Turkey and Chocolate

Dear Family,

TURKEY! Happy belated Thanksgiving. I talked to many of you on Thursday and it sounded like you were either in the middle of cooking or taking a nap. My friends and I had a fun dinner togher. We invited some of our Belgium ,German, Canadian, and Irish friends over so all in all we had 22 people, 2 turkeys, and a table full of desserts. Of course, we had all the other neccessary dishes as well. I wanted to share the gravy song with them but didn't get the chance to. Don't worry, I sang it with Mom, Laurie, Tootsie, Evan, and BB through skype :)

I would also like to thank you for passing down the strong love and passion for not only music, arts, academics, adventures, and food, but most importantly chocolate. Thank you Judy for your very 'sweet' package :) I finally received it and I've enjoyed tasting all the treats! My friends will love you as much as I do when I share with them. Every April I get to enjoy one of my favorite kinds of chocolate in the shape of a Cadbury Egg. To my surprise, Ireland's version of Hershey's IS Cadbury! Needless to say, Cadbury and I have formed a special relationship that will end in sorrow as I get on the plane to come home.

In 2 days I go to Amsterdam! I get back on Tuesday and then I only have 3 days until I come home for Christmas! I will fill you in on my trip when I get back. Enjoy the week to come.

Galway and the Aran Islands!

Incredible! Magical! Perfect :) I love Galway. This has been my favorite trip so far because our hostel was great, it was just three of us travelling together, the city is friendly and cute, there were breathtaking sites, and plenty of adventure. Galway is in the south of Ireland on the west coast. James Joyce's wife, Nora Barnacle, lived in Galway. We went to see her house, it was very modest looking. It was a small, two level house that was crammed in between a whole row of identical looking houses. It had a blue door and cute lacy curtains, which I'm SURE are the same ones she had in the early 1900's :) We couldn't go inside because the tours were closed for the season.

The first day we were there we went to the grand opening of the town's Christmas market! It was a huge attraction and so much fun. There were french crepes, spanish candies, german sausages, danish dooughnuts, a bunch of handcrafted items, Christmas carols, Christmas lights, little kids running around, and everyone was so friendly.

The next day we took an hour ferry ride to the Aran Islands and took a bus tour. I would have much rather rented bikes and gone out on our own, but it was real cold and windy. The bus was fun though because we learned some history and we stopped to get out and explore whenever we wanted. The first thing I noticed were the incredible looking stone walls everywhere! There are huge pastures filled with knee high hand made stone walls from the 1600's. There is no concrete filling to hold the rocks together, they are just balancing on eachother. Isn't that absolutely amazing that they have lasted this long? These stone walls cover the entire island, and I learned why they were built in the first place. My first thought was they were meant for dividing properties, but this reason actually came secondary. When settlers first came to the island, it was covered in sheets of limestone. They needed green grassy pastures to farm, so what they did was break apart the limestone into little peices in order to clear out room for grass to grow. Since they were so heavy, there was no other way of getting rid of them than to stack them ontop of eachother, thus producing thousands of miles of winding stone walls.

We continued on and saw a few thatched roof houses (the roofs are replaced every 60 years or so), some sheep and cows, and ruins of 17th century stone houses. Our first stop was the fort of Dun Aengus. It was built to protect the villages if ever they were invaded. It is a huge semi-circle wall that stops literally at the edge of the 330 feet high cliffs that jet out into the ocean. This was the most spectacular and magical feeling I have ever felt standing at the edge of these cliffs. There are no ropes, fences, or signs that stop you from going right up to the edge (and right over the edge if you're not careful). All you can see beyond the cliffs is the ocean and the sunset :) I took tons of pictures, but I just wish everyone could have experienced it like I did because it's impossible to capture that feeling in a photograph. Afterwards we went to a cafe (the same cafe that was filmed in Leap Year) and had some Irish stew and vegetable soup to warm us up. We went to the 3 tiny shopping stores there and I bought a hand made crouchet headband from the nice little lady that that makes them.

