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!

Malahide

As exams are still on and comes the feeling that walls are falling on you and there is just the need to get some air outside Maynooth, What you gonna do? Figured out an idea go to Malahide, place where none of us (we had a group of three people going) haven't been before sounded like a perfect solutions. Malahide is an area on the coast North from Dublin. It is known for it's Malahide castle and nice areas around marina and beach. 

It all started in a grey rainy morning and 1,5 hours train ride there but by the time we reached Malahide, rain was gone. On the way walking to visit the castle our first discovery was a playground that was "designed children under 12 years old", but "designed" doesn't mean that it couldn't be used also "children over 12 years old", right? :P At least that is the way we understood the sign. There was many funny things like "a cable slide" ran to speed up and slide with a swing along the cable track... But I guess that usually it should be manageable without getting ass hit on the ground (Clearly too many pints of Guinness' during year or just the cable was loose...), but it was still fun. Besides that there was rope triangle to climb up the mast or a round table in slightly diagonal position to made it spin around as someone stood on it, like a tester how sometimes it feels to walk on late Thursday nights after an evening at Roost.

Second discovery was the forest that was off track from walking path. Especially after rain when leaves were dripping still some water on the ground, air was so fresh as it highlighting the smell of the nature and only thing you could hear was the sing of the birds. After passing the forest we getting closer to the castle, but before that we passed the botanic gardens of the castle grounds. There the guardian of the gardens, a peacock, was really showing off at that moment. Not that it has only spread out it's feathers, it also kept quite loud noise. Of course the reason for showing off might have been that there was a female peacock walking also around ;)

Finally the castle itself, built in 12th Century and it has been expanded as the centuries has passed on. Home of the Talbot family almost 800 years so seems like that they really enjoyed their time there... Even that it was (again) another castle to visit, it was still worth it. Quite well preserved and told its story throughout centuries as the decorations and furniture in the rooms varied according different times.

Walking, walking, walking... It felt like time for lunch. Delicious beef panini with vegetable soup and after that on the way to the beach. Warm light seawind blowing, sun peaking little bit behind the cloud, lying on a grass playing "uno" with the Moomin playing cards. That is a way to relax indeed. Unfortunately time can't be stopped and it was time to start heading back to Maynooth. On the way girls needed to have something sweet (and I was actually also in a need of coffee) so we stopped in cafeteria and the timing for that was more than perfect! Not much after we sat down a heavy rain shower took over the weather which ended about the time we finished our coffee break or another way around, we finished our coffee break about the time rain shower ended... Anyways, train ride back to Maynooth and another great day was behind (and a good excuse not to read for incoming exams on next week was discovered...)

Looking Out For A Long Lost Motivation

As the reading before exam is on and the first exam day is getting closer and closer (2 more days to go...), the motivation is getting further and further... I have four exams to do but I feel really sorry about those who might have even six exams. Even for those four exams I feel hard to find out motivation and reading feels like banging my head into a wall... Frustration would be one word to describe it but unfortunately there are nothing I can do about it, just have to keep on trying to push on. For some reason my favorite song at the moment would be Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall

Not that it feels that it is easier to find out some other things to do than start going through notes and readings, for example going into a cinema to see a movie (Pompeii) which could be considered as a history learning, right? Or put up a theme song from Pirates of Caribbean and stand up on to chair and jump from on to another one waving a pen in hand as it would be a sword. I know, it is crazy and doesn't make any sense but still beats up the reading... and that's the thing. Those were just few examples because I could easily continue the list even more about what to do instead of reading: Sleeping, Going out for a coffee with friends, Plan my summer trip for this year or write a blog etc... 

Now when this blog message is wrote, I could start reading again. Or maybe I should make a dinner first and after dinner short nap perhaps and after that...Well, we will see. :P

International Dinnner, feat. The Eurovisions...

It is (again) the time of the year when whole Europe gathers in front of television watching how every country are giving a "great image" of themselves based on the artist sent to compete for the glory of the nation... *Huoh*, it even sounds like a cliche and that what it truly is :D

But what was different on this year, we had Europe quite well represented in on room as we were following competition by online stream of German spoken channel from a laptops screen... It has it own atmosphere not that everyone could see or hear everything, but I guess that is not the point... As I mentioned, we were people from Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria, Netherlands, Finland and feat. few official supervisors from US.

But it was not just the song contest (thankfully) what brought us together. We had combined one more international dinner with it so we had plenty of delicious dishes to enjoy while Eurovisions where going on.

My opinion still stands about Eurovisions that somethings that just never change... one after another weird, funny, hilarious winners are (or trying to...) representing the spirit of certain time... And to prove my point, I found this funny video from YouTube that summarize it all: Eurovision Winners 1956-2012

NUIM Internationals are happy!

