Galway

On Thursday 3rd April I went on a 4-day trip to Galway with my friend. During that time we did two smaller day trips, one to Cliffs of Moher and the other to the Aran Islands. Because of those trips, we didn't have that much time to get to know the Galway city itself, mostly just during the evenings and then briefly on Sunday before coming back to Sligo.

When we arrived to Galway on Thursday, it was around 7 pm. So during the first night we didn't do much, just found our hostel (located right in the city center, yay!) and then took a short walk around the city center and had dinner. In the evening the city looked very different, then I didn't fully get the comments about Galway being "one of the most beautiful cities" in Ireland. But the next morning, when it was light again, I could fully understand it. Galway is a lovely city. I would say its city center is one of the most beautiful ones I've seen in Ireland. The buildings are even more colorful and beautiful than what you would normally see in Ireland.

On Friday we went on a trip to see the Cliffs of Moher. Before going to the Cliffs, we did a couple of other stops and got to see the Burren and some of the landscapes on the West coast. After the stops we finally reached the Cliffs of Moher. And I have to say, those must be the Irish landscape at its best. The view and the Cliffs were spectacular. And for once, the weather was on our side. It was the perfect weather, with the sun is shining and hardly even any clouds on the sky. It was amazing to stand on the edge of the Cliffs and stare in the ocean. But I don't think mere words do any justice for this amazing place, so here's some photos:

After getting back to Galway from the Cliffs of Moher, it wasn't that late yet, so we went out to take a look around town. We had dinner and then tried to find a nice pub where we could listen to some traditional Irish music. After some searching, we found a nice place and we sat there for a few hours listening to music. But we went back to our hostel quite early, since we'd have to up early in the morning because we would go on another of our small trips,this  time to the Aran Islands.

The Aran Islands are a small group of Islands on the West coast of Ireland, where people mainly speak Irish. We went to the biggest island, Inishmore, that has about 900 inhabitants. We were eager to see if the people living on the island really speak Irish, since we were really interested to hear the language. But to our disappointment, we only heard Irish once. Some men at the pub where had breakfast were talking to each other in Irish, but all the other people we met spoke only English. But you could see the effect of Irish in other forms, for example most of the road signs on the island were only in Irish.

The landscapes on the island showed some rougher natural beauty. Even if the landscapes were quite rough and perhaps not beautiful in the traditional way, I for one thought the landscapes were quite beautiful. And what was interesting, was the fact that we hardly saw any of the locals when we were for example walking around the island. The only people we saw then were other tourists. That made the island feel a bit like a ghost town.

A lovely beach with such clear and light blue water!

Once we got back to our hostel again, we were too tired after the trip that we just went to bed early. In the morning we woke up a little earlier and used this chance to see the last of Galway and took some photos. We also went to see the National University of Ireland Galway, which was amazing for a school. All we could think was "we want to study there!" The buildings were beautiful, one of them looked a bit like Hogwarts or something like that. And the campus was huge. We walked around it at least 30 minutes and still we felt like we didn't see even nearly all the buildings. Seeing campuses like NUI and Trinity College, it makes me wonder how come we don't have campuses like these in Finland. They do make for example the campus of my school look kinda mundane and dull in comparison. 

After the last tour around Galway it was time to head back to Sligo. Though this time the bus ride back was far from pleasant. It was incredibly hot in the bus, because the air conditioning was broken and it was really sunny outside, which meant that basically the bus felt a bit like a sauna. It was amazing to finally reach Sligo and get out of the hot bus and get some fresh air.

