london calling

i had an absolutely amazing weekend. i went to london for my zeta's abroad - europe/uk ZTA weekend and it was so much fun. i really was looking forward to it and to meeting other ZTA's abroad.

so my flight was at 8.10 from cork, so i wanted to be at the airport around 6.30-6.45ish... so i am always good at waking up when my alarm goes off, and setting it properly - i never once missed a 6am practice for crew - never recieved the dreaded phone call, i was the one to make the phone call. so i set my alarm for 4.45 so i could catch the 6.15 bus to the airport. soo imagine my surprise when i wake up at 6.45 - i saw the time on my clock and was like thats not right, look at my computer - shiiiit. so i'm trying to put in my contacts as i'm looking up taxi numbers online. i call a taxi while i'm getting dressed - luckily i was all packed, i just needed to throw my makeup bag into my bag and i'm making sure i have my passport, camera and wallet. so the taxi arrives like 10 mintues later and we head to the airport. thank god for living 15 minutes from the airport, so i arrive at 7.10, making my flight no problem. so i did my makeup and hair in the bathroom and i think my heart started beating normally once i got on the plane.

it was a quick and easy flight to stansted, where i hopped on the train to london, and made my way on the underground to parliament, where it was a gorgeous sunnnnny day! yay! so i had about an hour before i was supposed to meet yorkie for lunch, so i sat across the thames from parliament and read. it was great and so nice to be in london when it was warm. so that was fun, met up with yorkie for lunch - where we caught up on everything and it was fabulous to see her. so it was too late to meet up with with a few ZTA's who invited me to a later lunch, so i decided to go drop my bag off at melissa's house (a sister who i was spending the weekend with), so i found her flat easily, a gorgeous area and met her husband. dropped my bag off and headed back to parliament, because i was getting a tour!

one of the london zeta's works for a mp - so i find the right entrance, and tell the security person, who i'm meeting and it's not on the list, i was like well this is the mp and this is the person who i'm meeting they let me in.. so i get in and i'm standing around and trying to see where i go next, and i hear an american accent on the phone - so after she hangs up, i tap her on the shoulder and ask are you a ZTA? luckily she was, and she was calling stacey - the one who works in parliament. so after we found everyone we went on a tour. soooooooooo amazing, the history of the building, and the ceremonial atmosphere and it was just reallly cool. it was also great, because she works there so she kept telling us fun stories, and just her thoughts about working there, so it was a lot different than a regular tour. then after the 7 of us on the tour went to dinner and met up with everyone else who was coming from work.

dinner was great, there were 12 of us there and it was great to hear 12 completely different stories of how we all ended up in england/brussels/austria/ireland. we were all different ages, from all over the country (but half were from texas!) and had been living abroad from a year to 15 years. so dinner was great, lots of fun conversation and everything. i was the only new person, so it was kinda weird at times, but they were all so welcoming and friendly. so after dinner melissa and i headed back to her place where we hung out for a bit before bed.

saturday morning we were off bright and early to meet everyone at king's cross to catch the train up to cambridge. it was a fun ride up with 10 of us talking, sharing stories and laughing. we met up with a few more people in cambridge and had a fun lunch, then set off for our walking tour of the town. i love cambridge, it was amazing and a really fun place. i can totally see myself living there. there were bike everywhere, which was cool and our guide was awesome and told us lots of fun things, we had fun enjoying the sunshine! and talking. after the tour we split, some were headed back to london, while i stayed with a few others to walk around more and to head to evensong at king's college, which was amazing, a semi-mass service sung by an amazing boys choir, and the little ones were sooo cute. but it was just ear candy and the cathedral in king's college, wow - i didn't know where to look, it was just so amazing. so cambridge uni is amazing, i loved trinity college and also st. john's. i would love to go there, just the history and the small college feel of the huge uni and the town of cambridge. ahhh loved it. after evensong we had a fun dinner and then train ride back to london.

