Life, in general.

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It's amazing how fast time slips away from me here, so here goes blog round two. Although I would love to spend a good bit of time on sightseeing in Paris, I think I'll have to skip through that rather quickly to get to more current things, like life here at UUJ.
I'll start back in France, which was an absolute blast. Our first few days were spent in Paris with some hard-core tourism, with Coralie acting as, friend, guide, and translator all in one. From Monday morning until Tuesday evening, we managed to see highlights of the Louvre, take a boat tour of Paris, visit Montmartre, hit the second floor of the Eiffel tour, walk to the Arc de Triomphe, and visit Notre Dam. We also hit up a perfume store and took a tour of Louis Vuitton's store by the Arc de Triomphe. In the evenings we stayed at Coralie's brother's apartment in a Paris suburb, which was absolutely picturesque with little shops and small streets. I still have not gotten over the elegance of the architecture in the city, with the same fancy blue roofs seen throughout the city. Also, the fact that some of the monuments, like Notre Dam, took hundreds of years to complete kept me in awe of the rich history of the places we visited. The last evening we went to an outdoor restaurant called the petite pont or "little boat," where we ate a great dinner with Coralie's brothers Jeremie and Matthew. Wednesday, we decided to skip Paris and head on to Versailles, before returning to catch a train to Coralie's hometown of Angers.

One amusing side-note that should have clued me in for what's in store this year, occurred as we took a break for a couple of glasses (plastic cups) of sweet white whine outside the Eiffel tower. There was a rather large gathering of very drunk Scotsmen congregating in the Eiffel towers park, kicking a soccer ball around, singing drinking songs, and generally enjoying a good bit of national camaraderie in preparation for either a soccer game or perhaps part of the Rugby World Cup that was being hosted by France. We were fairly close to a few of them chatting away, and I couldn't understand a single word of English coming from them. So, I turned to Cat and said that I knew there was an actual Irish language, but that I was pretty sure Scotsmen spoke English all the time. At this point, she informed me that they indeed were speaking English, and it was just that strong of an accent that I couldn't even tell. I would like to say good luck to a fellow Maryville College student, Jacob, who is studying in Scotland at the moment.

Now I'll get back to tourism. While at Versailles, Cat, Coco, and I took the audio-guided tour then lounged in the garden, as the lot of us were fairly exhausted (and Jet-lagged, in my case) from several days of none-stop movement. We decided to skip the actual tour of the Garden's in favour of using them for our own purpose, soaking up the sun. We had Italian soft-serve ice cream and lunch near a fountain, then went to the artificial lake (maybe pond, but it was fairly large) where we took a break to lie in the grass before renting a row-boat for an hour or so. It was a very relaxing afternoon, but we had to head off around six to ensure we would catch our train out to Angers.

Coralie's father met us at the station in Angers, after a fairly uneventful ride. Coco and I played 3-13 with a deck of 50 cards for old time's sake, and Cat continued her novel The Time Traveller’s Wife. Mr. Aubin does not speak very good English, and he is much more comfortable speaking than listening. So, he kept conversation going, much to Coco's dismay, by basically talking any time we were around. I thought it was great. Coralie's parents made us amazing dinner all three nights we were there, including lemon chicken and duck! Also, her mom had stayed up and cooked us a wonderful meal that was ready when we arrived at 10:30, which was fantastic. The next day, we did a bit of touristy shopping around Angers and I got a much needed chance to e-mail friends and family (although the French keyboard has slightly different placement and was a bit hard to get used to.) One night we decided to hang out at an Irish Pub, and I got my first European pint and Cat sipped on a delicious Irish Coffee. On Friday, we celebrated Coralie's 21st with an mini road trip to the Beach, where I soaked up the last bit of summer I could, since I (correctly so far) assumed that upon arrival in Ireland I could say goodbye to the sun and summer heat. Also, we met up with some of Coralie's friends to go out in the evening, and I ensured Coralie got a bit of American tradition on her 21st by ordering her a shot of Jack Daniel's whiskey.

