Taken with Toledo

On a whim and a quick google search, Shayla and I decided to take a quick day trip to Toledo on the second day. Boy am I glad we did because it was magical! We had to stall a bit since we were too late for the earlier train by going to the Thyssen museum and seeing the Monet exhibit. That was great though. The weather was perfect and so sunny. We walked around everywhere and sat down at every plaza we saw.
Walking into the city from the bus station--

Top of the hill next to the castle---

Plaza we stayed in while eating chocolate pastries---

Sign I had to take a picture with! YAY home I miss y'all---

Great views at the bridge we stopped at----

That place was my favorite! I loved the view and thought  it looked like a fairytale where I could be the princess living in that castle (haha but really Shayla had to drag me away).

After the trip fortified by pastries and soda, we took the train back to Madrid and walked back to the hostel. We went back out soon after and grabbed some dinner at a bread place, both of us only having a vague idea of what we ate since there were no translations.Then we picked up some chocolate almonds and bottled water to brush our teeth and to distract us from the semi-disastrous dinner and called it a night by going back to the hostel early.

You know you love me. 

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Mad for Madrid, part 1

Bus to Dublin for the airport for the last time woohoo!! So-so night at the Starbucks terminal again. Arrive to a perfect hostel, little did we know how wonderful it was in comparision to the second one. Highly recommend the WAY hostel even though we had a eight person female dorm. Shayla awkwardly got caught by the maid checking for bed bugs though haha. We were told that our beds wouldn't be ready until 12:30 so we wandered around the market and the plazas surrounding the palace. 

Loved them, they were so great that we ended up hanging around in them a lot basking in the sun.

Once we got settled into the hostel and met some new friends on Spring Break, we walked to the Parque Del Retiro (soon to be one of my favorite places in Madrid). It was so relaxing to walk around and watch the people in their boats on the Estanque.

After walking around most of the city for the day, Shayla and I took a quick nap before we went to the Prado museum during their free hours at 6-8. It was so cool to see all the paintings of Goya and others. Then we had an early night at the hostel in order to get ready for our day trip to Toledo the next day since we were so exhausted with all the walking.

You know you love me.

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

Stories of Spain and today sure to come soon!! 

 You know you love me. 

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Inspiration for Wednesday

I leave for Scotland on Wednesday to take the bus to Dublin in preparation for my early flight on Thursday morning. In the meantime, I have just checked out a collection of Robert Burns' poems to get me in the mood.

O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie
That’s sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry:

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.
 

And fare thee weel, my only Luve
And fare thee weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ it were ten thousand mile.

I always loved that poem, even when I had to memorize it for class in seventh grade. Tomorrow I have dinner with Victoria at an undisclosed location. I'll let you know how it goes. 

You know you love me. 
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Body Circuits and Power Ball

Today, I went to the gym. Yes, the gym. I swear! I have a witness. Shayla and I went to a class at eleven today called Boot Camp Core Ball. Turns out that there used to be a total body circuit training class an hour before ours that was cancelled and they decided to combine the two. Good Lord, I nearly passed out after the warmup. I am still in one piece though and Operation Santorini (look good in a bikini) forges onward. We did two one minute stations of lifting or crunches or lunges (w/ weights) and then switched to a minute of cardio workout with sprints or stepping or jumping jacks. This we cycled through about five or six times. AFTER THAT we had to switch to the stability ball!!! Thank goodness our instructor was wonderful - pushy but not demanding. She encouraged us to push ourselves while not being mean or forceful but rather totally understanding and constructive. It ended up being a really good experience even though I was hating it at the time. So glad I had Shayla with me, otherwise I probably would have freaked out at the circuits and left! We are going to another class tomorrow. Wish me luck!

Motivation--->
 No more of this kind of thing                          Because of this

Haha we'll see how long that last dear readers!

You know you love me. 

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Big Band: Pearly Whites

Got my paper turned in and I went to dinner with Shayla's parents at Soho. Both the food and the company were quite delightful and I had a fabulous time. They are very funny and nice. Thanks again Guernons!! Tuesday night I found out my exam schedule and tried to figure out when my family could come visit. Hopefully everything works out because I'm looking forward to seeing them very much. Last night, Christina, Emily, Julie and I saw a band called the Pearly Whites which covered big band and swing songs. Clearly right up my alley and why I wanted/asked everyone to go. It ended up being a wonderfully fun and upbeat time, so much so that I took videos to share some of my favorite songs for y'all!

For everyone (but mostly me)


For Shayla


For the Cinco (the worst yet best)

AND AFTER THAT AMAZINGNESS.... Here's a few pics (two! haha) from the night. Don't be too jeal, the (unfortunately not very attractive) singer didn't come find me in the bar and plant one on me PS.I LOVE YOU-style.

 

  

You know you love me.

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

PS. I apologize for the offensive signage in the videos. I was not aware until after.

Pssstt....

This is what I expect to greet me on my balcony in Greece.... 

If only dreams came true. 

You know you love me.

