Mystery Solved

So, we were wrong about Mike Dooley. Turns out he was referring to the weather in Virginia that reminded him of Ireland or something like that. Very lame. And disappointing. But, we still got a surprise!



Dan sent us flowers!!!!!





So, the big mystery is solved. And we are all super sad that Mike isn't really here, but the fact that Dan would just randomly send us flowers is awesome. I miss those boys so much!!!!

Scheming Boys Update

We officially have knowledge that ONE of them is IN IRELAND!!!!!

I got home today and checked my Facebook and discovered Dooley's new Facebook status:

Mike Dooley is enjoying the good Irish weather.

We have entered into the afternoon hours over here and will therefore be receiving our "gift" soon. As no one has heard from Dan since yesterday afternoon it is possible that he is with Dooley.

I will continue to update as events unfold.


OH MY GOD! DOOLEY IS BACK!!!

Someone is scheming...

This is a totally random post that I am making to 1. procrastinate and 2. warn you all that there may be a post in the next couple of days with me absolutely freaking out. Now, you all remember our boys from last semester? If you dont, go look them up on my post (Saying Goodbye to Our Boys...or something like that) so that you know who I'm talking about because I dont have enough time to re-explain them. Today it was brought to our attention (mostly on Facebook) that there is scheming going on. It could be nothing, but it also could be a big huge SOMETHING. Here's what we know right now:


Today I got home from class and checked my Facebook and saw that Dan had written on Jenna's wall (pretty much it just means he sent her a message that is viewable by anyone as opposed to a private message that only they can read). It read:

Hey Jenna! How have you been? I miss you.
BTW, are you going to be at your apartment tomorrow afternoon? Are you going anywhere after classes end? When are you leaving?

Now, I found the apartment part to be odd, but I figured that he just wanted to talk to her or Skype or something. I noticed that he was online so I messaged him to sass him about why he wanted to know if Jenna would be home. Instead of the simple explanation I expected he said something along the lines of (I'm paraphrasing because I closed the window and cant get back to what he said unless he comes back online):

There may or may not be something or nothing that may or may not be possibly maybe arriving at your apartment tomorrow afternoon, maybe.

Naturally, I was intrigued and asked what he was talking about but he wouldn't say what it was, only that it was for all of us. He then asked for my number saying it was because "they" would need to call me to be let in.



So, that is all of the info I had as of about 4 pm today. Since then I have consulted with the girls and we have set about trying to find out what's going on. We have come up with 3 possible things that he's plotting:

1. He is sending us a special package that is being delivered at a specific time.

2. He is ordering us Papa Johns (long story, but a bit of an inside joke).

or...

3. One of our boys is coming back to Ireland.


Obviously, the 3rd option is the best, but the 1st is the most likely. So, we decided to investigate.

Kelly went onto Facebook (we were all up at her apartment studying for our Irish exam in the morning when I brought this up with them) and saw that Matt was online so she sent him the message "Where are you???" and he said that he was in class for a midterm review. She then proceeded to explain herself and he said that he knows what Dan is plotting, but he wont say what it is. We dont believe that he (Matt) would be coming because he is super broke right now (something that he's always complaining about) and we dont think that it's Dan himself because he just had his spring break last week and spent it in Cancun so probably cant travel again that soon. Next we started Facebook stalking the rest of our boys and uncovered a suspicious status (you can say stuff like "Tacy Kennedy is tired of studying for exams and writing papers but at least they are over in 2 days!" which is my status right now). This is what Dooley's said:

Mike Dooley is thanks so much! I cant wait to see you too!

Now, we dont know who this is directed towards, but it is awfully suspicious since he and Dan are still super close and all of the boys seem to know what the surprise is but they aren't saying what's going on.


In conclusion, we are getting a surprise tomorrow that will most likely be a package (or some other delivery)...or Dooley will be arriving at our apartment tomorrow afternoon! In any case I'm sure that whatever is coming will be amazing, if for no other reason than the boys miss us and think of us enough to send us a special surprise.


We are all now freaking out over here. It's like the anticipation of Christmas when you're a kid...only better.

We all get excited when there's a possibility of seeing our friends who we haven't seen in a long time, but if it were to be one of our boys...we have all agreed that we will cry and scream because, though this semester has been awesome and we have great new friends, nothing and noone can replace those boys and the amazing times we had with them. There is a bond there that is way different than any other friendship we've had in our lives.


Whatever the big surprise ends up being I'll make sure to let you all know!


Now back to studying...

St. Paddy's Day-Ireland Style! (Kinda...)

This year I was fortunate enough to spend St. Patrick's Day in good ol' Eire, and what a day it was! The weather was GORGEOUS and it was just one huge party for over 24 hours. We went to numerous parties, had a party in our apartment, and went to the parade (not all in that order)! The one thing that was glaringly obvious was that we were Americans to the core. No one over here dresses up for it (except maybe in Dublin), but that definitely didn't stop us! We went all out...

This is Kelly's completely outrageous outfit. She was definitely the craziest of the lot of us.

Jenna borrowed Kelly's boa a few times for pictures but she was the least dressed up of us all.

I had quite a bit going on. You cant see it, but I have shamrock clips in my hair and later I had a hat.

The four of us together at Mrijan's apt.


It turns out that our street was the staging area for the parade!


A whole big group of us!

Our lovely view of the parade.

The crowd was huge! (This is a street called Grand Parade)

We were waiting in line for sausages (there is this one stand that sets up at all of the events in town and their sausages are incredible!) and saw this float coming down the street toward us (the float is on South Mall Street).

We ran into Toni!

And he and Patrick came with us to the Thirsty Scholar for...

Green beer!

Jake stole some of Kelly's stuff to wear.

After the parade everyone just walked down the streets since they were closed for the day.

This is on the South Mall boardwalk. These stalls sold food and crafts. So much fun!


On our way home we walked past Holly, Liz, and Kate soaking up some sun!

We went to a party and Laura and Jenna got ahold of the tots! (really, they weren't actual tater tots, but they were still really yummy...and really, how much more Irish can you get than potatoes?)

When we finally made it back to our apt we gave Toni shamrock tattoos.

Then we started a dance party! (Rince ar an mbord!=Dance on the table!)


That would be part of the door to our washing machine. The machine somehow broke while we were in the Gaeltacht and Margaret sent someone up to free Toni's clothes. They said that they fixed it. They lied. The door has to be pried open with a fork. At least it still washes our clothes!


Patrick played DJ.





Kelly and I ventured out in search of dinner and it was still beautiful out!

Then the party really started in our apt. I think we had about 30 people by the time we left for the night.

This is some random Irish guy who is a friend of Irene.

Andrew all decked out in St. Paddy's day stuff and his Washington St. pub crawl shirt.

Aitor did the pub crawl too, but they were out of shirts at the end so they gave him a hat instead!

So that was our St. Patrick's Day celebration! It was a great time and was a fun break from studying for exams and writing papers as the semester comes to an end (only one week left now!).

Coming up this week I have 2 Irish exams (one oral and one written), 2 archaeology tests (for different courses), and an archaeology essay. It'll be a stressful week, but the good news is that after this I'm done with school for the year! Just 5 exams in May over a total of 4 days, so technically I have 9 days left of my junior year of college!

One week from today I leave on my excavation trip which will last about 5 days, then the day after I get home from that I leave on Eurotrip! Two weeks from tonight I'll be back sleeping in the Dublin airport waiting for my crazy early flight to Madrid!

I'm not sure if I've gone over this before, but here is how we're going about our trip:
Cork -> Dublin -> Madrid -> Barcelona (day trip to Andorra) -> Paris -> Berlin -> Prague -> Vienna -> London -> Cork
All in 16 days...it will be crazy, but sooo much fun! And this time there will be 5 of us traveling together instead of just me and one other person. Cant wait!

