christmas at home..

i'm feeling a little bit homesick. and i meant to post a while back about christmas at home, but didn't get around to it because everyone was visiting, et cetera... so i'll just do it now.. on valentine's day... and backdate the entry so it falls into line as it should. and by "entry" i really mean put up pictures for you all to look at and enjoy.

anyway. i had such a good time going home for christmas. i'm glad i got to- i wanted to see everyone. even when i went up to northampton, i saw everyone at college that i really wanted to, even if it was just for a quick conversation in some cases. and they made fun of the *tiny* accent that i picked up, but then was able to lose after a week at home.

anyway, pictures, commence!

here's my favorite pretty girl. she's thooooo pwweettttyyy... specially with her christmas bow and everything. aw, rabaila! you can even see booger and de udda, de udda won in the background being flufftastic.


i got to bring res and chace home to my family... i love them something crazy.


tacky christmas party was class as well! our house gets so full of randomers... and it's such a nice mix of my friends, my sea stars' friends, my parents friends... i like that we all can get along together and enjoy the company of all respectively. this year, it was more me M.C. our tacky gift exchange than dad, too... it was a blast. good craic, as we say... =D
here's a few 'round the room shots:



look how cute mom and daddy are :)



mom putting my cousin mandy's dance shoes on... what a pretty picture:


mandy's brothers, et al:


and finally, mr. moofie, the christmas poo...

nothing like a sleepy puppy to finish an entry.

slán,
chris

p.s. yay, family. :)

the 12 pubs of christmas...

at the first pub of christmas, my true love gave to me....
a very tasty brewski...
at the second pub of christmas my true love gave to me...
two shots of whiskey
and a very tasty brewski...


just kidding. not *quite* that intense.. at least not until the seventh or eighth pub.

in any case, i promised an update about this adventure and here are some of the pictures. i actually quite enjoyed it and i certainly learned a lot.
about limits.
and beer.
and shots.
and mixing the two.

here's a group shot outside of the second pub which we graced: annie mac's. (first was cissie young's, of course)


further down barrick street, here is a group of us who are capable of posing:


here's a cute old couple behind one of the bars. they made us double shots by accident because she wasn't sure how to make a baby guinness.. no complaints from any of us.


RIGHT, so, the theme of the night was "holy dress..." i was "holy-er than thou." but here's a nun. and an angel.


at some point during the night the angels struck with glitter.... and here you can see my costume as well.


this is what she looked like after that mad guerilla glitter strike.


hanging with the cripples. poor kid broke his arms at the eng ball... he threw up one leg dancing, and promptly forgot that one was in the air, and threw up the other one, falling backwards to land on his wrists.... eoin. classic.


some shepherds with their sheep, leem og.


willie, our captain, leaning towards the beer while making his angry lion face.


so this is what i've deemed appropriate. :) i'm going to miss all the american girls like crazy this upcoming semester, but i think the canoe club will help keep me busy... :-D

slainte!


love you.
chris

some highlights of my canoe club weekend

yeah, i know it was two weeks ago, but i had to do some serious internetal wrestling to make it happen. love you all.


here's how the bus ride went on the way there :-D i mean, it was a good time. on the way to belfast, one of the irish lads turned to me and said, can i ask a question? "sure," i replied. "why is no one drinking on the bus!?" ...
so on THIS trip.. i was one of two americans on this bus =D you can see me in the back there behind cian with the guitar..



here's the skyscape on the coast of kerry where we were staying... this was saturday. sunday it was a monsoon.


friday night was messy. and amazing. we had about a barrel and half of jungle juice. i was safe, of course... but part of the festivities was a constest to see who could hold up the barrel of jungle juice for the longest. (i think i lasted about 15 seconds...)


i also think i told some of you that we happened to put a hole through the bath? welll, here it is. the captain told the people from whom he rented the houses it was a canoe anchor....
yeah so they'll never let the UCC canoe club back ever.


i swear i had nothing to do with any of this. but it's still funny... (willie the captain told the people from whom we rented the houses that the footprints on the ceiling were from the anti-gravity boots...)


this is the only other picture i have of me.



best part of saturday morning.



here we are getting ready to get into the river on saturday...


