*EDIT 9/13/2011*
I swear, I have been keeping a journal of what I've been doing in Europe! I just never had a chance to transfer it to my blog because I needed the computer, and the library computers would take forever to load my pictures! I just got my laptop fixed, but now it freezes almost all the time, but I have to just deal. Sorry for being so late with the entries!
*end edit*
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AHHH! Last Wednesday, my Macbook Air broke. It won't get past the apple screen, and I have to use the computers at the Trinity Library, but they're SOOOO slow! :( I had two 25 minute presentations to do, one of which I just presented. In one word, I can describe how that went: disastrous. I had a decent amount of material but I decided not to use everything in my presentation because I felt that it was just another way to say the same thing. I was also nervous as fuck and spoke quickly, all resulting in the presentation to be about seven minutes. It seemed like my structure and presentation was fine, but the thing that destroyed me were the questions. I didn't know my tutor was asking questions. -_- Haha. Let's just say, I can't really pay attention in class. It would be an understatement of the century, no, the millennium, to say that International Law does not interest me. I had the answers in my work, but I never really knew what questions were being asked. Haha. Unfortunately, I have a 3000 word paper due this Friday and another presentation Monday. FML.
But, anyways, I went to Ireland last weekend! Dublin, to be specific. The trip there was horrible. Joslyn, Thamy left Thursday night and arrived there Friday morning. It was about a 12 hour trip, switching trains three times and then taking a ferry there. My first time on a ferry!
AHHH! Last Wednesday, my Macbook Air broke. It won't get past the apple screen, and I have to use the computers at the Trinity Library, but they're SOOOO slow! :( I had two 25 minute presentations to do, one of which I just presented. In one word, I can describe how that went: disastrous. I had a decent amount of material but I decided not to use everything in my presentation because I felt that it was just another way to say the same thing. I was also nervous as fuck and spoke quickly, all resulting in the presentation to be about seven minutes. It seemed like my structure and presentation was fine, but the thing that destroyed me were the questions. I didn't know my tutor was asking questions. -_- Haha. Let's just say, I can't really pay attention in class. It would be an understatement of the century, no, the millennium, to say that International Law does not interest me. I had the answers in my work, but I never really knew what questions were being asked. Haha. Unfortunately, I have a 3000 word paper due this Friday and another presentation Monday. FML.
On a better note, after class today, Naveen and I went to buy our tickets to Brugge and Amsterdam for this weekend! We're leaving at 5:00 tomorrow morning... So I gotta at least start my essay tonight! And we have a long weekend because our minor class is over! The minor class is only four weeks. I passed in my last 3000 word essay for British Politics yesterday and we had a pretty good last discussion.
But, anyways, I went to Ireland last weekend! Dublin, to be specific. The trip there was horrible. Joslyn, Thamy left Thursday night and arrived there Friday morning. It was about a 12 hour trip, switching trains three times and then taking a ferry there. My first time on a ferry!
There were soo many problems though! Thamy lost her ticket on the ferry (although the lady selling the tickets was nice enough to give her a ticket without having to pay for another one). Our ferry was scheduled to leave at like 2:00. Sleeping on the train was so difficult! So I just picked a side on the floor while we we're waiting for our ferry to sleep.


I think I was a hobo on this trip. I slept everywhere.







