Home Sweet Oakdale

I'm back! Actually, I've been back for almost a week, but I am just now getting to writing about it. First, give me a moment to complain about the journey. I was traveling from 2 am Friday until 7 am Saturday (though only 11pm California time). I think it will be quite awhile before I regain my love of flying. But enough of my whining. I made it home without getting stuck in a snow storm, for which I am extremely grateful for. Since then I have been slowly adjusting to the thought of being home, which was harder than I thought for the first two days, but is getting progressively easier. I am convinced that I owe this to Miss Rich and Miss Olson. What would I do without you guys? Some of my activities so far have been:
Eating Mexican food. It's become one of my main hobbies.
Decorating the Christmas tree (which was fun for about 5 minutes).
Wrapping presents.
Making seven pans of delicious maple cinnamon roles (which turned out pretty well considering that I did just about everything I could to screw up the recipe).
Re-reading the ends of my favorite novels. This is one of my favorite night time activities when I am at home alone (Umm...is this too geeky to admit to the internet? I think it might be.)
So I am doing pretty well, despite missing my wonderful roommate and beautiful Galway. As for this blog, 120 Days of Galway has seen its last post. From now on I'll be using Footnotes again, as it would be weird to use this blog in SLO. Thanks for reading!

Goodbyes

I am starting to realize that I am not a goodbye person. I hate them! How do you say goodbye to a friend that you have seen everyday for four months? I'm not sure, but I will let you know in a few hours. I have decided to go with "see you laters" instead of goodbyes. Ugh.
Since that is such a depressing subject, I'm moving on. This is going to be a very long day. This morning I am going to scrub down my apartment, which is going to be disgusting. I am then going into town to help Colleen finish Christmas shopping, enjoy the sunshine (hopefully), and get one more Butler's hot chocolate, the fabled "best hot chocolate in Galway." We're then going to an early dinner at the same place we went to our first night, getting a last Bulmers (hopefully accompanied by a last trad session) and then walking back to watch a Christmas movie. I will then wrestle with my too-small bag once more, pray that it decides to zip, and watch my last few hours of Irish television. At 2 am I am taking the bus to Dublin airport, which will hopefully be nap time. After 5 hours of waiting in the airport (yes, I booked the wrong bus, but it was 1 euro, so I'll take the 5 hour wait), I will finally say goodbye to Ireland. For twelve hours. Wish me luck!!

An Anglo-Irish dictionary...of sorts

I know I have mentioned Irish phrases and words on here before, but I thought I would try to give a more comprehensive Anglo-Irish list. Here we go.
Stripey - striped. As in, "this shirt is stripey."
Slippy - slippery.
Gas - funny.
Craic - fun.
Holiday - vacation.
Gorg - short for gorgeous. So..."Patrick Dempsey is gorg."
Lashing - raining hard. Another term for this is wallashing, though that is only used by Colleen.
Grand - apparently I have been using this wrong. It means alright, not great.
Cheers - thanks. As hard as I try, I can't pull this off without sounding over enthusiastic.
Class- great. "Clay Aiken is class."
Your man/your one - a person you are talking about. "Your man went to the store yesterday."
Biscuits - all cookies without chocolate chips. I know, it's odd.

I think I fell in love...

When I first got here, I really liked Ireland. I enjoyed all the quirky differences and the pretty scenery. More than anything, I feel like I was looking for the stereotypes of Ireland, and enjoying them thoroughly once I found them. I loved the green hills because Ireland is supposed to be green, I liked the pubs because there were supposed to be charming pubs in Ireland. While I was busy doing this, trying to find the stereotypical Ireland in the real one, I unknowingly fell in love with the real Ireland. I realized this this morning on my walk into town, with the grass frosty and my fingers slowly turning numb. What do I love about the real Ireland? I love the beautiful, lilting accents. The heavy, stone Cathedral set in the middle of Galway City. The rushing Corrib River that is slowly swelling to touch the bottom of the bridges. The busy weekend market smashed between the old medieval church and bustling shop street. The blue and red of Tescos under a fantastic clear sky. And though most of me is ready to go, to be home in sunny California where my family, friends, and car live, a smaller part of me wants to stay.

