Last Weekend in January

This week went by in a blink of an eye. Im starting to get a better grasp on what is expected of me at work as far as my role in the classroom is concerned. I am suppose to be a teaching, but last week the teacher basically introduced me to their students and said have fun. This left me with my jaw on the floor wondering what they students have previsouly been working on, what level these students are at, what standards I am suppose to be meeting, etc. Luckily there were a few meetings during lunch time this week that I was able to attend that gave me an idea of what I should be working on. Although I find it difficult to make sure all of the students in the United States complete all of the standards expected of them each trimester, its even more difficult when there are no standards and everyone does their own thing, such as the case is here. As far as getting out of the city this weekend and exploring, the only thing that the girls and I explored were the pubs! Goodness gracious it was out of control (in a good way of course). On Friday night Sarah and I went to my favorite pub, Taaffes, where we became friends with a stag party (a bachelor party) Needless to say there were 30 of them so we did not buy a single drink all night. The downfall to this was that we drank everything under the sun from Bulmers to Tequilla.This resulted in a really bad hangover the next day. Aside from the stags we met a couple people from Australia and some girls from the states (Eastern US). After Taaffes we went to The Front Door, which was absolutely gorgeous! By far the biggest pub I've been to thus far.

On the bus headed into town.


The "stag" he knew how to swing dance. I was quite impressed!



The Aussies

Inside the beautiful Front Door pub.

After a couple hours Sarah said to heck with the high heels she was wearing so I swapped her boots.

After a great night of staying out until 6am Sarah and I slept well into the afternoon only to get up and start all over again. Saturday evening was low key compared to the night before, but a lot of fun. Another girls night out (plus the German guy - Tomas). Michelle and I had met him on one of the tours last weekend. A couple of us went to pick up Tomas up at the bus station and then we all headed for a bite to eat at the local pizza parlor.

Following the scrumptious dinner we met up with the other members of our group. 8 people in total, including myself, decided to start the night off by going to the greyhound dog races. What fun!! There is a little thing (not sure what it is called) but its on a high speed track and the dogs chase it. For the warm up races I was standing right next to the track, and you could hear the power of the dogs running when their paws hit the sand. Those dogs are absolutely amazing creatures! I bet on a few dogs, but was not successful in making any money. One dogs name was Whatever Rosie, of course I had to bet on it, a whole 2 Euros :)





From the races we all headed down to Taaffes again only to be followed by The Front Door, AGAIN. The night was much more low key than the previous night, but that was alrght with me, I was ready for bed after the dog races. Overall it was a good bonding weekend with the girls. This was the first time we all went out together. Here comes another work week... can't wait for Friday to come :)

This morning I didn't have to be to work until 10:20 so I got to sleep in a bit and enjoy the moments of piece and quite in the house with everyone gone but me. Upon my arrival at school I was pulled out of the math class I was co-teaching, by an English professor who wanted me to teach her morning class. After the morning class,I had a 3 hour break before my next class, so I decided to take a walk along the prom and back which is about 3.5 miles one way. Sweaty, thirsty and looking for a place to rest I stopped by Michelle and Christines to regain myself for a minute. Michelle and I are teaching at the same school so we headed back that way just in time to catch out 1:50 class, only problem was that there were no students in the building, which we had not noticed due to the chit-chatting. Making ourselves comfortable at home, we set up shop in the teachers lounge and patiently waited for the bell to sound. No bell. An administrator was kind enough to let us know that all teachers were in meetings from 12:30 on. HAHA
Following this inncident I tried to look for a place to make a collect call. That was a bigger task than I thought it would be. The tourist information office sent me to the sky cafe, who sent me to another cafe, who kindly directed me to the right location. I had never used a toll booth before. It was kind of cool being in a room all alone with just a phone. A girl's dream :)
Seeing that I had half of the day still to enjoy I then made the 3.5 mile walk along the beach once more, only this time I walked this path one way and turned off to head home.
My legs and stomach are cursing at me. I'm going to eat, shower, stretch, watch a movie, and head to bed. G'night!

Update

Due to my lack in posting this week there is quite a bit to catch up on. School for the rest of the week ran much smoother. I feel that the classes that I am running are on task, and working effectively 95% of the time, which is incredible. One of the main aspects these students were lacking when I observed on Monday was structure and expectations. After noticing this on Tuesday of last week, I met the students needs by being organized and holding structure within my classroom (no danny I did not take them to the bar and bribe them :). The schools here have no seperation of church and state, therefore we have a church for mass connected to the school, a morning prayer over loudspeaker on occasion, and a bible study class. This sounds as if it were to be a private school but its actually public and private. By law students are required to go to school, but they must pay for their own uniforms, books, activities, and tutoring. This is my classroom.... it's a dream to have so many windows.



After school on Wednesday Michelle and I experienced our first Irish Dance lesson. The course is 10 weeks in full, and is taught by a brother and sister who both toured the world performing for riverdance for 3 years. The class is energizing. I haven't taken a dance class in so long that I went in open minded with no expectations. At first I found the pace to be quick for a beginners class but after the instructor looked at me and said "obviously you haven't danced before" I cracked down and meant business :) I plan on practicing tommorow so that I can walk into class Tuesday confident and ready to move on.



