London and Florence Days 1 and 2

I don't even know where to begin. Two amazing weeks, tons of stories. Well....lets try!

I'm going to break it up into a series of blog entries. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and join me for a recap of my spring break. ONWARD!

Day 1: Dublin-London

I had crazy miscommunications and mix-ups in plans and ended up with a ticket to London. Oh well, that's the glory of study abroad, you can say things like "Well I might as well go to London!". I get to the Dublin airport early in the morning and am silently freaking out. I don't fly well...at all. Plus all of the check in and security lines always disorient me. Airports are not fun places. I go to check in and I am convinced that my bag is above the 10 kg carry on limit. I am about to check it when the lady says "you do know that your bag is only 5 kg's right?" Wow. Well that saved me 18 euros, but I'm worried, did I pack enough (I'll answer that question right now...no.) I move on to security. I put my bag on the belt and the guy asks me "are you carrying any liquids or illegal items" I, being an absolute IDIOT decide this would be a good time to try my comedy routine and say "not that I know of" as soon as the words leave my mouth I try and push them back in. WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING!?!?!? Security man was LESS than amused. I'm not sure if I'll be allowed to fly ever again. Oh well, I think theres a ferry from England to Dublin if I need it to get back....Sidenote this is not the first time that response has gotten me in trouble. Many of you have heard the story of the time I broke my foot and on my way to getting it x-rayed the technician quietly asked if I was pregnant. I didn't understand him and too embarrassed to ask him to repeat himself I simply said "ummm, I don't know, maybe". I REALLY need to get a new stock answer. 

Anyway, I was allowed to fly but only after giving up my hairgel. A quick 45 minute flight and I was in London. They made me turn off my phone on the plane, however, and when I turned it back on it asked for my PIN. Whoops....I don't know that. I tried entering my usual PIN, but it wasn't right. My phone shuts off and refuses to turn on. Apparently it thinks it's been stolen. This is the beginning of my two weeks without a phone. 

Once in London I manage to find Talia, my friend from Bryn Mawr. She, along with her friend Lauren, helps me find my hostel so I can put my stuff down. My hostel looked like it was right out of a TNBC Saturday morning teen sitcom. Neon lights and 18-24 year olds running around everywhere. I couldn't help but crack up at the ridiculousness. 

The three of us spent a nice night eating fish and chips and exploring the banks of the Thames. I had to return to the hostel fairly early, though, as I was leaving for Florence early the next morning. 

Day II London-Florence.

I flew into Pisa on Ryanair. I can only describe flying on Ryanair as a mixture of flying on the Titanic or the NYC subway. No one has an assigned seat, instead you stand in a clump in a waiting area. Then they open a door and people run through it out on to the tarmac where they fight for seats. Alright, its a lot more civilized than I make it sounds...but still, not the greatest system ever. Once you get on everything is bright yellow with ads everywhere. Not going to lie though, very good flight. We flew over the mountains and other gorgeous European scenery, always enjoyable. 

In Pisa I got on a train to Florence. About an hour's journey through the Italian countryside, I could deal with this. By the time I got to Florence it was getting late and rainy. I came out of the station and found my hotel a block away. After grabbing some dinner I retired to  my room to enjoy television for the first time since I left the states. It didn't matter that it was in Italian, I just stared at it. I passed out at 7 and woke up at 11 to the Daily Show...in English! sweet! I promptly passed out again, I was exhausted. 

Day III Florence

I checked out of my hotel and moved to my other hotel (Again, crazy changes in spring break plans mean crazy hotel arrangements). I'm in love with this new hotel at first site. I walk in and Earmel, a 20 something year old Italian guy greets me. Upon finding out that it was my first time in Florence he takes out a map and proceeds to outline my entire stay in the city. Bus routes included. I'm smitten. My room isn't ready yet but I could put my bag behind the desk and head out to enjoy the city. 

I am blown away by the beauty of Florence. I don't know where to go first. I find myself just standing and starring. I first head over to the nearby cathedral but find out that it is closed. Oh well, I climb up the bell tower instead and am rewarded with panoramic views of the city. I'm in love with this city.

