So the past week ( and this week) I’ve been scheduled for very little classes, 5:30-7:00 every Monday and Wednesday and that’s it, its given me so much free time to really wander into the city and explore its hidden culture… yea I’m not believing that either, I’ve been sleeping and getting drunk because a lot of people are in the same situation, although since we’re all from different countries I’m sure I can sell it in some sort of educational way.
2 of Claire’s friends came over for a visit, which was nice to have some more Irish around and gave us a great excuse to have some house parties and go out for meals (Le bistrot de boucher, so nice, definitely making a trip to there again!) Sunday night myself and Claire decided to cook for her friends and our group of friends here, making lasagna for 17 people is always a bit stressful. In the end we made 4 lasagnas, 3 baguettes turned into garlic bread, 2 big bowls of salad and some potatoes for good measure! Apart from the electricity going out three times while we tried to cook, its went successfully even if we we’re one cheese short due to “it was meant to be 3 cheeses but we came home drunk and just ate one block” .
It has also begun to snow today which its quite strange to see since most of the time the snow melts as soon as it hits the ground in Ireland because the ground is usually already wet, here its just snows and stays. It’s not even especially bad but the town seems very unprepared, traffic has hit a standstill and many of the shops have signs out saying that they’re closing early because of it. Hopefully it will stay at the ‘aww/aaahhh its snowing!’ level and not the ‘ I’m not leaving the house’ level!
So last weekend we had a good 3 days off finishing at 4 Friday and not having to be back until 5:15pm for a little meeting on monday so 10 of us decided to head off to Bordeaux for Friday and Saturday night. ooohh look at that! wanderlustetc, now with added photos
I really wish I could remember what that building is called but the thing in the foreground is a water mirror making the building look cool and creepily doubled at the same time!
So it all started with a 2hr train trip on friday evening which grand, it flew by, we were there before we even realised it! Finding the hotel when we got there wasn’t too bad since it was close to the train station, but in all honesty it may have been better if we’d never found it! Nothing better than a 2 star (“cabin themed”) hotel in the red light district! (although it did have a charm and a ‘I wish I brought a blacklight to check the sheets’ quality to it)
(ever wish your shower could be attached to your sink? well do I have the perfect place for you to stay!)
( “there seems to be an awful number of high cards coming out in this game” followed by us looking at the packet and claire saying “well, I heard him count them, just not to which number” ) shaaaaammmmeeee
Bordeaux is also home to some creepy ass fountains as you can see!
There was a circus there, the shows hadn’t started yet but they did let us in to see the animals which included a zebdonkey, an evil llama, and a curious elephant who let us touch its trunk! It was awesome!
Well after a long day of getting creeped out by Bordeaux’s fountains and touching its animals you’re bound to gain an appetite! So of course we had dinner, and the starter was foie gras (photo above) it’s really nice but not something I would order a lot, hard to describe….
But seriously though, great craic was had on the trip and I’m sure we’ll be heading back there when the weather warms up because it’ll be lovely then!
Having my first week of proper classes this week too, unfortunately I’m timetabled to be in 4 days this week which means I have class from 9:30-5:15 Tuesday thursday and friday and from 9:30-7:00 on Wednesday. It’s tough but next week then I only have 5:30-7:00 Monday and Wednesday and 9:30-12:15 Tuesday which is so much better! I’ll finally get a chance to catch up on my sleeping!
That’s all I can really think of for now so here’s the song for the blog!
I’m still not quite sure how I made here without any major disasters along the way! The flight was fine, it was only 1h50 so it isn’t something to complain about and the train took 2h30, but we got to travel in first class which was a little bit strange but the buttons that make your seat move up and down could have easily kept me occupied for a week.
Poitiers is quite a small city, well, pretty much everything we’ve needed so far has been right in the centre of town and it takes practically no time to walk around it even compared to just walking around the UL campus. I’m living so close to ESCEM its ridiculous, I’ve gone from a 15-25 minutes walk to classes in Limerick to 3 minutes here so in the mornings I just roll out of bed and I’m already half way to the school.
