The Musical Evening

One of the university societies, the drama society, did put together a production of mini musicals. Roles' were selected no more than about a month ago and that was the timescale when people needed to put the things together and be ready for the show.

The theme of the evening was present three mini musicals: Wicked, Chicago & Les Misérables, and also some songs represented by university's gospel choir.
Show did takes it place at Students' Union on Tuesday 26.11. in a price of 5€!!! The time was 7.30pm house was full of people and a woman steps on a stage when band starts to play ... And around 2,5 hours later I walked with friends out from the Students' Union kept talking about how fantastic the show was.

Seriously, only thing that I can say is that it is great to see people with talent, specially when to think that they had actually put the production together only during a month. The evening was full of songs about friendship, love, treaty, sorrow and revolution fulfilled with choreographs.. At the end of evening we heard that there is possibly another production coming up during second semester. Yes, I can bet that I surely will be there (hopefully on the first row) to see what are the evenings' shows then.

The Masquerade Ball

Time to go formal... Find suits and dresses ready and crab your mask, that's what masquerade ball was all about. 

Idea of the parties sounded so fun that we decided to gather a group of erasmus friends and check the event out. Of course before going there, we drank sophisticated some red wine (with coke.. the German style XD). Entering parties we walked of course along the red carpet, like a real posh & fame people indeed... Inside the decorations were beautiful and it was nice to notice that people had really dressed up there. Even I did an investment and bough a tie worth of 2,50e from penney's :D It was funny notice that even that masks were small at begin it still took a moment to recognize everyone... Just wonder how royal balls for example in renaissance has been like... 

Evening was cool, regardless off fact that they it wasn't sold out and a bit empty in a way plus they should maybe play (at least few) traditional dance songs and taught them to people. 

Party Like a Spanish

Imagine: A club full of Spanish people... Yeah, I know, Oh My God XD

There is a Spanish community in Dublin which arranges once in a while these special parties with Spanish theme.. As expected, 99,9% of the people there spoke Spanish and then there was that 0,01% crazy Finnish guy with a language skills in a level of "Cerveza, Caramba, Fiesta, Uno dos tres..., J'amon & Buenas noches" (and probably half of those words are misspelled :D)

The parties started at afternoon around 2pm (quite early for Spanish, eh?)... There was a possibility to buy food tickets that provided different kind of Spanish foods... Ham, Paella, Omelettes etc.. Then on the bar there was on offer Spanish beer (estrella, it's actually good) and of course sangria. There was both live music and dj playing all kind Spanish / Latin music.. So during the parties I probably recognized songs in scale 1 out of 50 :D

But it was funny to see that all kind of cultural difference how people gather around to eat, drink and dancing salsa (and everything else)... I just couldn't imagine Finnish people to arrange same kind of gathering at least with the same level of success... So thanks Mercedes & Marta for invitation, I had a good time in the Spanish parties.

Ps. Who want's to count how many time word "Spanish" is mentioned in this text? XD

Ireland Vs. Australia

It was a Saturday afternoon while I took the bus from Maynooth to Dublin with Laura, Lisa, Noora & Jani. Usually it takes a bit less than an hour but that ride took 1h20minutes because traffic jams so something was probably going to happen in Dublin at that day...

After arriving we had a good time to enjoy a good cup of coffee before heading towards Aviva Stadium... When getting closer we started to hear yells "Scarfs, flags, souvenirs..." and at same time we noticed that we weren't alone... There was about 50 000 people going to the same direction, to the same event... Ireland vs. Australia rugby game!

Atmosphere in stadium was quite intense but still I have to say that in ice hockey matches between Finland and Sweden it's better ;-) Luckily Jani provided us a quick brief of rules so we all were able to follow the game at least in some level :D Even that game was interesting the tempo of the game was way too slow for me: C'moon who is fitting up the ball in right angle for several minutes before kicking it :D

Oh and yes, unfortunately Ireland lost the game... But it provided a good reason to drink a pint of guiness for the sad defeat.. :P

Fencing Competition in Schull

As I have mentioned one of my blog posts before, I started a new hobby over here: Fencing.

I haven't regret that even a moment and I actually really do like it. Last Saturday 9.11. there was a novice competition at Schull (City of Cork) that was for people who had max. 2 years experience of fencing, total 68 people participated. Well, I had only about two months but so what, I still decided to participate because of the experience. I think last time I have attended sport competition it has been while I was in at primary school maybe 5th grade (cross country skiing or running) so it was also about the time to encourage myself and compete again :D

The competition went actually quite well and I did achieve the goals I had put for myself:

1) Be average in pools

Pool includes group of people where everyone fight one match against everyone and then based on result ranking list is made). In my pool I had 5 matches and for those I won two and lost three ended up ranking list at position 41/68 

2) Win a one death match.

After the pools comes death matches that is a bit longer but if you lose it, you're out of the game. Death match pairs are made based on the ranking list (best ones against worse ones etc.). I won my first DA against the guy who was 27th on ranking list and then lost my second match 9-15 against the guy who was 8th on ranking list...

My overall ranking on those competition was 30/68 so I was happy with that one and now I know that for next one I need to be better than that, just need to practice, practice & practice... 

The End Of Study Week & Back To The Reality

The day is Monday 04.11.2013 and clock is about 9am ... I'm sitting again in a class preparing myself to listen about brand management but somehow I kept thinking where did the whole week before disappeared and is it really time to go in the classes again...

Overall view of the week was that it was quite horrible... I felt like that I did spend more time at the University doing all my studies during that week than the my whole Erasmus time so far... Guess that's what people call deadlines XD

Absolute highlight of that week was the night hike to Dublin mountains with rovers society... We started out hike sometime around 8pm and ended around midnight. The night was beautiful because of all the stars on the sky, nice fresh wind, no rain at all and with the most beautiful view over the Dublin City by night.

Milestone To Hundred

After Halloween was passed it was 01.11.2013 and for that specific day I turned to be 25 years old... 

At first place I thought not to celebrate that at all but then I got invited to my friends house at the evening for just hanging around and having a dinner... Ther was homemade lasagne and also a cake! Thank you so much Julia, Katharina, Melissa, Laura, Yannic & Phill! 

Then I decided to celebrate birthdays anyways and invited some people at my house on Saturday evening... And what would be better way to celebrate it than with the traditional Finnish products like salty liquorice, chocolate, minttuviina and oven baked pancakes :P

The Halloween

Yes yes yes, I think that I kind of did get stuck on the idea of "study week" because I haven't updated this blog for a while...

At first is good to know that Halloween is originally from Ireland, no it's not from America even that there it's more commercial and huge thing but still was actually brought there by Irish immigrants. Halloween is based on old Celtic believes, so you can believe that Halloween is a big thing over here.

Halloween was celebrated among the students the week before Halloween (because actual Halloween was during the study week when most if the Irish students has went home), among the "normal people" (professionals etc.) during the weekend before actual Halloween and then of course at the actual Halloween eve... I participated Halloween parties three times :P

Each night was great and people really did dress up when going to bar and it was possible to see all the creatures imaginable, not just a horror figures but also figures like Turtles, Super Mario, Princess, Robots, Angels etc... And not just the people, also the bars had decorated places with a Halloween stuff like spider webs over the dance floor, blood on the bathroom walls...  I really have to say that these nights were different but awesome :D