Now it's a couple of days in Sligo and then it's time to hit the road again, because on Thursday we'll begin our big, 2,5-week trip! I'll post about all those places after the trip. Here's a couple more photos of Galway:

*insert creative headline*

Again, I write later than I was supposed to, but that's all because I've been ill, again. But I'm still alive and kicking, so, here we go.
Last week was quite a normal week, nothing that out of the ordinary happened.
Tuesday it was time for tai chi, which is always nice, even if I've had a long day at school. It always calms and mellows you down real nicely. Then on Wednesday, I was supposed to go and try something called stand up paddling with my class, as a part of an Adventure Tourism course. But I couldn't go cause when I woke up that morning, I had a terrible headache so I had no choice but to stay in bed. Not exactly the best way to wake up, I can assure you. But luckily, just after a few hours of sleep and some medicine, I was feeling fine again. In the end, my day, or well night to be exact, turned out to be a really nice one, since I ended up going out with a friend. It was a lot of fun.
Then on Thursday, I went to a kickboxing class with my friend, for the first time in three or 4 weeks. It was so good to be back! I had already forgotten how much I like the sport. My friend and I were even thinking about just going to the gym on our own and working on the kicks and punches, because after all, we only have one hour of kickboxing in a week,which is not enough.
After kickboxing I went out with my friend. Though this night was a bit of a disappointment, since the club we went was supposed to have some over the top amazing DJ, yet, I don't think the music has ever been that bad and rather, undanceable, as it was during that night. Definitely not something I would expect from a place like Velvet.
On Saturday, I finally got to see Strandhill Beach right here in Sligo. I took the bus there with my friend, it was only about 20-minute drive there, yet, the place was like from a whole different world. First of all, the place was gorgeous, beautiful sea and a lovely little village with colorful buildings and trees that looked awfully lot like palm trees, which made you feel more like you were in a seaside town in California, not Ireland. For once, the weather was on our side. The sun wasn't shining, but at least it wasn't raining either. So first, we went to a lovely little cafe near the beach, to eat some crepes. Yummy! After that, it was time to go see the beach and of course take loads of pictures. We took pictures of the beach and some of ourselves by the beach. And here's a couple of photos from that day:

After we got back from Strandhill, my friend and I had to do some more planning for our upcoming 2,5-week trip. We managed to get something done, decided most of the sights we're going to see and all that. Once we were done with the planning, we went out. This time, it was a normal night at Velvet, which was nice. After the crappy Thursday night, all of the normal songs sounded so good! It was a fun night and it one of the first times we've gone out in a while.
But the morning after, it wasn't fun anymore. When I woke up, I felt horrible and I discovered that I had almost 39 degrees of fever. Not the most pleasant wake up call. I don't think I've ever even had that high a fever, or if I did, it was a really long time ago. At first I thought it was just a regular flu, but with a higher fever. But on Monday, I realized that wasn't the case. My throat had began to hurt a little already on Sunday, but by Monday, it was so sore. On Tuesday I was feeling okay enough that I could go see the school doctor, which I did. Luckily enough, I got an appointment for the same day. And I have to say, the school health care seems quite good. I got to see the school nurse almost immediately when I got to the reception and she did a preliminary examination on me and even gave me something for my sore throat. And once I had my appointment with the actual school doctor, I think it took him maybe 2 minutes to check my neck and then check my throat and after that he was already writing me a prescription for both antibiotics and some pain relief for my throat. I had tonsillitis, something I've had a couple of times before back in Finland. But what surprised me this time was that the doctor didn't do any other tests, such as took a swab sample from my throat (something that sucks incredibly much when your throat hurts like hell) and that he actually prescribed something for the pain. In Finland, I've always gotten just the antibiotics, that's it. And of course it was quite a surprise that in total the medicines I got cost only 5€, which is a lot less than in Finland. Yet, the best thing was that medicines really work, after just one day, I feel a lot better, which is awesome. I was already considering of cancelling our weekend trip to Galway with my friend, but I'm glad we didn't.
So tomorrow, I'm off to Galway with my friend and we'll stay there till Sunday. I'll write a post about our trip as soon as I can.

St. Patrick's Day, something, something

On Monday 17th March, was my first ever St. Patrick's Day. I spent the day right here in Sligo. It would have been possible to go to Dublin by bus in the morning and then come back at night, but for some odd reason, the thought of a day in Dublin partying and then a bus ride back to Sligo around 4 am didn't sound that tempting.

There was a small parade in Sligo, with some music (oddly enough, bagpipes, which sounded more Scottish than Irish) and children promoting their sports teams etc. The parade was nice, nothing too extravagant or anything.

Sadly, on the official St. Patrick's Day, very few of the good bars or night clubs were open. On top of that my friend was feeling a bit ill, so we decided not to go out that night. Considering that one of the bars that was open, was one of the worst night clubs in Sligo and the rest most likely were super packed, in all honesty I don't think we missed out on a whole lot.

All in all, St. Patrick's Day was a bit of a disappointment for me. Perhaps my expectations of the day were too high, who knows. But some of the Irish classmates of mine said that sometimes St. Patrick's Day can be worse in Ireland than abroad, for example in America, as weird as it sounds. But oh well, it was still nice to finally get a chance to celebrate the day and to do so in Ireland. And if nothing else, we got to dress up in some of the tacky Ireland accessories! And here's some proof of that:

After the St. Patrick's Day, it was a bit of a slow week. Studying, tai chi, the works. But on Friday, we decided with my friend that we have to start planning for the upcoming trips in Ireland, but also the trips for the 2-week Easter break. And that's exactly what we did. First trip was easy. We decided that the next place to visit here in Ireland for us would be Galway. So we found a nice hostel and in about 1,5 weeks it's Galway calling for 4 days. After that, we started planning for the Easter break. We literally spent hours and hours on checking up hostels, prices on flights, trains, buses, etc. And this is what we came up with: Our trip will take place 10th-28th April and the route will be Sligo-Belfast-Glasgow-Edinburgh-London-Paris-Sligo. So all in all, 5 cities in 2,5 weeks. Could say we are "kinda" excited. Especially when we hadn't even realized that it really is less than 3 weeks till our trip! So now we just wait and buy some things for the trip, such as a smaller suitcase. And planning a some kind of budget for the trip would be quite important too.

Dublin

On Thursday 6th March I did a day trip to Dublin with my Cultural Tourism class, visiting The National Museum of Ireland and The National Gallery of Ireland.
First we went to the National Museum of Ireland. It was such an interesting place, it was cool to learn more about the history of Ireland. And that place had loads of different exhibitions about that from the prehistoric era to the time of the vikings and loads more.Sadly, we had no guided tour in the museum, so most likely I missed out some of the exhibitions and the time spent in the museum felt quite short. But nonetheless it was great to visit the place for the first time and I'd like to visit it again whenever I go back to Dublin.

The museum had some very nice artefacts

The roof of the building was both very beautiful and interesting, a bit of a mind fuck. And it was so big that I couldn't even fit it all in one photo.

After the museum, we had a short break, so I went to for walk around the city center with a friend. Dublin city center is beautiful, even though it's quite a big city, it still has that same feel as all the Irish cities, with old-time buildings and not so many really modern buildings as I would have expected. Also, we took look around the campus of Trinity college, which is one of the oldest colleges in Ireland, dating back to the 16th century. And as schools go, it's definitely one of the most beautiful ones I've seen. The buildings were historical and the campus was huge. As much I like IT Sligo, it was a lot more beautiful than IT Sligo and at least twice as big.
After Trinity college, it was time for our visit in The National Gallery of Ireland. I was a little skeptical about the place at first, because I'm not that big an art enthusiast. But the visit turned out to be quite interesting. The guide who told us about the paintings was very good and I ended up learning something about art. And the paintings we saw were cool too.
Once our at the gallery was finished, most of my classmates took the bus back to Sligo. But I stayed in Dublin for the weekend. My friend didn't arrive to Dublin until around 7 pm, so the few hours of time I had to kill, I wandered around the city center and ended up going to Starbucks (I spotted at least 3 different Starbucks in the city center area alone) for a cup of coffee. I know I know, how very hipster of me. But at least the place had coffee I knew tastes good enough, plus, free wi.fi! After I had sat there for a while, it was time to find my way to the bus station to meet up with my friend. Imagine that, I managed to find the bus station pretty much without getting lost, which with my sense of direction, is huge.
When my friend's bus finally arrived to Dublin, it was time to find our hostel. It ended up being a little further away from the city center than we had thought. Or then the distance just felt longer with our rather heavy luggage. But eventually we made it and finally were able to rest for a little while.