And now I had better be off...lots of studying and paper-writing left to do, but this was a nice little break to relive the good times last week.

The Beginning of the End

This last weekend was spent in a Gaeltacht! It wasn't nearly as terrifying as I expected it to be and we had an incredible time. We were staying in a little village called Corca Dhuibhne where UCC owns a house, but Jenna, Kelly and I were actually staying in a B&B outside of the village because there were 3 too many people for the house. That was pretty fun. We spent most of our time at the house with everyone else and just went out to the B&B at night to sleep and have breakfast in the morning. The people that ran it were awesome and were native Irish speakers so that made things interesting, but I feel like I really got a feel for it.

Left to right: Naomi (from Iceland), Laura, Me, Jenna

Nicolas, Aline, Cecile, Nadia and Vanessa (all from France).

Carolin (Germany), Alessa (Germany), Caroline (America), Sjoukje (Germany), Sean (America) and Jason (America).

Jenna in our room at the B&B reading her (actually, I think that one was mine) Irish dictionary.

Sheep!

Laura and Kelly taking pictures of the scenery near Dún Chaoin.

This is actually not really an old Irish building. It is part of the set of the movie Ryan's Daughter that was filmed on the Dingle Peninsula. It was the schoolhouse.

This was taken from in front of the schoolhouse.

Again, in front of the schoolhouse.

The bus we toured around on. We only had it for about 2 hours on Saturday.

This is the path that leads down to the pier where the send out boats to the Blasket island.




Look for the hazy shadow out in the distance. That's the Sleeping Giant (one of the Blasket Islands).

Me and Naomi

This is pretty much all we saw of Dingle (the town) because we only had a 20 minute stop here.

This is the last standing rectangular dry mortar beehive church in the world.

Going for a walk down to the beach before the big storm hits.

This is Addison. He's from Texas.

Laura dancing on the beach.

Me jumping off of rocks.

Kelly step dancing on the beach.

I am and will always be a beach girl at heart.


We left the beach when it started raining on us and headed back to the house. We started a fire and drank tea.

We were on kitchen duty Saturday night.

The chicken looked like someone had attacked it with a hacksaw so Matt was trying to salvage what he could.

There were still feathers and innards. Jenna got the job of ridding the chicken of those.

I made the mashed potatoes.

Laura made the pasta.

After dinner we were all bored because there was a raging storm (wind/rain/hail) and we couldn't really go anywhere so we stayed in and made our own fun. It started with crazy hair styles.


Then we moved on to the white board. This is how it started. Take note of the bunny.

This is how it ended. (it says: Dia dhuit dhawg! Is as Compton dom. Which means: God be with you dawg!! I'm from Compton. (Dia dhuit is how you say hello in Irish, even though that's not the direct translation))

Since it was so gross outside our teacher arranged for us to do Céilí dancing in the dining room!


On Sunday when Marian (my Irish teacher) picked us up from the B&B she played tour guide a bit on the way back to the house. At one point she pulled over to show us a standing stone and told us to get out to get a better look. She came with us and asked if we noticed anything off about it...then she knocked on it. It was plastic. It's a leftover prop from Ryan's Daughter. Pretty convincing though!

On the drive home.

Snow in the mountains! We actually drove through some snow, but none of those pictures came out.


That was my weekend in the Gaeltacht! It was awesome. We had so much fun! I really got to know a lot of the people in my class that I never would have known well otherwise. A definite highlight was when we were cooking dinner and Matt brought his computer out and we all were cooking and singing and having a blast! It's too bad that it happened at the end of the year.

So, this was the beginning of my crazy last few months here! After this next up is St. Patricks Day (bank holiday so we get the day off from school!), then a final next Thursday, then 2 more finals the next week, then the excavation, then Eurotrip, then a cluster of finals, then Britt comes, then a final, then Andrew comes, then Laura leaves, then I leave 4 days later. The longest break in there is 9 days. CRAZY!!!