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

*I saw this before Perez put it up. I swear. 

It's Really Happening.

I've officially booked all my flights around Europe! Sorry about the wait, I have a paper due tomorrow that I'm still working on... But I thought I needed to share this very exciting news with you!! Timing has been completely revamped in order to accommodate cheaper flights. Shayla and I leave Ireland on April 3rd (hopefully with Julie) for Nice, France. Then on April 6th we wander around Italy- Venice, Florence and Rome-- until April 14th. We fly from Rome to Athens before we depart for Mykonos (the clubbing island) on the 17th. At Mykonos we will take a ferry to Santorini staying until the 22nd. All that is left is Vienna and Prague when we leave Prague to Dublin on April 27th (my mom's birthday!). SO EXCITED. And yes, I completely ignoring Valentine's Day in favor of travel photos.

You know you love me.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

PS. YAY Shayla's parents being in town! So happy for her. They are taking me out to dinner too woohoo!!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

MY SKYPE IS WORKING!!!! No idea how but let's not focus on trivial details when I've people to webcam and songs to send and friends to chat!!! YYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY

You know you love me.

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Scotland!

 Just booked Scotland from Feb 25-Feb 28. Shayla and I will soon be listening to bagpipes whilst wearing kilts when we visit HC students that Shayla knows who go to St. Andrews. We will be spending two nights on the beautiful campus and then we will spend another night in the town of Edinburgh. If anyone has any suggestions they would be much appreciated! I know that a must see on the list is the cafe that J.K. Rowling began writing Harry Potter- The Elephant House.

Today I listened to a beautiful and haunting sean-nos (Traditional Irish) singer in the Aula Maxima, an auditorium in college that is straight out of Harry Potter. He was quite excellent and I wish you could have heard him since he was so moving even though I didn't understand a word of the Irish he was singing! Unfortunately I did not get any pictures or video because I was worried I might seem a bit rude.. Other than that, I spent the day reading The Moonstone until Shayla came over for dinner and watched Skins and Vampire Diaries with me.

You know you love me. 

XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Exactly How I Feel- Read it!

The Sober One

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Ceilis

Last night, Christina, Claire, Emily, Mary, Meghan, Shayla and I went to a Ceili. A ceili is a traditional Irish dance where people gather around to socialize. The video I posted is a bit dark but Emily is the girl dancing in front with the short black hair. It was cool to see traditional dancing and see someone we know participate in it. Emily acquitted herself very well (She takes Irish dancing class here) and I was very glad someone did it after all my pleas for the more experienced girls to get out there.




You know you love me.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Travel Plans

While I know it just became February, the month of April and the planning of it consumes me. This weekend was chiefly concerned with the scheduling and layout for the month I have off from March 26 until April 25. This is the somewhere-between-tentative-and solid dates and places Shayla and I came up with. Please let me know of any helpful hints like where to stay or places to go. Suggestions of cities and/or timing will also be taken into consideration but only within the countries we are already visiting...

Here goes..

• Cork to London flight- March 25

•  London to Madrid flight - March 28

•  Madrid to Barcelona train- March 30

 

possible Palma de Mallorca trip?

• Barcelona to Nice bus- April 2

•  Nice to Rome flight- April 6

•  Rome to Athens flight- April 8

 

Flight to Santorini

•  Athens to Rome flight (roundtrip)- April 14
• Rome to Florence train - April 16

 

•  Florence to Venice train- April 18

• Venice to Vienna train- April 21

• Vienna to Prague- April 23

• Prague to Dublin flight- April 25

Thoughts? I would love advice!!! P.S. Sorry if the adventures are an overshare esp Santorini (it breaks my heart not to go with the cinco!)

You know you love me.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

Birthday Dinners and Chill Nights

Monday, the girls celebrated Mary's 21st birthday by going to Scoozi's restaurant for dinner. I got this massive pollo alla scoozi's which is chicken stuffed with garlic. It is absolutely delicious. Dinner was fun and we all wore hats completely surprising Mary when she came in. After that we all hit up Costigan's for their weekly bingo night. Some older males chatted us up a bit even though we really wanted to talk to the cute boys sitting next to us. They were very shy but opened up a little when we somewhat purposefully/casually/nonchalantly crowded our table onto theirs starting up conversation with them finally. They were nice but we didn't get their names or numbers. Funnily enough, Shayla has spotted the one boy we talked to most numerous times while around campus. Cork really is a small city. None of us won bingo but we still had a fun time.

Tuesday, obviously Shayla and I dedicated our time to the Bachelor. Y'all last episode was the craziest yet. You don't even know. The Bachelor chose not to hand out TWO ROSES that he could have used. Who does that? We made our delicious chocolate/peanut butter/banana scones for the occasion.
Wednesday, my internet stopped working. It was terrible but I used the time to try to get my sleep schedule back on track. It was fixed the next day. I had my traditional Irish music class again. I swear it's like listening to the part in Titanic where they go party in third class.