sunday after a fabulous breakfast at melissa's i met up with kristen from austria to head to the national gallery, which was amazing! lots of picassos, van goh and matisse. it was fun to walk around and talk with kristen, we are toally different - she has been married for 15 years to an austrian, with 3 boys but had a fabulous day. she went to uni in texas, so she was dying for texas food, so we went to the texas embassy, which had amazing fajitas and strawberry margaritas. yummmmmy! then we did some shopping - i can't resist the gap when i am in the uk - ireland why is gap only in dublin? seriously. i miss it. so then we caught the train to the airport and caught our flights home.

so it was a fabulous weekend and it was awesome to meet other women like me living abroad and to be able to share in our sisterhood. this weekend really helped me to see that zeta is forever, and isn't just college.

so now i'm onto thesis, bah. work yesterday was crazy, because i was all by myself and today was just busy so i didn't get anything done. oh well. i read a few things today, and need to read more tonight. i went climbing yesterday for the first time in about a month and a half, it was fun and great to catch up with everyone. so off to finish reading :)

some of us at parliament

i'm catching the hogwarts express!

lots of bikes in cambridge

punting on the river in cambridge

trafalgar square on a busy sunday morning

done with classes!

so as of 11.15 this morning i am done with classes!
like done, until i decide to go on an get another degree.
scary huh?

now i just have until october 3rd to write 20,000 words on irish emigration.
and i'll have my masters.

it is kinda weird to think i'm done with classes, after 18 years of them.
now onto writing an almost book.

class today was good, we met at a coffee shop by the college and just talked about our papers. it was good, and she gave us some good advice on writing the thesis, such as meeting up as a class once a week to talk about our research and writing, so i would like to do that, because then it is a semi deadline each week, of at least talking about what you did/ or didn't do that week.

then kara and i went into the city it is a gorgeous day! and ran some errands and lunchy!

meg is visiting me, it has been fun seeing her :)

and i am getting very excited for my ZTA weekend!

enjoying the next few days now that i am done with my historiography paper and then thesis work starts monday...

still bored at work

so i'm sending e-cards to friends, because hey, it is fun to do and i am still bored at work. soooo i enjoy someecards.com because i think they are just hilarious, and i see this one.

and i have to start laughing. there was a note in our office this morning saying that there will be an electrical shutdown of a few houses along college road, including our office because ESB is upgrading the system and there is major road construction outside as well. so seeing that and then the email just totally made me laugh. hahahahha.

anyway back to your usual mondayness.

xx

bored at work...

it is a boring monday at work today.
like i have looked at everyone's facebooks from the weekend, caught up on my nyc gossip, emailed a few people, caught up with the real news and all the other random things i do online and it is only noon.

it is a really slow day in the office, like 2 landlord phone calls and only a few people in asking about housing.

now i could be working on the editing of my paper, but i am not in the mood to think just yet.

so here are some of my favourite headlines from the news today...

Danish PM Jogs with Facebook Fans
apparently he is the 10th most popular person on fbook, and the most popular in europe. hahaha.

seriously - $10,000 for a birthday party

i'll just have to be the other woman
eli manning is married.

don't get your kidney out in ireland
wrong one removed...

so it was a fun weekend. saturday night kara and i went out and it was a fun night. i forgot how crowded the city centre is on a saturday, but it was still fun. and i worked most of the day yesterday on my paper, getting the editing done and it is almost there, i'll be working on it this afternoon.

meg is over visiting, and her friend leaves today so we will be hanging out the rest of the week :)

and it is such a blaaah, day outside, cloudy and windy and ireland.

the last chapter of a long and complicated story

Very interesting week. I spent last weekend and Monday writing a rough draft of my paper for Cindy. And met with her on Wednesday to talk about it, it is good, I just need to make a few changes in it before Wednesday. So this is the last thing I have for my Masters besides my Thesis, kinda scary. Especially since the last classes are this week. Seriously how is it almost the end of April?

