Trans-Atlantic Tuesday

As I am getting ready for my largest, and final trip this year, I have been thinking back upon my previous trips to help me prepare.  One of the things that I have noticed is that it is a lot easier to prepare for this one, after having been through so many other travel experiences.

• When packing, I remember all the mistakes that I have made previously, such as the Belgium mishap, and remember all of the things I forgot that time. 

• When preparing my list of travel times, I know to check, and probably double-check, all of the times and dates of my flights so that I do not have a repeat of Matt's flight departure from Ireland

The other aspect that makes this trip a lot easier to prepare for, is that the unknown factor is a lot smaller.  For every previous trip that I have been on, I have either travelled with new friends, or flown with a new airline, or had some other element that I had never experienced before.  Because I have been through so much through my trip this year, I know what to expect a lot better.  

While there is still always an element of surprise, and mishap, that is unavoidable with travel, I'm hoping that my experience will help to keep it at a minimum for this trip.  

Transportation: 

One fact that I find very cool is that so far this year, I have flown with five different airlines, to eleven different airports, at all hours of the day, and with multiple connections.  Here they are listed in order of rank from best to worst. 

• KLM - Denmark
• Most comfortable seating, with a decent amount of leg room, and free drink/snacks on flight even short ones
• Lufthansa - Germany, Switzerland
• Very close to KLM, same service, seats are slightly less comfortable
• Swiss Air - Switzerland
• Very comfortable seating, and free drink/snack service, however rocky take-off and landing
• Aer Lingus - America, Amsterdam, and Denmark
• Not RyanAir so that is a plus, but not much better. Seats are uncomfortable and very little room with only really water being free.  Biggest plus is that they fly out of Cork! 
• RyanAir - Belgium, Czech Republic, Spain   
• The worst of all in terms of comfort, but actually one of my favorites because their prices are so cheap it allowed me to go so many different places, I would have been a lot more restricted if not for their airline.  However, the times of their flights are unbelievably bad (very early or very late) and most of the time their airports are in the middle of nowhere and there is a lot of travel to get back and forth from them.  And more often than not, they give you a hard time about your luggage, which is already really restricted to begin with. 
• In the coming weeks I will be flying with two new airlines: Aegean Air and Vueling. I am curious to see where they will fall on this list. 

Accommodation:

I have stayed in a wide variety of places over the course of this year, and being that I was restrained to a student budget they ranged from good, to bad to very weird. 

Interlaken was one of my favorite weekend trips and it was very hard to leave and know it would be my last quick trip.  What made it easier however, was knowing that it would be the last hostel I was staying in this year.  Here are my accommodation experiences ranked from best to worst.

• Denmark - Copenhagen 
• Of all the hotels I stayed in (3), this was the best one.  Caitlin's parents got us this room for her birthday present and it was very generous of her to treat Lindsay and I to accompany her.  It was just the three of us, with a cozy room, and very comfortable beds. The location was perfect, not more than a ten minute walk anywhere we wanted to go. Definitely my favorite!  
• Great wifi
• Belgium - Brussels
• We stayed in a hotel because it cost us the same to do so as it would have to stay in a hostel.  The beds were comfortable, the room was clean, we had it to ourselves and the bathroom was fully stocked with towels and shampoo/soap etc.  The location was very convenient, and it was in a safe neighborhood. 
• Great wifi 
• Germany - Munich
• We stayed in a hotel for Germany as well because it was Oktoberfest and there were not many options.  The hotel was an excellent idea because we were able to escape the chaos of the tents and retreat back to a clean, quiet, comfortable room.  It is less than Belgium however because it was expensive, and even with squeezing in an extra person,which also made it more cramped. 
• Adequate wifi 
• Switzerland - Interlaken
• This was the best of all the hostels.  The facilities were nice and it was clean, quiet, and had a really nice charm to it. It was located not far from town, and very close to all of the activities we chose to do for the weekend.  The staff was also very helpful, which made the planning aspect easier. 
• Great wifi
• Spain - Barcelona
• Spain was a decent hostel.  I have nothing to complain about this one, but it did not stand out as great.  It was exactly what you expect from a hostel, a bed and no additional frills but it was clean, safe, and comfortable.  This trip we had a larger group so even though we stayed in a 6 bed room, it was all of our friends. 
• Great wifi 
• The Netherlands - Amsterdam 
• This hostel was one of the best that we have stayed in, however it is low on this list because we were in a 20 bed room.  There were 6 Holy Cross girls with us, and we had our own section of the room, but we were with many other people.  This hostel was in a perfect location, with great facilities, however the additional people gave it a lower rank. 
• Good wifi but only on the main floor and we were staying on the fourth so inconvenient 
• Czech Republic - Prague
• Hostel Elf in Prague is what I meant by weird. This place was just plain strange.  The staff, decor, and other guests all contributed to creating just a very odd vibe.  It was not near the town centre, but this meant that we were gone all day and truly were only in the hostel to sleep.  It was definitely the most stereotypical of hostel experiences, but everyone has to have it at least once! 
• Accidentally good wifi - I say accidentally because our room had good wifi but that was only because we happened to be located near the common room which was supposed to be the only place to get service 
• Ireland - Dublin (3) Galway (1) Unidentified Location (1)
• Over the course of the year I have stayed in a variety of hostels in Ireland.  The best where in Dublin where the bathrooms were attached to the rooms, but generally they were the most uncomfortable of all the hostels.  The one of unidentified location was one we stayed in for my Early Start class and it was by far the worst. Extremely uncomfortable, tiny unclean bathroom for too many people, and was located on a farm so the smell was horrendous. 