A view from our hostel room

After we had rested, it was time to go check out the town and the night life. Though our night was cut a little short, due to our exhaustion. We had dinner and then went to some rock-themed bar, which was an okay place, one of the few bars with a volume level low enough that you can actually have a proper conversation. After that, we went to some of the bars that were more "tourist" places, since we really wanted to try out Irish coffee and those places were guaranteed to sell it. Both my friend and I had been feeling a bit ill for a while, and this was the time to test whether something like Irish coffee would actually help with the flu symptoms. Funnily enough, it actually did, on my part anyways. So perhaps the Irish really are onto something with this drink, who knows. After we had finished our drinks, even though it wasn't that late yet, we decided to go back to our hostel. After all. it had been a long day for both of us and we wanted to be up early in the morning to go see the town.

Friday was the day we decided to use for shopping, since Dublin has loads more shops than Sligo. And that was exactly what we did the entire day. Both of us found a lot less stuff than we would have thought, but at least neither us left home empty handed. This day quite thoroughly destroyed our legs; the distances in the center area alone in Dublin are "a little" bigger than in Sligo, in other words, by 6 pm, our legs were literally dying on us. But nonetheless, it was a fun day and Dublin is a good city, when it comes to shopping and different kinds of shops.

Sunset by the river in Dublin

In the evening we went out. It took us a while before we found any cool places, cause most of the places we did find were either really packed or such tourist places, and those were the places we really wanted to avoid. Eventually we found a really cool bar/night club. Entrance was free and it had two floors, a bar upstairs and then an actual dance floor downstairs. And on top of that, this bar was one of the few places I've been in Ireland that actually played different kinds of music, and good music even.
Before we went dancing we sat at the upstairs bar. And you gotta hand it to the bar; they had Pulp Fiction playing on the screen, even without volume, that's something you just have to appreciate, big time. And well, of course it was rather amusing to watch the movie with volume off and then hear songs like "Somebody I Used to Know" or "Be My Baby" from Dirty Dancing.
When we went downstairs to dance floor, we were pleasantly surprised by the music, again. For once the DJ had some sort of variety in his music. And we danced to Muse, twice. Awesome, just awesome.
One other thing that made our night in this place was one of the bouncers; when we went to the bar, he actually thought we were Irish. He didn't realize we were from Finland until he saw our IDs. But considering what a tourist place Dublin is, and how incredibly tourist tourists we saw during the day, in comparison to them, we did feel kinda Irish.

On Saturday, it was time to go check out the sights. The places we visited, were Kilmainham Gaol (a prison), Guinness Storehouse and Wax Museum. And of course on top of those places, we walked around town, seeing many beautiful buildings, churches, etc.
First we went to see Kilmainham Gaol, an old prison. It was such a cool and interesting place, and once again we learnt more about the history of Ireland. The guide there was fantastic, explaining about the place so well and answering if anyone had any questions. The tour took an hour and it covered the main events in the prison and we were able to see the different parts of the place, and it only cost 2€. Definitely worth the money!

The more modern part of the prison

After the prison, we headed to Guinness Storehouse, a place that is a bit of a must-visit to any tourist visiting Dublin. It was quite a cool place, but both my friend and I felt that it was too much of a tourist attraction for our liking (if we had visited it as soon as we arrived to Ireland, we probably would have liked it more), not to mention that neither of us are too thrilled about the taste of Guinness. But anyways, it was still cool visiting it and the view at the Gravity Bar on the top floor was pretty spectacular.

After we finished our tour at the Guinness Storehouse, we went to a Wax Museum. Now this was a fun place! The place had both historical and fictional characters and also, a chamber of horrors. When we went inside the chamber, both of us were thinking "Imagine if any of these dolls would start moving" And just guess what happened then.. Not one, but two of the dolls started moving and we screamed and jumped like little girls. And of course some kids went there after us, and even they didn't scream. How brave are we.. haha. And of course we had to take a couple of pictures of ourselves, posing with the dolls.

