crimas eve!

im curled up on my comfy couch in the sitting room in front of a not so roaring fire and my very own red and gold decorated christmas tree and loving winter in ireland.

so far the weather has been fantastic. cold but not too cold. sunny during the day and rainy at night. there are tons of people running around with bags full of christmas dinner, rolls of wrapping paper, bunches of lillys mixed with holly, little kids all bundled up like penguins and more lights than i have ever seen in a city before.

i have also been sleeping close to 12 hours a night and warming myself up with cups and cups of tea with milk and sugar oh and of course hot chocolate, you all know how much i love my hot chocolate. going sight seeing with my mom and sister, watching movies. my sister even got us all to do a puzzle with her last night. its definitely been a good vacation.

the only bad part is the the study and when im not studying the thought of studying. its doing a number on my happy christmas but there's not much i can do about that. my 1st big anatomy practical is on january 3rd so whether or not my family is here or that its christmas means that its in my head running around and snickering at me like an ugly witch...muuahahhah! enough i say!!!

i hope that you all are having a wonderful holiday where ever you are and know that i am thinking of you! let me know how you are if you can, i would love that. :)

with love,
kelly

if only admitting it made it better

It's official. I'm homesick.

I think all this resting up (one full day of watching movies, sleeping in, buying Christmas decorations, napping and laundry) after a super difficult week of 8 hours of classes and followed by 8 hours of studying before my test on Friday has reminded me so much of what it was like when I was home that now I miss home more than ever. I really needed to give my brain a break so I don't feel so badly about taking it easy today. Plus, I'll be back to studying anatomy tomorrow as I have a quiz again on Monday. I've done well and passed all of them so far so I'm not that worried about it which feels very nice for a change. Its so hit or miss on what they ask anyways that passing mainly depends on how lucky you are that they ask you something you know. Oh right. So back to being homesick. There are several things that when I see them I am instantly reminded of home. Anything Mexican pretty much. There is a burrito place sorta near my house that I think I might trek over to at some point because I am very much having mexican food withdrawal. Tanning places also remind me of home strangely enough. I feel like asking for a UV light dealy for Christmas because the sun really has left Dublin and, as I am told, probably wont be returning for a couple of months! ahhh!!! I need light!!!!!

In other news, Maeve and I went to get our Christmas tree for the house on Friday. Its huge and I love it! It makes the room smell amazing and that's where I've planted myself today watching movies and knitting and where I will be tomorrow with my anatomy. I went out and got lights and ornaments and am just waiting for people to get back from trips (all my friends and roommates went away this weekend so I've been left to take care of the house on my own) so that we can decorate it. The tree is up in the front room so when we do have it all lite up and decorated people walking by will be able to see it in the window. I've always wanted to have a little house like that. Oh, but the best part is...this is the first year I will have Christmas in a house with an actual real working fireplace to hang stockings from! That is truly what I have always wanted. I remember being like 7 and asking my dad to build us a fireplace for our 11th floor apartment so that we could put up our stockings. I made the flames out of construction paper.

I must go to bed now but please send me emails or letters. They definitely do brighten my day!

Introductions finally

I thought it might be nice to introduce my housemates. Its been two months of living together and so far so good. In my mind, it is only going to get better! :)

Housemate 3: dance-machine

Let us see, Sir Gregory. Language master of the world (no joke, sign language included, thats right). Not only that, but no one I know can outlast him on the dance floor (try and you will probably drop dead). This one has more energy than a bomb. His secret Hero power would be mind control, he could be a gourmet chef if he wanted and with a sense of humor to boot. But don't get him started in a debate, you will never hear the end of it. :)

Housemate 2: the seductress

Lovely happy Maeve. With her room strategically placed right in between Andrew and Greg (interesting hmmmm), she's a film buff, concert go-er, makeup artist, costume designer (really what she's doing in medical school is beyond me!). She's the girl that can do it all and have time to take a nap too :) She's a great motivator to get dressed up and out of the house but always good for a night in with a cup of tea/bottle of wine too.

Housemate 1: savage and beastly

Andrew, the one the only. His room is closest to mine, he's a genetics genius and shows a striking resemblance to James Bond when all dressed up! Famous for his parma ham and cucumber ciabatta rolls and overwhelming love of jelly [irish for jello]. He's someone you can always count on for some good healthy late-nite conversations and over-thinking indulgences.

