Surprises for Everyone

A big surprise was on Wednesday, I came home!! I have been telling almost everyone that Saturday was my arrival home, but all along I knew I would be coming home on the 3rd :)  I wanted to surprise my mom, Caca, Nana and Big B, and the HC girls, and I have to say it was a definite success.

I left Cork on a 5 AM bus, arriving in Dublin at 8:30 AM Wednesday morning.  My flight was at 11:30 so I had a lot of time to kill.  The excitement was killing me!  I was so ready to see my family and get ready for the holidays.  The flight was very smooth, and almost empty.  I had a lot of space to get comfy and just relax.  The flight was almost 7 hours long, so I arrived in Boston at 1:35 PM, Eastern Time.  When I walked off the plane, I was SO happy to see Maureen and Dad waiting for me!

We went to the North End of Boston, grabbed a quick lunch, dropped Mo off and we were on our way.  My first surprise was at HC to see Anne and Allegra.  Thankfully, I had the help of my friends Chris and Alex to make the surprise a success.  It went SO well and the girls were so shocked to see me :)

Next stop: home!  Dad and I got home and Mom wasn't there, so I had time to get ready for the surprise.  We invited Nana and Big B over so they could see all of the action.  Mom came home around 9 PM, and I was anxiously awaiting her reaction.  I hid in her room, so when she walked in she would be shocked.  It went so well!!! I am so excited to be home for a month!

After surprising Mom, she had a surprise for me.  She and her friend, Meg, redid my room while I was gone.  It came out AMAZINGLY.  I am in love with it...I may never leave my bed!  Thank you Meg and Mom :)

Well, I am off for the month, I will be reporting back after the New Year!  Be back soon, and everyone have a very Happy Holiday Season!

XO,

Caitlin  

Sunrise on the bus to Dublin!

Back with Anne and Allegra :)

ALL DONE

I think you will all be very glad to hear this, I FINISHED MY WORK!!!! I do not think I have ever done as much work as I did these past ten days.  Six papers, one exam, and one blog submission for a class--DONE.

I began the morning by tidying up my last paper and (successfully) handing it in.  Now, it was time to go back to the Music department and Geography departments to hand in my last assignments.  My Geography professor was nice and told me to just slip my essay under his door.  So, that was a success.  Music, again, was an event.  I headed back to the far away land, once again.  When I got there, shocker, it was closed!!!  It was 3:00 PM, and the office is supposed to be open at 2:30.  I didn't know what do to, so I just sat there, waiting for someone to hopefully walk by.  Luckily, a very nice man who seemed like a professor, or someone of higher status, took my essay for me.  This is such a crazy system here in Ireland.  You have to hand  your essays in to the department administrators so that they can stamp it and give you a receipt edifying that you hand in your assignment.  This is why it is so important that the administrators are in their offices when they say they will be.  I guess the Music department has a different view on that...

Finally, I was done will all of my work!  I cannot believe it, I am so relieved!!!  As a way of celebrating, Jane, Grace, and I went to Jackie Lennox's for dinner,  This is a take away place right next to our apartments.  It was great study comfort food.  I had a chicken sandwich and fries, so not healthy, but so good!

I went back to my room and DIDN'T do homework when everyone left.  Ahh such a nice feeling!  I hung out with my roommate, Orna, who I hadn't seen in a week.  It was nice catching up with her and helping her de-stress a little bit!

Be back soon!

XO,

Caitlin

A craft fair going on in the UCC Campus Center...some of you can expect gifts from here :)

The food stands set up on campus for study week!

The face of a happy (and sleep deprived) girl done with her first semester of Junior Year!

Lennox's!

Dinner time :)

Locked Up (with Papers)

Monday was BORING!  I had to finish my work, still.  You are portably tired of hearing me talk about the work I have to do.  But, 5 of my 6 papers were done, woohoo!

