Erasmus: Expect Nothig, Experience Everything!

My ending of Erasmus or well, I still have a flight to catch. It was December 20th when I was sitting in the same place enjoying a cup of coffee just before leaving Ireland for Christmas break. I knew that I was coming back for the second semester... Now I know, this time I'm really leaving Ireland and I'm writing my last blog post. But being honest, I've seen basically everything I wanted and even more. So I feel ready to return to Finland... Not happy, not sad.. not bored, not excited.. It seems to be like grey scale, just like the weather now...

You often hear people who have participated in Erasmus telling that it is the best time of their lives. Now when I'm looking back, I really have to say that it is an absolutely truth. So what is it to be Erasmus then?

To start with facts, Erasmus by numbers in my case looks like this:
- 18 700 km spent in airplane while flying
- 7 800 km driven around Ireland by car
- 1800 km sitting in  a bus
- 3 300 taken pictures
- 4 340 views on my blog
- Few (No number on this one :D) extra kilos (thanks for Guinness, Irish Breakfast & Burgers)

For me this year has been a school of life. It is one of the rare moments in life when hundreds of people (students) age range 25 +/- 5 years are at the same situation in their lives, everyone studying abroad a certain time period and wan't to make most of it. For me it was quite a big change, since lived last 6 years in studio, moving first to a shared room and later on to another house with own room. That is something that teaches you to be humble and respectful towards people around you... Especially when so many cultures are mixed continuously and the only way to get along is to collaborate.

Lots of things have happened, many things were experienced during the year here in Ireland, and all of them will remain in memories... There has been feelings like love, hate and passion which are easily experienced on Erasmus, but still none of those create barriers between people nor stop from bonding new friendships. I have met lots of people in Ireland and on travels who I've become friends with... Some of those friendships will only remain as facebook friendships, but then there are also those you will keep in touch with regularly, not necessarily that often but still knowing that if you are around, you can always call to meet up for a pint or a coffee. And most important, there are few of those who actually become part of your world by creating deeper friendship. Those are the ones you will know that can last even a lifetime, and that is what Erasmus is on its best!

Erasmus exchange is over for now. But I would say it feels more like a lifestyle that creates and attracts people with certain kind of attitude in life. I couldn't imagine a better place than Maynooth, Ireland for Erasmus experience, it offered a friendly atmosphere for getting to know other students. "Studying", hanging around, travelling and our own happy video project was awesome craic! I don't regret anything about my year. If I look back there might have been something that I would have done a bit differently, but even though I would be the same person as I am now. At the moment, I'm trying to fight against teardrops in my eyes as I'm reading my guestbook and all that has been written there. I can't say that I'm happy now,a but after a few days I will smile again thinking about this great year in Ireland! We had our Erasmus slogan,
"Expect Nothing, Experience Everything" ... I think I managed to live my year following that slogan.

This is now the last post on my Erasmus blog. I want to thank you all who have been reading it and inspired me by giving positive feedback. I will keep on writing blogs also about future travels... First will about inter rail during this summer. I will be on my way to meet up you guys, so just beware, I might knock on your door within a month. After that I will write blog about my exchange program in Beijing, China on spring 2015. You will find my blog links in facebook and I will start to use Twitter. So feel free to follow me there. (@SPuttonen)

Will I ever return to Ireland? I have to say that I'm a quite sure that I'm not going to return to this lovely green island anymore because without people I knew it would feel empty. But never know, maybe work or something else might bring me back to Ireland - It is all about destiny and Irish luck.


Bon Voyage, Good Bye Ireland & Welcome all new adventures, hopefully our paths will cross on those!