Along our next busride we spotted some seals and snapped a few photos. We then got some coffee, got back on the ferry, and made it home to our friendly and conveniently located hostel. I used the last of my own money on this trip! So thank you Mom, Dad, Granny, and everyone who has helped me pay for this! I am now waiting for my 400 pound check from my financial aid to get cashed :) Dad I haven't checked my mail yet for your package but I will tomorrow. I'm sure it's here by now! So exciting!

I can only post 4 or 5 pictures on this blog, but if you want to see all my Ireland photos, go to this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050463&id=1578300060&l=b6cfd6158b

Just copy and paste it into your Internet browser.

Essay Shmessay...

Today I been very productive. I went to class all day, got home and cleaned my room very thoroughly, made some food, watched an episode of Glee, and pretty much anything besides my essay that I need to start. I've run out of things to distract myself with, any ideas?

Tonight Siri, Emily and I are getting together to plan a trip to Gallway and the Aran Islands. London isn't going to work out this semester because it was too expensive. I will definitely go in the spring though! Next weekend we might all go to Belfast and do the touristy stuff there...and see Harry Potter!! 2 of my friends are English majors and they worship the Harry Potter series. Dad, I will go again with you when I get home, since its tradition and all :)

Right now I'm living off left over lasagna, ham sanwiches, and this really dilicious cereal I found. But my milk is about to expire, so cereal won't be an option. Haha I'm trying to wait till Saturday to go grocery shopping because there's a free bus that comes- instead of paying to take a taxi.

Thanks Mom and Paula for your Halloween cards! They are hanging up on my wall. Alright, its about time for my skype date. Update you again soon!

Wait...I'm here to study??

Well this week was a toughy. I managed to finish 2 essays on time and now I only have one more to worry about that is due in 2 weeks. If ever you need someone to educate you on Oscar Wilde's life or what Yeats' sybolism is in his poetry, I'm your girl. Thursday my friends and I went out to celebrate our completed work. This week our classes start again, and I have been trying to figure out what courses to take next semester. I need 3 classes that are pre-requisites for my Global Wine Studies degree so hopefully Ulster will offer them. If not, second semester is going to be semi-unproductive. I am going to meet with my advisor to figure it all out this week. Cross your fingers!

On Saturday night, the international students and families gathered to learn traditional Irish dances! They were more like jigs, it was a lot of fun and surprisingly a good work out. After we learned about 10 different dances, we watched 2 girls dance something similar to Riverdancing. I have ALWAYS loved Riverdance! I remember being on Dad's couch and watching them dance on TV. He was always so leniant with the TV remote :) Thanks, Dad. After the dancing was over, can you guess what we did? We had tea and cookies hahaha, I love this country. They have tea for every gathering- for a break during long classes, after church, after meetings, after dinner, before dinner, during dinner...

Well anyway, I have been in this bad habit of going to bed late (4 or 5am) and sleeping until 2pm- it's terrible I know! It is hard because there is not much to do during the day so I have no reason to wake up early. But lately I have been feeling bad, getting homesick, getting bored, and sad. I decided that my sleeping patterns have a whole lot to do with that, so this morning I woke up at 9:30am, went to work out, made a nice breakfast, went rowing (it was SO rough and very frustrating), had dinner with friends, and went to a mass with them and sang church songs. Overall, I feel so much better today. Being productive and busy is an important part of keeping my mind entertained while I'm here since there is not much time spent on school.

That about sums up my week. How was your week? Anything exciting happen? Keep me up to date! I miss all of you. I'll see some of you in only FIVE WEEKS! :)

Bye for now

Happy Halloween!

Well hello again, my Halloween was very fun. It was more of a Halloweek because there were activities every night of the week. Monday there was a dress up party at my school, Wednesday was dress up night at a dance club we go to, and Sunday was a huge celebration in Derry. Yesterday I dressed up as a lumberjack man wearing a plaid shirt, an axe, and a big ol' mustache. There was a bus that took people from the university to Derry, which is about an hour drive. We got there and watched this really fun parade and everyone was dressed up and dancing! There were a bunch of spooky floats and people on stilts walking around :) I saw a bagpipe group in the parade and took a video of them playing. After the parade we went by the river and watched fireworks for a while, it was so pretty and exciting. Apparently Halloween is a big deal in Ireland. There were a lot of kids and parents that were dressed up, but I didn't see any trick-or-treating. I think once the Troubles started trick-or-treating stopped, which makes a lot of sense. We all socialized and danced for a bit and came back to Coleraine. I saw Carsten's toilet costume, thats hilarious! He should have won something for that. And Adrienne, I didn't know Lucy had glasses! She looks very intelligent for a 6 year old.

