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: