Midterm Break!!

Hello Everyone!!

Well what a great week off I have had!  Monday-Wednesday I just hung around Galway.  Some of the things that I did were go t the Cinema, walk the Prom, and do some shopping.  Emily, Megan, Brendean and I went and saw "Gnomeo and Juliet" at the cinema.  It was a very funny movie, but the people at the movie didn't laugh. We were the only ones laughing..but we think that the kids weren't really getting the humor so thats why they weren't laughing.  It was kind of adult humor.  Megan, Brendean, Emily, David and myself walked the Prom one day.  It was a gorgeous day out, and we saw millions of swans.

The Spanish Arch

This is a famous sight that is found on many postcards

All the beautiful swans

The walk along the Prom

Again the view from the Prom

Another view from the Prom

Wednesday night, I had to pack and get ready for London.  Our flight left Thursday at 6:15am! Which meant we (David, Collin-a friend of David's from Texas, and I) needed to take a 1:45 bus to Dublin to meet up with Cassie in Dublin.   Thursday was a very early morning, which made it a very long day!  The flight from Dublin to London-Gatwick, was about one hour.  When we arrived in London, we had to figure out how to get from Gatwick airport, to London city..this was proving to be more difficult then we thought.  We finally decided to take a train! :)  It was very fun taking a train!  When we arrived in London city, we found a place to eat breakfast.  Little did we know we were eating breakfast right across the street from Buckingham Palace.  So after breakfast we began our touring of London, starting with Buckingham Palace.  This building is absolutely amazing!  Each day we covered a lot of London.  Here are the things that we saw, Big Ben, Britain War Museum, Westminster Abbey, Thames River Boat Cruise, Parliament, the London Eye, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace Mews, Natural History Museum, Hyde Park, Kensington Palace (where we went on the "Enchanted Palace" tour, the changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace, London Tower, Bourough Market, Majesty's Theatre, St. Paul's Cathedral, Wimbledon, and the Chelsea Football Club.  Cassie and I went and saw "The Phantom of the Opera" at Majesty's Theatre.  It was a very good performance!  OHHH and since we bought the tickets for this performance, that meant we needed to go and get a nice outfit for the night.  While we shopped the guys went to a pub..we were to meet up with them after, but Cassie and I got lost.  We were walking all over London, before we finally decided to have a taxi take us to the pub...it didn't help though that we didn't bring our map and we also only knew the street that the pub was on but didn't know which end of the street...but we couldn't even find our way to the street so it really didn't matter if we knew where the pub was on the street! haha.  I bought a dress, leggings, and shoes for 53 Pounds.  Not to bad!  At the Kensington Palace, they had made it into an "Enchanted Palace" which was like a scavenger hunt/haunted house.  We had to walk into the different rooms, and figure out which princess belonged to each room.  The Buckingham Palace Mews, was where the horses are kept and the different carriages are kept.  Wimbledon and the Chelsea Football Club, were so awesome!  At Wimbledon, we got to go on a tour that allowed us to see things such as the different courts, the media room, the players entrance etc.  At Chelsea, we didn't actually go on the tour, but we got to go into the Museum, see the field from sitting in the family box (where the players family members sit).

Big Ben

West Minister Abbey

one of the horses at the Buckingham Mews

Kensington Palace

Buckingham Palace

Riding down the street

Tower Bridge and the HMS Belfast ship

Me on the Tower Bride

Cassie and I before the Opera

St. Paul's Cathedral

Me at Wimbledon on court 1

Me at Wimbledon

Chelsea Fooball Club

Chelsea Football Field

London Bridge at night

Each day we had adventures using the Tube.  At one point we got on and got off a train, and then got on and off a train again, and then finally got on a tube and hoped to make it to where we needed to be.  Another time when we needed to take one of the Tube lines all the way to the end, which was very far out from London city center, to Wimbledon, there were parts of the Tube closed for routine repairs..that made for quite the trip of getting on and of the Tube multiple times, and trying to figure out what bus to take to finish our route to Wimbledon.  Lets just say we got off too soon, and had to walk 30 minutes in the rain to get to Wimbledon, but it was so worth it!  When we tried to take the tube to get to the place where we needed to be to catch the bus to the airport on our last night, we had to take 5 different tubes in order to get to where we needed to be due to either just needing to change Tube routes like normal, or due to the fact that the Tube would "terminate" so we would have to get off and get on a different tube.

