Keeping up with Katie

School work really ramped up this week. A couple almost all-nighters were pulled with an exam and two huge essays all due this week. It definitely didn’t help that for a solid 12 hours I was kicked out of BP for the spring semester because housing assignments came out and apparently my housing application never went through! I’ve never been so stressed but at least the same issue happened to Emily and Cate. All is well now though… there ended up being just enough beds in BP for the three of us to get back in AND Haley and I miraculously finessed getting the last open double together- everyone else was either forced into triples or has to move into a room with someone already staying in it. Within 24-hours I went from no where to live to the perfect living situation.

In other news, Halloween was on a Thursday this year! Our program decided to split up for it- half stayed in Galway and the other half spent the night in Dublin. I only have so few weeks in Galway left though I decided to stay and it was SO fun! Ireland really knows how to do Halloween. Butttt the combination of getting back late and hardly sleeping at all this week was not ideal considering the fact that I slept right through my flight! I have a vague recollection of snoozing my 6am alarm but apparently I just turned it off…. no one can ever let me fly alone again!! I woke up at 10:58 for a 12:50 flight, but the airport is 2.5 hours away so it was physically impossible to make it. I absolutely panicked, bought a new flight and bus ticket, packed and got ready in less than 20 minutes- a personal best (and hopefully the only time that ever needs to happen). I ended up making it to London around 7pm that night which considering what I went through that day wasn’t too bad. I learned a BIG life lesson though….

I made it all the way from the London airport to Haley’s apartment (two trains and a tube away) all on my own that night. Despite the minor flight setback, it was honestly refreshing to travel on my own and figure out things like transportation independently. With the added benefit of being able to explore the city with friends still of course! Haley and I did the Camden Pub Crawl that night and met a ton of solo travelers from all over the world- it was a really cool way to meet people!

Since I lost the entire afternoon on Friday I woke up bright and early to get the day going on Saturday. Haley isn’t allowed to have visitors sleep over in her apartment because it’s owned by Notre Dame so Una, Claire, and I shared a hotel room instead (Claire took the god-awfully-early 6am flight on Wednesday and missed Halloween in Ireland and Una was supposed to be on that flight but bailed last minute to leave on Thursday with me instead but the only flight out she could get was a few hours before mine— clearly I should have just gone to the airport at the same time as her anyways though). Anyways, Claire and Una slept the day away and only saw one sight but Haley took me on the grand tour of London and it was SO cool. It was a bit of delayed start considering I tried to take the bus to her apartment but ended up going the wrong way on it but eventually I got there 🙂 we walked by the London Eye, Parliament and Big Ben (but Big Ben is unfortunately under construction so it didn’t look too great). Afterwards we went to Westminster Abbey and saw where William and Kate got married! Then we saw St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Westminster, St. James Park, and the Buckingham Palace (the flag was raised so the Queen was in there!). After that we had some time to kill before our “english tea” reservation so Haley took me to see Fisher Hall- Notre Dame’s global gateway house in London. Haley’s program is different from mine in that she’s actually studying at Notre Dame but just their London branch made for study abroad so this building is where she has all her classes. There’s also a library and kitchen and the basement is a huge common area with TVs and ping pong and such, it’s so cool! Then we stopped at Ben’s Cookies and omg it was the best cookie I’ve ever had- mom you would have LOVED it, the one I got was dark chocolate and ginger.

Claire and Una met up with us for our tea reservation and it was so classy- reminded me of our NCL teas. We each got our own pot of fancy tea and there were so many finger sandwiches, scones, and desserts for just our table that in two hours we couldn’t even finish them. I can’t imagine afternoon tea just being a normal thing everyone does every day! Afterwards we walked around Trafalgar Square and Covent Garden for a bit but it gets so dark so early now! We split up again and Claire and Una went back to the hotel (lame!) and I went back to Haley’s apartment to meet her friends and it was so fun. There are 150 people studying abroad in London so the program organizes a game watch every game day. I went with Haley and her friends to watch the VT game at a pub called LooseBox and it was so fun- basically everyone that’s not traveling always goes. After the game Haley needed to work on an essay so I texted my friends from home Molly and Leila that are studying abroad at Kings College in London and I dragged Una and Claire out to meet up with them with me. It was SO fun to catch up, they seem like they’re having the best time studying abroad too!

It was a very quick trip, as I had a Sunday afternoon flight back so that I wouldn’t get back too late on my own. I made the most of the morning at least and woke up early again. I met Haley for a yummy breakfast and then we walked to the Tower of London and over the London Bridge. We even had enough time to go see St. Paul’s Cathedral. A mass was about to begin so we couldn’t go in without staying and I didn’t have enough time before my flight for that but all the bells were ringing for like 20 minutes it was very cool to see! And the cathedral is HUGE wow. I managed to make my way back to the London airport all on my own after that. I am so mad though because they never so much as looked at my passport either way- aka I didn’t get a London stamp! That’s so unfair!!

Halloween!

Views on Haley’s walk to class

Westminster Abbey

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

These telephone booths really exist!!

Buckingham Palace

Closer view of the palace

Haley and I ~infront~ of the palace

The Notre Dame global gateway building with the ND flag flying on top, directly across from the Canadian Embassy (yes, we did beat out the French Embassy for this building…)

Yummy tea treats

Haley and I enjoying our tea

London at night

The London Eye

Leila and Molly meeting Claire and Una!

The London Bridge

Cool buildings in the city

The Tower of London

Closer view of the London Bridge

View from being on the bridge

Me on the bridge 😉

St. Paul’s Cathedral with pretty flowers

St. Paul’s Cathedral (I had to walk so far away from it to get the whole building in a picture….)

I started my Marine Zoology class this week and my professor (Dr Louise Allcock) is SO cool. She’s done a ton of research on deep sea corals and showed us a video from one of her robot dives that was insane. In our lab I got to work with the deep sea corals she has collected, and now I’m one of the .003% of the worlds population that has ever seen one in real life! The class is all Irish kids so I got to meet and talk to new people during the lab which was so fun too.

The school week was short because Claire, Una, Tommy, Teddy (Tommy’s highschool friend who was visiting) and I all left for the airport bright and early on Thursday morning to go to Copenhagen! We were supposed to leave at 6:50am, but the boys woke up (unpacked) at 6:54am to lots of banging on their door. I’ll admit they did rally relatively quick and we had to taxi to the bus station instead of walk but we (barely…) made our bus thankfully! It was way too early though, we all immediately fell asleep for the 2.5 hour bus ride to the airport. Although we left so early, we didn’t get to our Airbnb until around 4 so we just dropped off our stuff and went off. Our Airbnb was tiny but we are balling on a budget over here. Claire, Una, and I got the couch and Tommy and Teddy got the bed. The bathroom was so small and the only other floor space in the room itself was taken up by a fish tank (that was super cool though). Once we got over the shock of our tight living corridors, we went straight to Tivoli. It’s a huge amusement park in the center of Copenhagen and it’s especially cool at night right now because it’s all decorated for Halloween! There’s so many Halloween decorations and lights and the top 10 winners of the largest pumpkin growing competition had their pumpkins on display in front of the big castle. Una and I went on a cute carousel ride while the rest went on a terrifying rollercoaster and we all ate lots of carnival food and played a bunch of games. We met up with Aidan, our friend from ND studying in Copenhagen, and she took us out for the night which was so fun!