Me & Over Hundred Years of Germans On The Road

I've spend my last few days in a German speaking environment... My housemates Julia's grandparents came to visit her in Ireland so I promised that if they want we can rent a car and I can be the chauffeur driving them around. I was considering already buying a white shirt, black vest and tie plus of course a cap to wear while "working" as chauffeur but I have up my idea after all. And which made this whole thing interesting is that I don't speak German and they don't speak English so my Julia needed to translate some conversation (even that I have to say that don't remember when during my Erasmus year has been days that I have been speaking so little, good preparation for arrival to Finland :D ). Translating can be confusing once in a while at least that how I see it at those times when Julia talked German to me and English to her grandparents... But regardless of language barrier Julia's grandparents are lovely people :)

The trip was planned to visit in few different few places, one where I haven't been was the Powerscout gardens... voted no. three garden in the world by National Geographic. Very beautiful place indeed, huge area with different kind of gardens, Italian style, Japanese garden etc... Second place to visit was Howth, one last look sunny shining cost and once it was a day there without a wind! 

Another day we drove down to Waterford city to walk around and see some sights.. Since I've been there on January (when it was day full of heavy rain showers) I didn't enter the museum and took a cup of coffee instead, official coffee break of chauffeur.. Enjoy!

Then to Kilkenny where I received my last touch of Irish sun... As other were visiting the castle, I was just lying on the lawn taking sleeping, or at least that I was told when others pick me up while I wasn't completely awake... Another official nap break of chauffeur, it seem to be not that hard life after all. After these few days of driving in Ireland (which was really enjoyable again!) it is time to finalize my packing, put luggage on the car and head up toward Dublin airport, one last time.

Have to confess that my German didn't improve during these dates.. So maybe I'm just hopeless or then I just to be ready to give another try! 

Farewells & Re-Unions

Yesterday, was the nine month milestone of staying in Ireland... I still have few days left before I will fly back to Finland. Ending of this semester has been so different compared at the ending of first semester... When first semester ended, I was one of the first ones who left Ireland for Christmas break but regardless of that most of people left after examination within few days time. Now people have been dropping out almost within a month long period of time which has obviously meant lot of farewell parties etc... But this is not just farewells, also re-unions from friends from 1st semester.

It all started after examinations were over, Thursday 29.5. So if you have been kept on eye my blog you should be able to guess that it did mean The Roost evening! After experienced ending of first semester I was almost terrified what the ending of the year might be in the sense of celebrating... Insane would be one word to describe it... If you wanted to get into the roost, 10pm there was already queue that took 10 minutes... At around 10:30 when we arrived queue was already along the corner and we needed to wait about 30 min before got into the bar! The Roost was filled up with too many people, as for an example... There was even a queue to the men toilet! And in general moving from place to another.. hopeless. It was really full of people which made it quite "interesting" since if you lost someone, you really did lose someone. But still it was really great evening because (again) everybody were there, especially respect for those who partied whole night in the roost and took airport hopper to airport 4am!

Whole weekend continued on by a night out at roost and the legendary houseparties of  "Mansion112." Until finally there was a bit time to relax before real re-union, Maria from Austria and Jani from Finland were coming to Ireland, both studied here 1st semester. So it was Thursday again, only a week after Roost has been filled up of people more or less under influence of acohol... As it has been whole year, traditional pre-dtinks needed to have somewhere so this time we invited some people at our place before going to roost. At this time there were no queue at all to get there anymore because Maynooth is more or less a ghost town during summer since all the students are gone. At this time if you would lose someone in there, you could find him even with your eyes closed. Whole upstairs were dark and our international corner empty. Still this didn't stop our re-union team continue jäger bomb tradition, "You know what time it is? It's Jäger time" :D

After Thursday as the weekend was flowing forward, we enjoyed last night in Dublin. Just general pub hopping on places where spent some time during year... Unfortunately this was a small failure since there was no visit to "The old mans pub" and we ended up in a Temple Bar area.. Regardless of that we still had lots of fun even that Thursday evening  was could still be seen on people faces. And evening was completed with a need of a bucket, no it is not what you think of! This bucket was full, it was KFC Chicken bucket, perfect snack for night bus ride. Final Saturday, Roost again final time (This was around 4th time of "Final Roost"..) because there was the band Rock of Ages playing. Best Rock band of the year absolutely. Couldn't imagine better way to spent final Saturday with friends at Roost.