The Tube

As for where we stayed...well we were there three nights but only stayed in hostels for two of the nights.  The first night we stayed in the Astor Hyde Hostel, where we were in a room with 12 beds.  It was quite the experience after having our own room in Cork.  The second night we stayed in The Green Man.  We found a building labeled "The Green Man", but it was a bar...so we were like ummmm shoot this isn't it.  BUT it was!!  The hostel was above the bar!  It was actually really nice.  The people there were very nice.  Our room was for 9 people.  Here we had a guy from Hong Kong, named Welly, a girl from Switzerland, a girl from Canada, and two other girls.  At the hostel, the bar is open 24hrs a day for those staying at the hostel.  The bar closes to the public at around midnight, and then it is open to the hostel guests the rest of the night and if you wanted to have a drink for breakfast you could.  For breakfast in both of these hostels, we had toast and cereal. The night we stayed at the Green Man, we came back and went to the bar at our hostel.  David, Cassie, Welly, and I hung out with one of the workers who had just gotten off work.  His name was Fausdo.  He was quite the funny guy, and he really wanted us to like him.  The next day when we went to Wimbledon, Welly came with us.  So you might be wondering what we did our last night there for sleeping??...well here is what we did:  So we had another early flight out at 6:15am, so we would have to be to the airport very early. So we had planned to stay at a bar until midnight, then catch a bus or something to the Stanstead Airport, and hang out there till the flight would leave....WELL  that didn't quite work out quite that way.  We hung out at a pub, but they closed at six so we had to try and find somewhere else to hang out.  We eventually made our way to the side of town where we were to find the bus to take to Stanstead.  There was a pub right next to the bus stop so we sat in there having a drink and playing the game called "13".  We took the 11:30 bus to the airport and we arrived at 12:37.  When we arrived, all the counters were closed, so we had to sleep on the airport floor!  It was pretty gross.  I never would have pictured myself sleeping on the airport floor.  Needless to say I didn't sleep very well on the floor.  Finally between the flight and bus back to Galway, we arrived in Galway at 11:45am.  It was a long night of not much sleep.

See the hostel check in sign at the bar?!

Our Hostel

I kissed a legend!

Hello!!   What a fantastic weekend of traveling!

Friday at noon, I got done with school for our week long midterm break!!  Cassie, Brendean, Emily, Megan, David, and I took a weekend trip to Cork.  We took a bus out Friday at 5pm and arrived there at around 10pm.  It was a very long bus ride, but we each tried to sleep a little bit.  Then when we got there we went and met up with two girls that David knew from Texas named Heather and Kristin.  They were very nice.  We stayed at the pub for a little while and then went and checked into our Hostel.  Our hostel was called the Kinlay House.  The hostel was in walking distance from the center of town and the bus station.  We got lucky and had a room that only could hold the six of us instead of ten like we had booked.  That was great, because we left our clothes and things in there and took our valuables with us during the day.  It lightened our load.  The bathroom in our room was soooo tiny, I could literally sit on the toilet and wash my hands or brush my teeth at the same time.

Our Hostel

The graffiti on the wall of the hostel

our room: 3 sets of bunk beds!  

Saturday we took a trip out to Blarney.  Kristen and Heather came with us to Blarney.  Here we saw the Blarney castle and kissed the legend (the Blarney Stone).  The stone was at the top of the castle. It was quite the hike to the hop of the castle.  The staircase was a spiral staircase and it was very narrow and seemed to get more narrow the higher up we went.  In this castle there was a spot called the Murder Hole...see picture posted below for an understanding of what it is.  The view from the top of the castle was absolutely amazing!!  We were so high up!  Next was kissing the Blarney Stone.  This involved sitting down, grabbing two bars while leaning backwards down a whole, having a guy hold onto you, and then really lean down the whole and kiss the stone!  It was quite scary actually, but it was so much fun!  They took two pictures as we did this, and then we could buy them.  They are pretty funny.  After this, the rest of the group besides Cassie and myself, took the bus back to Cork to go on the Jamison Whiskey tour, but Cassie and I stayed at the castle and did some wandering and saw some amazing things!  We saw crazy looking trees, and went to the fern garden which was just awesome!!  After we finished there we took the bus back to Cork, and did some shopping/walking around town.  We didn't end up buying anything but we did go into many shops!  When the rest of the group came back we went to dinner at A14.  It was very delicious!  After that we went to two different pubs.  One was called the Old Oak and the second pub was called the Hi-B Bar.  The Old Oak was a HUGE pub! It seemed to never end!  When we went to the Hi-B Bar, it was so tiny and very crowded.  We all really enjoyed going to those pubs and spending the day with our new Texas friends, Kristin and Heather!  After the pubs, Emily did some dancing  on the street! It was so entertaining!  Then we went to McDonalds!  They have the most amazing chairs in the McDonalds here!

