Far Northern and Far Southern Europe

This seems like a weird combination but I forgot to blog about Istanbul and I just got back from Stockholm, so there you have it. Extreme southern and extreme northern Europe COMBINED.

I went to Istanbul with my sister for the first week of July. She’s going to be spending the rest of the summer studying there so it was kind of a combination “get Maggie used to the city” and “cram as much tourist stuff in for Molly as possible.” It was (surprisingly) the first time I’ve ever been to a non-Westernized country, and I’m aware Turkey is still pretty Westernized. But you got that whole “Is it Asia? Is it Europe?” thing going on, and they’re not part of the EU… etc. I want to count it as a non-Western country so I’m going to.




Istanbul is SUCH a stunning city. I got to visit Topkapi Palace (where the sultans lived) and tour the harem where they kept their concubines. Mags and I took a super underwhelming boat tour but saw some awesome mosques (Mags showed me the basic arrangement and structure of a mosque, taught me how to pray, etc) and we enjoyed good weather and good food and good wine and good sister times.



The only other notable thing was that Maggie’s debit card didn’t work and, unbeknownst to us, our hostel didn’t take credit cards. I completely emptied out my bank account, paid for both of our hostels, both of our meals, both of our museums, etc, etc, until I was completely out of cash. We had called Maggie’s bank to tell them of this issue and they told us it wouldn’t work in Turkey, period, so we had to have our dad withdraw the money from Maggie’s account and wire it to my account, if that makes any sense. I was then going to withdraw it and hand it all to her – all of her savings, in cash, in one lump sum. It made me uneasy, but what were we going to do? It didn’t come in until the last day we were there, and at that point, the ATM near our hostel was broken. I almost broke down in tears. But we worked it out and everything should be good for her (god, I hope so).



On to Sweden! I won a free flight from Bank of Ireland so I got to go to Stockholm for 3 days. I went alone but still had a really good time. Stockholm is like getting a glimpse of the future. Here is how we will all be living in about 20 years:

1) Street vendors will take credit cards.
2) All bathrooms will be unisex. All of them.
3) When you go to a museum and get an audio guide, no longer will you walk up to a display case and push the number into your audio guide that corresponds with the exhibit. No. You will receive a wand that you WAVE AT THE EXHIBIT and some microchip or something IN THE EXHIBIT picks up on that and starts playing the commentary for the right exhibit. I am being serious right now.
4) Everyone will be blond and tall and smiling and friendly and gorgeous. Or maybe that’s just Sweden. Or Hitler’s wet dream.

While there, I took a Stieg Larsson tour. For those of you who don’t know, Stieg Larsson was a Swedish crime novelist who wrote the Millenium trilogy – Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Girl Who Played With Fire, Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. He very tragically died of a sudden heart attack in 2004. ANYWAY on that tour I learned that he was mostly a journalist and only a moonlighting crime novelist (actually, I sort of knew that already) but that in his capacity as a journalist, he was a NAZI HUNTER! LIKE INDIANA JONES! He was Sweden’s foremost expert on neo-Nazi cells and far-right movements in Sweden. He used to testify all over Europe. YEAH. How cool is that??

The other thing of note in Sweden is how damn efficient everything is. My last night, I was having a beer with these three American kids who had just graduated college and were spending the summer backpacking Europe. They had just come from Italy, and one of them said something that really summed it up for me: “We just came from a really poorly run country with so much soul. Now we’re here, in this super efficient country, but there’s not a lot of soul.” Very wise, recent UCLA grad. Very wise.

Oh, also, in my hostel, the man sleeping under me was an elderly sweaty stinky Polish man who came in RAVING drunk each of the two nights he was there and sang to himself and pooped the bed and peed on the floor. He also told me I had nice legs. So that’s that. And THAT’S why most hostels have an age limit. Because if you are above 30 and still feel the need to stay in a hostel, there is probably something wrong with you.

I didn’t get awesome pictures but here are a couple quick samples:



(haha, yes, I went to the Nobel Museum and took a picture of the man from my hometown who won a Nobel Prize. Also, they spelled his name wrong. Millikin.)





(sweet Swedish picture - note the flag)

NEW ZEALAND

Woohooooo! New Zealand!

I fell in love with New Zealand. Seriously, the prettiest place on earth. I cannot count the number of times Beth and I had to stop and seriously ask ourselves if we were still on Planet Earth. It was unbelievable. Don’t worry, I’ll liberally sprinkle pictures throughout this blog entry. Also: we only did the South Island. We heard that for the amount of time we had, the North Island wasn’t really worth it. I could be convinced to go back and be proven wrong, though.

