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.