Shore Leave

Leg 4: Northern Ireland, Week One (Pt. 2) 01/31/2010

Alrighty! So where did we leave off? Saturday? Saturday was grand!

First, we went to the other main pub in Portstewart that we hadn’t been to–Shenanigans (or Bar 7 as some people are calling it).

Here we see Otto with my two housemates Katie and Erin (as well as the cocktails we'd ordered that evening--largely a good idea!)

We stayed at Shenanigans with Mark (our RA–remember from last post?) and then Katie and Erin met some people in the bar and decided to have a chat. They seemed like scrupulous chaps, so Mark and I continued onto the Anchor Bar without them for the next hour or so.

Otto chills up against one of the larger benches at the Anchor Bar. Fun fact: this is the same bench where the musicians who play the live Irish music every Thursday set up shop!

Otto, being a silly little octopus atop my pint of Smithwick's, an Irish red ale style beer.

After killing some time (and a few brain cells, what with the beer and all) Mark and I grabbed some take-away and hooked a taxi back to Agherton, where I was astonished to discover that Erin and Katie were not yet back. So I dug into my take-away; and let it be known that this is the first time I’ve ever had “chips and gravy”, or steak fries with beef stew (but only the stew part) to all of my American readers (which I think is nearly all of you :P). And it was pretty good!

Anyway, Erin and Katie rolled in about an hour later…and with their new friends, Brendan and Sam! They were really great guys, and we sat around chatting for hours into the evening! Good times, especially for having been in the country for less than a week!

Here's (from left to right) Sam and Katie (though they're not paying much attention) and Brendan, Otto, and Erin chilling out.

Sunday was largely uneventful–I went food shopping and played around on the Internet, and that was pretty much my day. But on Monday, I had my first class!

Now, one of these days, I may bring Otto to class with me and take a picture, but I wasn’t about to do it in my first week! But my first class this Monday was History of Witchcraft and Magic in Early Modern Britain and Ireland, which looks to be a fairly spectacular class, being taught by an expert in the field. I believe he wrote the textbook we are expected to use for the class, which is kind of neat when you think about it.

Now, Irish school is sort of broken up into a two-hour lecture, where you show up and take notes, and a one-hour seminar, where you meet up and discuss the material. I’m not sure yet how I feel about this set-up, but it could be problematic, considering I’m a commuter and my 9:15 class and 2:15 seminar leaves me with a whoppy load of free time between classes that I don’t want to waste a bus journey getting to Portstewart and back on. Guess I need to make some friends, huh? ^_^!

And for all of you Otto-heads out there, here are some obligatory shots of Otto at the front of my school:

Here's Otto (in focus, you'll notice) in front of the main sign for the University of Ulster, Coleraine.

And here (and pay close attention, because I don't think I'm skilled enough to make this happen again) is Otto, OUT OF FOCUS, with the University sign clear as day behind his head. It's like FOCUS and then focus. Yeah. Cool stuff.

Anyway, day one of my first week of school was a pretty great success, I’d say! I got registered for classes, and generally accomplished all manner of menial administrative tasks that I will spare you the horror of reading. It was a good day!

And that EVENING we went to the University of Ulster Student Union Bar. Yes. You heard that correctly. My school. It has a BAR in it. A bar with ALCOHOL. My school is legally licensed to serve liquor to its students. Dude, I don’t even think WVU has an on-site bar, and they’re WVU!

So after getting over the initial shock of finding a freakin’ BAR on campus, Erin, Katie, and I settled in to chat and meet new people. And that was fun!

Otto resting on the rails of the bus that was taking us back to SCHOOL of all places to have a pint. ^_^!

Here is Erin and Otto with a couple of pints of Foster's, which were that evening's beer special. Beer. Special. At SCHOOL. Yeah.

Erin and Katie headed out at about 8:30, and I was almost immediately introduced to Conor, who was not actually a student at U of Ulster, but of Queen’s, but who had apparently just finished his exams and was drinking himself across the country. Kind of neat! Anyway, I met up with his friends as well, such as Phil (who was also from Belfast and doing the drinking thing) and Anto and Steven and Mark (different Mark) and Andrew, who I believe actually go to U of Ulster. It was fun! Especially since I had already called some other American students and we all met up at the bar to chat and play The Name Game.

But I’ll just let the pictures do the talking, shall I?

This is Conor holding Otto. If you look in the back there, you can see Anto and Ruarhi....well, I don't know if I'm spelling that right at all, but he was there as well, anyway.