The timetable here is definitely going to take a while to get used to, one of the girls made out her’s for the whole semester and there’s around 5 days of classes each month, but, each day has 6hrs so it seems as if we’ll have a lot at once and then nothing at all to do with ourselves, except drink and go travelling around Europe! It seems like a really nice school but once again much different from Limerick but change is nice, change is good!
Drink is cheaper here!…Well, in the supermarkets it is anyway. €12.94 for 70cl of smirnoff, but as soon as you go to a pub its $4.80 for a vodka so predrinking really is the majority of drinking that goes on out here but when you throw 6/7 different nationalities into a room together and get them all drunk the results are bound to be hilarious. I thought I had much more to write for this one but apparently not although hopefully I’ll have a good story or two the next time I post!
So back before I moved home from college I was talking with a friend and realised that it was 9 days until Christmas and then another 9 days until I left for France, the worrying part is that now the first part of that is over, and passed by far too quickly, and now it’s down to just 9 days before I move, it’s always freaky when a countdown gets into single digits!
The best part is that I havent even unpacked everything from college, let alone start to pack for France, oh wait that’s the stressful part, always get those mixed up…I really have no idea how I’m going to manage this whole packing situation, i have to fit mot likely 8 months worth of clothes etc. into 30kg….30…kg…..coming home from college after 4 months I filled the boot and entire back seat of the car, I may have to wear 12 layers of clothes travelling.
Other than that…I’m beginning to get seriously excited to go, I keep googling the crap out of the town and looking at everything there!
Song for the blog: I’m seriously obsessed with this…
For the first time since maybe those few days in august between finishing work and starting college, I have absolutely nothing to do today and its FANTASTIC!
Yesterday was my final exam for the semester so of course we went for pints afterwards, but it was so strange to think that today i can just wake up whenever i feel and do what ever I want, no coursework to be done, no studying for exams, not even any random paperwork to fill out for my Erasmus. So as you can imagine i have done sweet fuck all, all day, my most productive efforts may have been walking to the shop to buy water in expectations of a massive hangover tomorrow beacauuussee….
Its our class party tonight! Which will be nice to have given that it’s probably the last time we’ll all be together until next September since the majority of the class is heading off on Erasmus! So basically tonight is going to be one massive session, after a meal though so i wonder how the whole soakage thing is going to work out…
And one of these one be complete without a quick panic about going to France, even though flights trains and accommodation is all sorted it’s reached countdown stage, its 21 day (only 3 weeks!) until our flight so it’s getting pretty terrifying/exciting! So I’m definitely going to make the most of going out at home for the 2 weeks I’ll be there to give it a nice goodbye!
So yet another semester in UL has ended ( aside from the 5 exams I have from the 5th-12th Dec. ) but I’m going with that it’s over since there’s no more lecture or tutorials, and mine ended 2 days before most since I decided to go to Copenhagen for a weekend.
Although the reason for the trip wasn’t solely to avoid study (we we’re visiting my brother for his birthday since he wouldn’t be home for Christmas etc., and by the time he will be back in Ireland, I’ll be gone to France), but the trip certainly turned into ‘ HA! so glad I’m not studying right now!’. The trip began with terrifying prospects, getting from where i lived in Limerick to Bewleys Hotel in Dublin to meet up with my parents which involved a bus to the train station, train to Heuston in Dublin, finding the airlink bus at the station and then finding the Bewleys shuttle bus to take me to the hotel. I’m proud to say it all went smoothly with no issues which I was very surprised about given that the Irish public transportation system and myself don’t have the best history…here’s a few examples:
Getting on a direct bus from Cork to Dublin instead of getting the Cork-Waterford one and having to not only get off on the side of the motorway, but walk over 3km to Mitchelstown and then wait 1 1/2 hours outside a garage for someone to pick me and my friend up.