Semester is now over and the exams will start on next Friday...
International Office arranged a farewell event which was a great oppoturnity to gather all together. They had arranged also a photo competition with three themes: 

- Ireland is...

- Best Memory

- Campus Life

Photo: Sylvain Gasquet

Photo: Denes Fishcer

There were such a beautiful pictures telling different stories of people experiences here in Ireland. Here is just few examples I liked:

But it is not only the pictures, we had an other project: Our own happy video.

It all started with an idea that lead up to planning process. International office was also very excited about the idea (actually they had talked at the office about the idea that the kind of video should be made). 

We were shooting the video 13-15 hours total during one week on three different days and this is how it evolved:

- from 13-15 hours we had around 1 hour of material

- 1 hour was edited on smaller clips that would be usable on video so we had 8 minutes of clips for the actual video

- After 11 hours of editing it was ready, 4 minute long our very own happy video

Check the final result behind this link: NUIM International Are Happy -Video!

Thank you for all who were part of this project without you this wouldn't be possible! And special thanks for Gabrielle Jacquelin and Barbelies Kaiser for being part of the team making the video from a scratch.

A Day in Kilkenny

During this year I’ve been travelling quite a lot around but there are some places where I still haven’t been for example Kilkenny. It’s quite small old medieval town located around 2,5 hours bus ride from Dublin to Southwest direction Kilkenny is possibly mostly known of its castle but there other attraction also like Smithwicks brewery (which wasn’t unfortunately open), St. Canice’s Cathedral and its round tower from 9^th century etc.

Round towers are quite unique Christian heritage, originally built to offer place to monasteries / abbeys to hide their relics and offer a safe place from possible raids done by different invaders throughout the centuries. There are many round towers in Ireland but usually they are not accessible, this one was. So it was a great opportunity to climb up into it: About 30 meters high and 121 steps on a narrow stairs (or actually I would call them ladders) but when the top was reached there was a great overview of the Kilkenny. 

Kilkenny Castle, built in 12^th century by Normans after they arrived Ireland. Firstly it served as a defensive fortress because having such a good strategically location but then at the end of 14^th century it was bought by Butlers family who lived in the castle until 1935. Very rich and powerful family, which could be seen on castles interior designs: Some rooms had hand painted Chinese wallpapers and they also have their own gallery room, the biggest art collection owned by a single family on that time.

Besides those two main attractions there was some other churches / abbeys and since the Kilkenny is actually quite a small place and easy to discover there was time to see it all. So in total during one day, I did visit in four churches and I started to get so bored with it because even that they are interesting in a way but still they are quite similar. There would have been still two more to visit but luckily they were under maintenance and there was no possibly to enter them… After this “holy tour” tiredness was seriously starting to take over so as a cure for that I found a nice cafeteria “a hole in the wall”, oldest tavern in town which actually was also oldest townhall that is still standing in Ireland. But it is not just these individual buildings, it the whole atmosphere in Kilkenny because of its pedestrian street that was filled with many pubs, coffee places etc.

But that’s it for the historical part then. Evening in a town is not a proper evening in town if there are no visit in a pub. Plan was to have just one pint and then head up to sleep but things change… Few more pints and conversation with an Irish guy sitting in a bar about Finland, Ireland, horses, travels etc. I laughed so much as explaining some Finnish word and traditions and when I actually heard how it sounded like on his point of view…  For example:

- Kippis (Cheers) – “Keep-Piss”

- Tampere (my home city) – Somehow he managed to twist that word sounding like champagne brand Don Perignon with his Irish accent…

- Crab parties (Traditional parties where people drink shots, eat crabs and other seafood) – This one turned out crap parties instead of crab parties… and there is a “slightly” difference.

So you can just imagine: Welcome to Finland to participate on crap parties to drink shots and rising up your glass as telling everyone to keep(their)piss. … Thank god I’m not working in a tourist office :D

Cultural Dublin

After having first Easter break from college, and then another week long own break to Finland, dates for exams were getting closer. It was easily noticed from few key features… Library was full of students and trying to find a computer to print something was a real mission impossible. Secondly, usually the coffee break at library might easily last bit longer than expected, for example 30 minutes coffee break might turn out to be few hour coffee break… Such productive studying! I also thought about the option to participate on my classes during last week, but for some reason it didn’t happen and instead I spend a few days to discover cultural Dublin before days actually ran out of my Erasmus exchange.

First I started to discover the history of Dublin itself. It all started at the age of Vikings who actually were the ones who founded Dublin around 9^th century. People quite often have a perception of Irish people being red headed, but actually the story tells that legacy of redheads is related to the time of Vikings. After Vikings, on 12^th century, Normans arrived who decided to stay several hundred years and built up castles to make them stay more comfortable and secured. This leads back into times when the Dublin castle was built. In these days Dublin castle looks more like a residence place than actual fortress. Dublin castle is still on use as a visitor attraction and also the place where the President of Ireland gives receptions to other heads of state.

