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Published: February 16th 2011
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view from my bedroom window. Thats the other half of Cappavilla on the other side of the green. Hello all, and welcome again to the wonderful world of what has Brandon done to humiliate himself and possibly the entire United States. (surprisingly nothing in this one actually... but don't worry, I'm sure to get stopped by the police again soon).
People have been asking to hear about University of Limerick (UL) and my apartment and all of that fun stuff. Well ask (or bug me enough) and you shall receive (or I'll give up and cave in to your demands). I had planned on waiting for my tripod to arrive so I could take some HDR photo's of my campus as many of the buildings look amazing and we have some cool sculptures too. However, my tripod got lost in shipping so you all get to see regular boring photo's of cool buildings.
To start I'll give you a quick tour of my living quarters. We (the Aracadia students) were lucky enough to be placed in the best apartments on campus. We are in Cappavilla Village, which is a nice 10-15 minute walk to campus. The rest of the apartments are closer, but they are also garbage, so I can't complain too much. Plus, we all call
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health building. Love how it looks the walk to class our workout, and get out of going to the gym. Our apartments are set up where each person has their own room and bathroom and you share a living room and kitchen. The apartments are coed, which isn't as weird as it would seem since everyone gets their own room/bathroom. We are also the only apartments that all get double beds which are amazing (even if my head still hits one wall and my feet hit the other).
As far as the roommates go, I have 5 other people in the apartment. There's one other guy (Reilly) and 4 girls (Siobhán, Aisling, Aoife, and Kate). You pronounce their names Shavon, Ashling, E-fa, and Kate. Siobhán is a business major, Aisling is nursing, Aoife and Kate are dance and Reilly is mech engineering. All of them are really relaxed and funny, and its been good to hang out with them (even if I end up as the punch line to most jokes. Everyone needs to learn to take a good slagging). Siobhán and Kate are coming to the states next year, so it will be interesting to see where they get places and if I'll be
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Health building again able to meet up with them with home field advantage.
Well thats enough about my apartment. As I walk to class I get to pass some pretty impressive buildings along the way. The first two buildings we see are the Nursing/health science building (which is the most impressive on campus) and the Irish academy of music and dance. Both are very new and very cool looking. After that, we get to walk across the living bridge, which happens to be the longest walking bridge in Ireland (and the longest something else in Europe?). The bridge is called the living bridge because it sways and moves even though it is attached to the ground, and it crosses the Shannon River which cuts between campus. (this also means that I technically don't live in Limerick since I'm on the other side, but thats a completely different story)
Back to campus... as you make it about half way across the bridge, you can see the white house and the lawn. This is the oldest building on campus and it is where the school started. Other than this building, the rest of campus has been built in the last 40 years. Most
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health building again. love the glass/wood that they do in a lot of buildings here classes are held in the main building which is divided into 4 blocks and 5 floors. However, I'm lucky enough to have to walk to the business building which happens to be the farthest one away from where I live. In front of the two buildings is a nice fountain and reflecting pond and a sculpture.
Rounding out the important parts of campus are the pubs and the sports complex. There are two main pubs on campus, the Stables and the Scholars. The Stables is where the students head on off nights to relax, or to get ready to go out on important nights (Sundays Tuesdays and Thursdays. They're nuts here). The Scholars is more relaxed and a place that you will tend to see teachers and mature (age not mentality) students, and they also have live traditional music here a few times a week. The sports complex is very new and is considered the best in Ireland. There are multiple gyms and an indoor track and different weight rooms and cardio rooms as well as an Olympic sized swimming pool. Irish students have to pay almost 500 euros a year to enter the gym let alone do anything
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music/dance building in it. However, as part of our package, we get in for free.
Well that ends the tour of UL, if you have any questions or would like a more in-depth tour please ask someone else haha. And as a leaving thought, if you ever want your kid to fit in in Europe, don't name him Brandon as he'll be the only one on the entire continent. (although it does have your perks... everyone remembers you're name if its the first time they've met someone with it.)
As always, I hope all is well back home. Love and all the good stuff that comes with it.
B
PS- I'm sure you'll all be delighted to hear that between writing this and publishing it, I managed to find a way to humiliate myself for other peoples' amusement. Monday we went to the local pub on campus to watch our friends get their legs and chests waxed to raise money for the Special Olympics. Afterwards they had a bar version of the show Take Me Out. Its a show where a guy comes on stage and there are 30 women and they all choose whether they want a
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music/dance building chance to date him or not. After each round they have the chance to turn their podium red which means they're out of the game. At the end, the guy gets to choose any of the girls who still have white podiums (if there are any at all) to go on a date with him.
Well, after some peer pressure from the people we came there with, I was selected as the guy to go on stage for the show. There were maybe 10-15 girls up there as well who I was supposed to impress enough to get a date from. After some awkward questions (use your best pickup line to get one of the girls and what special skills do you have that the ladies might be impressed about) ((answers: I don't need a pickup line because the ladies come to me, and I took a massage class...)) and the host making me do push-ups for everyone, all of the girls were still showing white. And as if my ego wasn't big enough already, he then went around and asked the girls the best part of me/why they wanted a date with me.
After putting on a
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music/dance building show for the whole bar, (which everyone seemed to love) I selected an Irish girl named Gina who happened to study abroad at RMU in Pittsburgh last year. As we left the stage we got a free box of chocolates, and went to the other end of the pub and talked about Pittsburgh and Ireland. Overall, it was a fun and funny night.
Well, thats all for this one. I'm off to go get more entertaining stories to tell you about.
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Uncle JIm
non-member comment
fun
Brandon, I am really happy that your getting to experience so much. Hope you do enjoy it to its fullest potential. Have fun, be safe, and do not get arrested---lol L Uncle Jim