I have been in so many different situations, in a handful of countries, using multiple currencies and trying to understand a multitude of languages; it has been quite a year! Hopefully all of that has prepared me for what is about to come over the next couple of weeks. 

Trans-Atlantic Tuesday: Finals

This week began the start of finals here at UCC.  Last week we had the entire week off of classes for study week, but this week and next are the two weeks when your exam could be scheduled.  I had my first Irish final exam experience yesterday and it was just that; and experience.

At Holy Cross you get one day off for your study period, and then exams start the following day.  It is an incredibly stressful, pressure packed time; however it is all over in a relatively short period of time.  At UCC, you have an entire week and the process is more of a marathon than a sprint. I never thought I would say this, because I always complained about it at Holy Cross, but you have too much time at UCC, who wants to drag out the finals process for any longer than necessary?

Finally, I had my first final yesterday.  At this point I was very anxious to actually take the exam and finish another class. However, there was a huge hurdle for me to just get to the exam center.  UCC has you take your finals in exam venues, not your normal classroom.  So here is my schedule yesterday.

7:15- Wake-up, eat breakfast, get ready to leave
7:45- Leave my apartment
8:00- Arrive at the bus stop to catch a bus to bring me to my exam center
8:25- Arrive at the Neptune Exam Center
9:30- Exam beings
10:30- Exam finishes
11:15- Bus departs Neptune center
12:00- Arrive back in my apartment

*you will notice that it was almost a 5 hour ordeal for a one hour exam

Upon arriving at the Neptune center I understood why we could not take the exam in our classrooms.  It was a large gym arena with 500 desks set up on the gym floor.  There were about fifteen UCC staff members there to make sure everything went according to policy, and they had many.

Exam Rules and Regulations:

• Only acceptable materials allowed in the exam center
• Mostly consisted of just pens, pencils and water
• Needed to have a printed copy of your exam schedule so that during the exam a UCC official could come around and check that you were the right person, in the right place, taking the right exam
• Needed to be in the exam center 15 minutes prior to the start of your exam, if not you are banned from the exam, and if you do not take your exam you automatically fail your course, and there are absolutely no exceptions
• You are not allowed to leave when you are finished, you can only leave between 10:30-10:40, or at 11:00. When you are done you have to sign and seal your exam and give it directly to one of the UCC officials 

The whole process to me was a little cold; literally and figuratively.  The door we entered from the street into the gym was open the entire exam and the heat was not on so I was freezing.  I actually took the exam in my winter coat with my warm weather headband on the entire time.  That was not fun.

But it was figuratively cold because I am used to finishing my exam and physically handing my final to my professor.  I say thank you for the semester, and wish him/her a Merry Christmas.  With the UCC experience, you never see your professor and I left the exam center and my class was finished that abruptly. I most likely will never see my professor ever again, although she most likely has no idea who I am, but it seemed very strange to me.

1 exam down....1 to go, and then I am home! I can't believe how fast this semester wrapped up all of a sudden, I am just so glad that I will be back next semester.  There is so much left that I want to do, try and see in both Cork and the rest of Ireland. Also, after having experienced UCC for a semester I feel like I have gotten some of the kinks out and will make better decisions regarding classes, scheduling and exams next semester.

Trans-Atlantic Tuesday: Staying in Touch

After being abroad for 103 days I have come to the conclusion that Steve Jobs must have also studied abroad.  The use of my iPhone, and Mac computer, has made being away from my friends and family infinitely easier for two reasons: Snapchat and Skype.

Snapchat:

Snapchat is an app that allows you to take a photo (usually selfies) and send it to your friends for a designated amount of time, up to ten seconds.  After the time is up the photo goes away forever, unless you have a friend like me who screenshots the pictures!

This is a fun way to quickly send photos of you, or what you are doing to others and allows me to see my friends faces more frequently because during those times when you do not have the time to sit down and talk it can be easier to just send a quick photo to say hi.

The family during a classic family outing 

Emily, Seton, Matt and Meredith sent this to me because they were all hanging out at Holy Cross together, jealous that I missed it but glad they are having fun together! 

Katie and Bean sent this to me to remind me about the annual cornmaze, and how even at ages 15 and 22 it is still hard. 

Matt and Katie sent this to me to show me they were at the movies, and to make fun of the last time we all went to the movies together and I spilled the popcorn. 

Skype/Facetime: 

Depending on the mood of my wifi that day, I can use Skype or Facetime to have conversations with people back home.  It can be difficult because sometimes one party's wifi has a poor connection and you get a fuzzy picture, but for the most part it works really well.  

Matt having lots of fun talking to me! This was during his October break so he had some free time to catch up on his first semester at HC 

After hearing my voice Katie popped up from somewhere else in the house and joined the conversation for a little bit, so it usually doesn't matter who you initially call because others will join in/take over

 Mom and Dad pushing each other out of the way so they can each monopolize the screen 

This is Facetime on my phone, I was on with mom when she was working late one night and I chatted with her while she made her dinner

It can be really frustrating when you are talking with someone and the wifi either completely quits on you or gets so bad the screen goes almost all fuzzy.  During my last conversation with Seton and Meredith this is the screen fuzzy, and the bottom one is when it was working perfectly.  

Yes, they are both wearing blue and white striped shirts, seeing that made me laugh so hard! 

And my personal favorite, when Dad put me on the TV 

I am spoiled that I can see, and talk to everyone with the push of a button but, it is not perfect. The time difference makes it hard to find times where both parties are free.  Then, when you can talk to them, it can be really frustrating to have to wait for slow connections and even more infuriating trying to scream the same things at the screen five times to ensure that they heard what you were trying to say.  

But it is all worth putting up with because when you have had a good or bad day, there is nothing better than hearing a familiar voice to make you feel better, or share in your excitement. 

Trans-Atlantic Tuesday: Money

As I was going through my wallet today I found something that reminded me there was a big part of my Prague trip that I forgot to mention; money!

Czech Koruna

1 Dollar

=

1.24 Euro

=

22.19 Koruna

The Czech Republic is part of the European Union and so they do not use the Euro.  While the money is beautiful, and I loved that the conversion rate for euro to the Czech koruna was highly in my favor, I realized how spoiled I am to have the euro.  

The euro allows me to travel from country to country and not have to worry about constantly switching currencies.  This is especially important because it allows me to understand the money that I am spending.  It was an adjustment first moving to Ireland, and understanding that every time I handed over 10 euro it was really 13.3 dollars.  Eventually you start to get a sense of the currency, but it would be extremely difficult to have to do that for every country that I go to.  

*Side note: the exchange rate has changed since I arrived. In August 1 euro=1.33 dollars, now the rate has dropped to 1 euro=1.24 dollars…it may not seem like much but it is an 9% difference! 

I think the best part about the euro is the freedom it allows me.  I never like to travel without a lot of cash reserves, for emergencies I hope never happen. However, I did not spend all my koruna and so now I am left trying to figure out what to do with it. With the euro, I do not have to worry about the money becoming useless. 

The hard part is ensuring that I have enough to last me through May!

Trans-Atlantic Tuesday

As I have started to settle into my life here (the one month mark was last Sunday!) I have started to really understand the differences between living at home, and abroad.  These are just some of my observations about how I see the new culture.

• Clothes:  Hollister and Abercrombie and Fitch are very popular here.  It is very funny to see the clothes that middle-school Americans wear be fashion forward for college students.  And, surprisingly, Boston College apparel is really common.  As an HC fanatic, I take great offense to this.  

• Food:  I have now been to many different food shopping enterprises, and to my great surprise kale is not that popular here! It is one of my favorite foods and I have only the hardest time finding it.  However, ham is everywhere.  

• Language:  I love the Irish accent, but as I have been here for longer I am starting to pick up on the variances in the counties.  Just like I can easily tell you the difference between the way a Boston and New York man would pronounce their vowels, I have begun to understand the difference between a Cork and Dublin accent.  I have to say a true Cork accent is almost impossible hardest to decipher, it hardly sounds like english.  

These are just a few observations that I found the most interesting.  Even though Ireland is english speaking, I find something different everyday with the way they do things here.  While I do feel like Cork is my home, it is exciting that there is still so much more to learn!