I began to wander the streets with no particular direction. I crossed the river and began the climb towards San Minato church. Before beginning the hike I stopped in a tiny pizzaria for some pizza. I ended up staying an hour and a half having a conversation with an Australian man about America's founding fathers. He mixed up Abe Lincoln and George Washington, how dare he. Nice guy though. I went up the wrong street to the church, but that was the best mistake I've ever made. While i ended up taking the long way, I got to explore the tiny winding streets of the hills of Florence. It looked right out of a movie. The church was another masterpiece. Lit only by candlelight, it filled me with an incredible sense of peace. Very nice after two days of traveling. Upon exiting the church you get a great view of the city as well. Nice. 

It was 3 by now and I was beginning to crash and have a headache. I head back to the hotel for a nap. While napping I have a series of vivid dreams in which people enter my hotel room and yell at me for not doing things. Including Nicky and Shannon, yelling at me for not attending the St Patricks Day punch party, Eric and Tara yelling at me for not making 200 signs within an hour, and Mom for not walking the dogs. Way to ruin my happy place guys, seriously. I wake up in a sweat and realize that I havn't had caffeine in 2 days, i must be going through withdrawal. They don't really do tea in Italy and I'm not a coffee person. Uh oh......I head back out into the city to soak in the evening beauty. After grabbing a gelato and watching the city in evenings dusk, I head back to the hotel and my precious television and shower. I should note that I took advantage of having a shower where the hot water never runs out by taking at least 2, sometimes 3 (and on one occasion 4) showers a day. Bliss. 

I'm so in love with this city

My navigation mistake led to this view

San Miniato The Duomo and the rest of the city

View from the bell tower of the cathedral (Duomo)

Ponte Vecchio
The beautiful winding roads of Tuscany

Tomorrow: My bus tour of the Siena suburbs!

Quick Update

LOVING ITALY!

I am keeping a paper journal of everything that i want to remember, so expect an epic blog post sometime in the next week and a half.

Italy is amazing....I cannot stress this enough

Try Not To Cry

Random thought of the day-I've been told a disturbing amount of times that I have a Jersey accent. We're going to need to fix this.

Alright, so I leave for Italy (by way of London) tomorrow. I will be gone for 2 weeks. That means two weeks of NO blog entries as part of the glory of this trip is I will not have a computer, or internet access. We're going to break this horrible addiction.
Here's a list of Marianna approved time passing activities for you to do during the time you'd usually read the blog.
-Paper cutting
-Kilt stalking
-Toast making
-Tea Biscuit eating
-St Patricks Day "celebrating"-Yes, it's true, I will NOT be in Ireland for St Patricks Day. But I will be in Rome for Holy Week which I hear is like St Patricks Day on speed. So I think I win. Plus I think I win Catholic pilgrimage points, which I am in dire need of.
-Newsletter writing
-Squash
-Easter Egg dying-My friends and I dyed some Easter Eggs tonight, slight problem, Ireland doesn't sell white eggs. So we dyed the brown ones. They turned out....icky? Each one turned to this strange pinkish brown color. Oh well. We had a good time

If you can't find enough time wasters in that list then I'm sorry, I'm usually good after paper cutting.

Also, some stories from my class where we do the presentations
Presenter: 54% of American's believe in leprechauns

entire class turns and looks at me and my roommate

Me: Well I haven't found one yet, but that hasn't stopped me from looking.....

Professor: Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but in the US you guys commute to work by plane? Right? Not so much the train, you really fly everywhere.....am I wrong?

silence while i contemplate whether or not it's worth it to lie for the sake of having a good story

Me: Welll......

Roommate: NO! NO we don't!

