Our Rainy Days

26.5.2015 taydellisetnaiset

8. week

On Monday we had a St. Patrick’s party at school. There was coffee and tea on offer, free of charge, as well as various kinds of pastries and cake. The cake was decorated with colors of the Irish flag and it was apparently delicious. We couldn’t tell, as we had eaten ourselves full with the pastries. At the background there were some teachers playing some traditional Irish instruments as flute and drum. There weren’t many students attending the classes, probably as the following day would be a day off from school. Our teacher told us about an opportunity to volunteer in the next days’ St. Patrick’s parade and as we were going to stay in Sligo and we didn’t have any plans, we decided to go for it.

In the morning we went to the Sligo Glasshouse as advised to volunteer in the parade. There was some coffee and tea for those who wanted to drink something warm before going outside. We were assigned in crowd managing near the Ulster Bank that is in the route of the parade, near the Yeats’ statue. We waited for an hour for the parade to start and in the meanwhile took some pictures with the statue of Yeats and some police officers (garda), who agreed with joy when Siru asked them. The parade was pretty relaxed – nothing big but all things communal. Afterwards we were awarded with a voucher to the hotel’s restaurant, where we had chicken with whiskey sauce, some dessert and tea. Later that night we went to our classmates’ place for a drinks. After a little while everybody decided to continue to Swagman, but Noora bailed out and went home because she was a bit sleepy already. Siru, however, was the brave one of us and went there with our Irish classmates. After Swagman they didn’t want to end their evening so they went to T&C to drink some more beer and talk about great things.

On Wednesday we went hillwalking with our Adventure Tourism class. We were late over an hour and by the time we got to Aghacashel, Leitrim, our guide told us we couldn’t actually climb the hill we were supposed to, as we wouldn’t see too much because of the clouds. To us the weather seemed nice and the hillwalking would have still been better than the loop we did. We were expecting some nature and peace from a national walking loop, but we were walking beside a asphalted road most of the time and there were a pile of tires dumped at the middle of woods. We stopped by the wonder for what seemed like an eternity and then had to walk really fast rest of the loop – no chance we would stop by the scenic places. In the evening we picked up Siru’s roommates from the bus station, offered them food and hit the beds.

On Thursday morning we went to school as usual and Siru’s friends went to Strandhill by themselves. Noora had her presentation about Lapland – everybody was amazed by it and the magical nature of Finland and as Nooras pleasure the teacher was amazed by the lack of her notes to look in during the presentation. After school Noora had interview for a summer job via Skype and got the job. As Siru’s friends came back from Strandhill and we went together to Donaghy’s to eat the best hamburgers “ever”. The portions were huge as we had already known and most of us couldn’t finish it. After eating in the pub we were tired and just headed back home to get some sleep.

On Friday we wanted to go somewhere together with the girls and ordered a cab before going to school. After one hour of school the taxi took us to the Glencar Waterfalls. We had actually planned on going to the Devil’s Chimney, but the taxi driver didn’t quite know where that was. As we noticed we should have gotten off in Sligo but we were in Leitrim instead, we decided to walk there. The walk was not too long and we still had the strength to climb to the actual spot. We could see from the road that there wasn’t any water coming out because there had been so dry weather, but we still decided to have the walk. Our lovely taxi driver Paul took us back to Sligo from the waterfalls. As the day of walking hadn’t been enough we went to the city center – Noora went crazy and bought two pairs of shoes and a handbag. We stayed up late as Siru’s friends were leaving at 1 in the morning – it was easier that way than trying to sleep a bit before.

There should have been water right here

Instead, it was just cloudy and humid

Upside down

On Saturday we went to Doorly Park again – we kept going from the bird feeding point and had our packed lunch sitting in the sun. On our way back we discovered the outdoor gym. We spent total of 3 hours of walking and exercising and afterwards we kept going to do our groceries in two shops. The final count for the day was 5 hours of activity and we were proud.

On Sunday we decided to go to Strandhill People’s Market because the weather was nice and also because Paul had told us there was only two left for the spring. We walked to the market place (hangar at the airport) and there were some interesting booths of different kind of craftsmanship. We were enthusiastic when we saw a booth were a man was selling cheeses. We asked for tasters and ended up buying two different pieces of cheese that we liked – only small pieces so we could eat them right away. We went outside of the market place and sat down in the grass to eat our cheese. After our cheesy picnic we decided to have a walk along the beach.

We walked for several hours and thought we could take a shortcut back with a nice scenery. We couldn’t have been more wrong. The walk over hairy hills was exhausting and we didn’t really know when we would see something else than the long grass. Finally after an hour of walking in the hills (and a few mental and physical meltdowns) we found some people. There were also thousands of seashells in the sand. We picked up a few of them for Siru’s collection. After finding our way back to civilization we went to Mammy Johnston’s where we decided to eat some crepes. The girl that took our order was actually Finnish and confused by the sudden mutual language and the dehydration ordering something so simple was a bit complicated. In the end we got a tasty crepes with banana, strawberries, chocolate and ice cream of our choice.

