I went to London over spring break to visit my lovely friends Kate and Amy, and had a great time!!

We went to Nottingham for 2 days to visit Robin Hood, and then bummed around London, doing awesome touristy stuff for the rest of it.
Here are the pics!
Sorry I can't write more, I have an essay to study for. ><

love!

(and the joke is, we were at Buckingham Palace, we were trying to figure out how to sneak into the palace gardens, because they are totally fenced off. So Amy came up with the plan to throw Kate over the wall. Then for the rest of the week whenever we got into a spot someone would go "so here's the plan... we're going to THROW Kate..."
Hence why the albums are titled so.
Album one:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030537&id=144301874&l=5541422f20

Album two:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2030541&id=144301874&l=3b63b787e5

Enjoy! I'll be home sooner than expected! I've loved Ireland, but its time to come home. More details to follow!

Hello LJ.
Can I come home now?
Thanks,
Ariel.

Hello all!
I've got more pictures for you!
The first album is my trip to Giant's Causeway/Belfast:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2029538&id=144301874&l=758722c6a6

The second is a random album of pics I've been collecting, and I've added a bit to it:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027339&id=144301874&l=04faeeae94

and here's a video from the connemara tour!


Enjoy!!

St Paddy's Day was a lot of fun! Mikal and I went out for a full Irish breakfast in the morning, then watched the parade that went through town. After that, we came back and took a nap, then went out to a couple pubs with some friends. I had one pint of Bulmers. Everyone else had like 6 pints. How can they afford it?!

Overall though, it was a very fun day!
Today, I must get back to writing papers.
Miss you!

I have only 3 weeks until the semester ends! Still another 8 weeks here. But that means 3 weeks to get a lot of papers written! Which mean I will be very very stressed out.

For now, I am looking forward to St. Paddy's day! We (meaning me and my best friend Mikal) are staying in Galway as opposed to going up to Dublin like most of the rest of the country. We're going to eat a traditional Irish breakfast, painting our nails the colours of Ireland, and watching the parade. It's going to be very fun!

The internet has been really sketchy lately, I'm just glad we have it this evening.
Welp, I must go. Need to salvage some dinner.
Love!!

P.S. mom, it was great to talk to you today!!

Well folks, I think I'm getting sick again. This time, I have armed myself with soup, eggs, and chewable vitamin C tablets that i found at Dunnes.
Bread spoils really quickly here, and none of my roommates like the idea of sharing bags of bread and taking turns buying them, so I decided to try and buy one of their half bags of bread. I have also switched to buying 2 tiny jugs of milk instead of one large one.

As some of you (a.k.a my parents) know, this week at school is RAG week. It started out as a way to give to charities, and have fun events. It has morphed into an excuse for the school, and then eventually the entire town, to drink non-stop all week long. Literally.
Kids don't go to class, some teachers cancel class. The whole town gets drunk for a whole week.
I'm trying to think of other activities I can keep myself busy with while I wait for this week to end. >>

My friend Kate from St. Kates is spending the semester in london, and she came to visit me over the weekend. Yesterday, we took a tour of Connemara. It was so pretty! I took lots of pictures, but haven't uploaded them yet.
I have uploaded the Blarney pictures now!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028720&id=144301874&l=54370

The Aran Islands ones aren't up yet either. Sorry. I need to purchase a jump drive to put all my pictures on, because i am running out of space on my computer! >>
Lunch time! I am thinking left over rice/beef concoction plus the tomato soup I picked up today.
Miss you! Thanks for reading!

Friends and family-
I am sick. Phooey. I got my ears pierced yesterday, which was very big deal since I'd never had them pierced before, but ever since then I felt very punky. I managed to make to class this morning, but almost didn't make it through.
So I came back to the apartment, took a very long nap, and just woke up.
Ill timing too, since my friend from St. Kate's is coming up tomorrow, and we are supposed to have a wonderful time.
I'll take it easy tonight, and hopefully things will improve.

Worry not!! I will improve! I've got lots of fun pictures from my Aran islands/blarney trip, and I'll get those to you guys as soon as I have them all up on Facebook.
I MISS YOU!!
I have the strange urge to go to Rosedale mall as well. Odd.

Hi guys! Back again, with exciting news! I have a new washing machine!! Its a whirlpool, very nice. It's still small, but hopefully it will actually dry our clothes this time. I was about ready to take my laundry ouch (which would have cost a lot of money.)

Also... MORE PICTURES!!
This first album has the pictures of my friendly travel pig, Mr. Pigwiggins.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2028332&l=9f8fd&id=144301874

And, more pictures added to the other album for your viewing pleasure.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027867&l=dad5b&id=144301874

I am doing well! all my classes are now in full swing. My main concern right now is eating. I keep buying really cheap food because I'm worried about spending money, but then it ends up being very boring, and I don't want to eat it, so I go out to eat with friends when the suggest it, or eat in the cafateria, and end up spending money anyway. >>

We had a mold problem a few days ago, but after much complaining on our part, we got the landlord to come in and take care of it. No more mold!
I might go up to Connemara this weekend with my roommate (or perhaps alone) to do some rural traveling. It should be a good time! I will keep you updated with pictures!