Nollaig Shona Duit!

I am slowly, and not so surely, learning Irish. Nollaig Shona Duit means Merry Christmas (just don't ask me to pronounce it). The last two days have been so fun and relaxing, and also very Christmasy. My roommates and I have been decorating our apartment for Christmas. It looks like Buddy the Elf just moved in, considering all our decorations are made out of paper. We have a Christmas tree as tall as me, complete with ornaments, lights, and presents, we have a fireplace with stockings, and we even have a left over hand turkey dressed like Santa. After baking and cutting up a storm yesterday, we went out for a "last supper" with our CEA group. We started out with ice skating, which was so so fun! All my geeky rollerblading days paid off at last. After we were all tired and sore-footed (is that a word?) we went to dinner at a nice Italian restaurant downtown. There's nothing like living in expensive Ireland to make you appreciate going out to dinner! Not only did we eat to our hearts content, and a little more, but they put little Christmas boxes on the table. Inside were poppers, paper crowns, and those little New Years horn things. Needless to say, this kept us quite entertained. It's been so nice, I almost don't want to leave. But home sounds so good, as do my wonderful family and friends!

Lazy Days

"I studied in Galway, Ireland," "It's lashing out," " He's gorg." Imagine this all in a horrendously fake Irish accent, and you see what my poor roommates have to deal with this afternoon. Considering I have far too much free time on my hands, one of my new missions is to learn to imitate the Irish accent. It is proving to be very difficult. Besides that, not much is going on in Galway. Tonight my roommates are having a "farewell dinner." We are going to get really classy, order in pizza, and go see The Christmas Carol (in 3D, which Colleen is overly excited about). In addition, my lovely roommate had decided to make one last apple crumble, which will top off the night wonderfully. And...I come home in nine days!!

Roma!

My four days in Rome was a great mixture of beautiful sights, precious sunlight, and lots of laughter. Colleen and I got there on Wednesday and got back last night, which was just enough time. The first day we went to the Collosseum, Palatine Hill, and the Roman Forum (translate: the history geek's heaven) and then walked across the city to what our tour guide said was "the best gelato in Rome." As I have not tried every gelateria in Rome, I can't say for sure that he was right, but I think it's a pretty safe bet. Not only was the ice cream absolutely delicious, but they topped it with a huge dollop of fresh whipped cream. Yumm. Our second day there we braved the subway and headed to Vatican City. After a slight mishap in which Colleen and I got temporarily separated (and without working cell phones) we emerged from the subway right on the doorstep of the Vatican, and even missed the infamous line. Despite the lack of Pope sightings, the Vatican was well worth the trip. To top the day off we went out that night dressed up in all our new Irish finery and visited the Trevi Fountain. The fountain is absolutely huge and lights up at night; it was gorgeous. Our last day we only had until mid afternoon, so we walked (I'm becoming quite the walker!) to the Travestevere district, which is a cute little neighborhood that looks more like a little Italian town than part of a huge city. We had one last delicious pizza, made one last stop to our favorite gelateria, and were back on our way to Ireland. It was a great trip, but I'm glad to be back in my little home away from home.

It's beginning to feel like...

Christmas! And I love it. This last weekend was perfect for getting in the holiday spirit. The weather has been suspiciously cooperative, so on Saturday Colleen and I went downtown to take advantage of it and we did some Christmas shopping. I got almost everything I need, which was both fun, painful, and quite a relief. I then went over to a friends house to watch a rugby game (I know, shocking) and some disney movies. Not only did Ireland win the match, but Miko was more charming than ever. The next day I caught up on some important reading (Twilight counts as important, right?) and then went to an advent service at the Church of Ireland. It was beautiful. The church is an old medieval church, and it was all lit up with candles. Everyone was wrapped up in scarves and jackets, even in the church, and holding their own individual candle. And the choir was unbelievable! It was like a scene out of a Christmas movie, and I now feel like it is officially Christmas time.