Blog- Week 4

Kelli Monheiser

Blog- Week 4

Daily Life

It is crazy to think that we have been living here for a month already. It has been an experience in itself, and after building a small home and family out of my cottage and cottage mates, I can honestly say it has made me feel at ease while living nearly four thousand miles away from home. The constant moving around and traveling is a great opportunity and one that should be taken full advantage of, but understand that it does make the time fly. This last weekend we had our first group organized field trip to the Aran Islands, and though I am glad that we didn’t have to stay in the rain, the island was very interesting and I wish we could have enjoyed it just a little bit longer. We left on a Saturday morning, like most planned fieldtrips, and came back early Sunday morning. The trip consisted of taking a ferry to the island where a majority of us stood on the top deck in the rain, which was well worth it. When we arrived, we grabbed some lunch at the deli and headed to get our bikes. I really enjoyed the fact that bikes would be our way of traveling for the trip because it allowed us to stop ourselves and enjoy the beauty at our own pace. We first visited a goat farm where we all gathered around admiring the baby goats. The owner, a young man new to the business, explained to us the process of how Goat Cheese is made. We then got back onto our bikes and traveled along the edge of the ocean up toward a historic Fort known as Dun Aonghasa. It was one of the neatest things when we were heading up the mountain and we looked back and could see one end of the island to the other. It was also something else to look off the cliff from about 330 feet high to see the waves crashing against the limestone rock. After the fort, we went to the Wormhole where our guide explained to us that there was a natural phenomenon of shifting causing a perfect rectangle to be formed along the base of a cliff about thirty feet deep. I have yet to decide if I buy it or not. From that, we began the long trek back to the hostel that we were staying at. It was a lot of walking and a pretty physically enduring trip, but if I had to go back and do it again, I would. To me the great landscapes, breathtaking views and historic structures were well worth my time.   

I feel like this week would be a good time to cover the daily life here at the lodge. During the week, we begin class at around ten o’clock and take a break at noon for lunch. When we come back for class at one, we go through till about 3. Because the Wi-Fi situation, a majority of us stay in the schoolhouse where we either make spring break or weekend plans, upload our pictures, send emails, watch Netflix or any other Internet needed task. Trip planning is something that can be handled early, or last minute. It is something that you will catch on to once you get here and understand the system. A good portion of our time is spent in the schoolhouse. At some point during the week, some of us will make the 30-minute walk into Spiddal where we will get our feel for the pubs that week, grab some groceries, or treat ourselves at Supermac’s.

Upon arriving, it is nice to get the food situation organized. For the start of the trip, we were doing our meals together, but because we are all different in our eating habits, we found it best to fend for ourselves. We do, however, purchase butter, sugar, soap and toilet paper together taking turns each week. This has come to work out for us pretty well.

Because every weekend that we have been here, I have went on a personal trip or a fieldtrip, I have yet to be around the cottage for a weekend. I do know that the group that does stay around has always managed to keep themselves busy by taking the free Lally bus trip into Galway or spending the weekend exploring the Galway bay. There you have it, the daily life in Ireland from the Park Lodge Hotel; an easygoing way of life allowing for all sorts of activities. 

Blog- Week 3

Kelli Monheiser

Blog- Week 3

Out of the three weeks that we have been in Ireland so far, I can honestly say that this weekend has been the most experiencing yet. As we set out on a weekend trip to Brussels, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Thursday afternoon, the fun began early. We did our usual planning about a week and a half early making sure we had a trip to Galway, taxi to Dublin, and this time, a flight to Brussels, Belgium. Being the first group to fly out using Ryan Air, a very cheap airline within Europe, there is some advice I can offer both students looking to take the Ireland Study Abroad trip, and those who are currently on it planning trips. First off, take a small bag because first off, there is a full cabin at all times, and second off, because you are probably going to be luggin’ your bag with you at all times. Also, oddly enough, you don’t check in at the airport, but instead you check in online with your passport number prior to even going to the airport. Don’t forget to this or you may get charged 70 euros. They are very stingy about the size of shampoos and lotions, so make sure you have read the rules and have them in a clear bag when going through security. Also, using a screen shot on your phone to access your ticket is a joke. Simply go to Ryan Air’s customer service desk and print your boarding pass. It will make life a lot easier.