On Friday we did a lot more sight seeing. We Lime scootered to and from Freetown, Christiana which is a community within Copenhagen that claimed their independence and has no laws so it was really interesting to see how that works. The rest of the day we spent walking around, it’s a really big walking/biking city (there’s more bikes than people!). We passed lots of picturesque streets with colorful houses and the Christiansborg palace. We had a reservation to rent a boat but at the time we were supposed to take it out it started raining so they pushed us back a couple hours. In the meantime we left and went up the Round Tower to get super cool 360 degree views of the city (nottt your cup of tea dad). We also got Danish street hotdogs and they were SO good. By the time we made it back to the GoBoat rental place, it was a beautiful day out again and the company gave us an extra hour for free! We literally only paid $13 each to take a boat out on beautiful canals in the middle of Copenhagen for 2 hours all by ourselves and have a super cute picnic on the water too. It was honestly the highlight of my whole weekend! Who in their right mind left 5 college kids take out a motor boat in a foreign country though… We met up with Aidan again that night and went to Vinson’s 90 for “slow beers” and she introduced us to all of her friends- her program is only TWO Notre Dame people so she has a bunch of friends from other American universities which is fun (I thought my program was small though…wow).

Copenhagen was a really cool city, I can’t imagine studying abroad there though. It’s almost eerie how Utopian it is. It’s so clean and quiet and everyone follows the rules. It’s basically a sin to jaywalk which killed me because you know I walk like a New Yorker. There’s no crime in the city either and according to Aidan no one is poor and no one is rich, everyone is just different variations of middle class. We took advantage of the public transportation honor system in Copenhagen the entire trip and wow did that come back get us on our trip to the airport. Two stops before the airport, transportation security came on the train and started checking tickets so we hopped off and laughed at how close we came to getting caught (karma!). We got back on the next train and didn’t see that there was already two transportation security officers in the car until it was too late to escape. They cornered Tommy and Teddy and grilled them about not having a ticket and took them off the train at the last stop before the airport. Claire, Una, and I all got off out a different door, ran downstairs, bought tickets for the one stop left, and then pretended like nothing had happened. Tommy and Teddy, on the other hand, got fined $150 by the transportation security and they copied down their passport information so there’s no getting out of that one, YIKES.

Tommy and Teddy sat across the room from us in the airport because they were so mad they got caught and we didn’t, whoops! We parted ways with Teddy and the rest of us headed off to Amsterdam. Most of Saturday was spent traveling to Amsterdam. As cool as it is bopping around all of Europe, we spend a ridiculous amount of time in airports and on public transportation getting to places. Once we got to Amsterdam, we again just dropped off our bags and hit the ground running. Our apartment was slightly bigger this time and only four of us instead of five so that was clutch. We only had to squeeze two on the couch and two in the bed this time! The bathroom was much nicer and our host left us coupons to attractions and a box of chocolates that we absolutely demolished. Our friends Maria who is studying in London and Marge who is still on campus were both in Amsterdam so we met up with them for dinner and then went to a really cool windmill brewery for their last night.

Sunday was full of walking again, it’s the best way to see a city! In all honesty, no one set an alarm and we didn’t wake up until 1pm though, and then realized daylight savings happened so it was actually 2pm on our body clocks… traveling is exhausting! We walked along all of the canals and came across a tulips museum that was a basically a tulip shop but then a cheese museum that was absolutely incredible. The main floor was all free cheese samples, and I mean I must have had at least 100 pieces of cheese. The bottom floor was the museum part and that was cool too, but not quite as cool as the samples. We walked through the red light district to kill some time before our tour of the Anne Frank House. That was really cool to see- there’s a bunch of her diaries on display and we got to see the actual attic that she and her family hid in for so many years during the Holocaust. Right outside the attraction was the launch point for a ton of canal cruises so we picked one called BoatAmsterdam to do a sunset cruise on because it’s run by college kids and it was SO fun- it competed pretty well with our Copenhagen canal cruise. The kids running the boat liked hanging out with us too so we sweet talked our way into staying on the boat for another round which was amazing.

On Monday morning, we woke up much earlier to seize the day. Our Airbnb was actually in a place called Zaandam, only a 10 minute train ride into downtown Amsterdam but technically it’s not part of the city. Our host told us the center of Zaandam was super cool though so we decided to get breakfast there in the morning and it did not disappoint! First of all, I had my first somewhat decent bagel of my entire study abroad experience so far. Secondly, the architecture was insane it literally felt like I was in Lego Land. After exploring around Zaandam a bit we headed back into the city of Amsterdam. We walked around some more and saw the royal palace of Amsterdam and went to the famous Albert Cuyp Market. We got Dutch mini pancakes and they were SO good and then walked to Vondelpark. We wanted to go to the Picasso museum but it was so expensive so we ended up going to the Moco Museum and saw some modern art, none of us were really that into it though. For dinner we wandered into this very authentic mom and pop restaurant where every single other person in there was definitely from Amsterdam and it felt like we were literally in someone home. It was such a good last meal. Afterwards we went to an arcade that Tommy wanted to go to and it was so fun that we spent the entire night there. We played guitar hero, basketball, air hockey, even lots of board games; the opportunities were endless.

Tuesday morning it was unfortunately back to reality. We again got up bright and early to fly back to Galway. I missed my first two classes on Tuesday but considering the fact that we turned a 3-day weekend for the bank holiday into a 6-day weekend I think it’s pretty impressive I only missed two classes. And every single other study abroad program was on fall break that week so it’s only fair we got a fall break too!

Tivoli castle and the smallest of the top pumpkins

Swan boats in Tivoli

Tivoli halloween decorations

More tivoli Halloween decorations!

Downtown area of Copenhagen

Lots of canal photoshoots

Look how pretty!

Christiansborg Palace

More prettiness!

Freetown, Christiana

Danish street hotdogs

View from the tower

The better view 😉

The Round Tower itself

Here comes a big GoBoat photoshoot

Slow beers (Aidan is in the middle)

Even more pretty canals in Amsterdam!

