackberries
more rock
rock, rock, flowers, rock
wind.
Great views!:




One the way back I went:
over two rock walls
through some sticker bushes
through a cow field
Through another cow field since I couldn't get out of the first one
over a fence.
(I clearly have no regard for any sort of boundary lines)

Also, are cows supposed to be skittish? I find it wierd that I can walk up to a wild donkey and pet it and feed it, but woooahh, don't get within 20 feet of a cow!

Lisdoonvarna

Slept in Saturday, wooo.

Then went for a walk with Emily and Sarah,
Found an old ruined building,
Played pooh sticks:



Climbed a wall and pet a donkey:



Then the whole house plus some of the town went here:

We crammed 22 of us in a 16-seater van: (I know, how safe!)

Half the group went to the hotel/club, the rest of us hung out at bar:

..Then joined the others at the club where we basically paid e15 to have drunk people grab our butts. So we left:

(we lost a few people on the bus back I think)

That was pretty much that. It was still Maurice's birthday so some of the more party-oriented household members (basically everyone except Emily D. and me) stayed up some more but as it was 3:30 said us just went to bed.

I learned that while drinking and talking to an English woman for two hours I will pick up her accent and then be made fun of by the other Americans in the group.

And Deb should note that Owen would NOT stop talking about how much he loves my coat :)

Dublin

Not sure what to say about this one. The two days pretty much went like this:
3 hour bus drive, art museum, art museum, lunch, gallerygallerygallerygallerygallery, long walk to another gallerygallerygallery, Guiness Arthur's day (toast at 5:59), free time in which we ate food changed clothes went bar crawling then carried Steph home when she got completely smashed by 10:30 and ended the night by 11 if you don't count the uneven sleep patterns of a shared hostel room. Early wake up, museum, museum that most of us skipped out of, errand running (groceries, art supplies), then I split with Emily and wandered around on my own for about 2 hours finding victims jovial volunteers for my photography assignment and simultaniously getting lost and multiple blisters, bus back home (and drinks for Maurice's birthday for those who didn't get horrendously carsick on the way back.)



First modern art museum. It was actually really tiny for such a huge building and the galleries were really seperated and hard to find.








Leprechauns are as rare in the city as they are anywhere else in Ireland, even when labeled. Two blocks later the signs for the leprechaun museum just vanished and I was not able to find it :(


Some sort of Brazilian drumline mini parade. It went by twice while we were waiting for everyone to arrive to get back on the bus. I don't know what it was about. That girl was probably freezing her butt off though..

So--
Monday's teacher didn't show up on Monday, then Tuesday's teacher wanted to meet on Monday when I wasn't ready for him, then Monday's teacher decides she's going to meet on Wednesdays but didn't tell anyone until today, then Thursday's teacher wants to meet Wednsday night even though there was no class this week because of the Dublin trip, and Emma is now extremely confused as to what assignments she's supposed to be working on what days because apparently nobody is capable of sticking to the actual schedule.

Sonnet

Eternity has no meaning to the rocks on the shore
Who, drunk with heat, cool their bodies in the steady passage
Of the waves’ breath, like an unsettling echo,
For the waves wear down the rocks in secret, and
Sink them down to their beds, playing blankets
Of foam over barnacled skin,
Sweating salt into the blood of kelp that dries itself
In rocky crevices. And the rocks don’t mind
The fierce pressure of the waves, or the cold
Of a storm nor the heat of the sun. They know only
The connection of the water and the sand,
Their bodies forming hollows on the shore like
Wet copies of their being, while time
Forgets them

Festival/Pony races

For the broke students who didn't want to pay for rides or the bouncy castle, this ended up not being as much fun as we anticipated. D:

-Also, I got photo-cockblocked twice by the same photographer. He kept getting right in my line of fire to take the same picture and then I'd miss the shot. Kind of annoyed.

Anyway--







This is the most amazingly Irish outfit ever. Ever. (the guy wasn't even irish. wha? --umm, and the frame is for a photo project so, ignore it)

Picture of Robert. I said I'd get one eventually!

I feel this sums up carneval treats really well.

Potluck slash dance party

It started with way too much food.
It ended with way too much alcohol.
And somewhere along the way there was limbo.










(Emily won):

Then there was dancing



My twin: