Saturday, January 31, 2009

The rest of my first weekend

Today Melissa and I went shopping for some much needed items. First, we stopped at the Post Office so I could exchange my money for some British cash. I was glancing around the tiny shop while waited for Melissa to finish mailing some postcards, and what do my eyes fall upon but a small drink stand with - drum roll please - Dr. Pepper!! Apparently, Ireland hasn't done away with it like one girl had told me. I was so thrilled, I bought a bottle right then and there and drank up the 23-flavor goodness. Yummm!!

After that, we waited at the bus stop for a ride into Downtown. Here is a picture of me about to go on my first bus ride - woo hoo!



iWe stopped at a, well, what would be a dollar store in the U.S. so I suppose it was maybe a pound store?? Anywho, I bought my much-needed umbrella for a pound and a beautiful new scarf for 3 pounds, I believe. (I lost my other scarf at the Ceilidh on Thursday night. Sad day.) We ran into a German girl Melissa knew named Clarissa. She said she was meeting up with another one of their German friends (even thought they had all met only a few days previous) in the mall, so that was our next destination.

I was able to purchase a hair dryer there - hooray!!! I also looked around for a hat. Melissa and I found a few hopefuls while Clarissa headed off to the cell phone store. Most everybody buys a cell phone here and does a pay-as-you-go deal. It's better than paying for massive international rates on their regular phones.

We briefly gathered back together with the other friend, named Linda. We chatted for just a bit, then went our separate ways. Melissa and I headed back outside the mall to look at the shops along the road. We stopped in a a shoe store called Schuh, which is German for, well, you can figure it out. I found a perfect bag there to carry my school things, so I was happy with it. I also bought a tote that said "schuh" on it just because. It was incredibly cheap (it must have been on sale), and I told Melissa it would remind me of her because it'd be my German bag. :)

We started getting hungry and decided to look for a place to eat. Passing a tour bus waiting for passengers, Melissa got an idea and went and asked them what they suggested for a good, Irish meal. The man directed to us a pub called Monaco Bar. I was so excited to be there. Melissa just kept laughing at me all day because I was so thrilled by such mundane things as riding a bus and going to a pub. I, of course, to pictures of my first pub experience:


The stew was way too much for me to finish in one sitting - as usual - so I went up and asked if I could have a carry out dish. I am getting the impression that that's not a normal thing here. The guy did get one for me, tho, but a woman had already taken my dish away, so I ended up scooping it into the carry out dish at the bar. It was really awkward. Oh well, though. Now I have another meal in the fridge that's already made.

We had to take the bus back to Elm's Village - the place where we live - then in order to be on time for the IKEA shopping trip. A bunch of local people had volunteered to drive us to IKEA. I went with Melissa and an American guy named Brendan. Our driver's name was Rachel, I think. She was native to Belfast. Nothing too eventful happened at IKEA, except for me almost tripping UP the stairs with a large bag of purchases. Only I could do that.

Once home again, I was eager to FINALLY finish unpacking and setting my room up. It is all nice and tidy and ready now, so I like it. :)

Later that night, Melissa and I went out again. We had not heard from anyone in particular as far as plans go, but we both were hungry and had no groceries, so food it was. I know everyone told that everything closes really early at night, but I figured things would be a bit different for a Saturday night. Apparently not. Melissa and I walked a very long way up and down a street of shops and food places and EVERYTHING was closed. There was one bar that we finally saw open in which the food did not cost 15 pounds per plate. Then, when we asked for some menus, the bartender informed us that they didn't serve food this late. Gah! We were both getting pretty desperate to eat something, and were just about to turn to go back home (I did at least have some cereal and milk) when I spotted a Subway. After having several days in a row of eating food that was different to me, my heart lept at the sight of that lovely yellow and white sign. As it turns out, they were closing at 8 and it was something like 7:58 when we walked in. They let us order, though. We decided not to eat in since they wanted to close on time, so I suggested we go to the SU.

I figured if we ordered drinks from Clements, we could eat our subs in there. Only after I had ordered my peppermint tea did I see the big sign that said: Only food bought on the premises is permitted here. Ay ay ay. Melissa and I were so hungry! I put my tea in a to-go cup and we tried the upstairs. There was no one there, and it looked like it might have been closed, but we were both so desperate just to have a place to sit and eat that we didn't care. Luckily, the security didn't come to inform that he was closing up until after we'd each finished our subs.

On the way home, we were both baffled by how not-active the whole place was. Students were nowhere to be seen, and as far as we could tell, almost everywhere was closed. Where did all the people GO on Saturday night?? We happened to pass by a fellow international student - Kristian from Norway - and he informed of a small get-together at someone's place to watch a movie. We gladly accepted the invitation to come along.

The guy whose room we went to was named Nicholas (though I'm fairly sure it's spelled some other way). He is Belgian. The other people who were there were as follows: two Canadian girls named Allison (who people say looks like me) and Layla, a German guy named Benny I think, a French guy I'd met earlier named Simon (pronounced see-moan), another Belgian named Laurent who was good friends with Nicholas from way back, and Kristian the Norwegian. It ended up that the movie wasn't going to work because of the slow internet connection, so we just sat around and talked for several hours. It was very enjoyable. At one point Simon discovered that I had never heard/seen techtonique (at least that's how it sounds like it's spelled). Apparently it's this really odd but complicated dancing style that originated in France. They pulled up a few videos on youtube so I could see what it was. Simon said that when it first came out, it was really popular, but that it's kind of out-dated in France now and people who dance like that at clubs and stuff are usually just stared and laughed at. Here's a link to one of the videos we watched. It's so weird:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz4bzcOvCt4

Well, I don't have time to write about today anymore. I'm late for a Superbowl party. Tomorrow I start my first day of classes so wish me luck! :)

Last Day of Orientation... Finally!

So, today was the last day of orientation, which made everybody happy - it's been a long few days, filled with way more information than any of us can hope to remember. After many more presentations by people from various departments, we had a break for a while. I went to get my student ID card. You know that joke how no one's student ID photo looks decent? It's so true! The guy sat me down, and so I was just looking around, waiting for him to get set-up. All of the sudden I realize he is printing my card and handing it to me. He didn't even tell me he was taking the picture! I've got a weird expression and my eyes are looking way off to the side. It's so bad. haha! I ran into Sydney there and we made plans for lunch, after her advising meeting to register for courses.

While I was waiting for her, I decided to go down to the Students' Union to see if the store there had any hair dryers. My neighbor Melissa got hers from there. I looked all over the tiny little store, but I could not find them anywhere. I finally asked the gals at the front desk. Of course, they had just sold their last one! They did have straighteners, though, so I checked them out. There was a ceramic one for only 9 pounds (which would be around $15 I believe), which is an amazing deal! I mean, in the states, a nice ceramic straightener like that one would cost $50 at least! I couldn't believe it! I thought I'd hold off on getting it, though, which turned out to be a good idea. I realized today that attempting to straighten even just my bangs let alone all of my hair would be a completely lost cause here. As soon as I step outside, my hair curl up because of the humidity and the rain. I've opted to give up trying to style my hair all too much. It seems quite a lot of the girls have come to that conclusion here.

Anyway, I then met Sydney for lunch at a little coffee shop in the Students' Union. We both ordered Thai chicken wraps, which were really good! Spread inside the wrap was a layer of peanut butter, which sounds gross, but it was actually really yummy. Sydney and I had a good chat that afternoon, including a discussion about Jane Austen novels. :D (Sydney is studying English/Literature, so it was fun to talk with her about it).

We finally started some tours after that. My group went to the Science library, then the gym on campus (where all the exercise gurus tried to get everyone to take up membership), then another library. The gym was actually pretty cool, with tons of rooms for so many different things. It wasn't just treadmills and bikes. There were several rock-climbing walls, rooms for boxing/fighting, a lap pool and a diving pool, basketball/football/volleyball courts, and many more. It took several hours to do those three. Then we had a bit of a break; my feet praised me for it!

We were introduced to the Students' Union next. They told us things such as what is at the facility, opportunities that were open for us, the various clubs and societies on campus, etc. Sydney had told me earlier about a certain society - I can't remember the name right now - that did things like rock-climbing, bouldering, and hiking. It sounds like it'd be a lot of fun! I haven't signed up for anything, yet, though.

Once the SU presentation was done, we had extra time before our dinner at 6:00. A group of us wanted to go out to coffee, but as soon as we stepped outside, we decided to go to the coffee shop in the Union instead (Clements, the one I had lunch at with Sydney). Among us were Jen - my interstudy friend, Melissa - my neighbor from Germany, two Belgian girls that I cannot for the life of me remember names for, a Belgian guy named Matthieu (and yes, it is spelled like that, which is so cool in my opinion), Susana - my friend from Amsterdam I met at the very beginning of the first day, a new girl name Iris, and then a couple of other girls who I did not exchange names with. I ordered a peppermint-vanilla steamer - yum! It kind of reminded me of melted mint chocolate chip ice cream, except not as gross as that sounds.

We all sat around and talked for a while. It's so much fun to be with people from other countries, especially those who are not native to the English language, which would be the Germans, Belgians, French, Dutch, etc. They all do very well, don't get me wrong, but there are moments of unintended humor due to accents and such. For example, the two Belgian girls were saying to each other how they were worried about the "jooz" tonight at the dinner. Jen and I both exchanged looks and then we were like, "You're worried about what??" What they were saying was "juice," but because of their accents it sounded like "Jews," and Jen and I were wondering why they were so worried about the Jews tonight. Hahaha! We helped them see the difference between the "s" and "z" sound at the end. Once they got what we were saying, they joined in the laughter, too. :)

At the dinner, there were drinks beforehand. I did not have any alcohol, myself, but it was funny to see other people's reactions to it. There were mixed feelings about how good the wine was. One German guy (whose name is another one I cannot recall) was saying how the wine was so delicious, and so Melissa tried a sip and made the funniest face ever. Apparently it was not up to her standards. It was really funny. Julia, one of the French girls I hung out with on Thursday, was also less then impressed with it. She said that her parents make wine, though, so she might not be the best judge of the regular stuff. Haha!

The dinner itself was fun... not too eventful. Oh, I did discover that Ireland no longer has Dr. Pepper. Anywhere. Major bummer. I love that stuff and will miss it dearly.

Afterward, we decided to all meet up at Grant House - one of the university accomodations. We sat around and chatted. As the night moved on, Jen, Melissa, and I ended up doing some fun German/English translations. Jen and I were writing down American slang for Melissa so that she could sound authentic. It was so cute to hear her version of "sup dawg," which was more like, "What is up, dog?" Hehehe! Jen and I had a great time with that! And Melissa, well, she decided we have a very weird language, but she took the notes. :)

Well, there you have. Another day come and gone. Tomorrow I'm going out with Melissa and her German friends (including the guy from the wine incident earlier) to several shopping centers, or shall I say centres. ;) I'm finding so many more things I need as time goes by. My list just keeps growing! Can you believe I came all the way to Ireland and didn't bring my umbrella with me? Silly, silly.

Oh, I did take one picture today. It was when we walked outside to go to a coffee shop before changing our minds. The Lanyon building across the street was all lit up so beautifully, I had to take a picture. It didn't turn out the greatest, but you can still see how cool the building is. It is the iconic image of Queen's. It's breathtaking to look at in person. Here's the photo:

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Thus Far

Alright, I've got a bit of time on my hands, so here we go. Warning: several people have told me that they want to hear ALL about it, so this may go on for a while...

Although my flight was to leave on Tuesday, my parents and I decided to head on Monday and spend the night in Cinci, just to make sure I wouldn't miss my flight due to weather (a rather large snow storm was blowing through the area). We made it just fine, though, and my flight was not canceled or delayed, which I am very thankful for!