Anne Franks house

Closeup on the door

Evening canal cruise in Amsterdam

LOOK at these buildings in Zaandam

Literally lego world

Even the Amsterdam train station is beautiful

More Amsterdam

The Royal Palace of Amsterdam

Inside the MOCO museum

Claire and I enjoying the “interactive” pieces of the museum

One last pic on a canal

Last weekend was soso fun because we had so many visitors! Haley and Joe came from London and Andrew and Leah came from Dublin all to spend the weekend with us in Galway! All of our friends got in around the same time on Friday morning so we had a good part of the day to explore Galway. We took them to our favorite restaurant for traditional Irish breakfasts and didn’t tell them what black pudding was until after they tried it, it’s a right of passage! We walked around the river and Shop Street for a while, which is the main road in Galway. Leah wanted to get an ~authentic~ Irish sweater and Claddagh ring because Dublin is so touristy so it was fun to show her all the local shops! We took them to Tig Coilis to listen to traditional Irish music (another thing Dublin lacks…) and got dinner at Caribou, a chill pub that has a bunch of board games you can play while you’re there. Then we all met up with Una’s mom because she was visiting for the weekend too and she took us out for pints which was so nice! Una’s little brother was also here though so they headed back to their hotel relatively early and the rest of us went out. Our visitors did nottt appreciate the 30 min walk between town and our apartment but I’m so used to it now it doesn’t even phase me anymore. The sleeping arrangements for that night were interesting. Everyone was hanging out in my common room until like 4am and Haley and Leah were exhausted from their travels so I took the cushions off the couches and made a superbed on the floor of my room for them. Andrew and Joe slept on the couches in Claire’s common room, but mind you Joe is one of the tallest human beings I have ever seen and he did not fit on a tiny couch, oops!

On Saturday we split up a bit. Claire, Joe, and Andrew went to the Cliffs of Mohr with Claire’s parents, Una went to Inishmore with her mom and brother, and Leah went to Inis Orr on a relaxing solo vacation. I went to Dublin with Haley though because she wanted to see both places while she was in Ireland! There’s nothing too exciting to do in Galway so I’m not sure what I have entertained her with all day there anyways. We woke up early to grab breakfast and catch the 9am bus. Emily was staying in Dublin for the weekend so we met up with her at UCD. Her campus was beautiful and more of a campus than a city school, but it was a 40 minute bus ride to UCD from downtown Dublin which was notttt fun. I thought my commute to town was bad! We eventually made it back to the city center though and walked around Grafton Street and Temple Bar. Haley and I wanted to do something super touristy so she took us to the Guinness Storehouse and it was SO cool! It’s a self guided tour so you walk through all the exhibits learning how Guinness is made and what makes it so special and then you do a tasting, learning how to taste it the “right way”. You also get a “free” Guinness with your admission ticket and you can either learn how to pour your own Guinness or buy one in their sky top bar with 360 degree views of Dublin! The line to pour your own Guinness was so long when we were there though that we decided to just go to the sky top bar but it was so cool- it

reminded me a lot of the skywalk observatory at the Prudential Center in Boston. Afterwards we went to a cute cafe for dinner and then I headed out because I didn’t want to be taking the bus back to Galway too late on my own but I think Haley had a really fun rest of her time in Ireland before going back to London in the morning. And I got back just in time to meet up with Joe, Andrew, and Claire and her parents at Darcy’s, one of our favorite pubs (super convenient that it’s only a couple doors down from the bus station).

On Sunday I was productive! I hung out with Joe and Andrew in the morning until they left and then walked to town and went to the famers market. It took all of my willpower to not buy a new plant. I also went to the famous Charlie Byrnes bookstore in Galway and ended up buying a book on Irish folklores and fairytales which I’m super excited about. Then I bounced around between a bunch of coffee shops in town while I wrote an essay and decided which ones were my favorites for future knowledge (and also which ones had WiFi because surprisingly a lot didn’t…) I was in town for so long that I had to bring my backpack to meet up with Claire and Una and their families. We took them to the west side of town to listen to traditional music at the Crane and they loved it! I’m a little sad this was the only weekend I’ll be spending in Galway until December butttt I’m also so excited for all the cool places I’m traveling to!

My only exciting school update is the fieldwork I did on Thursday for my coastal dynamics class! There was unfortunately no transportation offered for us to get to Salt Hill and it was cold and rainy so instead of walking 1.5 hours to the beach over there I decided to take a taxi, such a move. There were two shifts so I purposely picked the one that my high school friend Siobhan wasn’t doing so that I’d hopefully make Irish friends and it worked! I met these two really nice Irish girls and they pulled me in because it had to be groups of three and we spent a few hours surveying beaches in Salt Hill. We looked at the changes in slope along the beach and cobblestone beaches vs sand beaches and lots of cool stuff. Now we have to create a presentation for our chosen research question based off the data we collected. We have a group chat called Coastal Craic – so Irish 🙂

This past weekend was our program trip to Dublin. Everything we did was cool but not necessarily specific to Dublin so I kinda wish we actually spent time exploring Dublin but oh well- that’s part of the reason I went with Haley the weekend before! On Friday night we got in around 6 and checked into our hostel (serious budget cuts I guess… we went from 5 star hotels to hostels…). As weird as hostels are, we got a whole dorm room for the 9 of us girls and it was so fun it reminded me of summer camp. We then got a yummy dinner and then we were given free time for the whole night so we met up with all of our friends that are studying abroad in Dublin at Trinity and UCD. I got to see Emily, Leah, and Catherine again which was so nice.

On Saturday we had toast in the hostel which was gross (how do you mess up toast…) and then went on a backstage tour of the Abbey Theater, Ireland’s national theater. We got access to the theater before it opened and saw all of the stages and prep rooms behind the scenes and learned about how they put on some of the most famous plays. It was especially cool because we returned to the theater later that night to watch Redemption Falls. After the tour we went to Glendalough for a hike. Claire and Una bailed on the hike because they had “so much work to do” (aka a great excuse to spend the day hanging out in Dublin) but I figured I could always do another day trip to Dublin on my own to see more sights but I’m never going to go on a hike 1.5 hours outside of Dublin on my own. I’m so happy I went because it was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. The hike was 4 hours and a little more strenuous than I expected but SO worth it. And it only rained briefly which was good. Look at the pictures below- honestly so cool and so fun. We passed waterfalls and enchanted forests, nature is crazy. After we got back from the hike we had a little over an hour of free time. We all had grand plans to explore Dublin but in all honesty we ended up just taking a group nap- that hike was exhausting! We rallied for dinner and then went to see the play at the Abbey Theater. Honestly, I really liked the idea of seeing a play at the theater but the one they picked was weird. It was super musical and a very confusing plot and only a few actors, not at all what any of us were expecting. We have to write a paper on it for our Notre Dame literature class though so we all had to pay close attention! In general a cool experience to have.

Sunday we got to sleep in until 10 and it was a blessing. A lot of us woke up a little earlier than need be though to get breakfast at literally anywhere but the hostel. We found a bagel place and I don’t know why my hopes were so high, it obviously was no New York bagel but I guess I’ll take what I can get. We went to mass at the Cardinal Newman Church, since he was canonized in Rome last weekend. Then we went to a “GAA Experience”. None of us had any idea what to expect but it was literally one of the most fun things I have done in Ireland so far. We learned how to play hurling, Gaelic football, and handball and had competitions against each other and it was SO fun. I want to actually play these around Galway now, I just have to figure out how. And now I am on the bus ride back to Galway! I’ve spent roughly 26 hours on buses in the past three weeks and let me tell you I am nottt a bus person. I am getting really good at sleeping on them though! I can’t wait for Copenhagen and Amsterdam this weekend- stay tuned 🙂

Guinness Storehouse

A bit of the view without a Guinness in the way 😉

Emily, Haley and I

Another pic of us in the Storehouse

The famous Galway bookstore!

