(From Scotland Part II)

To read my other post about Scotland from Friday, April 23, 2010 check here: Good News and Scotland

I Never Thought I Would Say This...

But I'm stranded in Ireland. So are my parents. We were all supposed to leave this morning, them returning home, me flying to Spain, but my flight was cancelled yesterday, not flying again until Monday... their flight took off from the states to come here, got two hours out, and turned around and flew back.

The hotel we're staying at is even mocking me! This was posted at the elevators when I first arrived yesterday:

A news article reported that, "...in 1821, the same volcano managed to erupt for more than a year." If I have to go native, it's been good knowing everyone!

P.S. for those of you who've been wondering, the Eyjafjallajokull volcano is pronounced "ay-yah-FYAH'-plah-yer-kuh-duhl."

(From Scotland)

Go to my blog from Scotland to see the post from Sunday, April 4, 2010: Oops

Scotland, Spain, and Morocco, Oh My!

No fun stories this time, sorry. But I have a fun fact: classes ended today. As in, I'm done for the semester. Well, okay, that's not true. I still have to finish two essays that are due next week and have two finals in May. But tomorrow is the start of a two week Easter Break (we didn't have a spring break), then we have a week to study before exams start, and instead of them all being crammed into one week, they'll be spread out over a month. Briefly, here are my plans for April:

4th-7th: Edinburgh, Scotland with Meg, Allen, and Brad
9th-17th: Mom and Dad are coming to visit; we'll be driving around Ireland
17th-22nd: Stay with Alex in Madrid, Spain (fingers crossed we'll get up to Segovia Castle!)
22nd-...sometime before the 30th: Stay with Kristen in Rabat, Morocco. Maybe go hiking?

Then I'll come back and have roughly a week before each final to study. Then home. I'm not staying here during the summer. At all. I'm amused that that rumor is still going but perhaps I can put it to rest (again); unless you hear directly from me that I am staying until June (or whenever), don't believe it. And you won't hear that from me. So there you have it: Brooke is officially going home in May. And, for those of you trying to rendezvous with me this summer, I'll be in Texas for about a week, back at Wake for summer school in June, taking a bio course in Vienna through July, then back in Texas (and Colorado for a tad) in August. Sound good? Yeah, I think so, too.

Oh, it also snowed again today.

Adventures Abounding!

I realize that I might have left you wondering, "What is this 'adventure weekend' you speak of?" Well, Butler rounded up all of their students from every program in Ireland and brought us to Connemara in west Co. Galway for an 'activity weekend', if you will... We signed up for what we wanted to do each day, choosing between things like zip lining, ropes courses, bungee jumping, archery, clay pigeon shooting, water skiing, ringo (tubing), hiking, etc.

So... here's some of what I did:

(actually... okay, I didn't windsurf. I really wanted to but the wind picked up way too much Saturday afternoon)

Yup. Good weekend.

Adventure Weekend

Butler brought all of us together at the Killary Adventure Center for a weekend of thrills. This is the view from where we're staying:

I think it's going to be a good weekend...

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit!

Saint Patrick's Day is of course well underway in Ireland, and is there any better way to celebrate it than with a parade? Well... actually, yeah, I suppose there is, but a parade is a pretty good way to kick off the celebration of a British man taken to Ireland as a slave, told by God to flee, then, after successfully returning home, encouraged by God to return so that he might save the Irish. And why drink on this 17th day of March? Because it used to (and still does) serve as a one day break from Lent. And what did many of the Irish give up for this forty day stretch of fasting? You got it. So the drinking actually has a purpose, folks! So that's what I did this afternoon... the parade, not the drinking... My impressions of the parade? Worth attending, but a little sporadically thrown together. And for whatever reason this year's theme (there are themes to St. Patty's Day parades other than Irishness and St. Patrick?) was Over the Moon. A little beyond me, I have to admit. And although Galway was densely packed it wasn't as... wild, maybe?... as I was expecting. I actually don't know what I was expecting, maybe just that it would have been more elaborate. Also there were plenty of people not wearing green. But all that aside I'd still much rather go to a parade than class on occasion, and I can proudly say I've been in Ireland on Saint Partick's Day.

A few fun tidbits:
-The Irish do NOT pinch or punch anyone who doesn't wear green today. Nor have they ever heard of that tradition.
-The shortest parade in celebration of this day takes place in a village in County Cork where they travel 100 yards between the two pubs there.

I was almost certain that this was the horse taken by the travelers until I remembered that horse had two other stockings. Maybe they just painted them black so they could use him in the parade...