Friday night the girls and I decided to go out to Monroes, which is a big pub where usually they have local bands playing. Did I say usually? We stopped in around 9:30 and all faces were glued to the TV (Body stiff, beer in hand, eyes glaring at the tv with their mouth open. I'm not sure if it was a soccer or Rugby game on, but either way they were occupied. If we would have stayed longer to people watch I'm sure I would have seen someone drool. Needless to say we left this bar and went to Taaffes, where we found a table, which is almost impossible to do in a pub on a Friday evening. We made friends pretty quickly! I don't think it had anything to do with us, just the table. The great thing about having a table is that people want to sit down, and they know they can't sit down for free, so what do they do... you guessed it. Buy us free beer & Jameson!! Ahhh the sound of that brings a smile to my face. I would introduce the nice fellas, but I don't remember their names.





Bright and early the next morning Michele and I went on another day tour. This time we went to Kylemore Abbey and Connemara. This was our bus driver Paul. He called all of his passengers by where they were from so Michele and I were named Vegas for the entire trip, and so did everyone else.

First stop on the tour was approx. 30 miles North of Galway in a little town called Spidal. This was the last chance to stop and grab coffee, use the restroom, or simply enjoy the scenery.






I forgot to mention that Galic is becoming a lost language seeing as only 4-5% of the population of Ireland speaks Galic. Most of these people live on the West Coast, and thats exactly where we were! The following are enter and exit signs :) Quite hard to get around when only a few people speak the language.


Traveling...


These 4 way stops (very few and far in between) are meeting grounds for people from different country sides, almost like a farmers market type deal. More likely than not towns start to form around this four way stop making the cross section of roads the heart of the town.


One breaktaking site along the way was called the Gateway To Heaven. The people of Ireland call it this because of it's beauty. They believed in a higher being after seeing this finished product masterpiece creation built on their land. The Irish could not believe that someone could have made something so perfect as this.





Next Stop Kylemore Abbey Kylemore Castle was built by Mitchell and Margaret Henry and took four years to complete (1867-1871). Mitchell had inherited a fortune from his father, a Manchester cotton merchant, and used the money to construct a magnificent Castle, complete with gardens, walks and woodlands, and to develop the 13,000 acre Kylemore Estate. The Henry's had nine children and enjoyed a happy and carefree life at Kylemore up until Margaret's untimely death in 1874. Following this, itchell dedicated hsi life to his family, his tenants and his political career. His reputation as a good landlord was reowned and helped to win him a seat in the House of Commons, where he represented County Galway for fourteen years. In 1903, Mitchell sold Kylemore Castle to the Duke and Duchess of Manchester. They lived a lavish lifestyle financed by the Duchess; wealthy father, the American businessman, Eugene Zimmerman. On the death of Zimmerman in 1914, the castle was taken over by Ernest Fawke, a Longdon banker, who intalled a caretaker adn land agent in 1920, the nuns purchased Kylemore Castle and 10,000 acres for a little over 45,000 Euros. The lands were later purchased by the Land Commission and divided out among the tenants, and the Castle was converted into an Abbey.

The main hallway and thee reception rooms have been restored and are open to the public. The remainder of the Abbey is home to the Community of Nuns and the International Boarding School. The exterior of teh Abbey building is granite. The walls are castellated and five emabttled towers rise from the east, west and centre of the building. There is also a bell tower to the rear. Under the oriel window in the centre of the building is a shield bearing the Henery Coat of Arms. On either side of the doorway is a set of three Peterhead granite columns with carved stone capitals. Inside the door there is a frontipiece with the inscription 'Pax - Peace', this is the motto of the order of St. Benedict.

Inner hall

Outer Hall
The oack parquet flooring in both halls is original. The Dutchess of manchester errected teh Jacobean oak panelling on the walls. On the wall to the lft is an illumination commemorating the Golden Jubilee of Lady Abess Maura, the first Abbess of Kylemore.

Dining Room
This was the main dining room for the Henry family. On the opposite wall is a wide Gothic arched Buffet Recess.



Right next door to the abbey is the Neo-Gothic Church
Mitchell Henry built the Gothic Church between 1877 and 1881 as a memorial to his wife. The church is a 'cathedral in miniature', complete with a crypt, projecting corner buttresses and carved angleic gargoyles. The interior is embellished with a variety of Irish marble columns. The columns support the gothic arches of the decorative caen stone ceiling in the south transept, a beautiful stained glass tracery window depicts the five graces; Fortitude, Faith, Charity, Hope and Chastity. The Church is a centre of reflection and prayer.




Mausoleum
Margaret Henry sadly died in Egypt, in 1874, just three years after the completion of the Castle. Her remains were brought back to Kylemore and laid to rest in the Mausoleum on the grounds.



On the other side of the estate from these three sites is the Victorian Walled Garden.


After the lovely 2 hour stop at this beautiful estate, I hopped back on the bus to a sweet suprise. The bus driver had bought us all toffee. Oh boy was it yummy. Melt in your mouth delicious.

But that wasn't the only suprise our bus driver had in store. He also took us to a pub on the way back to Galway, after he quickly showed and explained how mussels farming works. There are rows are rows of barrels tied together by a rope. The mussels cling on to the rope. When there are enough mussels to harvest the barrel is flipped upright due to the weight of the mussels holding on.


I hope I did not overload you guys with information, and that you are enjoying the journey right along with me. Get ready for a new week ahead. I hope everyone enjoyed their weekend.
Goodnight to all and to all a goodnight.xoxo