As these weeks have been busy and a great craic, there always two sides on every story. During these days people have been dropping out slowly and it is not just a one time when I've walked to airport hopper and seeing as people one by one were out of the life in Maynooth. But again a difference on farewells on first semester, this time I know that I will meet you guys up in 1-2 months as I'm inter railing around Europe. But still I can't thank you enough to be part of my Erasmus experience, without you it would not been the same.

Now it is then my last days left here in Ireland, then it is over... Time for The Final Countdown.

Another Visit in Belfast

It was December when I visited Belfast with German friend Katharina, that trip was filled with Christmas markets, couch surfing, sightseeing and just hanging around...
So now it was time for another Belfast visit  with German friend (again) but a different one than last time. We were staying at friends place who hosted me also last time I was in Belfast.

As it was second time in Belfast there was no need for do those kind of basic sightseeing things so it made this trip more focused on just hanging around and meeting friends, my both couch surfer hosts, Robyn and Pouki, and Sophie, Danish girl who we met on one of our road trips in Derry. Our trip started in a funny way, right after we had arrived to Belfast and while we were walking towards our host (Robyn's) place just randomly in front of Europe hotel we bumped to Sophie... "World is a small place and Europe even smaller" had been proven to be true again.

Tradition were kept on place and after having a joyful walk around Queens university and botanic gardens day started to turn to an evening and we all headed to Lavery's to hang around and play some pool with Robyn, her boyfriend Matt, Sophie and my travel companion Julia. Playing in teams we managed to have several matches.. Girls vs. Boys, Maynooth vs. Belfast, Scandinavia vs. Rest of Europe etc... Hours passed and balls rolled until bar was closing and it was time to go leave.

Because every trip has to include something new on this trip me, Julia and Sophie wanted to go see Belfast castle... Nevertheless I had almost promised myself that no more castles in Ireland here we went again... But because I was in Northern Ireland it can be counted as acceptable exception. After all the name "castle" was a bit confusing, it was more like a mansion on the hill... Which made it cool was its garden and surroundings. There was a tale that castle have always had a cat as a residence so it was thought to be a good luck. That's why in the garden there were hidden nine cats in different forms (small statues, shaped bushes, mosaic formations..), after searching a while we found them all! After this treasure hunt we took a trail that went behind the castle through the forest and top of the hill which provided great views over the Belfast. It was interesting to notice how small for example Titanic museum looked like since last time standing next to it, it seemed to be gigantic.

At evening discovered some Irish heritage of Belfast... There was an Irish pub where happened to be on that day traditional music and dances. At first hearing the name of the place didn't ring me a bell but immediately as we were getting closer that place I recognized that it was actually the same pub where I was on my last visit in Belfast... Nice coincidences. So second evening passed by with a taste of few pints of Guinness and Irish rhythms. One of us even was even brave enough to join the dances and no, it wasn't me. That was a good craic to see and even better to participate.

Next morning it was time for goodbyes, those moments that no one likes... But moments that need to be faced. But I'm sure that our paths will cross somewhere again. Boarding the train and farewells for Belfast, city of interesting history and nice people.





   

The Perfect Day with three P's (Park, Picnic & Pint)

Sky was blue, sun was shining so as I was taking a bus to Dublin there was just one song in my head, Black Eyed Peas - I Gotta Feeling (..."Tonight's gonna be a good good night..."). Plan was to go Phoenix park in Dublin and rent bicycles for a day and that was what we did! But before I will start the story about cycling tour, few words about Phoenix park. Phoenix park is located only around 2,5 kilometers from Dublin center, the park area covers 707 hectares that are surrounded by 11 km of perimeter stonewall. On moving around in the park there are 30 km of footpaths, 22 km of roads and 14 km of cycling lanes. These features will make Phoenix park larger than all London's city parks put together and more than twice the area of New York Central Park.

When we rented the bicycles, guy at the rental place that its going to probably be warmest day in Ireland during whole summer... And I definitely agreed with him, it was easily over 20 degrees and almost cloudless sky, and I forgot again my sunglasses... First we head up to the center of the park, where is a huge cross around 20 meters high.. Built only because some pope someday visited Ireland. There we had our first break and after that we all were comfortable with cycling and were ready to go extreme, off road time!