On my productive Sunday I forgot to mention I also did work on the water for a bit

Look at how pretty!

Siobhan and I

One of the beaches in Salt Hill I collected data on

Enchanted forest on our hike

Look! At! These! Views!!

There was a medieval monastery at the bottom of the mountain

The 8 of us that didn’t fake our way out of the hike

Me and Talia- the other ES major in the program!

Getting a tour of the Abbey Theater

About to play hurling- clearly I’m super into the team huddle chant (we won if anyone was wondering)

The whole gang after dinner one night on a bridge in Dublin

I’ve been fighting with my advisor since the day I got here about getting my classes approved back at ND and I’m FINALLY making some progress!! He is working on making my marine zoology class a science elective and my coastal dynamics class an environmental engineering elective which I can get an exception to count as a general science elective for my major (I’ll take what I can get!) Other than that, nothing much new to report on school-wise. I have an essay due next week in marine and ocean politics and this is the first real assignment I’ve had in over a month of school- how wild.

Last weekend was a less fun program trip than usual because it was heavily lecture based but it was still fun to explore more of Ireland! We got to Gort, Ireland on Friday night just in time for the kick off dinner for the Lady Gregory Festival (she’s a really famous Irish poet and playwright that we had been reading about all week leading up to the festival). We quickly realized we were the ONLY ones without grey hair in the entire place though…. On Saturday the “festival” took place in Coole Park (in Gort). We listened to four different lecturers talk about Lady Gregory and the themes in her writings. The one on Irish fairytales and folklore was pretty interesting but everything else bored us to death. The only thing keeping us going was the coffee/tea and cookies break between speakers. Even some of the old people were falling asleep during the lectures… that’s when you know. The night really turned around when we had a fancy dinner back at the hotel with the Lady Gregory Festival. Another incredible three course meal with fun Irish music and lots of people that were so intrigued that we were from ND and wanted to talk to us! We went out afterwards to explore the town of Gort and we met so many Irish people that were shocked we had American accents because it is not a touristy place at all so they never get to talk to Americans.

The next day we woke up early and took the bus to Doolin to hop on a ferry to Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. Here, the archeologist Michael Gibbons gave us a full walking tour of the island! There are so many historic sights because the islands are so well preserved and very few people live on them. For example, we saw a 15th century tower house and lots of ancient rock walls that separated farm land. There was also a really cool ship wreck that we got to see, and it was low tide so I obviously spent a ton of time climbing on rocks and checking out all the tidal pools which was so fun! It is the smallest of Aran Islands so we definitely saw the entire island in an afternoon and then it was back to Galway.

Paige came to visit Wednesday night to Friday afternoon and it was SO fun!! We get a program dinner in town after our literature class on Wednesday nights so the timing was perfect! Her bus got in right around the time we were finishing dinner so I scooped her up at the bus stop and then took her back to our apartment to drop off her stuff and then I showed her a fun night on the town! The next day we got traditional Irish breakfasts (which is rashers, sausage, eggs, beans, toast, and chips) and then walked around the Galway City Museum. Lots of history about Galway and the top floor is all about their developments in marine science which was so cool, I had no idea the extent of how much Galway is known for its marine research- such a good place for me to study it! We also walked around town a bunch and Paige got lots of souvenirs from touristy shops and we also did some mall shopping hehehe. Hurricane Lorenzo started to hit around 6pm so we decided to have a huge family dinner with all 12 of us (plus Paige). It was soso fun! We moved our apartments kitchen table and chairs into the other apartment and half of us cooked this time and the other half will cook next time. Paige and I made a salad, Micaela made risotto, Rachel made this yummy cauliflower dish, talia made cookies, and it took all three boys to make garlic bread hahah. We then moved the other apartments couches into our apartment and spent the whole night watching movies. The storm was quick so by Friday morning it was a beautiful day by Ireland standards (only light drizzles here and there) so Paige and I walked back to town for brunch, listened to street music and walked around the river, and then she sadly took a bus back to Dublin to spend the rest of the weekend with one of her friends from college.

Perfect timing again for me though because I had just enough time to walk back to my apartment, throw some clothes in my backpack, and hop on the bus for our program trip to Northern Ireland. The bus was over FIVE HOURS. I slept for a bit but it was still way too long. We eventuallyyy made it to this hotel in Belfast where we walked in and immediately felt out of place as a bunch of rowdy college kids. It was such a nice hotel, the type of place that had monogrammed robes with a sign on them that if you took them you’d be charged £100… (also interesting that Northern Ireland uses pounds and the republic uses euros). We got dinner at this place called Pizza Punks and it was so good, such an interesting vibe in there as the name suggests though hahah. We came back and took advantage of these robes; all of us put them on and watched Gossip Girl in Tommy and Jack’s California king bed (basically the Newport cloud bed). Well, first we sat in the hallway for a while talking because we thought we had the wing to ourselves but we got yelled at for being too loud when people were trying to sleep, whoops!

Saturday we went to the Titanic Museum because it was built in Northern Ireland! It was super cool- lots of interesting facts on how it was built and testimonials from the few people that survived the Titanic sinking. I’ve only ever watched the end of the movie but one day I really have to sit down and watch the whole thing! Then we had a lecturer from Belfast University speak to us about the conflict between the north and the republic and how religion played a major role in it (the republic is predominantly Christian and the north is predominantly Protestant). Afterwards we did a walking tour of Belfast and you could really see the division between unionists and loyalists. We walked by many activist murals and signed our names on the peace wall that divided the parties. After that we had another yummy dinner in Belfast and then drove a little farther up north to Ballycastle where we were downgraded to a hostel- we diddd have the whole place to ourselves though! Good thing because again we were obnoxiously loud watching ND football destroy Bowling Green 52-0.

We technically were supposed to wake up the next morning for a 7am sunrise walk on the beach but only two people did and they said it was so cloudy they couldn’t even see the sun rise so it worked out well for me that I didn’t miss anything! We rallied at 8 for the bus ride to the Giants Causeway in Bushmills though and it was honestly one up the coolest places I’ve ever been (way up there with the Cliffs of Mohr). There are over 40,000 interlocking hexagonal basalt columns that lead into the water. Science says it’s because of an ancient volcanic fissure eruption but legend has it the columns are the remains of a causeway to Scotland built by the Irish giant Fionn Max Cumhaill when challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. It was amazing being able to climb all over the rocks and we took such cool pictures! Ireland is an insanely beautiful country. We went to the Seamus Heaney Homeplace in Ballahy afterwards for our ND literature class since he is another famous Irish poet. Obviously the Giants Causeway was a hard act to follow so it was definitely less fun than exploring the nature of Ireland but oh well! Then it was off on our 6 hour bus ride back to campus, during which we resurrected our inner children and played games like M.A.S.H, 21 Questions, and the Alphabet Game. Serious FOMO missing Caroline’s bachelorette party this weekend but I guessss Northern Ireland was fun too…

Tons of famous people have signed this tree in Coole Park- including Lady Gregory and WB Yeats who we’ve been reading about in class!