Filthy elvses..

After the Wax Museum it was getting quite late and we've had our share of the sights of Dublin. So now it was dinner time and after that, we went out. We wanted to try at least one new bar in Dublin while we were there and managed to find one, after some searching. The place we went to was okay, quite similar to the places in Sligo, with the difference that a lot of the people there were clearly quite a bit older than us. But at least it meant that we didn't have to suffer from drunken, vomiting teens. That place was a nice ending to our last night in Dublin.

In Sunday, we were exhausted, it had been a long trip. As soon as we had packed our things, we headed to the city center and looked for a place where we could have breakfast before the bus would take us back to Sligo.
All in all, it was a really nice trip, there was enough time to both do some shopping and explore the many cafes and restaurants of the city,  but also see some of the sights. Of course there were some sights we didn't have the time to see, but it just means that we have to go back to Dublin some  time. Dublin as a city, is nice. Though in my opinion, it is a bit too much of a tourist city for my liking, in the beginning it felt like there were more tourists than actual Irish people in the city, which meant that for example people weren't even nearly as polite in Dublin, as for example in Sligo. Even though I still want to visit Dublin at least once before I have to leave Ireland, I think I kinda prefer Sligo over Dublin, simply due to the fact that Sligo feels more like the "real Ireland" than Dublin.

That was all about the Dublin trip and now it's time to get ready for my first ever St. Patrick's Day tomorrow! Something that will most definitely be one hell of an experience! But before that, a couple of last photos from Dublin:

Rag week

So this week in Sligo (and in some other cities as well) was something called Raise and Give week, or Rag week in short. Basically, this week is supposed to be about charity. Some activities in which you can participate in and donate money to charity that way, bars donating money for charity when buying certain products etc. But, what this week mostly is really about, is partying for almost one week straight.
There were all sorts of different parties organized in almost every bar and night club in town and some of them were open as early as 12 am.
On Monday, the first day of Rag week, I went to one of the bars near to my school and very popular among students, with my friend, just to see what this "infamous"Rag week  is about. It was maybe 7 pm when we got there, and already many people were feeling rather, cheerful. But all in all, it was a nice night, met quite a lot of people we knew and all that. And it wasn't even nearly as crowded in the bars and pubs as it was in the last days of Rag week, which was really nice.
I went out with friends on couple other nights as well, though most of the parties that for example the night clubs were organizing, were a bit disappointing. If there was supposed to be any theme in any of the parties, you really couldn't tell. The only major difference to any other week was that it was a lot more crowded in the bars, especially in the last few days of Rag week.
It seems that the bars aren't too big on the themes of their parties, which is kinda sad. Especially when, for example this "White party", me and my friend actually bought some white clothes and got all dressed up, only to find out that very few people at the party were wearing anything white. But oh well, at least me and my friend can feel good about the fact that at least we did something for the theme.
All the time I've been here in Ireland, there's been talk about how much the Irish drink. And until Rag week, I would've said that the Irish drink just about as much as the Finns, nothing too shocking about their drinking habits. But Rag week, now that's something that the Irish beat Finns at, not even we have anything like this. A lot of people really seemed to be drinking the entire week, since I saw a lot of people already drinking when I for example walked to school or when I went to do the groceries early in the afternoon. What surprised me though, was the fact, that even though so many people were drinking a lot and many days in a row, there seemed to be very few more or less serious accidents. Or then I just haven't heard about them. I guess  that's the difference between Ireland and Finland; if anything like Rag week were to arrange there, I'm sure a lot more people would get hurt, accidents would happen etc. So in a way, I am happy that we don't have it in Finland. But, it was still nice to experience it and see what it was about. And now that I think about it, maybe it wasn't as bad as I would have thought. But all in all, this week was incredibly interesting, both in the good and in the bad, with loads of random events happening when I was out with friends.


