After one month in Ireland... What???

So it's been quite a while since my last post. It's crazy how much time can just fly by when you're not paying attention! I can't believe I've been here for a month already. Since it has been two weeks since my last post, I'd better fill ya in ;)

The lovely Kylemore Abbey

Alright, so last weekend we took a day trip to Connemara and the Kylemore Abbey. As a precursor, that weekend was a start to a crazy weather week! I know back at home, Minnesota was getting hit with crazy snow and insanely cold temperatures, and here we were getting equally as weird weather. On our walk to the school on Sunday morning to catch the bus to Connemara, the skies in front of us were nice and blue. Wispy clouds, a little sunshine peaking through; it was lovely! Then I looked behind me to make sure the whole group was still there and I see these looming dark masses steadily approaching... So in about two minutes after I spot the dark clouds it starts hailing! Again, I know Minnesota is used to golf ball-sized hail, but just the fact that we had hail was so weird. And we were walking in it... so there was that...

This was when it started raining/hailing on us
at the Victorian Gardens... Clearly they are
less than amused.

The abbey itself was beautiful. There were only about five rooms in the mansion open to the public because some nuns still live there (if you want the full historical story of the abbey, you can message me or e-mail me. Or wikipedia is a thing...). The sun came out for about five minutes, enough for us to snap a few pictures in sunlight but it mostly rained all day. And especially when we got out to the Victorian Gardens. It was a lovely, windy, wet experience  but they were beautiful nonetheless.

The next week was pretty uneventful. Just classes and such, and terrible weather. It was hard to get out of bed in the morning when all I could hear was the wind whipping rain against my window. I've never been in a hurricane before, but I'd imagine it would sounds similar to what I had to wake up to each morning last week. It ended up clearing up a bit for the weekend, which was nice!

Silent Disco! It was so fun :)

On Friday I had my second session for my seminar class on James Joyce, and it's turning out to be so great! It is really discussion-based, which is an odd comfort from home (good ole Concordia classes). We were discussing one of Joyce's short stories and the way the professor facilitated and pushed us was a new experience for me. She initially had us share what we picked for our small writing assignment and when I went she said, "I've never heard that argument before. It's very interesting, but I'm not sure that I agree with you." She then proceeded to encourage the whole class to turn against me and pick out the flaws in my argument. Not in any sort of malicious way, but she was trying to emphasize that a complicated argument is usually a more successful one; the more you have to defend yourself, you can either see how deep your argument actually goes or you'll see where your major holes are. 
It also surprised me that this professor was not at all hesitant to tell a student they're answer is wrong. I feel like a lot of schooling today is based on "everyone has their own interpretation" and "Well that's not exactly the answer I was looking for but you're on the right track" and all that kind of pandering and hand-holding language. Not in Ireland. She asked us a question about the significance of a random detail in the opening of the story and when one student responded that it set a mood of such-and-such she said "Blehck! No, that's a terrible answer. That's just a cop-out so I won't accept it" and she asked for more responses. Though a bit abrasive at first, I really like the classroom atmosphere her attitude sets. I really don't take it as an air of superiority or ultra strictness, she's is merely challenging us to be better students, deeper thinkers, and more challenged intellectuals. It was refreshing :)

The mountains here are so gorgeous. I wish we had
some in Minnesota!

On Saturday, there was sunshine!!! It was a wonderful thing to wake up to sun streaming through my window. I'm always amazed at how a little bit of warm light can improve my mood. I walked into town with Laura and Marie where we got coffees and spent a good chunk of time in the library, right next to the big windows so I could see the sun and the trees and water around campus illuminated by the rays. It was lovely. Looking back, I kind of regret being in the library all day when sunshine is so rare here, but it was a much needed study day. And it was reminiscent of my Saturdays at Concordia, waking up at 9 am and doing homework until I'm too hungry to concentrate. Needless to say, it was a productive morning/afternoon. Later in the day, some of our Irish friends called us up and took us on a drive to a small park just west of where we live. It was a cute little city park with lots of trees and cool rocks, a football pitch and such. Coming from Minnesota where we have walking trials up the wazoo and national parks within a stone throw, it was quite a small park, but it's amazing how different the trees are here. It's still winter, so they had no leaves, but the bark is so smooth where it's not covered in the fuzzy green moss that seems to grow on everything in the wilderness. We had a great time walking around until it got too dark to see the path. Our little wilderness adventure was a perfect way to end the day.

Me and Kelsey seeking shelter from the rain
at the Victorian Gardens.

And finally on Sunday, the rain returned in true Irish style. But overall it was a good day. We went to an amazing church service in the afternoon. It was on the other side of town, so we had to take a taxi out there which cost 16 euros! It was split between four of us, thankfully, but it was still ridiculously expensive. I haven't missed having a vehicle while I've been over here, but yesterday definitely would have been a nice day to have one! Luckily there were some lovely church ladies (as there always are) who offered to drive us home. We followed up our church night with another night of tea and dinner with the lads (for future reference, if I say the lads i'm referring specifically to our Irish friends :)  ). Will made delicious seasoned meat for wraps and some of the other guys brought mince pies for dessert. We sat around playing mind games for a good part of the night. We made it back to the apartments in time to catch the last ten minutes of the second quarter of the superbowl and, most importantly, the halftime show. Way to kill it, Beyonce!! We were all very impressed :) And then with the power outage for half an hour, and the fact that it was two in the morning our time, we didn't make it to the end of the game, but I heard it was a great one.

This morning, I submitted applications for research grants for the summer, had some tea, and watched some of the notorious commercials from the game last night (the game was aired on BBC but we didn't get any of the American commercials, sadly). It was a bright morning, fresh start to a new week, looking forward to a trip to Brussels this weekend with my roommate. It'll be a good week :)

Thanks for reading!