Here's Otto with Anto (if you can even see them--it was rather dark at this point.)

Here's Otto and Mark (at least I hope that's what his name was--I hate getting people's name wrong!)

Here's Mark and Jenni giving Otto a simultaneous happy kiss! What a lucky octopus! ^_^!

Chug, chug, chug! Here's me making an utter wino of my octopus by forcing on him someone's beverage. Although, by the looks of that glass, it may have been a Pepsi...so in that case...maybe he's just a Pepsi wino. ^_^!

Well, Otto's back on my head again!

Here's Phil with Otto. Again, that's only if you can tell Otto is even in there because of the dark.

It was a really fun evening! And afterwards, we all retired back to Anto’s house to watch “Zombieland” (which was awesome!) and the “Father Ted” Christmas special. Since I had never really heard of “Father Ted” before this, it was especially nice to watch a really funny show!

Anyway, the next day of class (wherein I had only the one later in the afternoon) went very well also! I had a film class called Mapping the City, which is about the construct of cities in European film. It looks pretty spiffy, and I’m excited about this class more than any other, I think. We even had our first film scheduled for that evening–“Run Lola Run”.

But I did find out that between the lecture, the seminar, and the film showings, I’m probably going to be in that class from 1:15 to 7:00 EVERY Tuesday. That’s a pretty long time! But the film showings are optional–just so long as we watch them eventually.

Anyway, to kill time between the very short class period and the 4:00 showing of “Run Lola Run”, I met up with two students from the class, Verity and Richard, and we all went out for coffee at the hidden senior coffee shop on campus. It was a good time! They’re both really interesting, fun people! And it turned out that “Run Lola Run” was a good movie (I had seen only bits and pieces of it before), and I enjoyed it very much.

Okay, this post has gone on for quite long enough, I think! So that was my first seven days in Ireland, for those of you keeping count! Tune in next time as I recount my first day OFF from school–we went to Giant’s Causeway!

Leg 4: Northern Ireland, Week One (Pt. 1) 01/27/2010

Alrighty! It has been a very eventful week. Honestly, I could go home right now and still say it would have been worth the trip! But lucky me, I’m here a bit longer than that! ^_^!

So, after that first horrific day, I managed to get electricity and, in doing so, met my RA Mark, who is, point of fact, awesome. He even lent me some clean dishes since the slobs who lived in my temporary digs before me didn’t have any unused ones. He also invited us to the Anchor Bar, a popular pub in town, where we watched some live Irish music. But I’ll let Otto take over from here, shall I?

Mark is seen here making Otto look like a huge lush. That pint of Guinness is bigger than he is! ^_^! But as Mark said, he's got to have a drink in the picture! And if you'll look at the face floating near Mark's, that is one of his housemates Marvin, who is also awesome.

You see Otto, right? Now look behind him--why yes, those ARE musicians! ^_^! They were quite good too!

Can you spot the Otto atop that maroon chair there? This was the lobby of the Anchorage, the little inn attached to the Anchor Bar.

After enjoying the Anchor Bar (where I sampled a 16-year old Bushmills whiskey, which was quite lovely) we headed back to Mark and Marvin’s to watch some TV and have a beer and a chat…until 5am! Yikes! Fun, but not when you have orientation the next morning!

AGAIN with giving Otto booze!? What a lush my octopus has become! But this is Mark with one of my housemates, Katie.

But getting up wasn’t actually too bad, considering the lack of sleep, lol. The rest of orientation went well, but it was more fun later in the day when I had an RNE (random nerd encounter) with this awesome dude named Declan. He was wearing a Watchmen t-shirt, so I said I liked the shirt. We ended up spending the whole rest of the afternoon together! He was super fun, and–get this–he’s doing his media studies thesis on Joss Whedon television shows. How awesome is that? ^_^!

Anyway, that night (Friday) was also monumental in that I got to move into my new, permanent digs. And it’s sooooooooo much nicer than the other one, even without all the trash and stuff! ^_^!

Otto chills atop my laptop in my room. That whole wall (which is that lovely shade of yellow--so cheerful!) is just a big built in: there's a closet on the right, the desk in the middle with the shelves up top, and then to the left is the sink. I love the set up!

In our living room, we have this strange fireplace like thing that is meant to look like a fireplace, but is not actually a chimney or anything. It's just like a little brick square. It's even carpeted in there, lol. But the mantle and everything looks nice, and Otto seems to enjoy the gourd collection anyway!