So Saturday after spending most of the day in the library, I went over to Kara’s for some pizza and trashy TV. It was glorious. Yay for a comfy Saturday night in and relaxing. Sunday was paper all day, after cleaning the house in the morning. So that was fun, not really. Monday was back to the usual, work and then I decided to go to the library Monday evening, and I saw the library was increasing their hours for the study month, so I was excited to not be getting kicked out of the library at 2am! But of course it is UCC, so the library and I hate each other, so of course it isn’t that simple. So at 10pm we were kicked out the library only to have to line up outside to be let back in. So Monday night I was in like with about 100 other people lined up outside the library like it was a bloody club. Never again, I’ll have to be more productive working at home from now on. So that was my fun Monday night. Tuesday was just work and dinner with Kara, then more paper, nothing fun.

Wednesday after my meeting with Cindy and lunch with Kara, I finally got to meet Jenna! Jenna, as in the other girl Jenna. I know it sounds crazy (to most people), but it was great. It was fabulous to finally meet her, and it was even better we finally met back in Cork.Her boyfriend are traveling a week in Cork visiting friends and then off to Europe for a few weeks. So it was seriously awesome to talk with her. We emailed a lot that summer and fall semester of senior year, and since then have kept in touch, mostly by facebook, so we both knew each other's story but talking about them together was even better. We would be sitting in the pub, having different conversations and then be like OMG, I just remembered something and then we would laugh. We really do have a lot in common, a lot more than we realized, but yet we are very different. Does that make sense?

So it felt like meeting her really closed that book, like it was the final chapter to a long story. It was definitely needed and I'm glad it finally happened. It was great just talking about everything and sharing our experiences. The best thing out of everything was the fact I made a great friend, so we can thank him for that.

So Megan is over in Ireland visiting, her and a friend stayed at my place last night, and they will be back tomorrow, they went to Killarney and Galway for the weekend and then her friend leaves Monday and Meg is here until Thursday. So lots of visitors :) which has been great. I love seeing my friends.

So I have become obsessed with Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill. It is bad, but both shows are sooo addictive. And sad news in hockey, the Devils lost their series to the bloody Rangers, I'm surprised my dad hasn't said anything to me yet. oh well. Anyway, time to get dressed, Kara and I are going out tonight for a night on the town. It should be fun, because we haven't gone out together in forever!

rowing

i really miss crew.
it is april, i should be racing every weekend, then getting home sunday night for sunday funday.
i want to race, i want to feel a set boat gliding through the water, i want to feel the adrenaline and grace of 9 people as one, i want to screambowball, i want the feeling of crossing the line first.

i miss 6am practices on the chester watching the sunrise and mist off the river. singing while we de-rig the boat. checking and quadruple checking my boat before a race. calling hands on and walking to launch for a race. funny practices. conversations with my stroke. always telling bow to lightly tap it. reminding the girls to breathe. always doing everything in two. dport. power 10s. cough drops. wednesday morning races with the little boys. running down to the boathouse with the team. wearing 8 layers. the chaos of raceday. the boathouse. and most importantly my girls.

this weekend was knecht, one of my favourite races. i like the site and course, lots of great schools. my boat usually did pretty well, the weather is crazy and it is just a great weekend. the girls did well, the 8 came in second and the 4 came in third, so i am proud of them.

so spent the day working on my paper, i have almost 1000 words written. so i'm happy with my progress so far, i also cleaned the house :) yesterday i spent most of the afternoon in the library reading for the paper, then went over to kara's for some pizza and trashy tv. we are fans of the most trashy show ever, paradise hotel 2. it is hilarious and highly entertaining. it was a fun evening.

busy week ahead with work, papers and visitors. but it should be fun!

so here are a few of my favourite rowing videos...

men's 8 2004 olympics
i remember watching this 4 years ago at 3am, just jumping up and down when they won. i love at the end pete jumping into the stroke's arms.

inches
just love it. and so true, especially in crew. inches do matter.

coxing a race
this guy is pretty intense, he makes me laugh.