Picture with Marina Carr (between the guy in the grey sweater and girl in the red dress). She’s a really famous modern Irish playwright!

Me posing on a rock by the lake in Coole Park

And everyone else got jealous so we fit as many as we could onto my rock

Heres a group pic

I ended up making it in a paper about the festival!

15th century tower house on the Aran Island

Closer view

Lots of rock walls splitting the land by family

Me petting some Irish horses!

Lots of cattle, horses, and sheep wandering around everywhere.

Look at how cool these tidal pools are!!

Here’s the rusty ship everyone else was looking at while I was in the water

But I obviously joined in the fun eventually!

Group pic on our tour of the Island

With a quick picnic for lunch

Paige visiting!

More of Paige 🙂

Our FEAST for family dinner

All snuggled up on one bed to watch Gossip Girl

There was essentially a roller coaster in the titanic museum that took you around what was supposed to be the basement of the ship and made you feel like you were one of the coal workers down there (heaters, loud clanking of hammers, etc.)

Another group pic in front of the Titanic museum

Belfast city hall

Some murals that are all over the city

Also lots of memorials for all of those that died in the conflict between the north and the republic

Gates that are closed off between the two sides during conflict

Large mural that goes on for blocks and blocks of the 10 most famous border walls in the world

My terrible handwriting memorializing my name on the peace wall

Now lots of Giants Causeway pictures!

Look at this rainbow! How cool is nature!!!

Our very dysfunctional group pic in front of the Seamus Heaney Homeplace

I had a whopping three days of class this week- it still feels like I’m on a vacation in Europe! Did I mention that two of the days I don’t start until 1pm? I’m living my best life over here. I still really like the classes I chose too. I have yet to befriend any Irish people though which is shocking! I thought for sure I’d meet some in my Marine and Ocean Politics class because only 5 visiting students were allowed to register, but I ended up accidentally sitting between a girl from the US and a guy from France (what are the ODDS). I also tried joining the sailing and squash clubs in hopes of meeting Irish people but squash meets during my mandatory ND class on Wednesday nights and sailing meets on Friday afternoons and I just won’t ever be in Galway on a Friday. I did join the Marine Science Society though so there is still hope!

Now for the more exciting part of the update: going to Germany this weekend! Our flight was at 6am on Friday morning, but Una and I don’t have Thursday classes and Claire only has one in the morning so we decided to have a nice lunch in Galway and then took the bus to Dublin to explore around there for the rest of the afternoon! We met up with Catherine, Leah, and Andrew and they showed us around for a bit. I ~napped~ at Leah’s apartment on campus at Trinity because we had to take the 3:30am bus to the airport which was so painful (but better than the 1:30am bus from Galway I guess…). I knew some other ND kids were going to Oktoberfest this weekend, but when we rolled up to the bus stop at 3:30am there must have been 30 other ND kids. We were all on the same flight which made it a little more bearable.

I could not sleep on the flight so I was exhausted by the time we landed in Munich- obviously had to rally though! Goodness gracious navigating subways in America is difficult but it’s ten times worse when none of the signs are in English. We eventually made it to our Airbnb though to drop off our bags. It was only about 10 min from the city center (by subway) and the stop was right by the apartment so it was perfect! We headed straight for the city center after that in search of drindls, soft pretzels, and any touristy things we could do (we spent so long planning the flights/accommodations but we didn’t even think to look at what to actually do in Munich- definitely a lesson learned here for only having such a short amount of time to explore). The first thing we saw getting off the subway at Marienplatz (the city center) was City Hall. It’s a beautiful building but we were confused as to why there were thousands of people ready to take pictures and videos with their smartphones. That was when the clock struck 12 and all of a sudden the bells started ringing and for lack of a better term the ‘statues’ started moving around in circles in the tower. It was cool to watch- I’m glad we stumbled upon that! From there we had lunch at a German cafe and then it was off to find drindls. We walked through a ton of pop up shops but they were all so expensive to only wear for one day. We wandered into an H&M though because they had drindls in their window display and honestly it was the best place we had found! All five of us got our own unique drindl and they were only 50 euro (still kinda a lot but WORTH IT!). They looked way better than some of the other really touristy ones we had passed. After that we wandered around the city exploring a bit more and then met up with some of the ND kids from Dublin and London at a beirgarten- it’s so fun being able to meet up with people from different programs that I’m friends with but wouldn’t necessarily plan a trip with. That night we got nice and cozy fitting all five of us in a double bed and couch- but we didn’t sleep for long anyways because we had to set our alarms for 5am to get in line!

In reality, we snoozed our alarms for a good 45 minutes- we just couldn’t get up. We eventually made a feast for breakfast and suited up in our drindls and were in line for oktoberfest by 7am. The gates didn’t open until 9am and the first keg is ceremonially tapped at 12pm so it was a longgg day of waiting. None of us bothered bringing jackets to Germany because every day it was 70 and sunny during normal hours of the day but oh man at 7am it was 40 degrees and we were in line under the shade of trees for two hours and I have never been so cold in my entire life- life lesson number two of the trip! At 9am the security guards opened the gates and it was an absolute mad house. Everyone was SPRINTING to get a table at the tent they wanted- I honestly don’t even know what to compare it to. It was like a Black Friday / renaissance fair mash up. It was absolutely terrifying. We all miraculously managed to stick together though AND run into more Notre Dame people so we managed to get TWO tables in the main tent and filled them to maximum capacity with ND kids. We then took shifts of manning the table so that everyone could explore the grounds over the 3 hours we had to kill. It was wild- basically the largest carnival I have ever seen. There were rides everywhere and so many stands selling all different types of foods and touristy things. Closer to 12 there was a huge parade on the grounds to kick off the festival. After a while we started going around to different beer halls: the day was filled with lots of soft pretzels, steins, and hearing the German song Ein Prosit every 10 minutes. It was also REALLY entertaining that random people would stand up on the tables and attempt to chug their entire steins and if they do it it’s so impressive and they get a round of applause by thousands of people but if they are too slow everyone starts throwing food at them and security kicks them out of the tent! Oktoberfest was absolutely crazy I’m so glad I went but also that was definitely a one and done type of thing. Although we had grand plans, none of us made it up late enough to watch the ND vs Georgia game (I guess it was for the best because we lost…. but barely).

Sunday morning it was back to Galway- such a quick trip to Munich! Ryan Air is on my list now though…. The line to check in took almost an hour and we were then informed that we had to have our boarding passes printed instead of using the passes on our phones because we don’t live in Ireland. So we had to get into a completely separate line and pay TWENTY EURO to print our boarding passes. But oh wait- that was just the line to pay we needed to go back to the first line to actually have the pass printed. There was no way we could wait in that line again so we forced our way to the front and they thankfully printed our passes pretty quickly. By the time we made it through security our flight was 3/4 of the way boarded- we justtttt made it. A little too close for comfort even though we were at the airport over two hours before our flight. Life lesson number three of the trip: always print boarding passes for BOTH ways on Ryan Air and never cut it any closer than two hours for international flights. I don’t even know where I’m supposed to find a printer in all these different countries for my return flights though but Ryan Air has a “deal” where if you pay the 4 euro to select your seat it comes with early check in so I can print passes for both ways while I’m still at school- definitely worth it I think (I’m still mad they could charge 20 euro- they are really capitalizing on their captive audience…). Anyways, I was so jealous of Catherine and Katie because they both got to take a 20 min bus ride back to their apartment but Claire, Una and I had a 3 hour bus ride ahead of us (honestly incredible that I can cross the entire country in 3 hours though). By the time I got back I was EXHAUSTED and called it a night very early.

