Sheepers Creepers

Alright folks, I've been keeping something from you all for quite some time, because I didn't want to worry you. MY CAMERA IS DEAD AND I FORGOT MY CHARGER. Well, that's a lie. That was the case as of this morning, but thanks to some expertise help from my Dad, Joy and Rose... the charger was shipped to Dublin and I'm ready to snap some pics.

Today my history class took a field trip to the Hill of Tara... and boyyy I was trippin'. Literally. A misty day plus tons of mud does not make for good walking ground. However, the sights of the mountainside were green and lush... from what I could see through the fog. This wasn't exactly one of my favorite places I've visited so far in Ireland... although the serenade by our 80 year old tour guide definitely added brownie points.

Here's what I saw:

Ahhhh spooky dungeon that kept people caged underground !!!

Sheep! Real Irish ones. The you only find in, well, Ireland.

The personification of gothic romance... am I right? I'm right.

Ta ta for now! Class tomorrow bright and early... 2.5 hrs with a break, followed by 3 hrs. If there was ever a time for me to start drinking coffee (which I don't)... I think this trip would be the time. Don't worry guys, there is Starbucks in Ireland. Although I haven't heard such great reviews thus far...

Exploring Dublin

This was a fantastic weekend! Instead of traveling to Galway as planned, Beth, Lauren and I thought we needed some R&R after all of our traveling, unpacking and class-taking. Saturday morning we let ourselves sleep in, and then decided to conquer Dublin City- without an agenda.

We hopped on the bus, drove into Dublin City, and walked and walked. I had heard of a good place for lunch, so we wandered around searching for "The Queen of Tarts." On our way there, we realized that we were in the middle of a massive festival! Not only were we lucky enough to be in the city on the first day of their fresh market, but we were in the middle of Tradfest! Tradfest is Dublin's musical festival, where they fill the streets with wonderful Irish music, actors dressed in crazy costumes, and wonderful food stands strewn about the streets.

These two ducks were running around the streets entertaining the locals.

One of them even let me pet his beak... I know, "WHAT THE DUCK?!"

We decided to get our energy from lunch, and THEN search through the festivities,

so when we viewed the red doors of The Queen of Tarts... we knew we had arrived.

Once entering into the charming cafe/restaurant, Heaven had come to Earth. I'll let you figure out why on your own...

Tarts and quiche and scones, oh my!

After munching and crunching on a delicious lunch of frittata, salad, and homemade focaccia, we were ready to trek the festival. We started by browsing around the market for a couple of minutes (Beth and Lauren watched in embarrassment as I attacked the vendors by taking their pictures, fascinated by the 5 pound cookies and shepherd's pies)... we made our way over to a stage flooded by packs of people. The ground began to shake. Thump. Thump. Thump. It was IRISH STEP DANCERS! In perfect unison, a troupe of dancers began knocking their feet on a wooden stage, filling the air with celebration and... well... a lot of knocking. We cheered in awe, and made our way further through the market.

Later that evening we decided to try out a super cool looking restaurant that doubled as a nightclub... they even had a DJ built into the bar! I ordered my first cocktail ever legally... it was a strawberry/lime/rum concoction that was much stronger than anticipated. No worries fam, I sipped it slowly...

slurrrrrrrp...

After dinner, we headed over to the nearby "Palace Nightclub"... a crazy neon lights flashing, music pounding, fog machine spurting nightclub. This was insanely awesome. I'll let the photo speak for itself...

Taking it down a Notch

Today... we decided to take things slow. In need of some cultural stimulation, we made our way to Trinity College so we could get an up-close and personal look at the Book of Kells. This prized Irish possession is a manuscript with Latin text from the 4 Gospels. It's not only beautiful... but extremelyyyyy old. From the year 800?! And I thought my used copy of "Waiting for Godot" was old...

Trinity College... this school hordes the majesty of the Book of Kells.

After I finished my quick museum tour of the book (I don't have a lot of patience for museums... and unfortunately, I'm fairly certain this book doesn't have a cliff-notes to sum up its context) I walked up some stairs and was stunned by a glorious library known as "The Long Room." Words cannot describe the awesome-ness of this place.

Behold...

The Long Room is the central chamber of the Old Library, built in 1732... in 1806 it was re-constructed so more books could fit from ceiling to floor. Raissssse the roof.

Well, that's all for now. And that's A LOT of all. Enjoy the updates :)

Valley of 2 Lakes

Me, Lauren, Beth at the Valley of 2 Lakes (Glendalough)

Greetings all...

It's been a while! First and foremost, I'd like to welcome my most recent reader (or listener), baby-girl-Braunfeld. Hey new little cousin, wish I could see you in person!

Since I can't, I suppose I'll fill you in, and the rest of my readers, on the craziness that has been the past several days.

1. Sort of witnessed a girl get mugged... by a weaponless, middle-aged woman. Very odd. Supposedly people in Ireland don't use weapons (the police (Garda) don't even carry them!) and they instead, choose to regulate power with fist-to-fist action. Luckily, the girl was perfectly alright after we helped calm her down, and she was quickly greeted by the local police.

Fun Fact: pick-pockets in Ireland are known as "dippers"

2. Walked the mountains of "Glendalough" this morning with my classmates. Absolutely beautiful scenery. Sure, it was nippy outside, but hey... at least I'm not buried until several feet of snow like you guys :)

(I kid you not, this photo

was taken during our hike.

Photo credit: Beth Callahan)

3. Ordered Chinese food for the first time here in Ireland. Delicious. They offer "chips" (French Fries) instead of rice... but we opted for the rice.

4. Went to the movies with two of my friends (Lauren and Beth)... "Morning Glory". I thought it was a glorious movie... well, tolerable... and I think my friends agreed. After the movie we wandered down the street and I spotted a pub called "The Poet's Corner." I immediately sprintedtowards it, hoping I would finally have the opportunity toperform some slam in Dublin... or at least witnesssome. Unfortunately, this pubwas NOT a poetry pub.We walked in only to findourselves surrounded by middle-aged men joking with one another, and stunnedthat 3American girls decided to wander into their humble pub.Nonetheless, we decided to give the place a shot,and ordered a hard cider to share... Yum.(Note to self: Order Bulmers instead of a Hot Irish in pubs!)

(Lauren, Beth and I trying out the cider)

5. In case you're wondering about life on campus... it's pretty good. Although we don't have a dining plan here, we've got a nice kitchen where we've been cooking up a lot of different recipes (favorite recipe to date is a spinach and ricotta tortellini in a creamy tomato sauce. I know, I know... we think we're in Italy. But hey, the foodoptions here arehard to figure out! See below:

Yours truly, ultra confused by the food options here at "Tesco," a popular grocery store in Dublin.

Fun Fact: IRELAND HAS CANNED MAC n' CHEESE... questionable.

Although we try not to eat out TOO much (saving our euros), we've found some hidden gems on the Emerald Isle well worth the cost...

Case in point:

(potato and leek quiche, (Clearly, enjoying the feast!)

with sauteed string beans,

and mashed potatoes)

Bon Appetit Readers!!

First class!

Today was my first Irish class... I loved it! We're currently learning about the general history of Ireland, and our lecturer Caroline (they're called "lecturers" rather than "professors" here) is amazing. She's super friendly and excited to teach... so far the class is really interesting (and hopefully it stays that way!) I'm not used to 2 and a half hour classes, but luckily they break up the class with a break, so it doesn't feel as long.

Behold, Oliver Cromwell, a widely detested man in Ireland. (He was a Protestant who forced the Christian Irish to change their ways! Not such a nice guy...)

Tonight Lauren, Beth, Sam (temporarily) and I tested out the Boot Camp class here at the gym. Wow, do those Irish really make up for all the beers they drink. Not only did this class kick our butts, but it was held outside in the cold... and in the near rain. Let me tell you, that was some serious business.

(This doesn't even do our class justice!!)

Once accomplishing our feat, we sluggishly made our way back to the dorm and threw together a delightfully delicious meal of chicken fried rice. We've cooked dinner ever night here so far... that's our trick to saving money. Hopefully we can keep up our strategy!

Until next time,

Sam

Getting Jig-gy With It

Friday night was our first night out in Dublin city and we all went to Dicey's... an Irish dance club where all the locals go. As soon as we walked in the door my friends and I each ordered a "hot Irish." Note to self, do not ever consume this drink again. Although some people think this irish drink from the 60's is delicious, I personally believe it should stay in the decade where it made its mark. The drink consists of warmed whiskey, cloves, and lemon. Not so yummy. However, once we gulped down our beverages (we had to, we each paid 6 euro for them!) I was quickly grabbed by a local and began some twisted version of the Irish jig. I can't say my moves were impressive, but it definitely was fun!