Miss you!
Ariel

This morning, I woke up at 3:45 am, walked to campus, and was standing in line outside the quad by 5 am. And for what? To get into an English seminar.
Registration didn't start until 9. I waited for 4 hours in the cold. And it was REALLY cold. I wasn't prepared at all for the cold. Nearly froze my legs off in the process. Couldn't sit down, because the concrete was too cold and my butt was freezing.
I didn't make it into the Jane Austen seminar. Nor did I Make it into the Children's Lit seminar (which were my top two choices.)

I made it into a Modern Irish Literature course with a focus on the Fiction of Violence. So it sounds really cool! But I was still a bit bummed that I waited in line for that long and didn't get the Austen one. Curses.
It was by and far the most unorganized registration process I have ever seen. You fail, NUIG English department!! You faiiiiiiil.

Came back, took a nap, had to DRAG myself out of bed to go back to school to my Modernism/Postmodernism lit course (Heart of Darkness! Woot!) and then Mikal and I went grocery shopping. And we got TONS of groceries. We're set for a while at least.

Right now, I am sitting on my bed, reading Ransom My Heart by Meg Cabot (and Mia Thermopolis) in PDF form, but I should really be reading Lolita, because it's due next week. Screw you, school reading. You're dumb.

The film society is showing Chinatown tonight, but I might just stay in with my warm covers and my good book and read. We'll see.
Miss you!
-Ariel

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2027867&l=dad5b&id=144301874

That should be able to work for everyone! If not, let me know, and I will work on posting pictures elsewhere. They're mostly of Dublin, some of Galway.

Things are going well! I'm lazing around this morning, since class doesn't start until 4 pm. Wednesday, I go to school at 3 am to camp out for my Jane Austen seminar that I really want to get in to. KEEP YOUR FINGERS CROSSED!! This class seems just amazing.

Mikal, Sarah and I wandered around the city yesterday, taking pictures, but the wind got nasty so we decided to come back to the apartment. Quite right too, because not 5 minutes later it started hailing!! It actually hails a lot here. Very odd.
More to come later! I miss you all!

Love,
Ariel

We have a washing machine in our apartment, but the dryer that is supposed to be built in doesn't work. So I must hang dry everything. Of course, it takes DAYS to dry. On the plus side, its free! I'm very happy about that. I have heard laundry ranges from 5-10 euro a load. Ouch.
Also, walking through the rain has some interesting effects, such as drenching my sneakers.
I really must buy rain boots. That's on the agenda for tomorrow.

We finally got a wireless router in the room, so at least I have a little bit of internet, though not the best. Skype works though!

My first week of classes have gone pretty well! Thursdays have me running all over the place with very little time (10 minutes) in between class. Not very well thought out, Celtic Civ department! But some of my professors seem cool. I am really excited for Celtic Mythology, and Gothic Literature.

I hope you are all well! I miss you! I'll post again soon.

Still alive, and in Galway. Homestay was sort of lame. More details later.
Apartment is super cute! Shower sucks, and we bought the wrong type of router, so we still dont have internet. GRRR.
Classes start today! Or rather one class. Celtic Civ 2. at 4 in the afternoon with KICKI THE MOST AWESOME PERSON EVER!
I must stop by and say hello to her today.

I miss home. I miss long showers that don't scauld me, I miss my sister.
Haven't started crying yet, which is good. Mostly this internet thing. Its my only link to you guys, and now its GONE. Temporarily.

My address/cell number over here are put in a note on FB, but I'll get it up here ASAP, so you can all write me letters.

Miss you!!
<3

made it to dublin safely.
will now spend day wandering around city, attempting to find art gallery and national library.
I MISS YOU ALL!!
more to come once i get my own computer.

Hello all! Ariel here.
I'm still in the states, thought I should break in this lovely blog, and say a quick hello.

Here is the initial plan:
-go to airport on Jan 1st (want to see me off? I would love that!)
-plane leaves at 3:55
-re-route at Chicago
-arrive in Dublin at 8:30 a.m. on Jan 2nd.
-NOT GOING TO SLEEP!! (Sleep, at this point, would be bad. Jetlag, you know.)

Here is the hostel where I will be staying while in Dublin.
http://www.abbey-court.com/index.html

Today's very important message: GET SKYPE!!
http://skype.com/

You can download it free from there! With it you can:
call me free from your computer to my computer (must have microphone though...)
call my cell phone for really cheap!

I can also call your phone really cheapily too! Isn't the internet great?
More later, dear readers! I miss you already!