Pretty sunrise on the flight over

City hall (with the super cool clock tower)

Part of the city center

Lots of giant soft pretzels

Hofbräu Tent

Hacker-Pschorr Tent

Part of the festival grounds

Claire, Una, and I exploring

Also with Alessandro

These steins are HEAVY

So heavy that this is the moment Claire spilled hers all over Una 🙂

More of the three of us

And then Andrew popped in!

It’s so hard keeping up with this blog- I feel like my school commitments are relatively easy/not time consuming but there is always SO much to do around here I never have a spare minute to just sit down and type (I am currently writing this on my 2.5 hour bus ride to Dublin- with WiFi because I have already run out of data!! woohoo!!).

This was a big “try it and see if you like it” week for classes. I went to 6 classes on Monday (only being registered for two of them) and immediately dropped the two I had registered for- whoops! I guess that’s why you’re not supposed to register before you try the classes. I am not a history person at all (sorry dad) and this was the worst class I have ever sat through. The professor was SO boring and spoke with such a monotone voice and he said labor weird (this class is literally called Labour in Ireland so you know he said it a lot) and I was just not interested in the information he was telling us at all. The next day I switched into the Pop Culture in Pre-Industrial Europe history class that Una is taking though and I like it MUCH better. The professor seems cool and the material is so much more interesting to me. I also dropped the Introduction to Ocean Sciences class that I attended on Monday. Even though I go to school in the middle of the country, I now have come to realize and appreciate that I have a lot more experience and background knowledge in marine science than I thought. The class seemed like it would just be a repeat of everything I already know and it’s a sophomore level class so as a junior I’d never get credit for it back at ND (also the labs were on Friday afternoons which is no bueno for traveling on weekends…). I really like the Coastal Dynamics class that I am in though, as well as Ocean and Marine Politics. They are so much more up my alley! Half way through the semester I add a Marine Zoology class that I’m excited about too. Not having Thursday class is great because Claire, Una, and I walked to Salt Hill (took about 1.5 hours each way but it was all along the water) and it is so fun just exploring towns around Galway. Also, side note everyone caught the plague this week so it was a bit of a rough start to the semester but we are all thriving now!

I cannot believe how different school is here than at ND though. I go to school THREE days a week!! Each class I have only meets for two hours during the week and all the readings are optional! The Irish kids literally just do not show up to class, all they have to do is sit through the exam at the end of the semester to pass (which is a 40%). I am taking one class with a Notre Dame professor, “The West” in Irish Literature, which is more like a normal class at ND. It’s on Wednesday nights buttttt they really make up for it because they take us out to dinner EVERY Wednesday after our class! I had a three course meal at a nice restaurant last night and all expenses were paid by ND it’s incredible (Dad this is really where your tuition went hehehe). Since we are only in class for 1.5 hours, the rest of the ND credit is made up of mandatory weekend trips around Ireland to immerse ourselves in Irish culture and history.

With that, we went to Kylemore Abbey this past weekend for class and it was amazing. Notre Dame (along with the Benedictine Nuns) OWNS a CASTLE on the west coast of Ireland where they basically wine and dine their big donors and host important executive meetings and it was SO cool to stay there for the weekend. The 1.5 hr bus ride from Galway to Connemara during the sunset was beautiful, and the scenery got shockingly even more beautiful once we got to the castle. It’s located on a mountain overlooking a lake. There are thousands of people that come to visit the publicly accessible parts of the castle but we had special ND passes that gave us free range of the place (how cool is that!). We literally slept in a castle and had every meal prepared for us by the on site chefs.

The night we got there our program director gave us full independence to do whatever we wanted since we couldn’t get into much trouble in the middle of nowhere so we took it upon ourselves to explore outside for hours with our only lights being the stars and the full moon. It was absolutely magical (except for stumbling upon a graveyard by the chapel that part was terrifying). The next day we woke up super early to see the sunrise, but unfortunately the sun was mostly covered by the surrounding mountains. We then had a guided tour of the castle and gardens (Mom you would have LOVED the garden it goes on forever). The afternoon was spent doing a bog run and boy was that something. We rolled up to the Killary Adventure Company in our rattiest sneakers (I’m the only one that brought old gym shoes- everyone else had to buy $5 shoes from Penny’s the day before) and put on wet suits. We were then led to an obstacle course of mud that reminded me so much of the salt marshes in Boston this summer. One by one we swam through the mud and hoisted ourselves up, over, and through different obstacles: lily pads, rock walls, tightropes, rope swings, etc. all while exceptionally slippery and coated in mud. Every once in a while someone would fall off one of the obstacles from so high up and just absolutely plummet deep into the bog it was hilarious. To wash the mud off ourselves at the end everyone went cliff diving into the fjord (except for me… dad this is where you cursed me with your fear of heights. I had to jump off the children’s cliff that was basically a diving board…) Mary, a recent graduate of ND who now works with the Galway program, majored in photography so she has been taking lots of great pictures of us to document everything (see below)! We were supposed to watch a traditional Irish film that night but obviously spent the entire night watching Notre Dame annihilate New Mexico in football instead 🙂 The next morning we went on a beautiful hike up the mountain (it was relatively quick but so steep we were all dying). After soaking in the views a bit we had to hustle back down to go to mass with the Benedictine Nuns, which was a cool and very Notre Dame experience. After that we had our last meal that we didn’t have to cook for ourselves, all bought matching IrelaND sweatshirts (the only reason I’m studying abroad in Ireland honestly…), and then headed back to Galway!

Clearly I’m still not over how cool this weekend was. At first I was annoyed that Notre Dame is making us travel with our program for so many weekends where I could be independently traveling around Europe but after this weekend I understand and appreciate it so much more. Through ND I’m going to experience Ireland in such a unique and special way, it’s an opportunity like no other.

Some random things I’ve noticed: Sheep are literally the deer of Ireland they will just freely wander around everywhere it’s bizarre. Also, I feel like I’m in middle school again when I’m walking around campus. All of the Irish kids solely wear shirts that have “Abercrombie and Fitch” or “Hollister” written boldly on them. I’m embarrassed for them but I guess that’s just the thing to wear here! Also, I’m still so not used to cars driving on the left side of the road. I’ll see a dog in what’s supposed to be the drivers seat and am just shocked for too long before I realize it’s the passenger seat. And there are basically no crosswalks in Galway but it’s so hard jaywalking when you can’t comprehend which direction to look for cars and where they are turning.

