House Rule #1: No counting down how many days we have left in Ireland.  I’ve managed to convince myself that I’ve only been in Europe for about a week.  The thought of returning to school, work, and three straight weeks of job training starting literally the day after I return to the United States is depressing. (BUT I’m really excited to see all of my friends and family again)

To avoid breaking the house rule, let’s just say I planned to be abroad for ten weeks, and last week was week nine.

Fear not!  I have plenty to look forward to!  In January I will be venturing to Turkey for my “Perceiving Islam in Turkey” class.

I’ll be travelling to Istabul, Mardin, Urfa, Gaziantep, Adana, Cappadocia, Konya, Pamukkale, Izmir, and Bursa.

According to the course description, this is what I’ll be doing:

“While traveling across Turkey, visiting sites essential to the development of Islam, sharing meals and conversations with Turkish Muslims, and reading about Islam from both insiders’ and outsiders’ perspectives, we become familiar with the basic beliefs and practices of Islam and its influence in Turkey including worship, family life, politics, modernity, gender relations, relations with other faiths, and intellectual and artistic traditions.”

Cool, no?

Some of you are probably wondering why I’m taking this course.  My university requires three theological courses, and I needed to finish up my 300-level this year.  I knew I wanted to take a course on something I have little to no knowledge about, and I wanted to take something that would immerse me in a completely new culture (I’m sure this is shocking).  So, I picked this, and I couldn’t be happier :]

While in Ireland, I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about ancient Candadian traditions, such as their moose hunting practices.  The most common of these is called the “Canada Slam” as demonstrated below by my beloved Canadian housemate Cassidy:

This particular hunting technique is both dangerous and effective.

Please do not try this at home.

After a horrible cheating attempt by myself.(photo credit to Rachel Maynard)

I also often study.

No, that is not an insult.  While people sing Sean-Nós songs in the Conamara area, listeners often shout things at the singers to give them the motivation to continue.  These words of encouragement include:

Dia leat – God be with you
Up sleamhcán – Up sladdy (sea vegetable)
Up scrathachaí – Up sods of turf
Croch suas é – Lift it up
Up an baile s’againne – Up out village

And my personal favorite:
Muisteais frog ort! – Moustache frog on you!

I asked a couple locals why people shout about frogs and moustaches, and apparently there isn’t really a reason.  It’s just what they do.  Haha  I think the Irish may just have a thing for animals with moustaches, because when I was on the Aran Islands, I found this moustashed horse:

My housemates and I are really really nerdy.  Here are some videos we shared with each other today:

From the Anthropology major:

From the Philosophy major:

And my contribution (the business major):

[I was in Paris from July 13th to 15th]

The night before I left for Paris, I decided to buy the deluxe verion of the Before You Know It program in French. I somehow convinced myself I could master French during the five-hour train ride from Zurich to Paris.

False.

When I rolled into Paris, I realized I didn’t write down the name or address of the hotel I was staying at, so I spent the better half of three hours looking for the Louvre (I knew my hotel was near there), hoping to see the hotel’s name and jog my memory.

Well, I knew I’d recognize the Louvre by the giant glass pyramid I’ve seen in the movies.   The movies failed to tell me that the giant glass pyramid was inside the courtyard and is not visible AT ALL from the street.

I finally popped into a Starbucks to steal some Wifi, which was not working.  The baristas guided me to an Apple Store in the Louvre (which I realized I had been walking around the entire time).  I went in there, stole their internet, and found my hotel.

Then!  I used my professional tourist skills to hit up the exterior of the Louvre, Notre Dame, the Eifel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe (I spent like two hours here journaling and writing postcards), Avenue des Champs-Élysées,  and the Jardin des Tuileries in a couple hours.  I figured I could see everything else the next day.

When I returned to my hotel, the receptionist informed me that everything would be closed the next day because it was Bastille Day.  Yes, I was accidentally in Paris on Bastille Day.