Out with the class

This was the last weekend before the tests started up again. I thought it would be good to remind myself of going out when I'm stuck inside studying. I had anatomy oral quiz today, a multiple choice quiz next week and then another anatomy practical the week after (or as the Irish in my house would say..."in a fortnight" :)
Miss you!

can you believe its almost december!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I had a WONDERFUL Irish-American feast at my house tonight. Every one of my Irish housemates cooked up a storm and made thanksgiving as good as it could possibly be away from home and family. I had such a good time, ate turkey, stuffing, 2 kinds of potatos (very Irish indeed), cranberry, and three veg (as they say here) . To top it all off, Maeve made an apple cherry pie from scratch and Greg made homemade whipped cream. We had 2 more Americans over and another Irish friend and drank wine and laughed at absolutely everything. It was so yummy and I was laughing so hard I cried more than once. I will put up pictures tomorrow in between submitting my health, behavior and society project and doing all those dishes...ahhhh! I hope you all had great days doing whatever it is that you do and felt loved. I really couldn't have asked for much more.

I love having visitors!

And its even better when they are looking for a great time out in the city that I love so much now and we have so much to catch up on. Its been about 3 years since the last time we had seen each other and this was definitely a time to remember. I had so much fun walking around the city playing tour guide even though it was the worst weather I've seen in Dublin yet for the entire time! I think we decided that the rain just followed him over here from England.

We also went to every type of drinking establishment that Ireland has to offer. Lets go through them one at a time:
1. old man pub. This is the type of pub that eyebrows raise when young people walk in. They had a fuzzy tv playing soccer (its ok to say soccer in Ireland because if you say football they always ask you which kind), they poor a mean guinness (well actually everywhere in Ireland does but it was here that Bobby pointed out that they make you wait for your beer for about 2 minutes before giving it to you with just the perfect amount of head). Oh, and there was also one point where the bar tender yelled over to a woman sitting across the bar telling her to take her hand off of a particular person's knee in the best Irish accent! haha.
2. college pub. We went to trinity college pub called the pav. The entire trinity rugby team was there and there was an 8 Euro special on Bavaria. Need i say more?
3. popular pub. This was Doyles. On a Saturday night this is where everyone wants to be. This pub has been there for ages and ages and yet is always packed on the weekends and just right during the week. It even has a small dance floor (on the second, er first floor) for the weekend crowds. Kathryn actually got lost here trying to find us which is a whole other story but i think shows the amount of fun being had by this point! Oh and we still managed to find a booth to sit and laugh at!!!
4. temple bar club. Purity Kitchen. Great dance music, flashy lights and vodka tonics all around. We closed down the place at 3:30 and made our way down Grafton street for some greasy burgers and chips then home for some well deserved sleep!

Come on back please

Yes, I realize its been way too long since I last wrote in this but I'm gonna try to start up again. I have to say that its been a busy month or so and figuring out how to manage has been a little more than exhausting. There is definitely a balance between studying, class, socializing and working out that I've been trying to reach and hopefully things are starting to settle.

The most exciting thing is that I joined the swimming team with my friend Robyn and I love it. Hopefully, this will help me stay in shape. Plus, there's something to be said when I'm stressed out about being able to completely empty my brain, count my strokes and concentrate on breathing that I think is gonna help keep me afloat more than anything. It's more difficult to run around my new neighborhood as well.

School-wise, I've survived 2 multiple choice quizes as well as 2 anatomy oral exams. I've also got down how to take a history and (sorta) do an abdominal exam but that is definitely going to take some practice. We have all these different actors coming in about twice a week and I find it hilarious that people can get paid to be 'patients' and lie there while we palpate their liver or ask them questions regarding their bowel movements.

I miss everyone at home more than ever and its starting to feel like Christmas in Ireland is going to turn out to be a fantastic decision. Lets just say, saying that Christmas is big here is quite the understatement of the year!

Other than that, I hope this will become a more regular occurrence.

See ya soon :)

Meet Greg and Kathryn!

Greg's from the Republic and Kathryn's from Northern Ireland. And you would never believe how well we all can get along!!!

new friends and first nights out!

First Week...CHECK!

