How to talk like an Irish person!

• American = sidewalk, Irish = footpath
• American = pants, Irish = trousers
• American = great/awesome, Irish = grand/brillant
• American = hey, Irish = hiya
• American = a good time, Irish = craic
• American = what's up?, Irish = what's the craic?
• American = that was so much fun!, Irish = that was deadly craic!
• American = freeway, Irish = motorway
• American = thanks, Irish = cheers
• American = a lot, Irish = loads
• American = garbage can, Irish = the bin
  

There are loads more funny Irish sayings, but I can't think of them now, so I'll post more later :)

County Meath

This weekend's day trip was to Trim castle and Tara in County Meath. (Four counties down!)
Trim Castle is the biggest Anglo-Roman castle in all of Europe. It's construction started in 1176 and took a total of thirty years to complete! It originally started off as just one story, and then as more and more defense of the castle keep became necessary, more stories and walls and moats got added on. Everything in the castle was designed for defense, like all the narrow spiral staircases twist towards the right because that gives the right handed sword fighter the advantage if he so happened to be sword fighting on them. And the people back then all lived, slept and ate in one big common room, they didnt wash themselves or their clothes either so it must have smelled horrible and been freezing too.

And Tara was so fun to be able to go to due to the ties it has with my favorite book, Gone with the Wind :) Although its just a whole lot a grass on a hill, Tara has a lot of meaning to the Irish people. Up until the 12th century it was the place of spirirual and political power for the ancient Celts. Its where the crowned their kings with the help of the stone of destiny, which when touched by the future king was supposed to scream so loud all of Ireland could hear it! Tara is where all the Kings met to perform rituals with the Celtic gods and goddesses as well.

And back in Celtic times they had this one day out of year, July 1st, when no one was allowed to light a fire on or near Tara, plunging the area in complete darkness because Tara is 300 acres. Then when St. Patrick came to Ireland (I forget the year) he came on July 1st and lit the first fire on Tara symbolizing the arrival of Christianity. And from then on he proceeds to teach the Celts about Christianity, using the shamrock to teach them about the holy trinity, and banishing all the snakes :)

This is what Tara looks like from above....
In the middle of the bigger circle is the stone of destiny....

Glendalough

So this Saturday two of my flat mates and I took a day trip to Glendalough (pronounced glen-da-lock). It's an hour south of Dublin in county Wicklow, so that makes a grand total of three counties I've been to! :)
So far the weather here has been surprisingly great, not cold or rainy at all. How very un-Irish! But of course it poured on Saturday. Which wasn't too bad, it made everything greener. Glendalough is an old Irish monastary town. Founded by St. Kevin in the 5th century, and later on in the 10th century it became a whole town for monks. They grew crops there, raised livestock, and copied manuscripts and did other monk-ish things. In the town the main church there is the only church that old that still has its roof intact. It has a super tall round tower next to the main church which used to serve as a lookout tower/landmark for those trying to find the place. And by super tall I mean 300 ft! We got a tour of the old town and got to walk around and look at all the cool old celtic cross tombstones. Which I learned about in my Pagan Celts class. The old celtic crosses, you know the cross with the ring....

The ring behind the cross symbolizes the Pagan Celts belief in the 'sun God', they joined it to the cross when they were assimilated into Christianity.

Glendalough means 'glen of two lakes' in Gaelic, and sure enough there are two lakes! My roommates and I hiked to the upped one and the hike was breathtakingly beautiful! So many plants, moss, and overall foliage. It was all bright green in the rain and it was very very pretty. It was so neat to visit this place because I have never seen anything so old before! America is a baby compared to other countries, and I guess I never really experienced that before.
If you look closely you can see the church in front of the tower!



This is a tiny model of what the place looked like way back in the day.

2nd week

The first time I went grocery shopping in Dublin I was surprised when buying my things to realise that grocery stores here don't provide 'paper or plastic' here for you! You have to bring your own bags or buy them at the grocery store. This will take me a couple trips to get used to....so far I just keep forgetting my bags. However, yesterday I discovered that it will cost me less to have my groceries delivered straight to my front door than to take the bus to get them myself. Sweet.

My friend Alexia and I made it our goal to visit every county in Ireland before she leaves (she is only here for one semester) There are 32 counties....and we've been to two so far! Galway and Dublin. I am also making a list of everywhere else in Europe I want to visit while I'm here: Scottland, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Estonia, Turkey, Thailand, and Greece. Such a long list! Hopefully I can visit most of them :)

1st week of school done.

I survived my first week at UCD! The week went smoothly and I like all my classes....so far. :) I am taking Biology, Intro to Psychology, Pagan Celts, and Art History. The school system is different here, instead of your grade consisting of homework, participation, a midterm and a final, classes here are based primarily on your final. So, I hope I do well on my finals!!!

This weekend Alexia and I are going to tour Dublin and do all the touristy things there are to do here. I'm excited, it is such a beautiful city.

My Address

Justine Toro

5-9-1 Glenomena Residencies

UCD

Belfield

Dublin 4

Ireland

DUBLIN! Alright, here we go...

So after two six hour flights I finally made it into Dublin around 4:45 in the morning Irish time, around nine p.m. USA time. My wonderful wonderful friend Sean Murphy, an exchange student from ireland to sjsu that I met last semester, met me at the airport to take me to campus and show me around town (or what was town at 5 am!) We had breakfast at a small irish cafe and then began to waste time until I could check in at my apt on campus.

We drove around Dublin a bit, but couldn't see much because it was still dark at this time. So we drove over to campus to walk around a bit but of course, typical Ireland, it was pouring so much we quickly made out way back to the car.

-Speaking of cars! DRIVING ON THE WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD IS SOOOOO STRANGE!!!!-

I wonder how long it will take me to get used to it. Whenever we would get into the car after being somewhere I would always walk to the driver's side door, and Sean would be like, 'uuuuhhhhh justine, wrong side....' haha. It will def take some time to get used to.

Next adventure was at the mall since it was nice and dry (mind you this is around 8am, I have never been to a mall that early!) Sean helped me get a phone and comforter there. A lot of the stores there are the same, it looked like it could be a regular American mall. Except there were these cool things there, they were like escalators, but flat! Loved 'em, walked backwards on 'em :)

Now we had sufficiently wasted enough time and I was able to check in. Long story short, checking into my apartment consisted of: huge campus, lots and lots of walking in the rain, super long lines (or queues, pronounced "Q") amounting in hours of waiting, sore arms from hauling all my luggage, and a hungry stomach. However, it was all fun, it was so funny to hear irish accents all around me. They don't say our "th" sound at all, so whenever they say something like three it sounds like tree, or third sounds like turd. Hahahaha. love it. But my check in went without any problems and I got into my room and got my student card.

Then we went to the Irish equivalent of Safeway, called Tesco, where I got hangers, shampoo/condish, some food, toilet paper, and a mug. I am currently in my room listening to Tay Swift and the heavy rain. I unpacked some, hung up some pix and my flag. haha. I will post pictures of things later.....

So far I lovelovelove Dublin. A lot of it is different and strange compared to what I'm used to.....The ambulances are yellow, people drive and walk on the left side, the accents, the brands, the people. I love it all and can't wait to see more of it! ....Good bye for now.....

Slainte! (Gaelic for 'cheers' or 'good health')

p.s. I have yet to meet my suite-mates, cross your fingers for me!