Meet my partner, Lawrence...

We had a great night mingling with the locals and made some friends that we hope to meet up with tonight! Then classes start tomorrow and this abroad experience is officially on its way. Paris has also been booked for a weekend, so prepare to hear about more travel in the next 2 weeks!

Off to cook dinner with the girls,

xx

First real day!!

Wandered downtown Dublin city yesterday... so wonderful!! Okay, whoever said Ireland didn't have good food and good shopping had one Guinness too many. This place is truly fabulous.

My abroad group broke into teams to do a scavenger hunt around the city, and my team won! Not surprising, I know. The scavenger hunt was great because it gave us all a good understanding of the city set-up.

(found this photo on google... but I promise, this is what the city looks like!)

Also, just booked our flights to visit Madrid in 2 weeks! You hear that dad? I'm going!!

So excited to start traveling... but now I got to run and hit the gym with my friends, but I'll post soon.

Hellllllllo Dublin

I'm here! Currently running on zero sleep, but seriously amped from the awesome-ness surrounding me. After a quiet and easy flight, I arrived in Dublin with the BU abroad group at 6:50 am. That's early. Immediately following our arrival we took a coach bus to DCU (Dublin City University), my home for the next 4 months.

This place is glorious. SO beautiful here, there's crisp cool weather, a pharmacy, a market, restaurants and bars ON campus and the most amazing and simultaneously enormous library I have ever seen.

Want to see the market coolio items?

Want to see my room?

Want to see my view?

Want to see more cool stuff?

Well, you'll just have to wait until the next post.

Cheers :)

PS. Skype name: Samtraceyf or Shopgirlshop... add me on both!

Knock knock...

The day after tomorrow... Ireland awaits! And my mom's 35th *wink* birthday

happy early birthday mom!!!

I know you're all SUPER curious about that new camera I ordered. Well, we can all exhale.

It has arrived. The Panasonic FH20... and that baby is superb. Get ready from some dazzling

photos. But until then, please enjoy all the googled images that I've gathered for this blog

thus far.

In other news, packing is going swimmingly. I'm definitely not avoiding it by watching the movie Knocked Up. Definitely not ignoring the fact that I have 4 months of clothing to pack into 2 suitcases. Nope. Not sitting on the couch with my little sis as I type. No way. No how. No sireeee. Definitely not doing that.

OOOoop, commercial break's over. Gotta run!

Snap out of it

Well, the trip is officially one week away. Packing is yet to begin, although I have begun my search for the perfect camera. Clearly, photo-documenting my trip is more important than worrying about how many sweaters to bring...

Several days ago, I was perfectly content on bringing my old- but functional- digital camera. Until of course, the camera was no longer functional. After several pain-staking attempts to turn on my camera, it was clear that this 6 year old snap shot wasnot suited to survive 2011. And so, the quest for a new camera began. After a 20 minute browse in the electronics department of Target, I thought I had found the perfect digital camera. Inexpensive, compact, and supposedly wonderful at taking high-quality pictures. False.

Beware this Nikon Coopix is NOT so cool!

Below is a picture of my shoes-- With the lackluster Nikon camera. Uglh.

(not tragic, but we can do better than this...)

So, today I returned my disappointing purchase and ordered a slightly more expensive, but supposedly outrageously awesome, digital camera (The Panasonic FH20). We'll see about that. I'm eagerly awaiting the camera's arrival, and even more eagerly awaiting my Dublin departure.

Talk to you in a flash!

Almost one week until airbound!

Hey readers! Welcome to my blog and post #1. I'm currently reporting in from Westchester, NY... testing out the blog waters so I'm prepared for some serious blog-worthy writing come Ireland. So far my winter break has consisted of preparing for my trip to Ireland: introducing every known green hue into my wardrobe, perfecting my Irish accent, and of course, learning to accept that my need for H20 will soon be replaced by guinness. Lots of it.

(a map of Ireland... I should probably start getting to know this!)

I hope to update my blog as often as possible, but please recognize that a perpeptual haze of post-guinness evenings, afternoons and even mornings (Hey who knows...) may result in the delay of my postings. However, have no fear that when my postings do arrive, they will be nothing less than perfection.

Trust me, I'll have the luck of the Irish on my side.