Angers was wonderfully relaxing, as was my arrival in Ireland with Cat; however, getting back to Charles de Gaulle airport was a bit more interesting. Thankfully, Cat and I chose an earlier train ride back to Paris, because the metro system train we needed to get there broke down, and we had to negotiate (in French) the way to the airport via an alternative train. One train was so crowded we literally had to wait for the next to come by, and Cat was carrying a suitcase almost as big as her. Thankfully, service announcements were in English as well as French, so we found are way well-enough, but both of us had been out late with Coralie the night before, so we were sleepy and very ready to get on the plane. I actually fell asleep in the upright, take off position and was in a near coma state until arrival in Belfast. We were picked up by Catherine's dad and went up to Ballycastle to spend the night at their house, where I met Cat's mother and sister and had some great, almost thanksgiving style food, chicken, stuffing, etc. The entire time driving to Ballycastle involved me sitting behind what is the passenger seat here in Ireland, but not able to get over the feeling that we were on the wrong side of the road for blind turns. I still look right instead of left before crossing roads, which may be a bit dangerous... That evening I saw my first Gaelic Football game on the tele, which is interesting as it is a bit like Rugby, soccer, and American football all combined.

I actually woke up very early the next morning, and as it was a bit rainy and I couldn't see the sun, thought no one was around because they had already left for mass. Actually, it was because no one was awake yet, and I accidentally gave Mr. Dallat a bit of a start by coming up the stairs he didn't expect anyone to be on. After the family went to mass and back we headed back towards Belfast, stopping along the way for me to get keys to my room during the specified hours. That afternoon, I picked up stuff from Cat's house and she dropped me back by UUJ to start my actual study abroad experience!

Now, I did know from my information packets that there was an orientation programme for international students the week of the 17th, but I did not know when or where it started. So after I woke up on Monday, was sleepily introduced to my Italian roommates, and discovered that a hot shower was not going to happen (we didn't have hot water until later in the week) I decided to go about on a hunt for information. This started with my finding the entrance to the main campus building.
UUJ is pretty much packed into one huge building. The organization makes sense when you get used to it, but floors are (starting from ground) lettered A-H. However, depending on which block you are in, you will get either A C E G or B D F H as possible floor options. The main hallway that runs the length of the building is referred to as the Mall, and leading off from this are what are known as blocks, (some of which you have to go through other blocks to get to.) In order to register, I went from the security guard to the assembly hall, where I was redirected to the International Office, where I was told the location of the social science department, where I was given the name of three different faculty advisors (one each for Economics, Sociology, and Political Science) who I had to locate and talk to, who then sent me back to the Social Sciences' office, which sent me to a room where I followed Irish students as they registered themselves. In order to actually register, you had to go to your faculty's registration room, fill out a form, go to the library and choose classes online, go to the assembly hall to double check financial aspects were covered, officially register, and get your ID card made. I was told I would need passport photos, so I had walked a good fifteen minutes one way to get to a pharmacy that did photos as per directed by a woman at the accommodations office. It turns out the student's union in the main building had a photo booth. Personally, I think I look like a serial killer in my picture, since I hadn't been able to shower and was rather tired at that point. During this whole process, each stop took a few minutes as I explained where I was from and people tried to figure out what to do with me. It was quite a day.

On Monday, I did get the time and more information about orientation, which started the next day. So, I show up for orientation in the morning, and after a while I hear the phrase "when you register." Turns out I didn't really need to do anything I did Monday until that Friday, but it was nice to have it out of the way. Orientation was a bit haphazard, and it seemed like they had just called up their various departments and asked if people were interested. The first woman to speak to us was actually from the Alumni office, to give you a taste of how random it was. Save for me, we weren't even officially registered in classes at this point. UUJ is actually fairly small, and I already feel quite comfortable with finding my way around, although I am now working on getting some more specific things figured out.

Today was the Fresher's Fare, which is similar to Maryville College's opportunities of a lifetime event, with booths set up for various organizations. The international office and a few students have got an International Club going, which reminds me quite a bit of GCO. Also, I saw that there was an Amnesty international group, but it ended up being just myself and another American at the 3:00 meeting. We are going to try to get a Jordanstown chapter started up, so I'll be working on getting it officially registered (and able to receive funds!) tomorrow. More on that as it develops. Also, I put my name on e-mail lists for more information about canoeing, hiking, and possibly Gaelic football clubs, as a way to meet local students and get out and see Ireland. With classes started up this week as well, I should be getting quite busy very soon!

Well, that's my life up to date in a nutshell, and I have every intention of filling in the rather gaping gaps in this blog with more specific (and most likely shorter entries, possibly more of blurbs than blogs) whenever I've got downtime. For now though, Peace.

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Photos

France Does Rugby
This was the huge Rugby ball blow up hung on the Eiffel tower.

Ice Cream
This is Cat posing with the ice cream cone in Versailles.

Scotsmen
They were hilarious.

The view
This was Versailles as seen from our rowboat.

HotelRugby
This hotel actually did up its roof as a mini Rugby field for the World Cup.

EiffelMe
This is a straight up shot of me on floor two of the tower.

Irishpub
This is us in an Irish pub, in Angers.