Convincing my friends we were at the stop for Cork airport when in fact we were in the Cork airport business park and having to walk for 15-20 mins to the airport.
The last time I took the train from Limerick to Heuston it broke down, twice, once on the way to Dublin for 20mins and once on the way back to Limerick for 30-40 mins.
But anyway that was Thursday and we flew out on Friday morning and after landing we had to get the metro into the city to find my parents hotel, and I know you’re probably thinking ‘if he gets that messed up getting around Ireland, he’s so going to end up in Sweden…’ but me and the Danish metro are good friends, I think making it EXTREMELY hungover/ still drunk from my brother apartment to the airport at 7a.m in August serves as a good example. Now we got to the hotel where my parents were staying and I’ll admit, I was jealous, they got a 4 star hotel, I got an air mattress on my brother’s floor….so I made sure sarcastic comments were made to them about it whenever I could.
Copenhagen at this time of year is amazing, christmas markets, lights, street decorations and even one store had a huge Christmas window display full of toys (Including a bear dancing holding a bra, gotta love it) but it is also as cold as an Eskimo’s testicles there at night, seriously, I’m taking 3-4 layers of clothes excluding scarves and hats. The food there was, as one would say, ‘nomocaustal’. Dinner 1: breast of guinea fowl with veal stuffing…nom, Dinner 2: Steak…nom, Dinner 3: Duck breast …NOMNOMNOM. Definitely different to the bowl of pasta I make myself in college. We spent Saturday walking through the main shopping street of the city and of course I made some great purchases, just wish I hadn’t left them behind by accident, they’ll be fun to try to get a hold of before I leave for France!
As I’ve previously mentioned it is now study week in UL, which means I probably should start studying soon, but there are far too many ways to procrastinate: YouTube, Facebook, writing a blog… 5 exams in 7 days? not as bad as previous times I suppose when it was 5 in 5 days last christmas and 5 in 6 days at summer, but still its time to hit the books and get through them!
Oh, and for a quick update on the ERASMUS side of things, filled out and accommodation form and picked my modules (I’m taking a million of them thanks to them being worth less credits than modules at UL), other than that only 35 days left…so basically I’m sticking with -> aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
tl;dr tough, go read the whole thing.
Song for the blog: Found this again during the trip on my iPod, had forgotten how much I loved it!
So over the past two days the whole ERASMUS thing has become much more of a reality, 49 days and I’ll be in France (if someone could bring some morphine to calm me, it would be much appreciated)
Yesterday the credit card took a bit of a hit paying for flights and train tickets to get myself to Poitiers! A lovely 6:50am flight from Dublin, that’s gonna be fun to make it up to the airport for 5am for check-in (I’m guessing I’ll have to leave Dungarvan around midnight) and then a train from Paris at 14:16pm (I know, oddly specific…) to get us to our final destination of Poitiers at 16:40. 15hours travelling, joy, it’ll be worth i…hopefully!
Then today I get a phone call telling me that a ton of post has arrived from the college and I’m gonna have to read and sort through it all at the weekend, at least we know now that we’ve been accepted into the college and the whole fear of “what if the don’t send us anything” has disappeared. It also means that now it’s back to us to send them everything we can to sort things out quickly, which basically kicks me back into the panic mode I was in before sending off the application forms a few weeks ago. Excitement levels have gone through the roof too now though so at least that helps take from the panic!
Here you go lazy people -> tl;dr Getting closer to getting ready for France, still scared, still excited!
Song for the blog: I’ve had this one on repeat for the past 2 days!
So this week was Rainbow Week in UL, at first for the university, and it was………..BRILLIANT!