Secondly, Dublin is known for its literature heritage so it merged another area to get more familiar with. Probably the most known is the book of the Kells (which I haven’t seen yet!) but it is only one of the many amazing things to see. Near Dublin castle is the Chester Beatty library that haves a collection of books, writings and texts. It was divided into two sections: First one is religious texts from all major religions in the world (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism)… and second part the art of the book revealing different features of books in different cultural areas (China Japan, Mesopotamia, Europe etc...) throughout their 

http://www.marshlibrary.ie/

history starting about 2000 years ago. Another library to visit was Marsh’s Library, the first public library founded in Dublin. It has remained almost exactly the same for past 300 years. For example Jonathan Swift, a famous writer of the Gulliver’s Travels used the library when writing the book.

Thirdly, I experienced some Irish culture... I had already been in Guinness Storehouse but the other important part of pub culture was still missing… Whiskey, the water of life as they call it in Ireland. The best place to learn about it is Jameson’s distillery that has been founded at year 1780. The tour itself took about an hour and lead through the process of making whiskey and at the end of tour a shot of Jameson to get the flavour of it. It was a good tour in the sense of learning about whiskey, but it would have been also interesting to hear about the Jameson’s brands own story and what has been part of it.

Now we have drinks, music, cultural history but one very important feature is still missing… Can anyone guess? It’s music. In Dublin there are so called “Irish nights” for tourist to get to know this part of culture. Three hours in a row including dinner, music and dancing was a really nice experience. Especially as the band told about stories of traditional music, instruments and rhythms that are part of Irish music. Besides music there were few world class professional dancers (being for example part of globally know lord of the dance show) who introduced audience into an Irish dance letting also them participate by learning some simple dance moves, luckily they didn’t pick me up on the stage :D

All in all I would definitely say that I have got much more out for myself than sitting in lectures… We’ll see then how the examinations go, but they are still around 1,5 weeks ahead so no need to stress about those (yet).

1st of May, Greetings From Finland to Ireland

It was in August 2013 when I made a promise. I was meeting my friends last time before leaving to Ireland and we were talking about student life, parties etc. as we came across the fact that what's going to happen in Vappu (1st of May)... Because I've been hosting up parties already three years in row and the tradition could not be broken, I promised that I will come for a vappu time to visit Finland. First semester had already passed and promise more or less started to fade away and become forgotten until I saw cheap direct flights between Helsinki-Dublin. Vappu, here I come!!!

Usually students start to celebrate vappu already a whole week before 1st of May and there is every night something going on. Well obviously because I wasn't in Finland I only participated on vappy eve and then 1st of May celebrations but I didn't do it alone: I had a German friend with me who I got to know during my 1st semester in Ireland. And together we of course drank some Jägerbombs to honor people and memories for the first semester.

In Finland vappu is traditionally celebrated by working class and university student but had become an event where whole nation steps outside to celebrate it with serpentine, air balloons and funny costumes. Students have their overalls, it is important part of Finnish student culture, all 3rd level education students usually have overalls which shows that you are studying and how "active" student you have been. The colors of the overalls and a logo at the back indicates which student society do you belong that is mostly based on your major subject. During the study years we collect patches in different student parties etc. so more patches you have, more you have been living the student life. 

On last of April, the vappu eve, is a normal day (shops are open, people are working normally) but students started their day to gather around somewhere. University students go to a place called Sorsapuisto to have a picnic from around 3pm onward -->. Quite same than in Ireland, it is very weather dependable how many people there are and how long time they want to hang around in Sorsapuisto. From there I had invited friends to arrive the house parties I was hosting.

Parties were great on this year! People were not thirsty (you know what I mean ;) ), they were dancing and the music kept playing from 7pm until 5am. Of course during that time at midnight everybody gather to the Tampere city center to see how the Maiden of Finland statue will have a the white hat on (different cities have different traditions). First people sing kind of a university student song, then the statue will got its hat and everyone will open their sparkling wines wishing "Hyvää Vappua!"

Those white hats are graduation hats that we will got in Finland after finished upper-secondary school by passing matriculation examinations and then you can always were that hat in vappu. 

Obviously sooner or later the celebrations will continue on 1st of May, the actual Vappy day... someone might go already 9am to terrace or then just sleep late but one thing is not to be missed: Every year at 1pm freshers of Technical University of Tampere students will receive their baptism and after they become officially students. They queue few hours to actually get into the basket that a crane will lift up and dip into the rapid, this year weather was only around 3-4 Celsius degrees. Quite refreshing, right? To see this event people just gather around having a picnic in a park and there are lots and lots people from every age groups all wearing similar kind of white graduating hats.