On our first day, we flew into Christchurch, rented a car, and did a short drive to Arthur’s Pass National Park. The hostel proprietor there was hysterical. I refuse to refer to him as anything except Michael Moore. He kind of looked like him, but that’s not the point. He was Canadian, and he kept trying to bring up Bush and how much he hated Bush, and he clearly wanted us to sympathize. Beth and I were like… yeah, we get it, we hated Bush too, but that was THREE YEARS AGO. WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT NOW. NO ONE STILL IS TALKING ABOUT BUSH. The guy kept using the word “groovy,” with no apparent sense of irony, and kept trying to get us to rant with him about evangelical Christians and the Bible Belt. Beth and I were just like… wow, news must travel slowly to rural New Zealand. Yes, we saw Jesus Camp, yes, we saw the results of the 2004 election, yes, we were horrified at the time, but we’re pretty much over it now. Let’s… let’s move on.

So anyway, the next morning we woke up and went hiking in the national park. It. Was. Stunning. Pictures here:







However, I had to wuss out a little early. I think I thought I was in much better shape than I was. It got better the more I hiked, but that first day… I couldn’t quite make it to the top of the mountain. Sad day.

After we went hiking, we drove down to glacier country. There are these two glaciers along the West Coast of New Zealand, so the next morning we hiked out to see those. Pictures here:







That was also cool but I mean, I’ve seen snow and ice before. There were Australians ahead of us who were just blown away because it was the first time any of them had seen snow. Beth and I were just kinda like, yeah, we get it. It’s cold. Wahoo.

Our next stop was Queenstown, which is like the adrenaline sports capital of the world. I did no adrenaline sports. First of all, SO not my thing. Secondly, surprisingly expensive! I mean, I know throwing yourself out a plane would be in the region of 600 bucks, but bungee jumping was like 400, which actually did surprise me. Had it been like 30 or 50, I maybe would have considered it, but for that amount of money when it’s something I don’t really want to do? Forget about it. We stayed there two nights and it was one of the only non-rural locations on our trip. We met these two Canadian guys in our hostel who were in their late 20s and doing a trip around the world because they got a year off work – a PAID year off work! GOD I love Canada.

After Queenstown, it was on to Te Anau National Park, where we stayed one night before taking an overnight cruise around Doubtful Sound. Here is a random scenery picture from that drive:



Anyway. There are these two big sounds in southern New Zealand: Milford and Doubtful. Milford you can do in a day cruise, but it was like 150 bucks to do that, and Doubtful was overnight and 200, so it was pretty much a no-brainer as we’d have to pay for a hostel that night if we’d done Milford. Doubtful Sound is called that because when Captain Cook was a-explorin’, his men wanted to go into the sound but he was DOUBTFUL there’d be enough wind to get them back out! Haha! Geddit? DOUBTFUL!

Anyway. The main point of the cruise was just to look at how pretty the sound was, so I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves:






I mean HONESTLY.

After Doubtful Sound we drove up to Christchurch in the morning. We spent two nights in Christchurch. Our first we had to spend in this horribly sketchy Asian hostel because the hostel we wanted to stay in closed its reception at like 8 and we got there at like 8:30. It was clean and safe and all that, but it smelled SO strongly of curry and fish. It was disgusting. That morning, we woke up and drove out to Kaikoura wine country, where we saw a seal colony and did wine tastings.

Here is a picture of the beach and of me at a seal colony:




We had a lovely dinner at a brewery that night and drove back into Christchurch. It’s kind of unbelievable how badly Christchurch is still suffering from that earthquake and, correspondingly, how quickly the earthquake disappeared from the public eye. I went to New Orleans in 2007 for the Sugar Bowl, and honestly, the downtown of Christchurch reminded me of some of the worse-hit neighborhoods I saw of NOLA. The entire city center is closed off to traffic and pedestrians, but the surrounding areas were still really bad, so I can’t imagine what the city center is like. It shocked both of us – we remembered hearing about the earthquake but I guess we sort of didn’t realize how much it would still be affecting daily life in the city.

Our last night we stayed in an absolutely lovely hostel (the one whose reception had been closed the previous night). We drank a bottle of fine wine that we’d bought at one of the wineries and watched How I Met Your Mother and it was basically a perfect ending to an absolutely lovely trip.