Claire and Una recovering from our walk to Salt Hill

More from our walk to Salt Hill

Views from the Kylemore Abbey porch

More views

Views from the windows on the top floor (on the recently renovated side)

One of our directors, Em, is from Galway and showed us how to Irish dance with her friends that played us traditional Irish music at the castle

Lots of exhibits on the lower floors of the castle

The cathedral

More exhibits

The gardens

Set up of the dining room table in the castle

All of us very unsuccessful posing outside the castle

Somewhat more successfully posing

Go babes!

Perfecting our jumping pictures

The castle from afar

Lots of bog pictures!!

Our view for breakfast, lunch, and dinner

A few pics from our hike up the mountain

An ND only sign on the property heheheh

I’ve been in Galway for almost a week and have only just now had a spare second to write something! I landed in Dublin and immediately found people from my program. Poor Claire and Una stopped at the O’Connell House early to pick up their bags and Robert (the director there) sent them back to the airport with my heavy bags on top of theirs- it worked out great for me though! We loaded up all of our stuff on the bus and it was a longgg ride to Galway but it was fun to catch up with Claire and Una on their pretravel adventures in Greece. Once we got to our accommodations at Goldcrest on campus, we were finally allowed to know who we were living with. Una, Rachel, and the three boys and I are in one flat with our own private bedrooms and bathrooms and shared common area and kitchen. Literally directly across from us is Claire and the other five girls in the program. It couldn’t have ended up more perfect!

The rest of the day was spent shopping for essentials like SIM cards and bed sheets downtown and then we got dinner as a program. The next day our program took us on a food and drink tour of Galway which is honestly a great way to get to know a city. We had everything from doughnuts and carrot cake at Griffins Bakery to Irish whiskey and poitin at McCambridge’s to tea from Cupán Tae and oysters from Tigh Neachtin (the one and only time you will ever get me to eat a slimy oyster but it was actually really good considering!) The girls in our apartment cooked a feast for our newly established “family dinners” and the boys cleaned it all up.

Tuesday and Wednesday were free days that we spent just settling into the apartment, unpacking and exploring downtown some more. It is a solid 1.5 mile walk to town, which feels a lot longer when it’s cold and rainy but oh well! We went back to Griffins for brunch one of the days and I had my first traditional Irish breakfast: rashers, sausages, eggs, and black pudding- Una is very Irish and wouldn’t let me look up what black pudding was until I tried it first… GROSS!

Thursday was a veryy full day. We woke up bright and early for our first day of international orientation. It was supposed to be 5 hours long but Lisa, our director, busted us out early and took us on a boat cruise around Galway harbor. It was with a lobster fisherman so he let us pull up a couple pots too! We were basically on Deadliest Catch… Then we explored an old Claddagh Cottage and saw restoration being done on one of Galways famous hooker boats. It was off to Salthill after that for a yummy program dinner and then Trad on the Prom! It was incredible- so many world renowned Irish musicians and dancers performed right in front of us. I have a much greater respect for Irish music and dance now.

Friday was round two of orientation, but this time it was a little more important because it was our academic orientation hehehe. We got our ID cards early in the morning (two early days in a row was killer…) and then the day was split up so you could go to hear about the individual courses that you’re interested in taking. Classes and courses are not interchangeable words here- instead of saying class they say module and instead of major they say course. The orientation was more confusing than helpful though so as I write this on my first day of class I’m only registered for two but I’ve attended five. For science and sociology I have to hand register (at two separate times in the day) but for history and English I can register online (but the website crashed for a solid 5 hours after it opened). Apparently the vibe here is more of a try classes for the first couple weeks and see if you like them BEFORE you register which is bizarre coming from America. I’m in the same boat with all the other international kids though! Speaking of which, I have befriended so many Americans and have yet to befriend any of the Irish kids… this must be a big American catholic school destination because all of my new friends here are from Villanova, BC, St. Joe’s, and Holy Cross.

Saturday I went to the Cliffs of Mohr with Claire, Una, Rachel, Tommy, and Chris and it was INCREDIBLE. It was the most beautiful day ever- so sunny and warm all day. Literally the only time I have gone so many hours without seeing rain. We had told Lisa (our director) we were going to the Cliffs of Mohr and she encouraged us to do the Cliffs of Mohr and Burren tour with the Galway Tour Company. I’m so glad she did! It ended up being way cheaper than taking public transportation and buying admission to the cliffs and we did so much more. We stopped to see the Dunguaire Castle and the Gleninsheen Wedge Tomb. We also stopped at Kilfenora to see the famous Celtic Crosses (Irish High Crosses) and got lunch in the coastal village of Doolin. Then it was finally off to see the 200-metre high, 8kms long Cliffs of Moher. I’m still not over how stunning the views were of the Atlantic Ocean and the Aran Islands. And because it was such a spectacular day out we could go beyond the boundaries and go out onto the edge of the cliffs (although Una and I always stayed a few steps behind the boys who literally stuck their heads over the edge…). After walking most of the Cliffs we found a little grassy patch and sat there for a while just soaking in the sun. Nobody wanted to leave when it was time to go!

Sunday was a very chill day. We woke up late and spent forever figuring out what times our modules met and where (I kid you not this is the most complicated system I have every witnessed I cannot even begin to describe it). Claire, Una and I walked downtown to go to the farmers market and I bought LOTS of plants to spruce up our common area and decorate my room. That night the boys in our apartment cooked us dinner which was much appreciated- we are definitely going to make this a weekly thing! Since it took me forever to write this update about my first week I couldddd keep talking about how my classes are going, but I’ll save that for the next post!

Streets of Galway

Cathedral

The picturesque main building- unfortunately under construction!

The fastest river in Europe- very pretty paths to walk around it!

Everyone on our program

About to try oysters for the first time

Tea at Cupa Tae

Castle on the way to Cliffs of Mohr

Cliffs of Mohr

Cliffs of Mohr

BP girls overlooking the cliffs

Tommy, Chris, me, Claire, Una, and Rachel at the cliffs

Me and Claire! We are literally dangling over the edge

Una hopped in too 🙂

Mohr cliffs of Mohr pics

Such an amazing day

Couches, tables, TV, and kitchen stuff all in our common space! (ugh tidying up after boys is a lot of work though….)

The rest are all room pics (my ~individual~ room and bathroom hehehe)

(I bought twinkle lights to spruce up this plain white wall but they haven’t made it up yet)

Dad lost the bet that I wouldn’t have my own bathroom

So apparently we didn’t look close enough into the details of where we were staying in Stockholm, it was the most expensive place by far so we assumed it’d be nice! Turns out our tiny room was below ground (no windows), literally just a bunk bed, no AC (again) and had a shared bathroom with the entire floor. Even our hostel in Oslo was 10x better than this “hotel” but at least it was close to the action. You live and you learn!

I don’t know why I was so surprised, but Stockholm is just like any other major city in the US (although quite empty on our walk to the train station at 4:30am this morning unlike the city that never sleeps). There are tons of US shops and fast food restaurants everywhere: H&M, Zara, Lush, Hollister, Urban Outfitters, TGIFridays, McDonald’s, Subway, etc. and a lot of places accept US dollars. If it weren’t for the street signs being in Swedish I would think we were actually in America. You could easily spend a week here doing nothing but shopping. The outskirts of the “shopping district” are where all of the really cool stuff is though!