On The Footsteps Of Game Of Thrones

Northern Ireland and a scenic driving route of Antrim Cost is said to be one of the most beautiful in the world. It includes several tourist attraction places but also many other locations where you just feel like to pull over the car and enjoy the views. This was also also the last day in Easter Brake roadtrips and was done with a mixture of Finnish-French-German team. As you might already imagine, not too many hours of sleep during the  night before and leaving on early morning 7am. Luckily the day was anyways great and sun was shining.

First we drove through Belfast and continued a bit further in town called Carrick Fergus, known of its castle and harbour. Of course we all agreed the fact that there are castles in every corner of Ireland so it is not anything super exciting. Main reason to stop there was the coffee tooth that was screaming to for a nice cup of coffee.  At same as we were enjoying drinks, we made kind of a plan what we would like to see during the day.

 As the curvy road followed up the coastal line narrowing down in some point where an alternative scenic loop route offered its possibility to see even more. One of the alternative routes lead us to place called a Torr Head where was an old already abandoned coastal guard station.The spot is the closest as you can get to Scotland from Ireland so because of the bright day we were able to see Scotland only 12 miles away.

It started to be lunchtime already and I started to be hungry. Problem was going to solve in Ballycastle town where was a famous place for fish and chips: Morrison's They make their portions using always fresh codfish. The best fish and chips I've tasted in Ireland so far. While eating we were sitting outside in a round table like the knights themselves as seagulls were flying over us to keep on eye if we would drop something.

Completing the huge portion made sure that with full stomach is good to continue forward. The dark hedges,  fantastic drive where trees have grown over the road forming weird formation. I saw a picture of it in a guidebook which was taken at time of the day when it was still a bit dark so it looked even more better than in sunshine. Even that I should not complain if the sun is shining in Ireland and its not raining.

Even I mentioned earlier that there are castles every corner in Ireland, of course our next stop was to see ruins of Dunluce castle and after town of Castle Rock. Both places includes areas where the series Game of Thrones has been filmed. There we just stopped by for a second to stretch legs and get some fresh air before around 4 hour drive home to maynoot

One last night with around 4-5 hours of sleep before returning car back to the Airport. By curiosity I calculated that I drove in total 3500 kilometers during a week. As usual I took the airport hopper back to Maynooth. There was one couple and me on the bust at that time. I fell asleep almost immediatly after bus started... Driver drop the couple out somewhere on the road but I was in so deep sleep that I didnt even wake up for that... Week was thought: I was tired but happy because now I can say that I have seen everything I wanted and much more in Ireland.

Mourne Mountains

Spending the previous day mostly underground I felt like to doing things in a opposite site, which meant to go to see mountains - from bottom to the top as to describe day ;)

There is the place called The Mourne Mountains just behind the border to Northern Ireland. Dutch-Italian-Finnish team was gathered up and ready to go to see some castles, scenery, granite mountains in the area where highest peaks of Northern Ireland reach the sky at height of 850 meters. Morning didn't look that good, clouds in the sky and some rain while driving but as Mourne Mountains got closer, the sky became clearer and rain ended. On the way as I stopped to gas up the car, starting look through my pockets which go through them made me realize one thing: I forgot my wallet at home!!
Which means that I was driving a rented car to a different country without having ID's, drivers' licence or money with me. I kind off hoped that polices would not stop us anywhere in during that day because it might turn out to be interesting moment... It was clear that I started to be a bit tired of the whole week trips because of all long days and short nights.

Our trip followed road along coastline along a scenic drive called Mourne Coastal Road started from Newry and finishing as we drove through same city on out way back to Maynooth. In the heart of the mountains lies place called Silent Valley Mountain park and built in 1930's as damming of Kilkeel River was completed to provide water for county Down and most parts of the Belfast which it still do.

After a park we stopped in New Castle town in a tourist information point where a very friendly women gave us pile of leaflets what to do so there was no other options than sit down for a coffee and make some plans. We thought to climb up the mountains but unfortunately during that day wind was blowing that coldly that we decided to stay in lower ground levels and drive by some scenic driving loops having only photo stops. The kind of tourism that you pull over car somewhere, jump out of the car (or just open the window), take pictures and quickly back into a car to continue forward... Very experiencing indeed but still good way to see surroundings before turning back to Ireland.

After passing safely the border back to Ireland we decide to stop in a city called Drogheda to have a dinner all together. A desert ghost town in my opinion. Since we walked (in a center) there was almost more close up bars, shops, B&B's than open ones.. So we failed to find a pub to eat in, can you imagine.. Not finding a pub in Ireland!? Ending up eating Chinese food, all you can eat menu filled up with small portions to mix and match. I liked the idea and tried for example Duck in orange sauce. Totally I ate 6 portions and two appetizers, I was full! That night I slept like a baby after got home.