Today I have been in the library for 9 hours working on my essays. I have 2 essays due on Thursday that are worth 50% of my grade. Geesh! I finished one today and hopefully will start and finish the other tomorrow. Wish me luck. I don't have classes this week since it's study/reading/slack off week.

I book a flight to Amsterdam with my friends the first weekend in December, and Emily and I are planning to go to London the last week of November. Sometimes I forget that I'm here to study, but weeks like this one reminds me...don't worry Dad :)Hope all is well! Remember, don't forget to comment because you should all know how to do it now!

Pictures!

The first one is of me and my costume. Dad said it looks like him in 1974 just with longer hair :)

The second is of my friends and I waiting for the parade. Emily was Sandy from Greese, Siri and Alanna were greek goddesses, and Erica was a hippy.

Third is of the pretty fireworks!

The last one is of our pumpkin carving night. Mine is the one with a goofy face.

Lazy Day

Today I slept in far too late to tell anybody. Lets just say I had breakfast around 2pm. I got up and went rowing for an hourish with our soon to be new coach. His name is Chris and he coaches the younger team just down the river. That team has been rowing since they were probably in middle school :) This upcoming weekend, Halloween weekend, the team and I are going to meet up with the other campus' rowing teams and have a night out together. Should be some good craic. I came home and read and began to feel a little homesick. I get homesick when I'm not busy and I am alone for most of the day. I try not to think about it and focus on my school work or cleaning my room. It's really not that far away till I can see everyone again! My friends and I are trying to plan a trip to Poland to see Auschwitz. We are all very excited even though the trip may not be extremely happy. Mom I know you visited Poland with Gigi when you graduated. Where did you go? Tell me about it! If anyone has any friends or family or people they know that live there it would be neat to meet them.

I went shopping in Derry yesterday with Emily. We bought a ridiculous amount of clothes and shoes and spent a ridiculously small amount of money :) It was great! I bought some 4 inch high heels so I can fit in with the Irish girls when we go out. Emily and I have to practice walking in them so we don't make fools of ourselves. Hopefully when I come back I will look very European and high-fashion haha :)

It is getting so cold here, whenever I go outside and am not wearing a huge winder coat with gloves and a hat I am chilled to the bone for the rest of the day. Brrr!!

I'll leave you with some more interesting facts about Irish lifestyle:
They pronounce the letter 'H' as 'Haytch'
Usually, when someone pronounces it 'Haytch' they are from the republic. This is another way people can figure out where you're from/what religion you probably are. Freaky huh?!
They don't use different flavored salad dressing, they usually only have one that is similar to something like mayo, water, and sugar. Blech...
No one has ever had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Irish peanut butter is terrible compared to American Jiff peanut butter.
They only have about 3 options for sugared cereal: Frosted flakes, chocolate hazulnut crisps, and honeynut cheerios. Out of any country in the world, I though Ireland would at least have Lucky Charms.
Most of their fresh fruits and vegetables are pre-packaged.
Their grading scale is different. A mark of 63-73 is an A, 48-62 is a B, 33-47 is a C, and so on. I won't worry about the rest of the marks because I won't get below a B :)
They call the marks First, Upper Second, Lower Second, Third, and Fail.

Hope everyone is well! Talk to you all soon! If you want to skype me, my skype name is ellie.holcomb I'd love to hear from you.

Te amo Espana!

Yet again, it has been a while since I've written and I apologize! I feel busy all the time which is odd since I only have 9 hours of class a week. What to catch you up on? How about my trip to SPAIN!!! I had a blast, it was so much fun. The weather was perfect. It was cool in the mornings and evenings, but in the afternoon it got hot sometimes. Even if it was just warm the sun was always out which was a nice change from dear old cloudy Coleraine. The hostel we stayed at was the nicest one I've seen. Each room had it's own mini kitchen and living room, all newly furnished with ikea furtiture and artsy photographs on the wall.