another fav
makes me miss spring break and just sends shivers and makes me want to row...

the only one i couldn't find was my favourite one, the world championships one mike used to show all the time, i still get shivers when i think about that race.

and now back to reality after a fabulous week in greece

back to reality.

greece was amazing. i had a spectacular time. it is an amazing country and so many interesting things to do. i really enjoyed athens, there was just something special about it. and santorini was just ammmmmazing. honestly. so awesome.

wednesday was a long day. i left my house at 8 to catch the bus to the airport, my flight was at 10 (i love the flight to dub, it only takes 30 minutes) met up with kel and then waited for our 2.30 flight to athens. the flight was long - 4 hours.. lol most of my flights recently have been like an hour and a half tops. i guess thats what i get for only flying to GB the whole time i've been here. so with the 2 hours we gained, it was about 8.30 when we landed in athens. i was so amazed with the greek everywhere, it made me very happy. i dont know why, but i loved it. we easily found the metro and made our way to the hotel. it was funny while trying to find the hotel we turned the corner and there was the acropolis, it was just sooo amazing and i just stopped and took it in. made a few wrong turns trying to find the hotel but found it pretty easily, the streets aren't labeled so well, and most of them are just small little alley's anyway.

thursday was the acropolis. i liked it, a lot! i loved looking up and seeing the acropolis from like everywhere around the city, and it was pretty cool. the acropolis is a huge part of the city and it is kinda in the centre, which is nice. there are sooo many things there, like about 10 major ancient places (such as theatre's, temples and such) and i thought they were just so cool. we took the most round about way there but it was a fun walk, from the stuff i had it said from the plaka just walk up... so we did, along these little cobble streets and there were some gorgeous views of the city as we walked up until we go there. so we walked around, it seemed pretty crowded, so i dont even want to imagine what it must be like in the summer! i just found the acropolis so amazing. i think the reason i liked it so much was because these are some of the oldest things in the world and they are so well preserved. we also walked around the syngmata area, which is where parliament is - we saw the changing of the guards, which was hilarious, they have the funniest uniforms. we also walked throught the national gardens and around the commerical centre of the city.

friday was a looong day. we were up early to get to the port to catch our 7.25 ferry to santorini, which was going to take 9 hours. it wasn't too bad, a gorgeous sunrise from the port and saw a few pretty island, slept a little, mostly read and just relaxed. but the ferry was worth it for the view coming into santorini. honestly. breathtaking. santorini is the island from the sisterhood of the traveling pants. the island is super unique. so in 1600 BC, a volcano erupted, and they think this was one of the worst natural disasters (the whole atlantis thing is said to be about santorini)

so the island used to be a circle, but the volcano, formed the caldera, which the island is famous for. so now the main island is a large crescent, with a few small islands in the center- volcano, and then another one along the other side. so the main island on the caldera side has these magnificent cliffs, and the cities of oia and fira are built into the cliffs. so coming into the port is just awesome.
so santorini was unbelievable. i took some videos at places, because pictures just didn't do any justice. the island is just amazing, the geography of it and how unique it is. the night we got there we just walked around and saw the sunset from fira (the town we were staying in), saturday was kinda cloudy and rainy, so we walked around fira more, where in one of the shops i bough a few paintings. they are super awesome oil paintings, i bought one about the size of a poster of oia, and then 3 small 4x6s of the sunset over oia. i can't wait to have my own place and get them framed. they were super cheap too :) walking around fira was fun, so many little streets, walking only, along the caldera with the cutest shops, sooo many jewelry stores, cafes.. it was fab :) later that afternoon kelly didn't feel well and the weather was icky, so we just relaxed.
monday was nice and sunny, but windy, so we went to the black sand beaches of perissa, soo cool black sand. it is like that from the volcano apparently. it got your feet realllllly dirty.but it was sooo neat. the aegean sea was sooo pretty, and i could imagine the beaches full in the summer, even though they were empty.the beaches are on the non-caldera side of the island. that night we went to oia (the northernmost part of the island) for the sunset, - most of the pants book takes places in oia - which they say is the prettiest in greece for sunsets, and they were totally right. even though it was kinda cloudy, it was still unbelievable. there were so many people there all along the little streets along the cliffs with the sunset, it goes down as one of the top 5 sunsets i've seen. it was super windy, i got so many amazing sunset photos :)