I woke up and got right to work on Monday.  This routine is getting boring, but it is very short-lived.  I will be going home on Saturday, the end is in sight!  It is so hard because I want to enjoy every minute I have here in the city before heading home for Christmas, which is making it very difficult to do any homework.  In the mid-afternoon, Jane and I went to go hand in some papers.  Little did we know this would be an extravaganza....

We headed to the library at 2:30 to print off our work and bring the to the departments to pass them in.  In celebration of finishing out work, we decided we would stop at the O'Conaill's stand that had been set up on campus for study week.  I do not think you will meet anyone who loves O'Conaill's more than Jane and I do!  But, we were celebrationg submissions a little too soon.  Our first paper submission: success.  Jane was done, but I had to go hand in four more.  My second one: success.  The third one: the Geography department doesn't believe that students get work done early, so the submission box was not there, uh oh.  On to the next one, history: success.  Then to music: ohhhh the Music department at UCC, or should I say, barely in Cork City.  Jane was a trooper and trekked all the way to this department with me, which we had no idea where it even was to begin with.  It ended up being about a thirty minute walk away from UCC, up a massive hill, in the middle of no where.  When we finally found it, we went to the office and...IT WAS CLOSED!  This was not due to my lack of preparedness, I promise!  There was a hand written note simply stating it would be closed on December first, just my luck.  I wanted to cry, I just wanted to hand my work in!

As a way of recovering from this strenuous day, Jane and I went shopping.  We picked up some more Christmas gifts, but mainly goodies of us!  What is better than retail therapy?

Be back soon, hopefully with all of my work done!

XO,

Caitlin

I have not done anything special, but I did start to pack!  Looks a little bit like an explosion of clothes, I know.

Okay, a lot like an explosion of clothes.

Dublin Christmas Markets

Sunday was Dublin Day! I was really excited to see the Christmas Markets, this is the first year they have ever been done in Dublin!  A perfect day and place to get in the holiday spirit.

Jane and I took the train to Dublin at around 10:30 in the morning, and we were there by 1!  We were meeting up with Nicole and her two friends, all who had taken the bus in earlier.  It was incredibly easy, and so convenient to get there.  The Christmas Markets were right outside of St. Stephen's Green, lining the gates to the park.  The weather was great and there were loads of people there.  Our first stop was a food stand, obviously.  Jane and I were starving.  The start of our meal consisted of salted carmel popcorn, and then we moved on to hot dogs (which were massive)!  The food was awesome, especially for street food.  Jane and I were commenting on how street food in Europe is actually really delicious!

After getting something to eat in the Markets, we walked around them for a little while to get some shopping done.  I had a bunch of Christmas gifts I still needed to pick up.  Luckily, the Markets had a lot of items I was looking for!  Everyone at home, get excited for your coming presents :)

Once we were done with the Markets, we headed over to O'Connell Street.  The city was hosting a Make a Wish Foundation event to see if they could break the world record of the number of people wearing Christmas sweaters in one location.  This event was one of the main reasons why we came to the city for the day, we are open to anything involving Christmas sweaters!  There were a lot of people and lots of fun activities going on, we were even interviewed for a local radio station!  Unfortunately, we could not stay fro the tree lighting.  It was time to get back to Cork and finish up some work!

Be back soon!

XO,

Caitlin

Rudolph?

A band, Keywest, that was playing on Grafton Street--AMAZING

Me, Nicole, and Jane at the event, Geansaí Nollaig (1,297 people came, breaking the record!) 

Christmas!!!

Cork Christmas Markets

Saturday was a really nice day in Cork, the weather has been almost balmy!  So, how about that snow back home?  Yeah, definitely not missing that at all!

Jane and I were planning on checking out the Cork Christmas Markets Saturday evening.  They just went up on Friday, so this was our paper writing motivation.  We were meeting at 5:15 to head down to the city, with a pitstop at O'Conaill's first!