Then I flew for 30 hours and took a 2 ½ hour bus ride and I never, ever want to travel again. Cheers!

p.s. If you’re on facebook, there’s a ton better pictures up – it’s sort of hard to load pictures onto this thing and the majority of them are on there.

Australia: Sydney!

Ah, Sydney. You, I think, more than any other Australian city, truly captured my heart. You were just so… sunny… and… warm.

Beth and I stayed on Bondi Beach in a hostel. Originally we were planning to stay with these two Irish guys she knows (ha!) but they are leaving Australia in a couple of weeks so they didn’t want to pay an extra month of rent so they just moved into a hostel for their last two weeks. We stayed at the same hostel as them and had a great time. Apparently Bondi Beach is becoming known as “County Bondi” because so many Irish are moving in because the Irish government does such a poor job of providing jobs and welfare for its citizens that almost every young person with a college degree is basically required to move to find work. Sorry for that little rant – I have many, many issues with the way the Irish government makes decisions and conducts itself. But that’s for another day.

So we stayed in the same hostel as these two guys from Kerry. And about the rest of Ireland. I’m not kidding, probably 80% of that hostel was Irish people who had either just arrived and not yet found a place to live or were in a similar situation as Pete and Trevor (Beth’s friends) and just needed a place to live for a couple of days or a week before they moved on. (Trevor is moving to a different city in Australia and Pete’s actually off to America.) We caught them in just the nick of time before they left!

Sydney was definitely the most touristy city. We took a tour of the Sydney Opera House, which was AWESOME, and we walked around downtown Sydney, took free ferries out to different islands, etc. We really wanted to go to this immigration museum Beth’s dad kept talking about, but sadly never made it there. Just too much to do, I suppose. I’m trying to remember what else we did – saw the Harbour Bridge, took a ton of pictures in front of the Opera House – standard touristy stuff but it was really really fun.

Sydney was just… lovely. It was winter but 80 degrees, everyone was smiling and happy, it didn’t rain once… it was just AWESOME. And we knew people so we got to, again, hang with the locals – went to a house party where Beth and I were the only non-Irish people (everyone was SO confused when I tried to tell them I lived in Galway but was American… ) got to go to some cool tucked-away bars and restaurants… just again, really great. This was definitely the best time for me to go because I’ll never know that many people in Australia again, you know? And so much of this vacation was living how the locals live. Great fun.







So yeah, Australia was really, really fun. And then it was onto New Zealand, which was obviously very fun as well, but in a totally different way. Australia (especially Perth and Sydney) was laid back, sunny, hanging out with fun people and taking it easy. New Zealand was much more active… I can tell I’m transitioning into a new blog entry so I’ll just start a new one now.

Australia: Melbourne!

So after Perth, it was on to Melbourne. Beth was quite excited to know what I thought of Melbourne. Apparently there is a big Sydney/Melbourne competition: I sat next to an Australian man on the way home and when he asked me about my trip, his immediate next question was whether I preferred Sydney or Melbourne. The joke is that Sydney is the pretty girl in class, and Melbourne’s her plain friend who had to develop a personality. Sydney is about beaches and sun and surfing and Melbourne is the cultural capital of Australia – plays and museums and cafes, etc. Based on that description, I was actually fully prepared to like Melbourne.

…but I liked Sydney. More on the merits of Sydney later, and I did really like Melbourne as well, but especially for a vacation, Sydney was tops. Melbourne was super interesting, tons of cool little alleys and cafes, etc, but the weather’s not very good and let’s face it, I’m living in Europe. I’m good on the whole museum front. Maybe to live, I’d prefer Melbourne because it seems like there’s a lot of cultural stuff going on that you could always take advantage of, but because so much of it seemed to be knowing underground stuff, it was hard to kind of take it all in in vacation.

Beth’s (obviously) working in Melbourne, so the days were pretty much my own. I took a guided walking tour with this sort of creepy old man, but he was very informative and I learned a lot about the city – it was a big gold rush city, used to be a huge financial capital, etc. I walked around this Queen Victoria market which was pretty cool and basically just roamed the city. I got the impression that that’s sort of the point of Melbourne – there’s not a ton to see and do (I guess kind of like Perth) but it’s about walking around and getting a feel for the place. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of Brooklyn – hipster, a bit pretentious, a bit suspicious of outsiders (especially ones deemed uncool). This all sounds negative, but I swear I actually did like Melbourne. But that did seem to be its general vibe.