Here's Otto on the chair in our living room/dining room. To put this in perspective, the couch and kitchen were behind me in this shot, and the mantle thingie was to my right. That door leads to the hall and my room!

Here's Otto on our kitchen counter right next the the awesome colander that I bought at the Pound Stretcher. What happened was that the previous resident had just moved out and had not put away some of his washed dishes. I looked and didn't see a colander there, so I decided to buy a cheap one because I knew I'd be making pasta. Turns out his colander was under one of the pans, lol. Oh well, it's cool anyway--instead of just holes, it's got punched out words like "vegetables" and "pasta" and other things you drain. VERY COOL! But now it's my fruit bowl, lol, and I've put some little oranges in it. Yes! ^_^!

Oh no, Otto!! Get off the stove!!

FINALLY I've taken a picture of myself, lol. Here, Otto and I chill on the couch.

OMGOCTOPUS!!! ^_^!

I am so enamored with my sink. No, really. I think every college dorm should have a sink in the room, it is just so darned handy!

And here is Otto beneath the lovely head lamp over my bed (also very convenient for late-night reading!) with the neat plaid pillowcase.

Lovely, yeah? I like it a lot! So it was nice to settle in and unpack, and later that same evening, we all went to McDonald’s! I had a Chicken Tikka snack wrap, which was so delicious that I hope that they bring them to the ‘States! It was like a sweet/spicy curry sauce with crispy nice cucumber and lettuce in a chicken snack wrap, and it was very tasty!

On Saturday, I spent the day around town in Coleraine to unlock my phone (so that I could call home with my more international-call-friendly SIM card) and pick up some stuff from the Pound Stretcher (including that awesome colander you saw above, lol) and I also made my first big trip to Tesco’s to get groceries! Tesco is amazing! They have this stir-fry mix kit where for 2.50 pounds you get the noodles, some veggies, and the sauce to fry it in! Yum! It’s probably the best supermarket I’ve ever been in.

Well, I’m going to stop here for now because I haven’t uploaded the pictures from Saturday evening yet (will do that soon!) but we DID go out again, this time to a bar called Shenanigans. Pics to come soon! But for now, the hour is late, and I grow weary. Good night everybody! Stay tuned!

Legs 2 and 3 – Weirton, WV and the Transit to Ireland 01/24/2010

Okay…Internet is finally up and running for me here (thank Kanjar Ro that my flat is wi-fi ready!), so I can finally set about updating everyone on the whereabouts of Otto and me for the past couple of days.

And we have been ALL over!

I realize that it’s been a very busy couple of days, and I actually have quite a lot of pictures so far, but for today, I will stick to the ones of Otto and I in Weirton and on our way to Ireland, so as to save the other shots for another post that will probably hit in a couple of days. ^_^!

So…here goes! After leaving the campus, I enjoyed a surprisingly leisurely drive up to Weirton to visit my grandparents for a couple of days, and as luck would have it, I was there in time for my grandma’s birthday!

I actually got my grandpa to smile in a picture! My grandparents at Eat and Park for a birthday lunch!

So that was a good deal of fun. And that night even, Otto and I went off to the theater!

Otto is seen here biffing around the Plaza theater waiting for the movie to start...he didn't have long to wait. :P

We saw _The Blind Side_, which was pretty alright by all accounts. The next couple of days I mostly spent doing laundry and visiting my grandparents and otherwise preparing for the big trip. Which of course brings us to…

…THE TRIP!

We started in Pittsburgh airport–

A very fuzzy (in more ways than one) Otto poses by the killer T-Rex skeleton in the Pittsburgh airport.

Otto (if you can see his tiny little self on that placard there in the middle) takes his awesome place between the Pittsburgh greats--the Steelers and George Washington.

Admiral Otto and General George--it has a nice ring, don't you think?

Pittsburgh is famous as the hometown of Mister Rogers. Can you spot the Otto in this display case full of Mister Rogers paraphenalia? ^_^!

After the Pittsburgh airport, we took a flight to Dulles. Unfortunately, there are no Otto pics from Dulles because it was…well…it was dull. And I was too plumb tired to take pictures on the plane itself, so we’ve got no plane shots either. Really, the reason there are no photos is because this leg of the trip was tragically unremarkable. Yup. Pittsburgh to Dulles, the only thing that happened was that we got there before the scheduled time (oh wonder of wonders! A plane that lands on time!) where I essentially biffed around the Dulles airport for my two hours or so until the flight from Dulles to Heathrow.