I almost didn't get past the border. -_- It was because on my way to England from Boston, I had a layover in Ireland. And like a I said before, someone was waiting for me to take me to customs. Apparently, the person at customs did not stamp my passport, but instead stamped my plane ticket, and that ticket had to be turned in when I was boarding the plan. I thought he knew what he was doing...but I guess he didn't. So I guess you can say I was illegally in England. From now on, I'm checking my stamps after crossing borders! It was freezing on the ferry, too!
We finally arrived in Dublin at about 5:30 and took a bus to the area of where our hostel would be. After walking around for a bit, since we kind of didn't know where we were going, we found our hostel!
The problem was, sign-in was at 14:00, and it was only 6:00 when we arrived... So we dropped off our stuff in the luggage room, and decided to eat breakfast and explore. There was a market across the street and a restaurant that opened at 8:00. So some of us got coffee and tea at the market and then we sat outside waiting for the restaurant to open... It didn't open at 8.... So, our miserable, sleep-deprived, and hungry selves walked around trying to find a place to eat... We ended up going to a cafe called, Cinnamon. I didn't really get anything to eat because I felt nauseous, but I bought hot chocolate. Really shouldn't have done that. There was way too much milk for someone that is somewhat lactose intolerant... -_-
After breakfast we walked around Dublin. We went to Christ Church Cathedral. It was huge from the outside. I didn't want to pay 2 euros to go in, though. Why would you be charged to see a church that still holds services? So I slept on the bench outside while everyone went in. Jerks took pictures of me sleeping. Haha.

Then we walked around City Council and Dublin Castle. As broke college students, we didn't want to pay for the tour so we walked around the castle to the chapel, garden, and library. There was an art exhibit at the library, so that gave us something to see. There was an Asian Art and Matissw exhibit. The Asian Art one was interesting, because everything looked like it was so difficult and time-consuming to create. I didn't like the Matisse exhibit all that much. I hate modern art, surrealism, and all that. I just don't understand it and it makes me mad. I made a masterpiece of my own that day.