When we got to Brussels, we stood in the airport for about 15 minutes pondering what we were going to do from here. The language barrier was a task that we found very challenging. There is something a little discomforting about the fact that on trains, planes, taxis, trams, busses, menus, and about every other document, they spoke in Dutch. We got by, to say the least.

For dinner, we walked up and down downtown streets to find the last place they were cooking dinner. Publico. Here, we got to know our pubtender and waiter, who happened to attend UNL as a college student. CRAZY!! After talking to them a little bit and collecting a list of fun bars to go to, they bought us a round of shots and sent us on our way. We stopped at the Bizon pub where I made it about a drink in and fell asleep on the table while the others carried on. I woke up about twice to find that the two guys from the restraint had met us at the pub. After they bought rounds all night for the other, I came to conclusion that simply talking and getting to know those from that area will not only get you an insight to what the country and city is like, but it may get you a night of free drinks. So be friendly and put yourself out there with an open mind to take in the different types of people and cultures.

Throughout the trip we found getting around the cities to be a task and what I learned from getting lost and found and then lost again is to take taxies. If you need to get to a specific place, simply show the cab driver an address and get to where you need to be. Between five of us, splitting the cost was worth it. However, if you can simply get a train ticket or a tram ticket to get to a general location like central city, do that. It is worth it to save time and to save temper.

Going to three different countries in three days, I would say that this week is a good time to talk about the language issues and the barriers that it possesses. In Ireland, depending on where you go, the accent may seem a little strong, but when you travel to an area where English is not the first or even the second spoken language, a whole new door of challenges opens. We walked out of the gates in the Belgium airport thinking that we got this, but as we worked our way out of the airport, and to the train station and on to the train, I think we all were a little more worried. As we sat on the train hoping something would come over the overcome telling us to get off, we looked for clues telling us it was central station. Lucky us, in our group of five, we had two that had at least a class or half of Dutch allowing us to get the basics; on, off, open, close, right, left, central station and so forth. It worked out fairly well. After we managed to maneuver our way to central station by train, we found a group of men and asked them for direction. Most conversations will begin ‘do you speak English,’ and the response you will most likely get is ‘a little’. This became routine through our trip, but for the most part, everyone helped us as much as they could which we give thanks too.  

     To make our walk and rides and getting directions a little easier, we managed to get addresses and walking directions to all places that we wanted to go screen-shot on our iPhones. With this, if we found someone who could only speak a little English, we could show him or her the address and they could point us in the right direction. It was a very good way of going about it because we planned to not have much Wi-Fi. The step-by-step directions also came in very helpful only when we knew direction. Being a farm girl, I am pretty aware of directions, but once I was put into a city, I lost that sense. We found it more helpful to ask a group of women over men, and to ask a group over a single person, and to make sure we were on the right track before going on any further and getting ourselves lost.

So overall, in response to the different languages, I think that we got along fairly well by being well prepared and knowing our destination, being courageous enough to ask for help, and smart enough by knowing the types of people to ask and the situations to avoid. It was a good and experiencing trip. Hopefully they wont all be like it, but for the most part, it was a very good learning experience. 

Blog- Week 2

Ireland Blog 2

Week 2

Kelli Monheiser

When planning for the Ireland trip from day one, I told myself that I would see as much of Europe as possible in the time allotted. For our first weekend in Ireland, we went to Cork; a larger city about two and a half hours south of Galway. Before I get into explaining the trip, I will be completely honest when saying that traveling away so soon was a little bit harder for me and made me feel a bit homeless. After only two weeks in Ireland, my advice that I have for planning trips is that you have to cover all aspects such as how you will get to Galway, getting from Galway to where you are going, staying the nights and booking the hostels, finding activities to do during the day, making sure you have records of addresses so you don’t get lost, and getting back all while keeping in mind that only in some pubs, restaurants, and McDonalds will you have free Wi-Fi. We used a bus system in Ireland called City Link. They are very easy to navigate and they presell tickets on their website for convenient planning. We also have become accustom to using Hostel World to get cheap hostels where we are staying. Now to the subject of hostels, they can be a little bit deceiving. I went into it with a very open mind, but I didn’t know what to expect until we got there. Us five American girls walked into our room for ten, only to find a French man sitting in the dark across the room. I was fairly nervous. Feeling very uncomfortable, I immediately built an opinion that hostels are filthy, uncomfortable, smelly boxes that open the doors to stealing and rape and I never wanted to go back. But when there’s no other options, you’ll get over it pretty fast.