saturday night was a blast as well... we went out on the dunes and made a campfire. it was class. some of the lads stayed there until the sun had risen, and if i had waited 15 more minutes, i'd have been with them, but... i was cold. they also decided it was a brilliant idea to cook sausages upon a piece of plastic within the fire, and they got the taste of plasticy, charcoally, half-cooked sausage. however, they have decided in years past that no matter what you eat jack's weekend, it is impossible to get food poison. specialists in the case have theorized that it is due to the extrobinant amount of drink imbibed.

as for sunday, more of the bus ride back... and then we stopped at a pub midway to watch the game. we landed right where we started- cissie young's pub on barrick street. there we stayed for a few more hours, and then we went back to willie's house as the night went on. we created a concoction to please the masses, with these results:

a touch of class... as always.

this is where willie, the captain, landed on sunday night. i'll have it be known that his bed is actually in the room over, complete with duvet, pillows, and warmth. apparently he prefers fetal position in the corner... :)



sorry i have no pictures of us on the river, but one cannot carry a camera and swim at the same time. (not that i took any of these pictures :-P )

i actually took all of them from the german in the group who carries a camera eeeeeeverywhere. those germans :) it was a blast.

next update i will have for you of the canoe club is going to be the 12 pubs of christmas, planned for this tuesday. oh i anticipate some interesting photos there. i'll also try and get some pictures up of the water polo match i have on sunday.

i love you all and have to jet to class!
chris

northern ireland weekend..

hmm... so i think i'm just going to post that email i sent out to a few of ye, and just add pictures! ...well i guess some more captions, so yeah, read on. (yes, i'm just that lazy!)


i was in northern ireland this past weekend, it was a blast... we got there late on thrusday night, and were fed by the program, then set out to, er, explore the town. by explore the town i mean hit up the pub down the road, robinson's.. which was right next to the famous crown bar. it had live music and a relaxed crowd. the following day, we went to derry to take a tour around the town and around the walls which were heavily guarded during the troubles. if anything, this whole trip served to show how quickly we can get over something like that... the evidence of the troubled times is everywhere, murals, video cameras, barbed wire, but the people seem alright, and very welcoming to the tourism.

you know, i'm not sure how i feel about the revolution in northern ireland. a part of me is proud, you know, because (excluding all of the violence) it was a revolution that worked. did you know the average age of those in the IRA, men, and women, was 17? the revolution was staged by younger folks, and the difference was vast. now, i'm not saying that i agree with the methods. it's just nice to know that something CAN be done without the meddling of everything over here.
see, they're big into the American Way:





in any case... then we headed to a castlescape for some quick photos:
here's the only picture you'll ever get of me running. they told us we didn't have time to actually go down into the castle, only look from afar.... so naturally i sprinted down to go explore for 15 minutes or so.


here's the castle from afar... i guess the castle was in use for a long time, until the family who owned it was hosting a dinner party during the storm, and just before dinner was to be served the kitchen, chefs, meal, everything, slid into the ocean. the hostess then declared, that's it! we're moving! and they did.




and then off to the giant's causeway. here we are at the top of the cliffs... these are the girls i spend most of my time with, they're awesome.


check the way these rocks have formed....



that was particularly cool, a geological wonder. you know the story from which that was devised? finn mac coul builds it to go across the water to scotland where he drinks and then, naturally, gets into a fight with their local giant. seeing that he is to be on the losing end of this fight, he runs back across and home to his wife, where her quick thinking puts him into the baby's pram and dresses him up as such. when teh scottish giant comes to finn's door, she answers and tells him to be quiet, as the baby is sleeping. when the giant sees how large the baby is, he fears he's underestimated finn and runs back to scotland in a panic, and breaks up the causeway on his journey back. in any case, we climbed all over the cliffs and rocks while we were there.. very cool.
here's me and katie playing on the rocks.


on saturday then, me and a few of the girls took a hop-on hop-off tour of belfast city. i saw the place where the titanic was built... now i guess i've seen both where it's built and where it was set off! (cohb) we walked around Queens university and their botanic gardens. we walked around downtown belfast as well... i went into a linen store to see if it was decently priced but to no avail. it was a sad story. hm... we saw a blue ceramic salmon of knowledge with all the stories of belfast town within its scales...


then, er... we went to go see the Borat Movie. very nice. very nice.

saturday night we went out to more of a younger crowd bar and did it up in style for a while,
and the whole group

then from there we went to a pub that had three levels... one with live music, another dance floor, and the third pool tables. i would have gone back to that place had i been in belfast longer.