Dulles to Heathrow was about a six and a half hour flight, which I spent most of the time trying to sleep through. It wasn’t made easy by the fact that on the same exact plane as me there was a massive group of Americans who were all off to study abroad in Italy en masse and I kept getting lumped in with them. One of the flight attendants even asked if I was excited about going to Rome. I replied, “Sure–if I even go.” I believe I confused the man, but it didn’t matter, because I conked out after downing a Benadryl soon afterwards.

But apparently my desire to sleep through the flight kept me out of some juicy plane drama! When we landed in Heathrow and I woke up, we weren’t allowed to leave the plane immediately because a) someone was having a medical emergency and the paramedics needed on the plane first and b) apparently one woman punched another woman mid-flight over some manner of disagreement, and no one in that general area was allowed to disembark until the police had taken statements. Yeah, very interesting flight. But we eventually got off the plane, and I got my first taste of Heathrow airport. It went a little something like this.

Yeah, that's what I said exactly, Otto. "Why is there a frickin' Harrod's in the Heathrow airport?" Whatever, I'm not here to judge. :P

I’m not sure when the entirety of Heathrow became a giant shopping plaza, or if has always been that way, but it was a very strange airport overall. However, I wasn’t there too long before my plane went off to Belfast, at long last! My jubilation was short-lived, however, when I realized that I had to get both me, Otto, and three sizable suitcases to Coleraine on the bus alone. Eep.

I caught the airport shuttle to the major bus depot with no major problems, though, and I had the absolute nicest bus driver in the world on the Coleraine-Belfast stretch. I don’t know who that nice bus driver with the ponytail was, but if I see him again, I’m going to hug him. He helped me with all my bags, and even set me up on the proper bus to get me from the Coleraine bus depot to my University campus (Free of charge! He told the other bus driver that I already paid him–that guy is awesome!!!) which was extremely helpful.

Once there, I met randomly up with another American girl named Sierra who helped me find the Accommodation Office so I could get set into my new digs at Agherton Student Village! Yay!

Welllllll……in this case it was more of a “nay.” I was put into temporary housing at first because my room wasn’t ready just yet. So instead of going into my current unit, I went into unit 17.

Oh. Em. Gee.

After 36 hours in transit, ALL I wanted to do was collapse onto a nice bed. And, to be fair, the bed and the room I was in was actually very decent, and I loved the layout of the place, I really did.

But whoever lived there before me? It was like they had the most epic New Years’ party of all time and then just…left it that way. The common areas were absolutely disgusting! The bathroom wasn’t too bad, except for the fact that part of the sofa was in it (it was a sectional), but the main common room? Holy. Moly.

Words cannot accurately depict how rank that room was. I took no pictures of it because I’d like to erase it from my mind as quickly as possible. Bags of trash (at least six) were piled up on the one side, there were empty (and not so empty) beer bottles and wine glasses all over (some of which had a good collection of mold growing on it), a carton of milk was left on the counter, there were cigarette butts and trash everywhere, and WORST OF ALL, the electricity was out in this house when I got there, so everything in the fridge? Rotten. Ew.

So that first night, I ended up eating take-away from a shop down the street and then heading back to bed at 7:00pm so that I could conserve warmth for the long night ahead of me. I had no electricity, and therefore no heat and no hot water. Honestly, that first night? I was about ready to throw in the towel. Only the safe knowledge that no other flat in this place could possibly be as bad kept me going.

Otto chills atop my ever-important towel in my (very messy, sorry) temporary digs. Sorry I don't have any horror pics for you, but I simply couldn't bring myself to photograph that awful mess. I'm just glad I no longer have to live there!

Anyway, Orientation was strictly informational, though the International Office was very sympathetic to my weird housing plight, and were nice enough to get me a map of the surrounding area as well as let me phone home from their office phone so I could let my parents know things were going well. I even figured out how to get electricity in my flat! Oh wonder of wonders!

Anywho, I could blather on some more about what I did, but this post is getting most dreadfully long. In any case, I did meet back up with Sierra the next day and go to Coleraine on what must have been the crappiest day EVER (cold, wet, AND windy–it was a triple header!) but we had fun anyway.

But that night was pretty fun as well!

And on that note (it’s not meant to be a suggestive or salacious note, it’s simply a convenient stopping place) I do believe I will be heading to bed. I promise, not all the posts will be this long in the future, but the first few days were pretty action packed! Tune in soon for the exciting conclusion of “what I did on night 2” as well as a lot of other fun tidbits from my first weekend in Northern Ireland. Cheers, folks!