Aside from the trip to Cork, I figure the academic life and situation is important because, contrary to belief, you will have to go to school while here. When preparing for the semester of actual classes, don’t put a whole lot of thought into it. All materials are provided through the fees you pay to be here. All that I brought was a notebook, pen, pencil, my laptop, and a planner. Gaelic class will be your favorite and probably the only class you will be able to stay awake through. History, on the other hand, will remind you that you’re still a student and will have to do work, and literature will make you feel right at home sitting in class at UNK.

            Class takes place at the Park Lodge Hotel and you will meet there for class four days a week. Although it makes for about a 40 second walk to class in the morning, it gets a little bit old not being able to go into the university or into Galway city to experience more of the Irish culture. This is definitely a downfall with the study abroad experience. However, I can definitely promise that you will have plenty of time to do leisure activities during the week. When I first planned to come to Ireland to study abroad, they warned me that the Wi-Fi is not the best and taking an online course was a little far fetched. However, I say that Wi-Fi at the Park Lodge Hotel beats out Wi-Fi in CTE at UNK any day.

So an academic week in a nutshell here in Ireland consists of enjoying the heck out of Gaelic class on Monday, getting through History class on Tuesday and Literature on Wednesday, waking up on Thursday to take care of business and starting the weekend off right that evening only to be back on Sunday to regroup and hit the books again hard the next week to come.

Blog- Week 1

Ireland Blog 1

Beginning- February 5, 2015

Kelli Monheiser

Like most of the others that signed up for the trip to Ireland, I was very excited for the new adventure. Although Ireland was not my number one choice, I was told that I would appreciate the beauty, culture, and people in the country. The first step I took when planning for the trip was the application. I spent quite a lot of time going through the requirements wondering if the trip was really something that I wanted.

Once accepted, I was very excited. I was anxious to see something new. When the first meeting was held, we were introduced to some of the other people that were going on the trip together. Although her and I were not the best of friends, my friend Jordan and I had originally planned to go together. As I sit here and right this blog, I will admit that it was nice to have someone to plan with, but I wish I would have come into the trip with an open mind and made myself more available to make new friends.

After all the paperwork was taken care of, and our plane ticket was booked, we played the waiting game.  I found this time to be greatly of the essence. To start off, I was applying to nursing school and my application was due the day after we left. Considering that my acceptance was the most important thing at the time, I made it a priority. I ended up submitting my application on the 15 of January.

Another big task that needed to be done pretty fast was getting my passport taken care of. When I went home for thanksgiving, I went to the local post office and filled out the application. Thinking that I had plenty of time between November 22^nd and January 31^st, I didn’t worry about the processing of my passport. However, a big lesson that I learned was not to trust anything unless you do it yourself. When I got home for Christmas break on the 18^th, I opened my mail and they had sent me my paperwork back telling me that because I was still a minor, I had to finish the other application. I went to the post office only days later and fixed the mistake, however, at this point, time was a little more scarce. I remember calling about every other day to check the processing on the passport. I ended up receiving the piece of mail on the 17^th of January. I was then able to make copies to keep on file. I was told that it is a good idea in case I was to lose my passport.

Before I left, I made sure that I talked to my insurance company and took the full coverage off of my car so that I was only paying fifteen dollars for insurance over my regular ninety-dollar expense.  I also set up online banking so that I could pay off the charges I make to my credit card as I go.

Before leaving, banking was another project. There were quite a few things that I had to clear up with my bank before I could leave for three months. First of all, I was told that credit card companies began putting security chips in the cards for better fraud protection. I knew that going over to another country that would be wise. So I had to order a new credit card. Secondly, I had to call my credit card company to make sure that they knew I was leaving the country from February 1^st until April 27^th. And lastly, I was told that it would be cheaper for me to order euros from the bank so that I wouldn’t have to exchange them when in Ireland. So I ordered 700 euros. At an exchange rate of 1.20, it cost me about 840 American dollars. I guess we will see how far that gets me.

When beginning school back in the fall of 2014, I got a job at the nursing home in Kearney. However, leaving for three months isn’t very ideal to an employer. They understood when I told them that I was going to be leaving and luckily, they didn’t fire me, but only if I promised to send them a post card. I had to file for a three-month leave of absence.