sunday was a looonnnnng drive back. but it went by quickly, what with good company and clear roads for most of the 8 hours.



hope you enjoyed the update!!
slán,
chris


me, checking the sun set near the causeway.

how classes differ

one of the nicest things to get used to here is how much different classes are than at smith. at home, i had classes daily until 3pm. sometimes not on fridays. but here, each class meets for only one or two hours every week. therefore, i have monday, wednesday, and friday off, with each only having one class in the mornings. however, this comes back to bite me in the ass on tuesdays and thursdays, because i'm doing so much during the day that i don't have time to just... sit.

the other major difference is the work load. each class here has one, maybe two essays, and a final exam, whereas at smith, we'd have papers all throughout the semester, and barely exams. therefore, i'm spending a lot of time to myself now, but will probably have to study, or something, come exam time.

bunratty

i forgot to post this picture, it's from a few weeks ago, and atop the castle in bunratty.


love chris

languages classes

dia duit (god be with you,) conas atá tú (how are you?)

i promised myself after taking latin for an ungodly amount of years that i wouldn't take too many languages classes again. however, that's not working out so well... i'm enrolled in both old and irish here in cork. i actually really like the modern language, and i'm trying to practice while here.

as for old irish (the language spoken from c. 400-800ish,) it serves as the only redeeming quality for having taken so many years of latin. i know my grammar. poor Ifer, my roommate, has no grammatical experience and is swimming in nominatives and accusatives, genitives and datives.

in any case, i'm sitting between classes on Ifer's computer waiting to go home and take a power nap before hitting the clubs tonight. i like the scene around corcaigh (cork,) and thursday nights shall henceforth hold a special place in my heart. by this i mean it's students' night.

slán,
chris

line 'em up, line 'em all up...

if there is one thing the irish love to do, it's queue. any and every opportunity for a queue is taken with relish. i've actually watched folks walk past a perfectly working ATM on the street to join the queue at the next one over. it's as if the community act of impatiently waiting in line is a bonding experience that they can't miss out on.

this having been said, i spent all of today and yesterday wandering all over cork city for one queue or another trying to get my PPSN (social security number) and a job. the ss office is worse than the DMV office back home. it's just not my deal... i'm so glad i brought a book. the good news, though, is that i'm waitressing at a place just around the corner.

much love,
chris

homestay weekend in kerry

butler, the program through which i came here to cork, sent us all out on a homestay weekend in castleisland, kerry, where we were placed with a "real" irish family to better understand the irish culture.

during the few days they sent us to limerick for our orientation, they did a lot of preemptive explanation as to what to expect during our homestay. they were telling us these things to clear up misunderstandings that might occur, in such a way that i might do as if we were to go for a month or more. more to the point, though, is that as these "situations" came up in conversation, i found myself thinking, "oh, we do that...." "yup, familiar...." "oh is that where that came from?!"

for example, tea. they were talking about how they would offer tea at every 20 minutes, and even after the denial of the offer, it was to come eventually. the game that is played between host and guest was also spoken of, where tea is denied the first two or three times, but then accepted. both parties know that tea will eventually be on the agenda, but first they dance around the subject.

sound familiar?

and then, i went to mass, and the first thing they did was list off the people who have passed within the county and anyone any of the congregation knew who had passed. and we wonder where this "when i'm gone..." culture comes from.

while i enjoyed the weekend, it served more to enlighten what aspects of our family life come from this place more than to help me "understand the irish culture."

apparently i'm terrible about getting this thing started.

to begin:

don't expect capital letters. i just don't feel the need to highlight anything special. and i'm lazy.
expect lots of song quotes. if i'm updating in a stream of consciousness type deal, they are within my s.o.c. dig? i'll "quote" 'em or something.
do expect lots of travel news and random stories.
do expect comparisons of where i am to what it's like in the states.
expect my friends' names to appear. i'll introduce the first time, after that, up to you to remember who is whom.
i'll try and update this more regularly than i email. if it's been more than a week, shoot me an email being like "chris, stop being lazy, or busy, and do it."

i'll put this on the user info or whatever it's called as well.

from henceforth, the adventures of one and one half wandering jew. minus the half and minus the jew. so actually the adventures of a wandering... me.