Here’s just a couple of pictures of the city (and of Beth and I posing in front of this really famous nude painting... it's apparently worth more than the bar it's in and is a Melbourne landmark):







So anyway, what was really great was getting to meet all of Beth’s housemates and friends. One of her roommates is a superb cook and he made this giant Indian feast for all of us one night. She’s met some very cool people and it was really nice to meet them and see where she works, etc (she’s working at a non-profit that finds housing for low-income people). It’s super cool because now I can picture what her life is like there in Melbourne.

One very interesting thing I did was go to the Melbourne Museum. I only went because there were giant banners up about a King Tut exhibit, and I’ve never seen King Tut, so I figured, why not? I got there literally 7 minutes after the museum opened and they were already sold out of King Tut tickets for the day. Not kidding. But I figured I’d walked all the way out there, might as well go to the museum anyway. Some of the exhibits were fairly underwhelming, but they had an EXCELLENT display on aboriginal life and culture. I know very little about aboriginal Australians, but one thing I was quite impressed with was the amount of attention paid to aboriginals in Australia. You see stuff about them EVERYWHERE – someone was saying there’s even something about the prime minister starting all her speeches with one of the aboriginal languages. I was really impressed because we definitely don’t pay the same attention to Native Americans. It feels like white Australians are quite serious about atoning for past sins. I was quite impressed with that.

Anyway, this exhibition. There was all kinds of interesting historical stuff about the Stolen Generation (basically an early 1900s thing where aboriginal children were taken from their parents and sent to orphanages to be trained to become servants for white Australians) and even stuff before that, like the super early colonial stuff where it was basically a huge giant massacre. There was one story in particular about a tribe in Tasmania where the British rounded up everyone – men, women and children – and basically forced them to jump off this huge cliff into the sea. The history seemed very similar to how we treated the Native Americans, but I found it admirable how much more in the forefront of national consciousness treatment of aboriginals seemed to be than it is in America.

While I’m (sort of) on the subject – something that surprised me about Australia was how much it reminded me of the States. I was expecting degrees of similarity, of course – we both speak English, both settled by British immigrants in the early days, etc – but Australia, more than any country I’ve been to, reminds me the most of America. Definitely more so than England, and I also think Ireland is extremely similar to America, but Australia beats Ireland. It just surprises me because I guess I assumed for a long time that England and America would be extremely similar, but Ireland is more like America than is England, and Australia more like America than Ireland, even. It just surprises me. I sort of didn’t expect that to be the order.

Anyway. Melbourne was lovely but then it was time to go onto sunny, sunny Sydney.

Australia: Perth!

So I just got back from a whirlwind and wonderful trip to Australia and New Zealand! I went to three cities in Oz: Perth, Melbourne, and Sydney, and then Beth and I rented a car and did a road trip around the South Island of New Zealand. Right before I left, my friend Kyle from the States and my friend Eric who lives in Maynooth (in Ireland) came to visit for a couple of days, which was fun and amazing and wonderful. More ND love whooo!

But (sorry Kyle and Eric) the main focus of this entry will be Oceania. To make it easy, I’ll divide this update into four chunks, one for each city and then one for NZ. To begin: Perth.

My first moments in Perth began with my almost-arrest. We landed, and right off the airplane there was this big “Welcome to Perth!” sign. Being a huge tourist, my first natural inclination was to take a picture. Apparently this is a $1,000 fine as I was in some sort of restricted area (there was a sign, although it was tiny and not in a terribly conspicuous place. I noticed it once it was pointed out but I never would have just seen it on my own). I was accosted by Australian border police and after a great deal of apologizing and groveling, they let me off with no fine. I didn’t have to cry, but I was fully prepared to if the need should present itself. I did have to delete the picture, though. Sad day.

My friend Christina from high school lives in Perth with her boyfriend, Chris. Their friend, Joey, and my cousin, Beth, picked me up at the airport. (Beth lives in Melbourne but flew into Perth to hang out since I was there.) Joey told me fun facts about Perth, including that it’s the most isolated capital city in the world, which is pretty cool. The next nearest city is a place called Darwin, and I’m pretty sure he said it was about a five hour flight away. Other than that, it’s just the Outback til you hit the east coast (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, etc).

Joey and Beth and I hung out at Chris and Christina’s until the two got off work. I had never met Chris before, so it was really good to meet him and SO good to hang out with and catch up with Christina. After their senior year of college (at ASU) Christina and Beth decided to do 7 months of traveling around Southeast Asia, which is where Christina and Chris met. Adorable story. She’s working there and he’s a native, so it was really fun to hang out with locals. The two of them and Joey and a couple of other Chris’s friends showed us a really good time: we went tubing on the river on Saturday and got a sweet tour of Perth beaches, etc.