You know you love me.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

How To - Spreading the Love

There a few things I like to think I am decent at doing if I do say so myself and yet there are others I know I will never be able to do. For instance, I'm relatively proficient at reading moderately quick, finishing a bag of popcorn by myself, and remembering little things in the past that have happened to me. On the other hand, I'm incapable of making pancakes without chocolate chips, unlocking the bathroom door I share with my brother, and not talking during a movie that I have already seen. Don't worry, I'm working on these failures (among others) as my New Year's resolutions. But for the purposes of this post, I AM good at finding videos online and I've decided to share my knowledge. All my little secrets and tricks will be included. At least most of them, I may keep a few teensy ways to myself in order to rule supreme.

Here we go:
sidereel.com - a good all-purpose site for those wanting to watch television

• ignore megavideo links- they have a time limit. Nothing worse than being cut off in the middle of a movie.
• Hulu and abc/cbs/nbc mean american sites so if you are international you are out of luck with those. 
• linksynergy most often means itunes and so does itunes obviously. These along with amazon want you to pay so skip these. After my tutoring, you should never have to pay. 

ovguide.com - search for all, helpful for both movies and television

• good ones to click on from here- watch-movies-links.net, tvshack, projectfreetv, tv-links, surfthechannel
  
• bad ones do not click on (only because they are often wrong or do not work)- ninjavideo, crunchyroll, blinxx remote, quicksilverscreen (mostly megavideo)
  

Other websites I favor-  www.fastpasstv.com, tv-links.cc, tvduck.com, surfthechannel.com, watch-movies-online.tv, rarely youtube because they have been cracking down on full shows/movies, the ones above

Miscellanous- This system isn't perfect. You must wait until the next day or at least a couple of hours after your desired show to watch is online. The same goes for movies but its at least a week there for a good copy if not longer for more limited or less popular films. 
I personally prefer zshare for video types but wisevid is also good if it works on your computer. Divx never works for me and I don't like how dark it is. Sometimes megastic, youku, or tudou are good as well. Look for these over ones that say megavideo or itunes.
Things that don't hurt- subtitles or asian language around the videos, inappropriate ads, clicking to go to the host website or proving you are human, there is going to be a lot of popups- get used to it you are trying to find a movie
Things that you shouldn't do- click on things that make you download things, download things, get frustrated over only finding trailers (The movie is out there! I promise, for the most part), give up

If you need anymore help, just ask me! I feel your pain of missing shows and movies especially being away.

You know you really love me for this.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl

New Poll

Vote.

Tentative Schedule

Uh, Oh. Looks like Someone's Back.

Where shall I begin? Too much has happened for me to even remember it all! This is a blessing in some ways considering the craziness of my last few weeks before break. All that has happened since we last spoke dear readers:
I have...

• evacuated from a natural disaster.

• spotted bed bugs after being taught by Shayla. 
• frozen my butt at the Absolut Ice Bar.

• hugged Taylor Swift.

• consumed waffles, fries and chocolates so delicious that it made Willy Wonka cry with envy. 

• accidentally wandered into the Antwerp red light district. Can you say AWK?

Surprisingly close to the red light district - which is why we were there in the first place.

• looked at lights in Brussels at the Christmas markets. 

• survived exams (for the most part).
• stayed awake all night in preparation for leaving for my fifteen hour flight where I had to leave at 3 AM. 
• cried with joy at being on Texas soil (promptly followed by Mi Cocina soil).
• gotten over jet lag.
  
• never left my wonderful parents' sides. Until I had to.

• watched my brother dominate Uncharted 2. 
• made pancakes with Theresa and got her into Glee. 
  
• seen my hilarious cousins and aunt and uncle. You found me, you found meeeeee. 
• celebrated Christmas with my favorite people. (Mom, you need to send me the pic with us!)
  

• received every thing I wanted and things I wanted but didn't realize I did.
• cape
• clothes
• cash
• shoes
  
• Miranda Lambert cd
  
• karaoked with the Cinco while playing questions.
• cheered on the Mavs in floor seats with the biggest Mavs fan I know, Theresa Salmon.

• glazed my hair!
• passed for Leah at the Idle Rich Pub. 
• rung in the New Year with sequins and friends.

• gotten over jet lag again. 
• lost my luggage.
• had it returned the next day.
  
• figured out my classes for this semester (for the most part). 
• blushed from my drama teacher commenting on my NYE pics. 

"Lordy...gone are the days of plaid skirts and saddle oxfords!"

• met new friends (shout-out to new favorite person Allison! Thanks for approving of my friendship to S)
• been told I look more Australian than Irish. Good or bad thing? No one would say. 
• caught up a bit with Sam and Abigail (who is visiting next weekend YAYYYY!).
  
• hooked everyone onto the Bachelor. New Girls Nights Tuesdays!
• made plans to go out tonight and do karoake in order to show around Ryan and Allison who are visiting Shayla. 
• forced others to promise to go with me to the Lion King Singalong movie screening next week.. 

 

You know you love me.
XOXO, Gaelic Girl