Mumford and St. Patrick's Day!

So again I will apologize for not putting anything up in a while but it has been quite busy around here recently! This past week was my last week of classes. You may be thinking "What? You just got there!" Well you are right and that is exactly what  I am thinking too. This last week we incredibly busy as I had all of my assignments due in all my classes. These were the only assignments of the semester before finals so I was not at all used to doing work of any sort for my classes and I think this made it even harder to do.

A few weeks ago I went to a concert by the band Mumford and Sons. The concert was amazing, I was front row with my elbows on the stage and they played a heck of a show. Then after the show, one of the guys in our group waited outside for them and walked with them to a pub right near our apartment. We walked over to the pub and when I walked through the door I was face to face with Marcus Mumford! It was crazy because the owner locked the door right after we had gotten in so that no one else would come in and it was a really small crowd in the bar. I got to talk to all of the guys and they were all really nice and happy to talk to us common folk. They apparently love Minnesota! The kept going behind the bar to pour people beers and hand them out and they were in charge of all the music (they apparently love Paul Simon's "You Can Call Me Al", but who doesn't). It was quite an amazing night! The pictures below are both of Marcus, one with the group I was with and the other with the pub owner.

It was great to be able to celebrate St. Patrick's day in Ireland! We woke up and the group made a huge brunch which was awesome and a perfect way to start the day! After that we went to the parade which was fun but a little odd. It seemed more like a festival of cultures with little to no mention of the fact that it was St. Patrick's day. At one point they wheeled a 20 ft metal rooster down the street surrounded by chefs chasing around people dressed as eggs with huge egg beaters. This was made even more strange by the fact that there was no explanation at all as to what the hack this was supposed to be. At night a bunch of people from CSB/SJU who are studying in London got here to visit and partake in the St. Paddy's day fun. We went to a few different pubs and heard some great traditional Irish music and had a great time.

It will be great to now have some time off. I have been trying to figure out my travel plans for April and I'll try to put up my final plans when they are made on the blog. For now I am just relaxing and looking forward to my parents getting here!

Dingle!

Hello all! I am sorry it has been so long but the last couple weeks have been very busy as I had my first two assignments due (yes I have been here two months). One was a long philosophy paper and the other was a European Politics paper both worth fifty percent of my grade. The classes here are very different in that you are only graded on one assignment and then the final. It leaves not much to do as far as daily work goes but can tend to be a bit stressful when there is something to do because a lot rides on how well you do on it.

Last weekend I went with a few other people to Dingle, a city on a peninsula on the west coast of Ireland. Despite the goofy name and the all too easy jokes that can be made about it, it was really a cool town.  We got there on friday night and after a wonderful dinner at a Indian restaurant, we checked into our hostel. The hostel was run by an Aussie from Melbourne who was really a great guy and we talked a bit about how my parents had lived there. The Dingle Pub was the establishment of choice on Friday and we had a good time relaxing and listening to some great Irish music.

An ancient oratory

Saturday we got up early and rented bikes so we could bike all around the Slea Head which is the peninsula. We rented our bikes from a place named "Foxy John's" which is a hardware store/pub/bike rental place. Needless to say this place had character. Unfortunately there was a lot of fog which really limited what we were able to see of the beautiful views. The biking was a lot of fun though and we got to see a lot of ancient Gaelic houses, churches and other structures.

A celtic beehive hut

At the end of our 6 hour ride we were really tired and our legs had been put to the test. We decided to have a celebratory pint at Foxy John's amongst the tools and hardware supplies. That night was a lazy one as we were exhausted from a long day of work. The next morning before we had to leave to head back to Cork we went on a short little hike up a hill in Dingle that had a great view of the whole city and the harbor.

Foxy John's Hardware store/pub/bike rental

I am looking forward to this next week and St. Patrick's day in Ireland. I am not sure what to expect but have heard that it is not as big or as crazy as it is in the United States. The rest of this month should be really busy with more assignments due and hopefully I will find some more time to post on here. I am not sure that tales of me writing papers and studying, although very important, would really be all that interesting to read but hopefully I will be able to write about St. Patrick's day! I am sure I will.

A picture of UCC, my school!