Basically Perth was just good times of hanging out and being with fun people. The only seriously notable thing I can think of that happened was this conversation, which numbers among the most uncomfortable I have ever had.

So Saturday night, we went to a bar where a ton of Chris’s friends were. I met all of them, but since there were so many, I couldn’t keep names/faces straight, etc. Small piece of background information: Christina is originally from Arizona and after high school, went back to go to ASU. Beth also went to ASU. Usually, for sake of shorthand, they just tell people they are from Arizona because this makes it much easier. For this reason, everyone in Perth knows them as “the Arizona girls.” To continue:

I’m at the bar, ordering a drink. This guy overhears my accent and says, “you American?” This is the conversation that follows:

Me: Hi! Yeah, I am.
Him: oh, you from Arizona?
(at this point, I assume he is one of Chris’s friends and knows Christina, assumes that since I am American, I must also be from Arizona.)
me: Oh, no, I’m not, but I know those girls.
Him: What girls?
Me: Sorry, Beth and Christina.
Him: What? Who’s Beth?
(I now assume he must know Christina but not Beth, as Beth, like me, is just visiting.)
me: Oh, right. She’s Christina’s friend, living in Melbourne.
Him: Who is Christina?
Me: Chris’s girlfriend?
Him: Who is Chris?
Me: Chris Bates?
Him: What?
Me: Arizona?
Him: huh?
(we stare at each other blankly for awhile.)
me (tentatively): Arizona?
Him: I have no idea who any of those people are. I was just asking if you were from Arizona because I went to the Grand Canyon last summer.
Me: Oh. Um. I have to go now.

It was seriously so amazingly awkward and uncomfortable.

But other than that, it was just really fun and laid back. We just hung out and ate and drank and had a lot of fun. I guess a couple touristy things we did: we went to a farmer’s market and a prison that the British made prisoners build with their own hands (because Australia started life as a British penal colony). Ah, the Brits. Masters of torture.

Basically, Perth is lovely. A lot of people skip it because it’s so isolated and because there’s really not a lot to “do.” Frankly, had I not known people there, I probably would have skipped it as well. But I’m so glad I went – had such a good time!

Classes Are Over and I Went to Scotland!

So I hesitate to say this because I know I have friends in grad school in the U.S. who read this… buuuuut my classes for the second semester were over last week! HURRAY! I do have final papers to turn in, but I have three weeks in which to write three papers. Life’s been harder. Although, this being Ireland, basically my entire grade in the course rests on this one paper… damn British education system (that, to be fair, is in place in basically every English-speaking country in the world EXCEPT America).

So, anyway, I spent this past weekend in St. Andrews, Scotland with my friend from ND Lauren. As I was packing on Thursday night, I was talking to my mom on the phone and I mentioned that my classes were over, which for whatever reason she hadn’t known. She said, “Oh! Your classes are over?? You should treat yourself!”to which I responded, “… I am treating myself. I’m… going to Scotland. Remember? I’m packing for it now? While I speak to you?” It was pretty funny.

Anyway, the weekend was great. Lauren got her M.A. from the University of St. Andrews last year, so she knows the town really well and has a ton of friends and everything so it was awesome getting to hang out with her. We are also both huge fans of the Backer (THE BEST BAR IN THE ENTIRE WORLD… no exceptions) so a great deal of our conversations revolved around Backer drinks, Backer bartenders, Backer shoes and Backer sludge. To top this off, my mom (without knowing we’d had these conversations) on Saturday morning emailed me the yelp reviews for the Backer just because she thought I’d enjoy them. Perfect timing, Mom.

St. Andrews is cool. There's a great university there (it's where Kate Middleton met Prince William! ahh!!) and where golf was invented (seriously. The Old Course is awesome). There's also this ruin of a Catholic cathedral that Protestants went to town on and destroyed during the Reformation, and Lauren was telling me that Catholics still refer to it as "the cathedral" and Protestants just refer to it as "the ruin." It was stunningly beautiful, whatever it was. There is also a coffeeshop with a huge sign in the window that says, "Where Kate Met Wills." I'd feel bad for the girl with her life newly under a microscope and all, but she gets to be the Queen of England, so. My sympathy is a little tempered.