To launch the week, Monday was Cocktail Night, suits and dresses (because we’re classy like that) and of course plenty of alcohol! Have to say I took quite a shine to the “Electric Lemonade” which is essentially a fancy version of vodka mixed with blue WKD, after a few of those and a few mojitos it’s needless to say I was kept entertained for the night. But as I said on the night (possibly to justify it to myself) was that cocktails + fancy clothes + jazz band = not really getting drunk but socialising in the best way!
Tuesday was more of a quiet night, mainly to recover from the night before and prepare for the following two nights out! Main event of the night was a screening of ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’ which is an absolutely hilarious movie.Favourite quote -> “Now listen here, you mullet. Why don’t you just light your tampon, and blow your box apart? Because it’s the only bang you’re ever gonna get, sweetheart!” Favourite Scene -> All I’m gonna say is ping-pong ball…..EPIC
Wednesday was when the real danger began and injury liability forms had to be brought out, no seriously….. Drag Race followed by a Wedding? now that has the makings of a fun night! Where there’s a wedding, there will be a reception, drink and free food= every students dream! Definitely one of the funniest nights that I’ve had in a while, and there’s nothing like the moment when you shout something down someone’s phone as a joke and all you hear is “Dad I’m going to have to call you back in a while”…awkward..
Thursday, ‘The Big Night Out’ as it was called was the main night of the week. It included a fantastic performance by Connie Liebe, she started great by falling down the stairs and then throwing her drink over the crowd and followed that up by tearing into the crowd and I’ll be honest, I didn’t see where she went but I heard many glasses breaking and drinks being spilt! Had an amazing performance by Return to Sender afterwards ( a band I’m liking more and more every time I see them!) I also got the DJ to play ‘Super Bass’ so I was delighted with myself since I my rule of ‘It’s not a night out unless they play Super Bass’ stuck! In all Rainbow Week was a success with proceeds going to The Red Ribbon Project and to Rainbow Support Services so all the going out is okay because it was for a good cause!
Song for the blog: (definitely true after the week!)
Just calculated it online, 58 days until I’m due to be in France (Poitiers more precisely), anyone else finding it hard to breathe all of a sudden?
58 days, having only actually sent the application forms to them last week and having not yet received and forms for accommodation or learning agreements it’s beginning to get worrying, but they are all a matter of when the post will finally arrive and we (the people im travelling with and myself) can get it all sorted out. The real worrying matter is getting there, booking cheap(ish) flights for any day in the beginning of January, in my time searching online the flight prices I’ve been shown are higher than some of the holidays my family has taken in the past. As for now the best option seems to be to fly to Paris and then just get ourselves onto a train for 2 and a half hours until we get there.When choosing a university in France to study in, how you’re actually going to get there should definitely be along the top few questions you ask yourself. Needless to say planning an erasmus comes with a lot of stress and mountains of doubt.
Although through that feeling of terror I get through my body every time I think of everything that still has to be done for it, I can’t help but get excited for it, not even just regular excited, excited like a mildly schizophrenic 3 year old with ADHD on Christmas morning. Being in a completely new town, in a new country, using a language that up until now I’ve only used in studying and only spoken during presentations (attempting to use it in everyday life should provide some entertainment), it all just makes me want to go right this minute! Living in France is something I’ve been waiting to do for a long time, so now being able to live and study there makes me want to bounce off the walls and out into the kitchen, I’ve longed to fully experience the French culture and have some good French wine that isn’t bought from the “France” section in the Dunnes alcohol aisle.I’m sure it will only be a matter of a few weeks before I start to miss Tuesday nights in Limerick ( or any night of the week, let’s be honest) but it being France I’m sure I’ll survive.I’m hoping that in the year and a half I’ve spent at university so far I’ve managed to become independent enough to be able to manage myself without any major disasters during the months I’ll be over there, there’ll be no option of coming home for a meal and have my washing done for me!
So for any lazy people -> tl;dr Moving to France in 58 days for any where between 5-8 months (depending on whether I stay for summer or not) and I am both terrified and excited!