monday we had a few hours before we caught the ferry back to athens so we just walked around and sat in a cafe along the caldera. the ferry back was ok, just soooo long. 9 hours really is a killer. we pretty much stayed on the top deck (i felt sick below, it moved too much and gave me a headache) but where we were was kinda enclosed, at least with glass on top and most of the sides, but it got pretty chillyat night. got back to athens around 12.30 am and was exhausted. seriously tired.

slept in tuesday and took a bus to sounion (about an hour and a half, along the coast) where at the end of the attica peninsula is a temple to poseidon. and it was awesome, it is there all by itself, with some islands in the distance and just so quiet. it is still pretty intact, and lord byron (british admiral, who during the greek independence in 1821, went and helped greece) pretty much said it was the prettiest place on earth. so it was cool and fun :) our last day wednesday we went to kermeikos. to get there we walked around the streets and markets of montastraki and it was fun to see the different random things people were selling. kerameikos was a cemetary, but also where the main road to athens went through, as well as where the gates to heaven were and a ton of other things in its history. so it was pretty awesome. then we walked back along the road along the acropolis, stopping at a few of the things we missed the other day, 2 theatres and something else., i can't remember, but it was awesome :) we walked around the plaka (the area where were were staying) again and then headed to the airport.

the flight back to dublin, was bad. i just couldn't get comfortable and was really restless. kelly slept the whole time. we got in around 12 and found a place to crash in the airport and got back to cork around 10. took a small nap, met kara for lunch and grocery shopped and gossiped about the last 2 weeks of traveling for the 2 of us and then did some readings.

so now i am in paper mode. after work today i spent most of the day in the library, not as productive as i would have liked to, but i had a few good distractions from chats with twin and amy. so i'm off to the library all day tomorrow and sunday to write my bloody historiography. my goal is to have a rough draft by wednesday so i can talk with cindy about it. and then a few days to revise/edit before it is due. plus i'm having people staying at my house from the 16-24th... so i would like to be slightly social, rather than chained to my laptop.

acropolis

guards at parliament

on the ferry
oia at sunset, my favourite picture from greece
more oia at sunset
panoramic of the sunset along oia
more sunset


more pictures on facebook.

greetings from santorini

just a quick update, we are in an internet cafe in santorini while waiting for our ferry back to athens. greece is amazing :)

athens is awesome, a big mix between ancient, old and modern. it is really hard to describe, but like walking down the road on one side of you is taxis, and a major road - then on the other side is some ancient pillar or statue and a view of the acropolis. i think they have done a great job of preserving a lot of the history. a lot of the streets are small and narrow and mainly walking only, which is awesome. lots of fun, unique little shops. the acropolis was unbelieveable, seriously amazing. a gorgeous view of the city as well :)

santorini is like a paradise. coming into the island from the ferry there are no words, these gorgeous cliffs and white buildings all carved into the cliffs and just gorgeous. simply gorgeous. the island is amazing, we saw an amazing sunset from oia last night, went to the black sand beaches of perissa and have walked all around the caldera.

we are headed back to athens, where tomorrow we are going to walk around the markets in the plaka and montastraki and then also the sunset from the biggest hill. wednesday we are going to the temple of poseidon and then catching our fight back to dublin.

lots of amazing pictures, i can't wait to upload them :)

sending love from greece!

going greek!

i'm off to greece for the week!

i am soooo excited to play in athens and look at all parthenon and the acropolis and just see everything. and then go to what i have been told is the most gorgeous of the greek islands - santorini!


eeeeeee!!!


off to catch my plane and meet my sister!