It all started running down from the hill and and continued after crossing the fields a bit deeper path... After that we noticed that we didn't mountain bikes so we started to "rank" our shortcuts in a same way how they rank skiing hills to be aware of whats coming up.. So whoever was on the lead decided to take a shortcut needed to shout out "shortcut", and the color (green was easiest and black most difficult one).

Second stop was on the field  where around 500 "bambis" were just walking around free. I havent ever see wild deer so close (if zoos wont count) than there because they were not that afraid of people. I even almost manage to touch one but then there was some stupid little kids who were running and yelling scaring deers off...

Day continued onward with several shortcuts and stops around the park... We had our packed lunch that we enjoyed and returned near deers after that just to lie down and doing nothing. After "lunch nap" we passed a white house quite in the middle of the park, unfortunately that wasn't the the office of US. President but instead it was the residence of US ambassador. So if you dont have chances to get to Washington DC, became an ambassador in Ireland and you can still say that you're living in a white house. And if you are not US. citizen then try to became president of Ireland who also has its residence in the park. After cycling around whole park we still had some hours left before needed to return bikes. Since sky was still blue and it was lovely and warm we parked bikes on the lawn and just relaxed under the sun in a result of caching the color of tomato... in Ireland, again!

Sporty day makes people hungry, don't you agree?  Obviously a bbq time so on way back to Maynooth picked some meat and light up the grill. It was actually so warm that we came around with an idea to carry table outside and sit outside on the backyard while eating, damn the food tasted so good! And even that it was almost 9pm I still was able to wear just a t-shirt and shorts. Summer is seriously here. Since we have had such a great day so far, it would have been pity to end it up already so whats you gonna with the expression "all the roads lead to the roost", perfect way to wrap up the day. Band was good, craic was awesome.. To be honest, don't remember when I have last time had so much fun in the roost :D As roost closes there was still some energy left, few after drinks and finally to the bed at 6am. What a (perfect) day!

Freeeedom From The University!!!

So it was 29th of May at 10:30am when I was sitting in the Loftus Hall an heard the words: "For those who are doing the one hour examination, your time is now over, please stop writing..." It was the end of my last exam on this semester, so now I'm completely free for the next two weeks to just chill out.

During this semester I had four exams, all about Sociology and on two of the exams grade was 100% base on exam, and for two others it only covered around 50% of the course mark. One is for sure completely failure and three others... well at least I manage to write something on every paper. Second was is okay, even that I didn't have time to finish my answers.. On third exam I was typing an answer about social classes as lived experiences and explained two pages about cultural capital and social capital, but checked afterwards notes and I was supposed to explain about cultural capital and economical capital instead...And on last exam paper I answered only one question out of two. So looking forward to receive results! Even that I have to say that the amount of effort I put on those courses and readings, everything can be expected. Anyway after this hardworking, stressful, busy, demanding and intense semester, and especially examinations (as everyone probably agrees, right? ;-) ) it was time for one more coffee americano at Starbucks in the library to re-energize myself for upcoming chill out weeks.

Quite many of us are leaving during following weekend so today is "final gathering" at the roost, tomorrow houseparties etc. so there should be enough time to say goodbye for those who are leaving. After weekend I will still go make another visit to Belfast, have few visitors from last semester, enjoy the atmosphere of Dublin, chill out in Maynooth and "work" few days as a chauffeur for my housemate and her grandparents as they are coming to visit in Ireland. So it will be rather busy but still relaxing weeks ahead.

Sunny "Study Break" In Barcelona

When I was travelling around UK at the beginning of March and stopped in Brighton where I met few Finnish-British people (Blog text: "Surfing around UK",Brighton). So the reason why I decided to go to Barcelona was to meet Mari & Katri there as they were doing an inter rail around Europe and stopping there for few days.

It all started at 4am while taking the airport hopper to Dublin airport (after a night without sleep of course) and board to plane that took me to Barcelona. Luckily I was tired and able to sleep in the plane because otherwise the flight would have drive me nuts... So many families and children under 5 years of age which meant no peace at plane and slowly people boarding the plane trying to manage somehow with their buggies.