See how I'm the center of attention? Haha.
Then we went to Trinity College Dublin. Hmm... so there's a Christ Church Cathedral and Trinity College in Oxford and in Dublin... It was huge compared to Trinity College in Oxford. We walked a bit around campus, took some embarrassing pictures since we were sleep-deprived. Let's just say we were making fools out of ourselves, laughing at everything...
We had lunch as Costa. I will forever eat sandwiches in Europe. Haha. I'm surprised I'm not sick of them by now. After lunch, we went back to the hostel to check in. FINALLY! The Generator Hostel was so freaking nice, and it was only 10 euro a night! We showered and some of us took naps on the best mattresses in all of Europe. Finally refreshed, we went to buy our 2-day Hop On Hop Off Dublin Tour Bus tickets. This was a lifesaver because Dublin was pretty big and we used it as a means of transportation as well as get the tourist experience. AND, I got to experience sitting on the top of a double decker for the first time!
For dinner, we went to The Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Ireland. The place was so crowded, but we managed to get a table for our group of nine people. Food was all right but I need to remember that sausages here aren't like the sausages at home. =( After dinner, we went to our hostels bar to get pitchers of Lotsa Sex of the Beach to share. We called it a night at 22:00 and the other eight went to their room and I went to mine, since I booked my trip later than theirs. I came to my bed to see that someone had gone through my stuff, yup, raiding my panties. -_- Thank god I put all my valuables in the other room.
Saturday morning, some of us had breakfast at the hostel at 9:00, while the others went to see the Book of Kells at Trinity College Dublin. I was too lazy to wake up early for that. Maybe next time. Breakfast was all you can eat for 2.50 euros. We met the others up at Trinity, exchanged money, and then went souvenir shopping! For lunch, we went to the Dawson Lounge, which is known to be "the smallest pub in Ireland, and possibly the world." They didn't serve chips because there is basically no kitchen, so some of us bought chips from the market. After lunch, some of us went to look for sweaters and the rest of us went to St. Patrick's Cathedral. We didn't want to pay for that, so we just hung out in the garden, taking pictures. We all met up again at the Guinness Factory. We explored the history of Guinness and how its made, had my first taste of Guinness, and went up to the Gravity Bar, and saw the view of the whole city!
I used my free pint of Guinness ticket on Pepsi. I don't think I could've finished a pint of that. Beer is not particularly my favorite, especially dark beer. Yup, I'm a pussy bitch, sometimes.
After the factory, we wanted to go to the free museums, but everything closed around 17:00, so we went back to the hostel and bought pasta for dinner. This was a huge fail. Haha. We found out the only thing in the kitchen that worked was the microwave. Conner, Marissa, and I used the microwave to make our pasta. It took a while, but it wasn't too bad. The rest went to buy sandwiches.
That night, we went on a pub crawl in the Temple Bar area. Obviously every pub was crowded in Dublin on a Saturday night in August. We went to three bars, and decided to stay at the third, called the Fitzsimon, because of the good drinks and the live band. These guys, called Mixtape, were cute and their choice of songs were awesome. They gave a shout-out to Umass! YEAH BUDDY!
Marissa, Caitlin, and I wanted to continue the pub crawl but everyone else was going to go back to the hostel after Mixtape stopped performing, so we left looking for bars and people to buy us drinks. Haha. We met up with the other Americans, who were studying in Cambridge, also known as, "the other place". We left them because they were jerks. Dumb Americans. They pretty much ruined our night. We decided to go back to the bar at the hostel. On the way back, we met a middle-aged man, also walking back to his place near our hostel. He heard about our bad experience and tried to make us feel better and invited us over for some wine. I was really sketched out, but apparently, that's what the Irish are known for, their hospitality. We didn't go though, because we didn't know how awkward it would be to leave when it was time to go. So we continued with our original plan to stay in the hostel bar. There we met three older Irish guys, who lived like ten minutes away, but wanted to try out the new hostel for the night because they could. -_- Marissa left early but Caitlin and I went with them to their apartment at like 3:30. Haha. Sketchy I know, but I needed some excitement. We took a taxi and I told the taxi driver that I really wanted drive on the other side of the road. Crazy enough, he said he would let me drive down the street when we got to our destination! I was soo freaking excited! When we were almost there, I realized that it was a manual. One of the guys said that in Europe, most cars are manuals... When the taxi driver asked if I could drive one, and I said I didn't know how, he changed his mind... :( I was very upset.
Their apartment was really nice and they had a really nice view of the city.
It was weird though, the first thing you saw going into their living room was a picture of Charlie Sheen right next to a picture of the Italian Prime Minister... I have yet to understand why that was there... We got back to our hostel at 6:00. Those guys were jerks at that point because we didn't want to stay. So Caitlin and I had a little heart-to-heart and took a taxi. I love her! I went back to my hostel room, to find that someone was sleeping on it... Dumb bitch said it was her bed, but it definitely wasn't! But, me being the nice person that I am, decided to go to reception and ask for another bed. They put me in another room, but when I got there, the key didn't work. So I went back down with my stuff, and the security guard took me to my room to make sure I got in fine. My key still didn't work -_-, but the security guard got me in.
Woke up at 9 for breakfast and on the news, there was a riot in London! Man, its like the world is ending. All these bad things are happening in the world while I'm in Europe! I really am the center of attention. Haha. I gotta say though, the English really know how to riot!
We signed out at 10. We went back to Trinity College Dublin and took more pictures to kill time. I tried to climb up something, because I'm living life! Haha. I had some help from Caitlin. Haha.

We walked around a little bit more until it was time for our bus arrived for the ferry. The ferry was crazy, but I was too tired to care. I slept like a baby on an uncomfortable chair. I woke up when we arrived in England, and the children were crazy, running around everywhere and crying. Their parents weren't even doing anything! I swear, kids are such brats these days, and their parents are no better! My parents were prepared for my brothers and me when we were younger. After getting off at the ferry, we took the train, stopping only twice this time. It was a seven hour trip. When I got back, the first thing I did was head to the kebab cart! Its bad, but I ate then slept. The sleep was amazing. Overall, Dublin was all right. I had more fun in Cardiff, but I would definitely come back if I could.
Now to the library to print out research for my paper since I have no laptop to look it up and write my paper! My plan is to do the research and write the paper in Bruges and celebrate at night! Hope this works out!
Can't wait for Brugge and Amsterdam!!!!!!!
Now to the library to print out research for my paper since I have no laptop to look it up and write my paper! My plan is to do the research and write the paper in Bruges and celebrate at night! Hope this works out!
Can't wait for Brugge and Amsterdam!!!!!!!
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