So, since everything was closed, I decided to do another free New Europe tour.  It was POURING outside, to the point where after an hour and a half of doing a walking tour and hoping the rain would let up, we collectively decided to cancel the rest of the tour.  It was still really fun, and my guide was such a trooper.  She even gave her umbrella to someone on the tour who didn’t have one.  I spent the majority of the remainder of the day in my hotel room wishing my only pair of jeans and my only pair of shoes would dry faster.

The weather cleared up in time for the Bastille Day fireworks at the Eifel Tower.  I went out and watched them from Champ de Mars.  After a month of going going going, I looking forward to my one good night of sleep and decided to leave at 11:30 to beat the crowds to the metro.

The fireworks ended at 11:35.  The armed cops promptly shut down the metro to prevent the 2,000,000 attendees from causing riots below ground.  I was forced to walk from the Eifel Tower all the way to my hotel which was on the opposite side of the Louvre.  It took exactly one hour and twenty-seven minutes to walk from the Eifel Tower to my bed, and it was miserable.  I then had to pack and wake up at 5:45 to catch my plane to Dublin in the morning.

Well, in the meantime, please enjoy my ten thousand pictures of Paris including a wonderful Bastille Day Fireworks montage.

Oh hey look!  I’m not dead!

Please enjoy this blog post from almost two weeks ago.

I had so much fun in Switzerland!!!  Andy and Philipp were wonderful hosts. My train into Zurich from Bari via Milan was ohhh, just an hour late (which apparently isn’t actually that bad for an Italian train).  Luckily Andy was at the station regardless waiting to pick me up!  He took me home and I had the pleasure of meeting his boyfriend, Philipp.

On Sunday (the 11th, I apologize for how far behind I am), they took me out to Lake Luzern.  IT WAS SO PRETTY.  I’ve decided that someday when I have money, I’m going to buy a house on the lake and a sailboat to sail around Lake Luzern. We went on a ferry ride so I could see Switzerland in all of its mountainous and glacier-lake-filled glory.

Then we took a cable car up to the top of a mountain and hiked down To Rütli (where the Swiss Confederacy was first founded).  Near Rütli, I saw some really cute cows and went to go take a pictures of them.  Swiss cows are undoubtedly the cutest cows of them all.  While I was focusing my camera, I suddenly felt like I had been run down or hit really forcibly by some REALLY HUGE animal.  Then I realized I had managed to walk into the electric fence, and I electrocuted myself.  Perfect, self.

Afterwards we saw the oldest wooden bridge, Kapellbrücke, and then returned home to watch the World Cup Final at a public viewing place in Wohlen.

The next day, Andy and I got a late start due to my catch-up blogging.  We went to explore Bremgarten which has a lot of really well-preserved buildings, and then we made our way into Zurich.  Andy showed me around the most important parts (see the pictures!), and then we met up with Philipp so we could all go swimming in Lake Zurich.

As we approached the lake, an ominous cloud approached and brought in like the strongest winds Andy and Philipp had ever seen in Zurich.  So, we decided to go swimming anyways.  IT WAS SO MUCH FUN.  The water was really surprisingly warm and clear and wonderful, and there were actually huge waves in Lake Zurich (also extremely uncommon).

I wish I could better explain all of the fun things we did.  They also introduced me to lots of yummy Swiss foods like Zopf, Cervelat, and Meringue, amongst other things.

It’s almost midnight now.  I’m going to go to bed.  Please enjoy these pictures of Switzerland, and expect a post about Paris coming soon :]

Oh, also, for those of you who don’t know I’m in western Ireland right now studying the Irish Language in a really intense immersion program.  I’ll be writing lots of stories about that later!  I’ve been studying too much to write yet…  Unfortunately I’m completely serious.  I have over 200 notecards from the last two days.

I just spent an incredible couple of days with my friend Rosangela and her family in Triggiano, Italy.