The first day, after eventually figuring out how to ride the metro, we went on a bike tour and saw all the major sites. It was brilliant as the Irish would say! Our tour guide was a girl from Arizona that decided she wanted to up and move to Europe and do something exciting with her life before she turned 30. She was funny and very knowledgeable. We biked to the castle which used to be the home of Isabel and Fernando in the late 1400's. Isabel was the woman who funded Cristopher Columbus' trip to sail arcoss the world in order to discover America. Archaeologists recently discovered an underground city underneath the castle which visitors are allowed to walk through. These workshops, factories, and rooms that were found were for washing, dying, and drying clothes, making wine, salting fish, going to church, and shops. You could see the 'very modern' drainage system that ran through the little city. I snuck some pictures you can see at the top. We also saw Sangrada Familia which is a cathedral that looks like a drippy sandcastle. It is very impressive and extremely intricate. We went to the beach at the end and we got to learn about the man made beaches that were created for when the Olympics were held in Barcelona. We went out on the town that night with some people from our hostel and drank calimocho, which is red wine mixed with coke. Sounds disgusting but it is actually quite tastey.

The next day we were all tired and decided to spend the whole afternoon on the sunny sandy beach. We packed some sandwiches and laid by the ocean for a couple or 3 hours. These beaches are clothing optional...that was interesting. After the beach we went shopping for some touristy things and headed back to the hostel. We planned on seeing the Magic Fountains (fountains that shoot up water that has music and lighting) but they were closed. We ended up sitting on our deck playing cards in our sweatpants :)

The next morning we took the bus to Girona which is where we flew out of. It was a wonderufl town! I enjoyed it more than Barcelona because it was quiet and cute with parks all around and everything felt very simple and relaxed. That could have also been because it was a Sunday, and Spainards apparently just hide out for the whole day. I'm not exactly sure why. So we had a delicious inexpensive lunch out on the street under the sun listening to the birds chirp and the Spanish people walking past. It was lovely.

On our flight home I learned a very valuable lesson thanks to Ryanair. Leave PLENTY of time between connecting flights, because if you miss your flight (like we did) you have to either pay a 100 pound fee for changing your ticket or just buy a whole new ticket which turned out to be 75 pounds. That was disappointing and stressful, but we made it home eventually and it was so good to be back. I missed Ireland, I really do love it here.

Tuesday night I met my International Friend's family! This is just a family who is active in the church that runs this program. Each student who signs up is assigned to a family and that family can invite you over for dinners or take you out and show you around. My family, Mervyn and Pearl, are so sweet and friendly. Pearl reminds me of you, Mom :) I brought Siri along with me and the four of us had a cozy sit down home-made dinner in front of their crackling wood burning stove. Pearl made chicken, potatoes, salad, and bread for dinner, home made crepes for dessert, and tea and cookies to top it all off. By the way, I am loving the tea here. I put cream in it and it is calming. We chatted about politics, Irish history, the differences in cultures, school, and their 3 kids who are all graduated from college. It was a delightful evening!

Pictures:
The first one is of the wine vats that were in the underground city. It was a huge complicated process of fermentation and production. Pretty cool!
The second is me on the beach :)
The last one is Sangrada Familia, which had scaffolding on it but it was still incredible.

Now that I have just written an essay telling you about my life, I'd love to hear what everyone else is up to! If you don't know how to leave a comment, I will tell you now:
1. You have to sign up to create an account with Blogspot. It is SO simple and they won't send you annoying emails. It is only to allow you to comment on blogs.
2. Once you enter your email, name, and other info, you can sign on using your username that you created and password.
3. Once you are signed on to you account, you can search for my blog using the web address or the search box.
4. Once you find my blog page, scroll down to the bottom of a post and click 'comment'.
5. Write away! Let me know if you have any questions by emailing me. I use holcombe@cwu.edu the most.

Ok, I am loving life here but I can't wait to come home for Christmas and see the family, friends, and Chloe and Cleo!!