So, I boarded a little puddle jumper in Cincinnati at about 3:00 Tuesday afternoon. I arrived in Chicago around 5-something and had to switch to another flight for the oversea journey. I got incredibly lost and was overwhelmed by how massive and spread out the airport was, but the staff were very helpful and I made it to my next plane just in time.

This flight was through British Air, and the plane was absolutely gigantic, at least as far as I could tell. There were 2 floors, and many sections. I stayed in the back-most which had 3 columns of seats. It was a rather empty flight, and from what I could tell, every person had his/her own row to stretch out and be comfy in, which was nice.

It was my first flight with a genuine meal - two, actually, counting breakfast. That was a cool first experience. I couldn't sleep, so I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's and Shrek that night. I did get about an hour of shut-eye somewhere in there, I think.

I had a bit of a hard time communicating with the stewardess who worked my row. One time I held up my empty cup and napkin and asked her if she had a trash she could throw it into for me. She just looked at me, slightly confused. I said "trash" again, tentatively, holding up my items. She finally said, "Oh, you want me to take that for you?" I nodded. She then informed me that her name was not "Trash." I laughed at first, until I realized it wasn't a joke. Woops.

I landed in London at 6:00am London time, which is 6 hours ahead of central time. This was another gargantuan airport. I of course had no idea where to go and had to ask for help several times, but everyone was very friendly and nice. I went through a ton of checkpoints; I don't even know what they were all for. I made it through all of them just fine, tho, so that's good. I somehow found my way to where my next flight was to leave, had a bit of extra time, so I pulled out my huge Jane Austen collection book and started in. I was planning on reading it on the plane to Belfast, too, but almost as soon as I sat down and buckled my seatbelt, I was out.

I landed in Belfast at 11:25 am Wednesday morning. Queen's University (my school) had volunteers at a little booth to help me and the other Queen's people carry our luggage out to the transportation the University provided. I met a girl there named Susana from Amsterdam, and I've seen her quite a bit since then.

After receiving my room key and being escorted to my new accomodation, I had a bit of time before I had to meet up with an advisor from interstudy (the study abroad program I am going through). I wanted to take a shower, as I felt pretty grungy, but I had no idea where it was as none of the doors are labeled, and there was not a soul in sight anywhere I looked. Not only did I need a shower, but I desperately needed to find a bathroom (just referred to as "toilet" here). Thankfully, I ran into a girl outside my hallway, and she told me which door was the toilet room and which the shower. Hallelujah! After that almost-fiasco, it was already 2:00 and I had to be on my way.

Me and the two other interstudy girls were going to have a very casual "orientation" with Coleman - the interstudy guy - as he showed us around Belfast, got us our phones and kitchen stupplies, took us shopping for bedding and such, and bought us a late lunch. Nora and Jen are the two other girls. They are both from America, too. I haven't done much with Nora since then, but I have seen Jen quite a bit. She reminds a lot of a roommate I had my freshman year of college. She's very sweet.

That evening a local church hosted a dinner for the international students, so I went to that and met more people there. After that, I came back to my room and crashed. I was very tired. Oh, I did meet my next-door neighbor first, though. Her name is Melissa; she's from Germany.

Today was the beginning of the official Queen's orientation for international students. (It feels so weird to be considered an international student!) I got up extra early to make sure Melissa would have time to take a shower, too. I came back to my room to finish getting ready, only to discover that my blow-dryer and flat iron don't really work. They kind of do with the adaptor, but I have to sit there and hold the plug in or else it falls out, and even then the power is not very strong. Poor Melissa needed a hair dryer, too, and I had let her borrow mine first, but it didn't work. Therefor, today I did my hair up in a lovely, wet, gel-filled bun. Beautiful, I know. Hehe

Orientation started at 9:00. It was pretty typical stuff. We received a bunch of papers, including maps of the university and Belfast and such. We broke for tea and coffee, during which time I met even more people, this time from Belgium. After another bit of presentations, I went to meet with my advisor who would enroll me for my courses. His name is Dimitri Soklovski-something. He has a cool accent! (But then again, almost everyone I've been meeting here does).