It was really nice to have a few relaxing days as opposed to the go go go go go craziness I’ve been living in for the last month.  I have never met more hospitable people than Italians.  Rosangela, her family, and her friends welcomed me in and treated me like family despite the fact that no one other than Rosangela really spoke English, and my entire Italian vocabulary consisted of “gratzie” and “ciao.”  It was wonderful.

Rosangela’s mom is an amazing cook.  She made things like parmeseana, rizzoto, focaccia, pasta, and this really good noodle thing with peas.  The family tried to get me to try “trippa.”  Luckily Rosangela talked them out of it because I later found out that trippa means tripe.  AHHH.  I love Italian food, but tripe is not my thing.  Haha

I think my favorite part of the trip was when I went to Rosangela’s grandfather’s house.  I had the great fortune of meeting her entire extended family, only a few of which spoke English, but I LOVED it.  Something about foreign languages and foreign cultures just fascinates me, even when I can’t understand what people are saying.   I loved listening to them talk to each other and trying to figure out what they were saying.

I had so much fun in Triggiano and Bari.  The people I met were so interesting and kind (Rosangela’s mom even made me a bunch of sandwiches for the train ride to Zurich!), and I cannot wait to go back and visit them again.  Hopefully I’ll have a little more Italian so I can converse more :]

The last little chunk of photos from Florence

Here are most of my pictures from Firenze (Florence, Italy).  Enjoy!!

(I just realized I have more which I will post later!)

So, because I had to take an overnight train to Rome/Florence, I only had about twenty-four hours in Vienna.  I wish I had stayed at least another half day.

On Friday afternoon//evening I decided to take my guidebook’s advice and go to this Austrian vineyard just outside of town.  Poor decision.  It was almost 90 degrees farenheit and humid, and I had to sit on a tram without air-conditioning for forty minutes and walk around for about a half hour to find the place just to find out that it’s a regular restaurant that sells wine they made in their vineyard.  The wine was great, but no one there spoke any English at all and I ended up just pointing at something on the menu hoping it was food because I was starving.  It turns out I ordered some fancy block of goat cheese.  Great.

Saturday was much better.  I started off right with my first real breakfast in a while and hopped the train into town (my hostel was in like the armpit of the city).  I spent most of the day doing a hop-on-hop-off tour which was nice because I got to see pretty much everything there was to see.  I also walked around and went back to some things I wanted a closer look at like the Opera Museum, Butterfly House, MAK Museum, and Café Central.

The MAK Museum was so cool!  Well.  I like weird things.  So you should take that with a grain of salt.  The MAK has exhibits on things like furniture, porcelain, oriental rugs, metal, architecture, and lots of other seemingly ordinary things that you don’t normally think about.  What I like most about this museum is that it finds the interesting in the ordinary, which is what I feel like I’ve spent my life doing.  I highly recommend stopping by if you have the chance.  It was actually free admission when I went.  (AWESOME)

Café Central is one of the most famous cafés in Vienna, and they have a lot of cafés.    This particular one was once frequented by Lenin, Trotsky, and Freud who were all known to meet here for chess games.  I was just going to get an espresso, but then I saw the word “goulash” on the menu and I was sold.  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.  Really though.  Who can turn down a good goulash?  It was sooooo tasty.

I also managed to run into another gay pride parade.  It’s like they’re following me haha

Everything in Vienna is beautiful.  Every building is architecturally stunning and ornate.  There are statues on every corner.  There are more public gardens than you can count.  And the city is on the Danube River.  SO PRETTY.

So, I just spent about a half hour going through and putting captions on all these picures, and the internet crapped out when I clicked save.  SO.  Enjoy the pictures for now, I’ll put captions on again when I stop hating European internet connections.

[written on the morning of July 4th]

Well, good morning, Italy.  Last night I took a sleeper train (which I am still sitting on) from Vienna to Rome (where I am still headed).  I’m trying to get to Florence.  I was not aware that Florence comes before Rome.   Guess who didn’t do so well in Geography:  Meeeeee! Oh well.  I get to spend a little extra money and a little extra time watching the beautiful Italian scenery roll by when I hop a train back to Florence.  I’m not complaining a whole lot.