Blarney Castle

kissing the Blarney

sweet looking tree

at the fern garden

thats where the blarney stone

the McDonalds Chairs!

Today, Sunday, we didn't do too much...the town is basically shut down on Sunday's.  So we basically ate breakfast, wandered the streets, ate lunch and then caught a bus back to Galway.  Tonight, we are going to this pizza place that is close to our house and are going to watch a movie.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!

<3 Amber

Happy Birthday!

Hello!  

So much to talk about.   This was quite the busy and stressful week.  On Tuesday, I got observed by a professor from UMD.  The following night we went out to dinner with her.  We went to eat at a place called "The Couch Potato".  You could get just about anything on a potato.  I got a potato called the HAWAII 5-0.  It was delicious! :)  

Hawaii 5-0

This weekend was Brendean's birthday.  So on Friday night, Texas, Brendean, Megan, Emily, and I went out.  We first went to the Townhouse Bar, then we went to this little bar called O'Tooles.  It reminded me of the Maghera in Northern Ireland! :)  Emily calls it the old man's bar, but we love it.  I would be content going there every night I think!  I just loved that it reminded me of the Maghera! So many great memories from that pub in N. Ireland!  

On Saturday, I did some homework/lesson planning in the morning, and then we had class from 2-6...it was soooo boring.  We skyped in so we could hear the lecture that was taking place back in Duluth.  After class we got ourselves ready for the night and we went to dinner for Brendean's birthday.  We went to a place called Cactus Jacks.  The food was very good!  We ordered three pitchers or margaritas to split between the 6 of us. They dimmed the lights and brought out a dessert for Brendean and sang happy birthday to her.  She was very embarrassed but loved it at the same time.  After dinner, we walked down to the Front Door Pub.  We had a drink there and then we started to wander to find another pub or place to go.  We kind of were feeling like trying out a club, so we found one of those people wandering Shop Street, trying to get you to go to their club, and we asked if she could get us in free and she said sure.  So we got in for free!!!   We were the only five people in the bar (Texas went home cause he wasn't feeling good, so it was just us 5 girls)...except for this one guy that had quite the beard and quite the dance moves! He was quite something.  It was fun to be basically the only people in the club for a little while though, even though it was super funny.  We had a great time at the club called Carbon.  We actually met a group of guys who are staying in Cork, who are from Grand Rapids, MN!  How crazy! Speaking of Cork, we have made plans for this next weekend, to spend the whole weekend in Cork!  It should be lots of fun!  

The group at Cactus Jack's for Brendean's Birthday! 

Having fun at club Carbon

Look at his beard and moves!  He was great to watch!

As for today, well just like every Sunday, I spent it doing homework and lesson planning.  fun....not.  

Well since I have been here, two of my friends have gotten engaged! I am so excited for them, and can't wait to do wedding planning with them when I get back!  

<3 Amber 

Milkshake Thursday

Hello!

Well today was a good day!  It started off well, with finally having my favorite bus driver in the morning!  I hadn't seen him for like 2 weeks, because my bus had been getting to Eyer Square too early, so I would be getting on an earlier bus which wasn't his.  But today that changed and it was so lovely!  He is the nicest guy ever!  Each time I see him he give this great big smile, and greets me and asks how I am doing.  Today the bus wasn't going to be leaving for like 10 minutes or so, so we just chatted until it was time to go.  Having him as my bus driver this morning made me feel that this day would be good, and it pretty much was! :)

Once again this week I have been full time teaching.  In science this week we finally got to do our rainbow (light) activity because it wasn't raining and it was sunny outside! :)  We also talked about gravity some more and talked about magnetism.  They loved using the magnets.  In my two different maths classes I was teaching about time, and measuring.  The grammar lesson that I taught this week was Alphabetizing.  The students are very good at this because lots of times their spelling book activities have them put the words in alphabetical order.  Tomorrow is test day (every Friday is test day).  So I am giving a maths test on the measuring, and the time test is next week because we still have lots to cover and they really are not understanding what is being taught to them.

Thursdays, I love Thursdays.  This is the day of the week that I have told myself that I can stop in at the mall after school and get a delicious milkshake from this fabulous milkshake shop! :)  There are sooo many options to get there!  Each time I go, I try something different.  Today I had a milkshake with Rolo's in it.  It was delicious.  Some of the other ones I have had are milkyway, cadburry caramel, and m&m peanut!  All of them have been sooo delicious! I look forward to Thursday afternoons! :)

In about ten minutes we are going to head to town for dinner.  We are having dinner with our professor from the states, who was here this week observing us.  I think we might go to a place called "The Couch Potato"!