On Sunday, I had to spend about four hours in Glasgow because of an awkwardness with when the last bus left St. Andrews and then when my flight itself left. Man, Glasgow sucks. It's not unsafe or dangerous or anything, but the best analogy I could come up with would be something like Peoria, Illinois. It's just like... "okay, I'm here. What do I do now?" My solution was to eat and then walk around aimlessly, which worked out okay for me, but it's not a place I intend to revisit ever in my life.

Overall, it was just so great to be around ND again. I know it seems like I see my college friends a lot if you read this blog, but I really only update it when things of import happen, so I really don’t get to see people from ND much. I just make sure to update whenever I do. Anyway I just love being around ND people and talking about ND. The end.

St. Patrick's Day and Alana/Aaron

Hi everyone (if anyone is still reading this... haha)

So I figured I'd recap St. Patrick's Day in Ireland and my friend Alana visiting with her boyfriend, Aaron. Both events were pretty epic and I've decided I need a solid week of sleep and detoxification before I can even think about sleeping less than 8 hours a night or drinking again.

So for St. Patrick's Day, my friend Kiel was in town. Kiel was originally my year at ND but is aiming to become the world's first quintuple Domer. So, for non-ND readers, the term "double Domer" is frequently used to mean someone who got more than one degree at Notre Dame. A bachelor's and a master's, bachelor's and a JD, whatever. Kiel discovered that although there have been many double Domers and a reasonable amount of triple Domers (I'm thinking probably bachelor's/JD/MBA or something along those lines) there have been only four quadruple Domers and NO quintuples. So this is his goal now. He has two bachelor's (one bachelor's of science and one of arts) and is currently working on his first master's. After this, he's thinking another master's, followed by an MBA. See, here's the thing. He's completely not kidding about any of this. This is actually his life goal. It's not like, "Ha! You know what would be funny? If I got five degrees from Notre Dame." No, it's like, "I AM GOING TO GET FIVE DEGREES FROM NOTRE DAME, END OF STORY."

So anyway, for this master's (something to do with engineering... I was totally paying attention) ND flew his entire program over to Ireland for spring break. Apparently the program is funded by one of the wealthiest families in Ireland, the Naughton family or some nonsense. So over they came, and it coincided with St. Patrick's Day, which was awesome. He was in Dublin, so I went into the city to hang out with him. Here are the things I did (for FREE... the instant I arrived, I got swept up into the Notre Dame "we have more money than GOD bubble" and I didn't have to pay for anything):

1) We stayed at the Merrion, the nicest hotel in Dublin. (http://www.merrionhotel.com/) It is the kind of place where, when you order two coffees in the morning, it costs you 40 euro. How do we know this? Well, we may have accidentally done it. But then ND reimbursed us, so no harm, no foul.

2) Kiel got us: free tickets in a grandstand to the SPD parade, free tickets in a box to the All-Ireland hurling and GAA championships, and free tickets to a Jameson's-sponsored party in the Lord Mayor's house.

3) Everything we ate, Notre Dame comped. Everything we drank, Notre Dame comped. Basically I spent no money once I got off the bus.

4) I got to hang out with Domers and just talk about Notre Dame. It was awesome. Oh yeah, and I got to see Kiel. Minor detail, ha.

So when he left, I stayed in Dublin on Friday night because my old roommate from NYC, Alana, was coming in on Saturday morning. I needed somewhere to just sit and study on Friday, so I showed up at the Notre Dame Center in Dublin. I basically just showed up and was like, "yo. I'm an alum. I live in Galway but need a place to chill in Dublin for the day," and the receptionist was like, "of course, honey, this happens all the time." Seriously, Notre Dame. Also the Notre Dame Center is in Daniel O'Connell's old house. How do we do this nonsense? It is absurd and I LOVE it.

So Saturday Alana showed up with Aaron! It was so incredibly wonderful. We spent Saturday and Sunday in Dublin and then they were in Galway from Mon-Thurs. We just had really good times. I sent them out to the Connemara and the Cliffs of Moher on the days I had classes, but when I didn't have class we hung out and cooked and ate and drank and I showed them around Galway and took them to my favorite places and it was really, really fun. I can't think of anything in particular that was especially amazing, but it was just so good to have friends around and to get to show off my new city. I never love Galway as much as when I'm showing it off to someone who has never been. (HINT TO ALL OF YOU WHO HAVEN'T VISITED ME YET)

So they left this morning and that was sad. But I have Kyle Barrettsmith and Australia coming up! Life is still pretty sweet.