Why I Can Never Go Back to Tesco

A simple trip to Tesco, thats all I asked for. The promise of lasagna burned in my brain and belly. I had a quick list of 8 or so items that I had to get, so I grabbed those and ran to the line. To my horror each of the lanes had at least 3 people in them buying CARTS full of food. Oh well. I resigned myself to what LOOKED like the shortest line and began to wait. As the other lines began to move around me, I began to question my choice as my line had stood still for 5 minutes. The one next to me only had one person, so I eased my way over there. As I joined the line, I noticed about 4 feet behind me was a cart filled to the brim with food. No one was manning the cart and it wasn't in any particular line so I figured it was part of the display.
Ha, wrong.
This story is now going to sound like a Dane Cook bit, I assure you I have made NONE of this up.
As I'm standing in line I hear someone come up behind me and sigh with disapproval. Uh oh. I think someone might have had that cart. I don't turn around as I HATE confrontation. As long as I don't see the persons face then I can't be sure that they were the person I may have just cut. Out of the corner of my eye I see the cart inching up next to me. Ohhhhh balls. The lady is getting agressive. This is going to be a race. I grab my basket with both hands, ready to use it as a weapon if neccessary. Just when I think we've reached a passive agreement, the cart nudges into my leg. Oh no....oh no she isn't. She couldn't be. Yes, yes she is. The woman was using her cart much like an ancient roman chariot and trying to literally force me out of the line. NOW IT'S ON. I focus all of my energy into being a brick wall. Eyes on the cashier, focus like a fox. As the person in front of my finshes up, I take a giant step forward and block the aisle with my body. Once I am safely in the check out lane I take a glance back to find a stare of icy cold death coming from a somewhat old woman. Victory is mine
But its not done.
I put my 8 items on the belt (she should have let me go anyway, I had 8 items, she had roughly 129). The cashier looks at what I'm buying and says "oh, you must be a student". Why? I don't know, I was buying lasagna items, not ramen. I smile and say yes, up at UCD. I'm anxious to get the hell out of Tesco before the woman pulls a gun out on me. The cashier stops ringing me up and says "oh! An American! Great!" I start freaking out, the woman behind me is pacing and muttering, the cashier has completely stopped checking me out and I am stuck in the aisle between someones cart and the woman who wants to kill me. Me-"Yes, America"
Cashier-"New York?"
Me-"Yea! Right outside New York"
Cashier-"I'm part of this group, and our leader lives in New York"

oh no. no no no no no

me-"oh...good?"
Cashier-"we're sort of like a family, only a really big family in 80 different countries"
me-"that sounds nice"
Cashier-"Let me give you my leaders number for when you go back"

no no no no no no no

me-"oh well"
Lady behind us-*fuming*
me-*small cry of fear*
Cashier-"really, he'd be GLAD to hear from you. We love new people"

by the grace of god she finished ringing me up at that point. I grabbed my recipt, said "Thanks but no. I really like Ireland, I think I'm just going to stay here, probably not going back to New York" and RAN

I just wanted some lasagna.

I Live in Paradise

No hysterical stories from the weekend. I just wanted to rub it in everyones faces that I get to live here....














Had a fairly low key weekend. Marissa, Brigid and I went to Bray yesterday. Bray is a small resort village about 30 minutes south of Dublin. It was absolutely GORGEOUS. We got on the DART train and headed due south. We were shocked to find out that one stop away on the train was a beach. We are so City Center focused that we were completely unaware of our other surroundings. Turns out I'm close to the beach! Who knew!
We were told that we couldn't go to Bray without getting a picture of ourselves up by the cross on top of Bray Head, so we set off to reach the summit. (Authors Note: Picture was taken on Marissa's camera, I will have that eventually). We began the leisurely stroll up Bray Head when suddenly our nice paved path turned into dirt. Alright, we're tough, we can handle this. We continued along the path when suddenly it got steeper..and was less of a path than a stream of mud. Interesting. We continued our hike, noting how out of shape we were as we scaled the mountain. We took a short break and turned around to see the most stunning view of Bray, with a rainbow arching over the water. One of the few moments in my life I've been left speechless by natures beauty. After staring mouths agape for a few minutes, we began our climb again. Around this time the trail basically disappeared and we off roaded it through some prickly plants for awhile. We knew we had made a wrong turn, but we were too focused on reaching the cross to care. The final ascent to the top is practically straight up. It's worth it though, as reaching the summit provides you with views of every type of nature you could imagine. One view looked straight over the water, another out into pastoral farmland, another the mountains, another the town of Bray. It was one of those "So THIS is studying abroad" moments. After taking the required pictures we sat ourselves down and breathed in Ireland. It was nice.
I then looked at Brigid and realized she had just climbed the mountain in bedroom slippers. She claimed they were Uggs...I disagreed. Crazy kid.
Our descent down was breathtaking in an entirely different way, as we basically slid down slides of mud, rocks and roots to the bottom. Silently praying for our lives the whole way. After grabbing some fish and chips we hopped on the train back to the city. We took a quick stop in the town of Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dunn Leary) for a look around. Its usually a quaint fishing village, but when we were there the weather had turned and it was cold and rainy. Oh well.
A nice trip that I'll be taking again.