I have been to O'Conaill's so many times now, and I still do not get sick of it.  I am so excited any time someone asks if I want to go, and the answer will always be YES!  Jane and I headed there before checking out the Christmas Markets.  It was a perfect night for hot chocolate.  There was a little bit of a chill in the air, but after having O'Conaill's, I was warmed up!  Our first stop at the Markets was the ferris wheel.  I am such a child and still love going on ferris wheels!  Somehow Jane and I got unlucky and there were four little kids in our ferris wheel booth who kept spinning the booth in circles.  I thought I was going to die, it was making me so dizzy.  Sorry to be a fun-ruiner, kids, but I wanted to enjoy the ride!  Other than that, it was an awesome time.  The views were great.  You could see the entire city lit up, filled with loads of people.  Happy Christmas, Cork!

After the ferris wheel, we decided we would get some dinner.  Most of the Market booths were food stands, so we had a lot of options.  We stopped at a pulled pork booth, which was great.  It was a little different than the pulled pork we have at home, but it definitely hit the spot.

It was back to getting work done for the night, Dublin was Sunday!

Be back soon!

XO,

Caitlin

How many pictures do I have like this now?

The main event!

Me and Jane patiently waiting!

Friendsgiving

Friday was Friendsgiving time.  This would be my first time ever going to a Friendsgiving, and I was hosting it!  I was super excited for evening and enjoying so quality time with great friends.

My morning, once again, consisted of getting work done.  I feel like I am doing everything at a snail's pace!  However, I am making some progress and that is all that matters.  I was having Jane, Grace, Nicole, and two of Nicole's friends over for dinner, and everyone was pitching in to help out!  I started cooking around 5 PM, because everyone was arriving at 7 PM.  I was in charge of making the chicken (we are too lazy to find a big turkey), sausage stuffing, green beans, breads (I cheated and bought them at the English Market), and some appetizers.  Jane made mashed sweet potatoes, mashed regular potatoes, a green salad, and an apple crisp.  Nicole made garlic bread, baked ziti, and chips and homemade salsa from her mom!  And Grace made a pretzel, M&M, Rolo dessert.  Everything came out soooooo deliciously.  We had a ton of leftovers, so it was nice sending people home with some food for the week!  It was finally starting to feel a little bit like the holidays.

After dinner, I headed back to work.  We were going to Dublin on Sunday, so I really wanted to have a good dent in my papers so that the day was not stressful for me.

I am such a fan of the holidays, and I am so happy that Ireland is too!!!  It is a great place to keep busy :)

Be back soon!

XO,

Caitlin  

Our table setting:

The feast!!

More food (ignore the dishes)!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving in Ireland did not feel right!  I wasn't used to not waking up to smelling all of Dad's delicious cooking, and seeing Mom's beautiful decorations :)  However, I still had an awesome day!

My morning was filled with lots of work.  I still had three papers to finish, and I was procrastinating a lot.  In the middle of the afternoon, I decided to take a break from paper writing and head into the city.  I needed to get some shopping done for our Friendsgiving on Friday!  I was hosting, so I bought a lot of decorations to spruce up the apartment.  I wanted it to feel like Thanksgiving a little bit in Ireland for all of my guests!

After getting a lot of errands done, I quickly came home and got ready for dinner.  Julia, a HC student, had her family here for the week, and they so kindly offered to take us out to Thanksgiving dinner in the city.  Jane, Nicole, Chelsea, Julia, her family, and myself all went to a great restaurant that I had yet to try, 14A.  I ordered the muscles and fries dinner, which was so yummy, and not festive at all (whoops).  However, I was very happy with my choice.  Muscles and fries seems like such a weird combination to me, but they are everywhere in Europe!

It was really nice being around a family setting on Thanksgiving, and definitely made the holiday a little bit easier.  I think I can say that this was one of the first times I was really starting to feel far away from home, with the entire Fox clan celebrating at my house.  However, I will be home soon enough!

Be back soon!

XO,

Caitlin

Jane bought me a Thanksgiving treat :)

Dinner!

The city has more and more lights each time I get down there!