Well thats all for now, I need to get back to homework and things.  Hope everyone has been staying warm back home!

<3 Amber

1/2 way

Hello!

Wow, I can't believe I am already half way done with my student teaching in Ireland!! It has gone by so fast!  It seems like just yesterday that I started in the Grianach House School.  Well this week really didn't improve all that much.  I am starting to get burnt out writing all these lessons and doing homework.  It seems that homework and lesson planning is all I have time for these days.

On Thursday my teacher left the school for a couple of hours and left me in charge of the class...they definitely tried to take advantage of that situation.   They started off very good, but as the time went on they got worse and worse.  I think the problem is, that I have only really been teaching 4 of the students, so those are the only 4 students who know and think of me as a teacher.  My teacher heard me discussing with the students about their actions and behaviors and what Mrs. Ford would think about how they were behaving, and she was very disappointed with their behaviors while she was gone.  My four students that I work with are great, they are adjusting to having me as a teacher and having more of a lesson than a self-guided work time.  It is hard for them because they normally just get to keep working on unit after unit in their workbooks, but since I am teaching we are only doing maybe a unit a day because I am planning more lesson time in, and they are having a hard time just stopping, they just want to keep going in their workbooks.  But they are getting the hang of it, and seem to be enjoying having me as their teacher.

This weekend was a very low key weekend for me and the rest of us.  On Friday night I just hung out at my house, I wasn't really in the best mood.  On Saturday, I wrote about 6 lessons!  Also on Saturday, Cassie, David, and I went into town and got lunch at a fish and chips restaurant...I really wasn't feeling the fish even though I have been eating some fish while I have been here, so I ordered chicken and chips.  Later that afternoon, Brendean, David, Cassie, and I watched the movie Shawshenk Redemption.  It was a very good movie.  We had a slight problem though when watching the movie, it kept freezing and finally it froze and wouldn't start back up and then we tried it in Cassie's computer and it worked perfectly...so we ended up having to finish watching the movie on Cassie's laptop..that was something--4 people to one computer screen!  So today we mentioned to Steve about how his DVD player didn't really play the movie and that we had to watch it on a computer and he said yea its not very good...so hopefully he gets us a new one!?  lol.   As for today, well I did just like I have done for the past 2 or 3 Sunday's and have done homework/lesson planning all day.  I am up to 14 lessons written for the week!! Only about 5 more to go for this week.

So its Super Bowl Sunday, and I will be sleeping during the game.  haha.  I would love to stay up and watch it with David and possibly Brendean if she decides to stay up, but I will be wayyyyy to tired the next morning to function if I stay up to watch it.  The game doesn't start till 11:30 our time..I don't really care who wins, so good luck to both teams!  lol  

Take care and enjoy the super bowl!  Have a drink and eat some super bowl snacks for me! :)

<3 Amber

Bacon and Cabbage

Hello!

Well its Tuesday...and its already been a long and not so great week..bummer.  Well last night we had a traditional Irish dinner consisting of bacon and cabbage and a baked potato (we eat a lot of potatoes).  The cabbage was baked.  It wasn't too bad.  I ate it, just not all of it.  There was a lot of it, and I just couldn't eat all of it but I did eat it and would eat it again! Crazy! lol.  Tonight we had breakfast again for dinner! :)  We requested though to not have the black pudding, we realized what it was and decided we couldn't stomach eating that! haha.  but the rest of dinner was delicious! Eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, and white pudding.

Teaching has been a bit stressful this week.  I have started full time teaching this week.  It is going well for the most part.  I spent 10 hours on Sunday doing homework and planning my lessons.  Last night and tonight I have spent the night writing up lessons and doing my homework for classes back home. The subjects that I have been teaching this week are Maths, English, Reading, Spelling, Science, and Writing.  For science we were learning about light and sound.  One of my experiments/activities needed sunlight and well of course that day there wasn't any sun so we had to do the next days activity on that day...darn weather!

Brendean, Texas (AKA David our new roommate) and I really enjoy watching this show called Bondi Rescue (or something like that).  Its a beach lifeguard show, its kinda like a reality show because it is these lifeguards in Australia who are on duty and it shows the different situations that they come across in the day with having to save lives and such.  There is one guy on there who is in his fifties and he pretty much tells the people who he saves just what he is thinking.  Its kinda funny, and then there is a lifeguard who gets pranked and picked on a lot so that is entertaining.  We have definitely grown to watch that show.  I am pretty sure we have watched at least one episode a night for the last 4 nights.  haha.

Well hope everyone is surviving that snow that I have been reading about online!

<3 Amber