Then, we had a scheduled lunch at some restaurant in the students' union. I was a bit early for that, and couldn't find the restaurant, but I did see a girl with the faithful navy blue bag that says: Queen's University Belfast, International Students' Orientation Programme. I walked up and asked if she knew where it was. Her name is Sydney, and she's from Florida. We ended up finding it together. Just outside the restaurant (which was actually much more like a glorified cafeteria, if you ask me), Sydney saw a couple girls she had met earlier, so we ate with them. They are both from France but had not met each other until this morning. Julia and Maeva are their names. They're both very nice.

That afternoon we had a bus tour of Belfast. I took a few pictures of different views:


This one is the view of the city from the nation's government building. It looked cooler in person. What can I say? It's not like I claim to be a photographer!



Here's the building itself. It's too bad I didn't take a better one because there were some really neat statues on it. The girl looking at me, off to the left a little, in the light blue jacket is Sydney.




The next few are views out of the top story of some building in downtown. There's a river right next to it. The river's name is Lagon, I think??
,




On the bus, we met a couple of French guys who sat in front of us. I have no idea how to pronounce their names, let alone spell them, but I'll give it a shot. One of them sounded like "Ro-man" except pronounced with a really French accent. The other one sounds like "Bat-teest." Haha! They laughed at Sydney and I as we butchered their names.

After the tour, Maeva, Julie, and I walked (P.S. there is TONS of walking for me, now!) down to a Tesco a couple blocks away. It's a supermarket here. It kind of reminds me of Kroger or King Soopers. I got a few items that I really needed like soap and something to eat for supper. I had a frozen pizza because it's the best thing I could think of that didn't need any pots or pans, as I have not purchased those, yet. I could have bought some as Tesco, but I really didn't feel like carrying them the long journey back, yet.

I came home after that for some free time to eat supper before the Ceilidh (as far as I can tell it's pronounced "kay-leed"), where the live music and Irish dancing was. During that free time, I finally figured out how to make my internet work - insert Hallelujah chorus here. I've been struggling and fighting with it many times over the past couple of days. That was quite satisfying, achieving that. :)

At the Ceilidh, we had an instructor who taught us several authentic Irish dances. There was a band there, playing the proper music. It was really fun! Pretty much everyone I've met so far was there. In fact, I can't think of anyone who wasn't.

Here are some pictures from one that I sat out for (I was very tired and very hot!):

The guy in the blue shirt and light pants here is "bat-teest," one of the French guys I met earlier. He was my partner for a couple songs



Here is Susana, the girl from Amsterdam I met on the bus ride from the airport. (sorry it's sideways)

Here is the lovely band. The guy closest was waving at my camera for me, but it's hard to tell in the picture.

This one is really hard to see, but it's just more dancing. (Maybe if I have more time sometime, I'll edit them and reload them here...)

Here are Jen (my friend from interstudy) and Melissa (my neighbor from Germany)
The two girls closest are Jen and Melissa

Here is a video of the dance I sat out for. "Bat-teest" had the misfortune of standing right in front of where I was sitting, so he's in the frame a lot. Sorry, friend.




After the Ceilidh, I walked home with some people. That's pretty much it for now. I don't think I've left anything out, at least not that I can remember right now, anyway.

Oh, here are a few random musings...

There are palm trees here. And other tropical-like plants. It's odd to me.

So far I've seen a BP, several Subways, a KFC, a Chilis, and a McDonald's.

Um, ok, that's all I can think of for now.

I hope this was detailed enough for those of you wanted the details, and not too detailed for those who bore quickly. I'll try to keep this as up-to-date as possible. :)

Beginning

Hello all. A very smart friend suggested that I make a blog of my experience studying abroad this semester. This way, anyone who wants to can read it whenever they get a chance, and I don't have to worry about forgetting someone in my email list. Good idea, huh? :)

Well, I don't have time to write anything just yet - I'm leaving for an Irish dancing lesson in a few minutes! I will try to keep this updated, though, for all of you who want to know how/what I'm doing. Enjoy!