My flight had arrived already in the morning, Katri and Mari were arriving by train on afternoon which gave some time to walk around bit around BCN before meeting up the girls. We all were basically starving so we head up for the dinner. One of the things what Barcelona (and Spain) is known off: Tapas and sangria, on Wednesday nights place called Tostaditos offers all tapas for 1€ each so enjoying some of those and some sangria with it of course. I have been at that place before with my sister at time when she was on her Erasmus on Barcelona, which made it bit easier to order things as someone actually spoke Spanish... Now we were more like guessing but managed still well! After dinner was time for drinks, near hostel was few bars offering mojitos for 3e.. First bar looked dark and dodgy so we weren't ready to enter there, another one wasn't much lightful but manageable (and they actually had really good mojitos!!) after few drinks it was time to change the place as we realized that it was already around 9pm (we weren't yet on "Spanish time" to go out for drinks). Anyways, as we randomly step outside from the bar we were, we felt ready to enter the dodgy looking place... It was interesting one yes, bartender who didnt speak English and seemed to be more interested to play pool with those few people who were in the bar than serve us drinks...

Second day was our cultural day.. After waking up first pit stop was the market hall: fresh fruits, juices, ham... Perfect way to start a day. Or almost perfect, I needed to go shopping to buy shorts (Obviously there is not that much or at all need for shorts in Ireland, but in BCN they were much comfortable than jeans during days) so after that was done, day was perfectly started. Then we just walked around the city, looking out some of the Gaudi's artworks.. As we got tired of all walking and went to have some paella, another thing that Spain famous for. Walking, walking, walking and eating a good dinner, it was obviously time for siesta before going out again. By this point we had met some people at our hostel Jenn, Bonny, Idrees from US. and Maddy from Australia and together we were going out to check a nightlife of Barcelona. First some pre-drinks at hostel, then the "mojito bar" and after to the club named "Bling, Bling." Our hostel had a deal the place with free entry before 2am so we were getting already a bit taste of "Spanish Timing." Groovy dance, some shots and funky music... That is all about the good evening at club is made of!

Third day was definitely a lazy day after clubbing "quite late." Ham and bread from supermarket and direction to the beach. Lying there under the sun several hours simply doing nothing, we were truly adapting Spanish life style :D It was relaxing by all means expect the annoying people shouting and trying to sell stuff all the time "Aqua aqua, very cold beer" "Mojitos, cold good mojitos" etc... So after this "tough" day lying at the beach we went to back to the hostel to enjoy another siesta after having some pizza :P At the evening it was time for final dinner together so me, Mari and Katri went to have something different, not Spanish at this time.. There was a great all you can eat Japanese place where small plates were rolling around on a conveyer and from those it was possible to choose whichever looked delicious (= almost everything). We spent quite time there, thank god we didn't count how many plates we picked up because the number would probably terrified us afterwards.

Enjoying a nice warm evening while walking back to hostel for some predrinks (again ^^) which we started something around midnight before heading up to another club after 2am. There was place called LaTerazza, a club in the castle where is no roof at all and while going there views over the city were beautiful. Actually on the way there we did get a bit lost, so we ended up to ask direction from some luxury hotel and guy at reception told us that the place is not at walking distance so he called us a taxi. So feeling quite classy leaving from a luxury hotel by taxi to a club in the castle :P The place itself was really nice, the music were just better on the place we where night before... Anyways enjoying the atmosphere for some hours and arriving back hostel around 5am so we definitely manage to adapt this "Spanish timings", few hours of sleep and then I needed catch a flight at 10.30am... Tired but happy of the time spent in Barcelona!




Barcelona, it is a great city indeed as its combines all three things culture, nightlife and the beach. Besides that all this time I had a great company, not just Mari and Katri but also people (Jenn, Bonny, Maddy & Idrees feat. The Funky Froggy) we met at the our 'Hello BCN' hostel, the party crew of the room 306!

Summarizing these days in few sentences... "It's Barcelona, All day & All night" and "Viva La Fiesta" :P Wish you all enjoyable travels and looking forward to see you guys again somewhere!