UCD Elections, Crazier Than *insert least favorite US Candidate Here*

Before we get to the bulk of the blog I have some business to attend to. Due to miscommunications the first half of my spring break plans have fallen through. I now have a non-refundable ticket to London that can be changed to a ticket to anywhere in Europe I want to go. If any of my readers (preferably people I know) are in Europe anywhere between the 7th and the 15th, or would enjoy coming to Europe that week, let me know and I'll come visit. Doesn't have to be the whole week, just a few days. 

Now, on to my new favorite reason to go to class, the UCD student government elections!

I first became aware that it was election week when millions of posters with peoples heads began staring at me as I walked to class. Each poster follows the same pattern, oversized headshot taken a bit too close superimposed over a picture of an iconic UCD location. Alright, I thought, this could be interesting.

I then get to class and sit down in the lecture hall. Suddenly there is a person in front of the room yelling at warp speed at all of us. Turns out they are a candidate campaigning and are desperately trying to get their statement in before class begins. Unfortunately between the accent and warp speed I hear nothing other than "judge me based on the shirt that I'm wearing". So I do. 

At this time I begin to take stock of the flyers lying around on the desktops. Everyday there are different handouts and special offers for clubs littering the room. I usually grab a bunch for paper cuttings as the paper is excellent thickness. So I noticed that todays flyers are different colors, which obviously makes me happy, so I go to grab some. I then see those same giant heads staring up at me. Ah, election flyers.

I now present to you a run down of my favorite candidates and what their flyers promised they will bring to UCD

In a failing effort to make this blog less google-able I won't use last names.

First I want to note how the two female candidates include pictures of themselves on the back in poses that are most likely going for "sexy". Both fail. As much as I hate being a feminist....I can't help but be mildly offended at this tactic

Next we have Conor, running for Welfare Office. Conor says we should vote for him because his moms are lesbians

Then there's Rory. I was having trouble finding anything too hysterical about Rory's flyer, until I turned it over and found that he had illustrated one of his points with stick figures holding signs. Touche, Rory, touche.

Moving on to Conor. Different than Conor number 1, running for the same position. No word on his parents. Conor is running on the platform that he will put toasters in every building and increase condom distribution. Not going to lie, I have become an absolute toast addict over here. Bryn Mawr should follow Conor's plan.

Now for Paul. I like Paul, I've heard his speech twice. Unfortunately he got his classes mixed up and gave the same speech to the same class twice. I don't appreciate people with poor time management skills. Paul also lays out his goals for each individual school at UCD. Each school, such as Arts and Sciences, has specific goals that he wants to reach involving courses, professors, etc. His goal for engineering? More couches. 

Moving on to Scottie. I havn't found a leaflet for Scottie yet. But his name's Scottie! So I think he has my vote.....speaking of which I don't think I get a vote. 

Finally theres the kid who showed up at my door last night. He is the kid with the biggest head on all of the posters, yet I do not know his name. I opened my door and he smiles and says "Hey! I know you, you're in my English class" before I could say "no...I'm definitely not.." he launched into his campaign speech. Across the hall another American was getting the same speech from one of this kids cronies. The two Irish kids rapidly talking in such a confined tiled space was like noise entering one ear and rattling around like the last kernel of unpopped popcorn. I'm still uneasy answering my door, afraid I'll be thrown into the vortex again. 

I handed in my midterm this morning, so now I'm ready to go enjoy the weekend. 

I should also note this quote as a follow up to my last post

While giving my presentation

Me: The largest forestry company in Ireland is......*long pause*

Class: *snicker*

Random kid in the back of the room: Come on! You can do it! 

Me: Quel....cha?

Class: HOORAY!!!! 

Professor: heyyyyyyy, not bad!

I then cracked a joke about America and did a dance about a tree....I was on fire. My group was appalled. 

EDIT!

WOW! I forgot to post about my FAVORITE candidate, Gary. Maybe I thought he needed his own entry.

Anyway, Gary is running for what I can only assume is the social committee. His main platform? If elected he will get Eiffel 65 to perform at UCD. Yes, the people who sang that Blue song in 7th grade. You might say "Well Marianna, maybe they're still big in Europe" Nope, he feels that our current acts are too new and exciting, he feels that we need to bring the 90's back. 

The Irish are Sick of Harry Potter References

While working on a group project

Irish Girl: Make sure you talk about (mumbles something that sounds like quilch)

Me: I'm sorry, did you say I should talk about quiddich?

Group: *death stares*

Irish Girl: No, Quilch....C-O-I-L-L-T-E

Gaelic makes my last name look completely pronouncable