After Rag week ended, it was time for something completely different: Sports, and not just any sport, Gaelic football. I've always hated watching sports, it just doesn't interest me in any way. But for some reason, I really loved watching Gaelic football. It was first time ever seeing the game, and I have to say, it was very interesting. It was Sligo v Offaly, and at first, me and my friend were confused which team was which. But then, when we managed to figure it out, we could really get into the game. The game looks quite random, since it has elements from sports like basketball and football. And to be honest, we're still not entirely clear of the rules of the game, but since we are definitely going to see another match of this cool game, we're gonna do some research. And next time, following the game and more importantly, actually understanding what's going on in the game, will be a little easier.
Another sport I'm really interested in going to see, is hurling. Another Irish sport. It's weird, normally I'm not interested in watching sports, so I'm not exactly sure what is it with these Irish sports that makes even someone like me interested in them.
To finish up, here's a couple of photos from the match:

One month in Ireland

Sorry about the long silence, I've been a bit ill, especially last week so I didn't feel like writing anything. And well this week, I've just been lazy. And when I finally managed to get something written, my internet connection died and I couldn't finish my writing. But now, I'm officially back.
On Sunday (February 16th), I realized that it's been a whole month since I came here. I really can't believe that I've been here that long, even though if it feels like I've been here even longer, but certainly not in a bad way. The time does fly here, and terrifyingly fast, I might add..
I've adjusted to my new school and hometown better than I had hoped. I've actually noticed small changes in me that I can thank Ireland and the people for. One is the fact that I have gotten more polite, saying things like "Excuse me" or "Sorry" even when it's not absolutely necessary and it has also become dead obvious to me. Sad to say, this is not even nearly always the case in Finland, unfortunately.. Finns aren't completely rude bastards, but the comparison to the Irish, it does no good for the image of Finns, there's no way around it.
I've also noticed that nowadays, I don't get caught off guard or absolutely surprised if a stranger either greets me or just randomly starts talking to me. I've started to like it and sometimes I even properly join in the conversation and tell something about me and my life, in stead of just nodding or going "yeah, ahaa" All in all, somehow I feel more open here than I did in Finland, and it must have something to with the people.

Two weeks ago, I did a trip to Donegal with my friends. Donegal is a nice little place quite near Sligo, ideal for day trips such as ours, since we were able to see the main sights and eat at a couple of restaurants and cafes during that one day alone.
We visited the Fàilte Ireland's (The Tourism info center of Ireland) office there and the lady there was so incredibly friendly and helpful and she was telling us about how there's so much to see in Donegal and pointing out all the important sights, and after all, all we had said to her was that we just arrived to Donegal and yet she told us all that without us even asking.
And since picture is worth a  thousand words, here are some photos of our trip:

Old cemetery in Donegal

    

   

 

Cause no blog is complete without at least a little bit of food porn..

Somewhere over the rainbow..

En route from Donegal back to Sligo

Donegal castle

Nothing new hasn't really happened, I go to school and classes, go out with friends a couple of times a week, kickboxing and that's mostly what my normal weeks are made of. But, I did do something new a few weeks ago; I tried Tai Chi for the first time. It was very relaxing and soothing and afterwards I felt all mellow and like I was in peace with the world or something. Though at first, when the instructor was talking about energy flows and stuff like that, I was wondering to myself, what is this, some sort of a hippie thing. That's why I was surprised, when I found myself really liking the class. Something I'm definitely keep on doing if I just have the time.
One thing most of you have probably noticed is the lack of photos of me and my friends. Which of course is due to the simple fact that I have no friends here.. Or not.
In one way, I'm sad that I don't have a small compact camera nor a smart phone, so I could take pictures of me and my friends when we go out. My camera is way too big to take with me to a party or when going out on the town. But, here is one of the few pictures of me and my friend, taken at some sort of an anti-Valentine's Day party at Velvet, one of the night clubs here. A place that actually has some class, believe it or not.

That's about it, I probably left out a lot of stuff since it's been so long since the last time I've written anything. But I'll try to get on writing more regularly from now on. So, till next time, bye!