Just like in Oslo, we bought 48 hour Stockholm Passes, which gave us free access to a lot of tours, museums, and transportation. We started off with a boat tour on the Djurgården canal to get our bearings, then took a hop on hop off bus to Gamla Stan, the picturesque “Old Town” area of Stockholm- lots of pretty, narrow alleys and cobblestone streets. Here, we saw the Nobel Prize Museum. This one was more focused on the Nobel Laureates, with lots of background stories on their lives. We also went to the Royal Palace/Royal Treasury, which dates back to the 18th century. The Swedish royal family still uses the palace for official receptions! Then we met up for dinner with Leah’s Swedish friend who goes to the University of Stockholm and got a Swedes perspective on the city.

The next day started off with the hop on hop off boat to the Vasa museum. I had never heard the story of the Vasa before, but it was the Kings ship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 and it is the first and only ship of its size and age to be fully recovered (333 years later…)! Afterwards we went to the Skansen open air museum which was so cool. It is huge and full of reconstructed farms and houses from different parts of Sweden. There were lots of “local characters” like farmers, carpenters, and bakers (major Colonial Williamsburg vibes…). The bakers made really good Swedish pastries! There were also real live Scandinavian animals, including wolverines, bears, and bison. On the property there was also the Baltic Sea Science Center, which had a lot of interactive exhibits on how to save the sea and even a mini aquarium! We spent so many hours at the Skansen museum that by the time we made it through the whole thing it was basically time for dinner. We stopped at a grocery store on our way back to the hotel and picked up food to have a little picnic in the park for our last night. We called it a night pretty early though because of our 7am flight to get back to Ireland in time for me to meet up with my program!

My scissors made it through security one last time and my passport finally got stamped by customs on our way out this morning (thank god, I would have been so sad if I didn’t get a stamp from Sweden). My passport is quickly filling and I love it!

Our room! It felt like we were on a cruise ship.

City Hall

Always so beautiful on the water here!

Nobel Peace Prize Museum

A lot of exhibits in the Noble Peace Prize Museum have artifacts and anecdotes from winners. My favorite is “When Randy Schekman was 12 years old, he saved money to buy a telescope, but his parents borrowed money from his piggy bank and forgot to pay it back. Randy went to the police and reported the crime. His father had to pick him up at the police station, and on the way home they bought this microscope.”

An alley in Old Town.

The ceiling in a room in the Royal Palace.

A pretty view of the city close to where I was staying.

Galway’s Irish Pub!!

Emily, Leah, and I at city hall.

Emily, Leah, and I in an Old Town square.

The Vasa

333 years under water but the Baltic Sea is so anoxic and brackish that it preserved this boat so well! It’s 98% the original material- basically only the rusted bolts were replaced.

Pretty view of Stockholm from the Skansen Museum.

Another pretty view 🙂

Our farewell picnic!

Well, Leah and I almost got detained in Ireland for trying to start a small army. I unknowingly had children’s scissors in my backpack and she had knitting needles. They let us off the hook and gave our weapons back so stay tuned to see how far I get traveling Europe with these scissors!

Oslo is an incredible city! We took a bus from the airport downtown because it’s about 30 miles and it was a beautiful ride. We checked into our actually very nice hostel and walked downtown to have dinner on the water. The next day we bought a 24hr “Oslo Pass” which gives us free entry to lots of museums and discounts on restaurants and we really made the most of it- even in the rain. We saw the Kon-Tiki Museum (about the first man to cross the pacific on a balsa raft), Norsk Folkemuseum (an open air museum on the culture and history of different regions of Norway), Viking Ship Museum (preserved Viking ships and burial tombs/artifacts), the Polar Ship Fram (the worlds most famous polar exploration) and the Nobel Peace Center. The Nobel Peace Center was SO cool, as well as everything else obviously! They have a huge exhibit focused on interactive solutions to environmental issues that was right up my alley. Now I am sitting in the airport waiting for my delayed flight to Stockholm, nice and full from a lunch at a delicious cafe we stumbled upon that was full of only locals. Almost everything here is written in Norwegian so most of the time I’ve just been pointing to something on the menu and hoping I like it! Many people speak English as well as Norwegian, but where’s the fun in that… (Picture us navigating busses, trams, and trains all over with absolutely nothing in English too)

All in all, after only 2 days I feel like I know the city well, it’s even more manageable and calm than Boston! Some things I’ve noticed: There is graffiti everywhere which is interesting, but pretty graffiti. The stop lights turn yellow before they turn green and the cars and trains drive on the same roads (as in the train tracks are literally so flat that trains and cars can both drive directly on them). There’s an oddly large amount of electric scooters and almost every work vehicle I saw was a Mercedes (I’m talking everything from tour vans to DHL to garbage trucks). Everyone is very kind and the world over here works on the honor system. A lot of the shops and markets leave their stuff out at night. Although we triedddd to pay for our tram tickets the app wouldn’t accept foreign cards and you can’t pay on board and yet not once in the many times we took the tram did anyone come by checking tickets. I’m now sitting on the plane and realize that I was never asked for any form of ID, which is shocking because if I were traveling internationally from America I would have shown my passport ten times by now and a drivers license wouldn’t even suffice. I can’t wait to see what adventures lie ahead in Stockholm! (The scissors made it out of security in one piece again incase you were wondering- they flagged my bag but couldn’t find anything bad in it when they checked and gave up easily heheh)

Leah, Emily, and I in front of an Oslo sign

One of the Viking ships

Historic Norway (from the Folk Museum)

Historic Norway (from the Folk Museum)

Entrance to part of the environmental exhibition at the Noble Peace Center

A wall in the environment exhibit

Essentially iPads with pictures and biographies of every Noble Peace Prize winner

Emily, Leah, and I in front of a Viking ship

OSLO spray painted on a wall

Kon Tiki raft

GJOA- one of the polar expedition ships

The Noble Peace Center

A view from the waterfront in Oslo!

We only had 24 hours in Dublin, so we had to make it count! Emily and I both landed at the same time and met each other outside of baggage claim. Leah’s flight got cancelled, so Emily and I navigated the bus to downtown just the two of us. I am most definitely the bus drivers least favorite person, as he so kindly offered to help me carry my bags onto the bus because the only space left for baggage was on the top shelf and he immediately regretted it once he started to lift one… whoops! We dropped our stuff off at the O’Connell house (Notre Dame’s house in Dublin) and wandered around looking for a good place to eat. Once we finished, it was time to check into the hotel and take a quick power nap. I woke up literally sweating though, WHY DONT EUROPEANS HAVE AC?! Anyways, that helped us get through the evening – living like a local! Emily’s boyfriend, Gavin, met us after work and showed us all around Dublin (I got well over 20,000 steps that day). I definitely know which places I want to go back and check out more in depth at some point this semester! We also met all his friends and I tried a Guinness at an Irish pub but that’s definitely an acquired taste…. By the time midnight rolled around I was about ready to pass out and retreated to the hotel. The next morning Leah landed just in time for all of us to skirt off to Oslo, Norway!