Low tide

Holy Trinity of Siru

Knocknarea over the hairy hills

Muoti Ruoka ja juoma Liikunta Ostokset

23.4.2015 taydellisetnaiset

7. week

On Monday morning Noora went back to the Tourist Office to look for an accommodation for our trip in the Easter vacation – no suitable was found, but she got few suggestions from Aiofe, who had helped us before. In the meanwhile Siru went to see the doctor, once again, but this time she got some actually was given a prescription for antibiotics. We met at school for our Spanish lesson, where we were supposed to have the dialogue that we had missed due to Siru’s lost voice last week. We had been practicing over the weekend, so we felt quite certain about the dialogue and it went very well. Our teacher was happy with us and our hard work, too. She said we did better than most of the other pairs since we didn’t use any notes at all. We also got an email of our exam schedules, so we could start thinking ahead returning back to Finland.

On Tuesday we had our Teamwork & Creativity presentation with three other team members. We had done our work properly and so it went just the way we planned. Teacher agreed and told us that we had done some amazing job with the presentation. Other students were seeming to be gasping in despair when our presentation was over – most of them are not comfortable doing presentations and as we went first, the quality had been set. After school we went back to the Tourist Office desperate, in turn, to find an affordable place to stay. Aoife did once again great job finding a nice B&B in Breifne, Dublin. She called the place to book it and nearly didn’t get off the phone – turned out the owner of the place is an old, friendly and talkative lady called Eileen, who kept going on about everything. As we got the accommodation off our chests, we agreed to look at the other details later.

On Wednesday morning it was cloudy and windy. The rain started with just some mist-like, light rain, which by the half way to the school evolved into raining cats and dogs. Only Siru had her umbrella with her, but she tried to keep us both somewhat dry. Our shoes were soaking wet, all right, that couldn’t be helped, but just 20 meters to school some nice cars spilled great amount of water on us. We were looking pretty miserable as we reached school and obediently attended the lecture. We were supposed to go to the Donegal Adventure Center for surfing, but Siru wasn’t feeling very good as she was just recovering from the flu. She had planned to just watch anyways and not get into the sea and as the teacher told her to go back home and get dry and warm, she obeyed without hesitation. Noora went on with the others – got into the cold wetsuit as the week before and went to the windy beach.

Instructions for surfing

There was first some warming up exercises and then instructions on how to surf and keep safe – then they got their boards and marched into the cold water. Noora was loving it – the instructors helped them get the waves, as you really should paddle really hard to get it yourself. She was able to catch a couple of waves with various stages of success and was a bit disappointed, yet proud, when they were called back to the beach. Noora thought it was the time to leave, but it was just break to get warm again and then get back into the waves. She tried to catch waves by herself and did, actually, succeed once. Fighting against the tide was very tiring and as we got to the bus back to the IT, she fell asleep right away. Siru had made some food ready and as soon as we had eaten, Noora went to sleep. She was exhausted – muscles tense from paddling life her life depended on it – and had a bad headache. She took a 2 hour nap but sleeping it off didn’t help. She was still disorientated, in pain and sleepy so she slept some 10 more hours that night and felt better in the next morning.

On Thursday we booked our Dublin Pass and Freedom Ticket with Aiofe at the Tourist Office. With Dublin Pass we could get in most attractions without queuing. Noora had read about the Freedom Ticket from the brochures we were given earlier –an answer to our prayers. For 30 € per person we could use all public bus transportation in Dublin for 72 hours, including green Hop-on Hop-off –line. Alongside our Dublin-activities, we booked an apartment from Belfast and Paddywagon’s trip to Giant’s Causeway.

In the evening we went to Swagman to meet our classmates – the night was fun as we saw many of our friends there, but Noora left earlier as there is never anything for her to drink in the pubs. They mainly (obviously) serve beer and the ciders they serve of yeast more than anything else. She doesn’t drink wine, either – one could say she’s picky. Siru, however, was the brave one of us and stayed.

On Friday Siru had her presentation about a Finnish tradition, Sauna. Nobody understood Finnish people and their weird habits when it comes to sauna. “Who really wants to go there naked and roll in the snow after it? You are crazy!” We also showed our teacher our news clippings, that we need to collect for our scrapbooks for the course, to see if we’re getting the right idea. Most of the articles weren’t what she was looking for but some of them were good as they were and some depending how well we could link them with the course. And at least we got the idea of what kind of news they should be. After school we saw our Italian friend Elisa and made some chocolate cakes. We had to let them cool a little after getting them out of the oven before tasting them, so we went to flea markets. In the evening Noora got some more info about a summer job that she had applied for – she was to have an interview next week via Skype.

On Saturday we had a proper brunch with fried eggs, bacon, toast, tea and everything. After we decided to go to Doorly Park that was near the city center. We walked by the river and in the forest walk for a while and ended up a place where there were a lot of ducks and seagulls. Parents and children were throwing bread to the birds and we stayed to watch them. After a while there came two swans and the other one was huge. They weren’t afraid of the people and we got some good pictures of them. Noora hadn’t dressed very warmly, so we turned around even though there seemed to be a path leading even further and decided to explore it later.

What a lovely day it was

Who do you think you’re staring at?

On Sunday we tried to do as much school work as we could so we could travel to Dublin and Belfast next week with good conscience. Later on that day we took a break and to visit flea markets once again. It was worth it – we both found new jackets with half price. Noora found a black, classy cape and Siru bought a beautiful purple jacket.

Hyvinvointi Liikunta Mieli Matkat