I thought about just jumping out at Florence, but something made me decide not to.  Know why?  I later realized that the train stewardess still has my very expensive Eurail Pass.  Thank you, subconscious!  That would have completely sucked.  I also get to spend a couple more hours in the air-conditioning.

Last night I shared a car with these two really cute Austrian grandmas.  They were really funny, especially since their English wasn’t so great and they kept asking me questions about my trip.  Now, the way a sleeper car works (for those of you who don’t know) is there are bunk beds stacked about three high.  My ticket said I had the bottom bed, but am I really going to make an old lady climb all the way to the top and hoist herself into bed?  NO.  So I offered to take the top and was looking forward to a night of good sleep without drunk people screaming outside my window.  Pardon my French, but it was hot as BALLS up there last night.  I couldn’t sleep at all even with the A/C turned up all the way.  So, yet again, I was robbed of some well-deserved shuteye.  I don’t think I’ve slept well since I’ve been out running around Europe on my own.

At least my ticket includes a free breakfast.  That was a pleasant surprise.

On Thursday, I went on a tour to the concentration camp in Dachau.  All kids in America grow up learning about WWII and concentration camps and how horrible it was, but nothing really drills that into your mind like actually going to a concentration camp.

I cannot explain in words the feelings I had as I walked through the buildings here.  To walk through the gate where they lost their rights, to be in the room where they lost their belongings, and to stand on the ground where so many people lost their lives, it’s surreal.

Many rooms in the concentration camp are section off to protect returning survivors from having to relive some of the worst parts of their time there.  There is also a walkway that was created after the war that goes around the front gate so survivors don’t have to walk through it again.

At the end of the tour, we had the chance to walk through the crematorium and the gas chamber.  I couldn’t do it.  I literally ran through the exhibit because I couldn’t handle being in there.  I took lots of pictures of the grounds, but I did not take a picture of that.

If any of you ever have the chance to visit a concentration camp, do it.  Please.  I think if more people were able to experience what I experienced, we would not have had so many genocides since then, and we most certainly would not let what’s happening in Darfur continue.

I forgot to mention that on the first day, I also did the Beer Challenge.  Now, that does not mean that the drunkest person wins.  It was quite the opposite.  This beer challenge was about remembering the most facts about Munich’s different beers and breweries.  The lack of beer in my life resulted in me not winning the challenge.  Oh well.  The group I was with was relatively small (only about twenty people) and we all bonded pretty well.  There were these five Scottish guys in my group whom I had met earlier in the day at the free tour.  I LOVE those guys.  At the end of the night, everyone was toasting and singing and just having an all-around great time.  No one was sloppy drunk.

On Wednesday (day two in Munich) I decided to go on the beer challenge again since I had so much fun the night before.  That was a poor decision.  Seventy people showed up, and a good-sized group of people from Texas were already drunk when they got there.  I think they were expecting a pub crawl, which the beer challenge is not.  I ended up hanging out with these really cool newlyweds from Boston and a few other people older than me.  People don’t believe I’m only twenty when I tell them.

Wednesday during the day was nice.  I wandered around the city trying to find the things I wanted to go back to.  One thing was the Tower of St. Peter’s Church.  So, I think I walked past this church at least six times.  I kept asking locals for directions and they all looked at me like an idiot because this church is huge and one of the symbols of the city.  Well, I found it, and I climbed up all 336 stairs to the top.  SO worth it.  That is the #1 best view of Munich.  I highly recommend it.

I also ran through traffic when I saw a gelato shop, took a picture of a Glockenspiel that actually works, went inside a church that was almost completely destroyed during the war and was rebuilt with the help of the whole community, saw some really creepy dolls at the toy museum, and contemplated stealing the Maypole.