Alright, I've finished my first week of med school. Yay! It feels like a big milestone. It was stressful and fun, emotional and event filled! I had my fair share of ups and downs and I've somehow managed to survive. By the skin on my teeth but still, its the surviving that counts, not by how much. So, I feel a little bit embarrassed by what I did this week but I thought I would share anyways. There is a lot of context around getting myself into the situation that I did but I'll just come right out with it. I was careless and got my wallet stolen or lost or whatever....its gone! I had to cancel all my cards, borrow a bunch of money from my new friends to get by on until I get my loan money or get my new cards to take money out of my American accounts, whichever comes first. I got a new student card (3 days after getting my first student card). I got an extension from Immigration so that I can register late and I got over the fact that I lost a bunch of money of which I could have used to come home or go somewhere else or have someone fly out here to curb my mounting homesickness. But all is better now and I've learned some very valuable lessons. I won't even get into any of the details surrounding the disappearing wallet because as someone very important said to me, "money isn't what matters. If you have love that's what really counts. " well it was something like that...at least that's what I got out of it. And I know that I have plenty of what matters so really I am rich! OK, well other than that I had 5 subjects of 2 lectures each plus anatomy lab. I've met a lot of great people in my class and feel lucky that so many of them are nice, fun and caring! I have good feeling about all of them really. Friday night we all watched Ireland play France in the Rugby World Cup and then went out dancing. Ireland lost and it was quite sad but then the great fun I had dancing made up for the disappointment, plus I learned a lot about rugby too. Well, I hope that you are all having much better luck than myself and lets hope that I got all of my bad luck out of the way and now onto just the good stuff! finger's crossed!

Cricket anyone?

Cricket game in Phoenix Park

Irish Polo Match

I loved the clouds...the ever changing Irish clouds.

Gates to the President's House

Now isn't that the most perfect latte?

I guess that's how its done in beautiful Phoenix Park (the central park of Ireland...only twice as big)

Farmleigh House

I can take you there if you want :)

What the pubs look like before an Irish Football match

Pretty crazy looking huh?

Its actually just what they mean by "Full Irish Breakfast". You can get this anywhere around here but especially so when you stay at a bed and breakfast. It includes: 2 sausages, 2 bacon strips, an overeasy egg, a tomato, white and black pudding (more meat), toast, and a few sides such as fruit, cereal, juice and of course you can not forget tea! By full, I think they mean that you won't get hungry again for a very long time. (Hey Kennedy, maybe you'll get some ideas to assist you in your bulking up hmmmm?)

The lovely B & B in Dundalk

I'd highly recommend it. In addition to being ridiculously nice and cozy it was very close to the ice rink.

Game 2...I know a little out of order...but thats ok

This game was fantastic. It was the Latvia Hawks v. Dundalk Bulls. There were so many Latvians screaming the entire game that my ears were ringing when we left. It didn't seem to matter too much that they were down the entire game either. They still fought hard and the fans never gave up. I like this picture because it shows the Bulls' goalie. I sat next to his mom. He is 16 and just started playing ice last December and he was amazing. Such a great game to watch. There was one fight that broke out but it wasn't typical. One of the refs was a woman and one of the Latvian players pushed her (I think). Apparently, the Irish team had enough and a brawl ensued. I was told that this fight was a long time coming. The Bulls won and I will definitely have to go back to see them play again. So young and so full of love for the sport! (Oh, and I think that one of the bull's players might have broke his ankle during the game. Dad, I was thinking that these Irish players may be in need of a good trainer!!!)

Just saying good night

And sweet dreams.

Belfast dominated

Even so, At the end, after both teams clapped for the 20 or so fans, they took a heart warming picture together. They looked so happy even just being there playing each other, that who actually won made no difference! It really was touching. I'm so glad I got to see the start of what I think is one of the best sports in such a great place! Plus, I still have one more game to watch next!!!

Fancy!

1st game: Belfast Bruins v. Irish Flyers

The playing is pretty good. On par with the gulls except without the fights. Its tied 2-2 now.

I made it!

I cant believe it but I made it to the 1st hockey game of the season. Only an hour and a half bus ride that turned out to stop right in front of the bed and breakfast that I only picked because it was the only one in the little town where the only rink is in Ireland. And to make me even happier, it was only a 20 minute walk from the bed and breakfast to the rink! Since the rink only opened last December and hockey is so new to this country in general, although I learned that most of the guys here have been playing roller hockey for years, I could barely find any info online but so far so good, eh?

Just a cool tree.

My roommate would call it 'grand'.

My eyes aren't used to seeing the sun anymore.

I was a lot closer to the 400 or so deer that are in this picture than it looks.

I actually saw two large male deer fighting but i realize its really too small to see anything. Oh well. It was my favorite part of the park!

Lots of fields

I rented a bike a road all around phoenix park today.

Yay, I finally found Brasil!

You know this is for all my Brazilian fans out there (of course, esp. for you Cintia!) The best part is that its not that expensive. Pretty cheap actually considering the cost of going out to eat in Dublin. And, well, that its about a five minute walk from my school means that I'm sure I'll be going there with someone hopefully soon. (so come visit me!!!)

A Trip to Dublin Castle

I finally made it to the Castle in the middle of the city. The best part of it was this garden which has a little maze in it and the Chester Betty Library which is full of the oldest and rarest collection of religious books in the world. They have bible texts written on parchment from like 100AD! They even had a lot of cool and very very old Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic writings too.