One of the last and probably the most comical processes of the planning for me was running the trip through my family. We are a very close family, so when I told them that I was going to be leaving for three months, they began running all the possibilities through their heads. My older sister made out a list of things for me to do and although they seemed silly at the time, it may come in handy for me at some point during this trip. First, she made me call my insurance company to make sure that I am covered over seas. Much to my surprise, I was as well as, when applying for the study abroad, we pay fees that also insure us over seas. She also wanted to be sure that if I die, that my body would be extradited back to America. Andddddd it is. She also advised me to call the United States Embassy to make sure that they know I am over seas. Through this process, I went to the embassy’s website where I followed a link to a Smart Traveler- STEP process. Through this, I filled out a small application explaining when I will be out of the country. That way, if something were to happen in the country that would put me at danger, they would send forces to come and get me out of the danger zone. Although I may overthink it now and laugh at her, it may come in handy at some point during this trip. I hope not, but better safe than sorry. I also had to make sure to file for an extension on my taxes because being gone; I would be unable to file.

I would say that for a majority of the planning for this trip, I was not excited. I looked at it more as a hassle than an adventure. There was so much to do and such little time that many times I considered backing out. If it not for my scholarship, plane ticket, and had already told people that I am leaving, I do feel like I would have stayed home. It took me till  the Thursday, a week and a half before leaving, until I got excited. However, when getting to this point, I had no second thoughts. I was excited to go and feel like I had the right mindset when leaving.

I went through security and was pretty comfortable with the small airport size.  Denver International would have been closer, but it was worth the money we saved to drive a little farther and get through a little faster. When waiting to get on the plane, I was a little nervous until Kate, Brittany, and Sierra came walking up. Something about having more people is a little more comforting.

I would say that the flight was easy. I had flown before but never had two layovers heading out of the country. It was a very good flying experience. I made it appoint to sleep a little when we were just sitting. I think this helped me to not be so tired after the 7-hour time change from my hometown.  When arriving to Shannon, it was dark; kind of a bummer because I was told that coming off the airplane and looking over the green land is a beautiful sight. For me, the drive over was very worth it. Everything was green and wet. A Colorado farmers paradise.  I notice that the way of life was a lot more conservative. They built lives out of the things that they have, whereas we built lives with new things and threw away what was used. We idolize the newest brand and the newest items. They seem to want to hold on to their past. A neat idea to me.

When getting to the lodge, it was cold. I planned to get out of the cold, only to go somewhere colder. When they pointed us in the direction of our cottages, I thought that it wouldn’t be so bad. They looked nice and cozy, but when I walked in, I thought a little bit different. We got the smaller double room and there was nowhere to put my clothes. A very big problem to a twenty year old. When getting settled in and after a small nap, we went over to the lodge for lunch where they introduced us to Jane Marie. A great woman. Veryyyyy helpful. The first meal in Ireland was pretty American like. During lunch, they briefed us about the area, the types of people, the classes we would be taking, the laundry, the cottages, and more. When we went back to our cottages, a group of us walked to the town of Spiddal. We visited the ocean, and the small stores. We didn’t walk in to any stores, just kind of explored the town. It is a very small town but very pretty. We walked back and the five girls in our cottage got to know each other a little bit. At about 9:30, we went to bed and day 1 of my Ireland Adventure was in the books.

Day two consisted of waking up and going to our first Gaelic class with Jane Marie. We were only in class for about an hour or so and we learned a few words to help us get to by on the streets of Spiddal. After class, we had an hour to go back and get cleaned up and then go to lunch. At about 1:30, we met at the classroom for a tour where we were going to walk down to Spiddal and learn about the small village. My first take on the small classroom was that it was very old. It reminded me of the old school houses that we learned about in third grade. A chalk board and small desks with wooden chairs. The modern pieces of technology stood out to me. The TV cords with clusters of wires and the projector set up on the table that we  had to tilt our head to read. The camera in the corner also stood out to me; probably the most modern pieces of equipment that this room had ever seen. The tour of the small village was a nice way to get to know the little town and how important it is the few people that still remain. After the tour, we stayed around the pubs and got to know a few of the locals. A great opportunity to be told what Ireland has to offer. 

So far on the trip, some thoughts that I have are about our location. It is nice to be in a more remote area where we are secluded from the town, but as young students in another country, it would be nice to be in an area where there was more for us to do. Where we are, entertainment, resources, and food are out of the way. I do feel like this may be a problem for the rest of our trip when we are all wanting something to do. So far, the country is beautiful, the people are very nice and the time spent is well spent.