Well, we took a stroll on the old long walk*

aka yes we went to Galway again and this time we've actually seen it! Short week in a short post.
So Monday was basically just chilling out and writing the previous two blogposts, thanks to Ophelia. By the way, this hurricane was really not that bad as it was shown on the news. At least not here in Limerick. Just some strong wind and that's all, not even raining or anything.
And hey I also booked beds in a hostel in Galway for Thursday night, as according to our plans we were going to spend there two days this week. Excited!

Tuesday - skipped half the EFL class

It was really boring, as always, so I ended up beating feet out of the class as soon as we had a five minute break and headed for the swimming pool. I knew I had to swim some since I couldn't go on Monday due to Ophelia and I was to skip both Thursday and Friday because of Galway. I did a nice 3400 meters again.
In the afternoon we had an okay Irish class with Billy and then when we got home I made some muffins. Ginger, lime, apple and chocolate chip. Took a good three hours because I can only bake 6 at a time...

Wednesday - skipped the whole EFL class

But this time it was not on purpose, I swear.
So yeah we skipped Irish folklore this week again, such a wise choice, then we had Irish language with Billy, which was kinda good again. Then we went to Teach Fáilte, our usual place to hang out between classes. We had lunch and chilled out, reading, waiting for the EFL class. Three hours. We went there to the classroom at 4pm and when we entered the classroom, only a handful of people inside, we've been told that the class just ended two minutes prior to our arrival. We fucking idiots mistook the time, as it starts at 3pm, not 4pm. Maaan.....
So then we had another 3 hours until training. We were hanging out with Vini in the main building, reading, chatting. Meanwhile, Vera (who left on Monday, going back to Hungary for a short visit) arrived back to Limerick and went home to sleep, exhausted after the journey. And we just kept talking and lazing with Eszter and Vini, funniest part being when Eszter had a videochat with her dad and Vini tried to imitate her Hungarian speech. He could do the intonations suprisingly accurate but it was still freaking funny.
Then I had archery, this time not a simple training session but an inside competition. Dario, Michael, and Peter teamed up with me and we got (ha-ha, got, kinda forced) Charlie to be our 'professional' on the team. Our bow was a very bad choice, it was impossible to aim with it, the sight was horrible for me. Not kidding, not overstating, it was soo bad for me, I had to aim below the whole target and some to the right to get somewhere around the middle but this way I had no chance of actual aiming... So I just kept shooting arrows at a random point. Obviously shown by my scores. Still, I got 102 points by the end, while Dario did 152, Michael got only 52, and Peter bested me by one single point, scoring a total of 103. So we clearly had no shot at being the best team, but by the way we were surprisingly close. And what matters is that it was fuuun, especially since we got brand new arrows to shoot with and we had to mark them with our initials so it almost felt as if we had our own arrows. Only we did not get to keep them afterwards. :)
After the competition they organised a Movie Night and I was going to go, I really did plan on joining them but then I was sooo not in the mood and the movies they choose were bad and I knew I was going to leave early next morning for Galway so I ended up cycling home instead of the movie night. Stupid choice? Maybe, but it didn't feel like that and it doesn't matter anymore anyways.

This 'small' bench just arrived to campus
It took Eszter long seconds to notice it :D

Look at my initials on the arrows!

Vini chilling out

Peter marking where the arrows hit the target

Eszter chilling out

Aleksandra, Woolfie, and Michael
After the competition :)

Thursday and Friday - Galway trip!

So we got up pretty early, cycled to campus in a rush cause we started out pretty late and barely caught the bus but we were soon on our way to Galway! We took the bus from Stables to Limerick city center, then we went to the railway station, bought our tickets (a single student ticket to Galway costs 9EUR while a return student ticket to Galway costs ALSO 9EUR....wtf?!), boarded the train and soon were closing in on Galway. Okay, not so soon. The train ride is pretty slow, taking a bit over two hours. By the way railway stations (both in Limerick and in Galway) are sooo small, they have only two platforms going into the station building and one or two more stopping a bit before reaching the roof. That makes a total of 3-4 platforms. Couldn't believe it at first. And the train is also pretty short but we still had plenty of space for us.
After arriving to Galway, we started walking in the rain, checking out a memorial statue-ish thing, walking along Shop Street and staring at everything like good tourists, then visiting a cathedral, which was exceptionally huge and really ornate and beautiful. It was still fucking raining and we were wet and hungry so we went to the University of Galway's campus, in hopes of finding a place which is warm, dry, and sells food. We did but it was overcrowded and kinda expensive so we sat down for a time only so that Clem and Vera could eat their sandwiches, then left the university to look for reastaurants. It stopped raining meanwhile, a small miracle in itself.
We ended up in Finnegan's, a nice restaurant where we had a pleasant meal for a less pleasant but okay price. My choice of dish was baked beens with meat (turkey I think?) and french fries. And coke.
After lunch we walked some more, went to see the Spanish Arch, another memorial-thingy, the remnants of some old ruin, an all-Irish theater, Shop Street again with all its street musicians, then we walked along the beach and took some nice pics.
It started to get really cold and started raining again so we headed back to the railway station, because Megan (she has some 'h' letters in her name I have no idea how to spell it properly sorry) and her friend Nev and a nice Italian guy called Davide (again, I am not sure of the spelling) did not stay in Galway but went back to Limerick.
So Clem, Vera and me went to the hostel to check-in. It was my first time ever in a hostel and I gotta tell you it was pretty nice. Colourful walls and furniture, free coffee and tea all day, friendly kitchen, clean room with own bathroom that had two shower stalls and two toilets. I was really satisfied. Tho it was a bit scary, sleeping with strangers in the room, but there were only four girls apart from us, all four of them around our age, looking okay and nice. And we also got a light breakfast included in the by the way fairly cheap price. So it was really worth it, I can recommend Sleepzone for anyone looking for good accommodation in Galway, very close to the center (took about three minutes to walk to Shop Street).
After chilling out a bit before heading out, we took our jackets and started walking along Shop Street, trying to decide which bar to start in. We ended up in The King's Head, where we had a great dinner, hamburgers (not the McDonald's type) with fries and Guinness. Then we went out to the pub part of the place where they had live music. The band had four performers and one of them, the drummer, turned out to be a dancer as well, and a pretty impressive one in that (not that I know whit about dancing but it looked cool). After a time we left to check out other places too. The one really close to The King's Head was nice but a bit crowded, yet we stayed for a good half an hour or maybe more, since the atmosphere was awesome and the music great. Vera and Clem even started dancing and gave me the chance to took nice videos of them. ;)
But the band stopped playing around midnight and started to pack their instruments so we left and went to another pub that was much bigger and had a bit less authentic music, rather playing popular music, but at least live. That place was also crowded and we started to get really tired, so we stayed for an hour or so, maybe one and a half, then left around half past one, heading back to the hostel.

On Friday, we got up around half past eight, took a shower, went down to eat some breakfast and then left for the railway station. The weather wasn't that bad but Galway is a small city and we didn't really have anything else left to visit with Vera, and Clem was going to go home anyway so we joined her on the train, leaving Galway. I was fucking tired anyways because I didn't sleep well, my stomach wasn't fully okay after all that heavy food from the previous day. (It was not the alcohol for sure since I only had a pint of Guinness and a pint of Orchard Thieves. Strongly recommend both, I love them.)
On the train ride home I was trying to study some for the Irish language test next week but didn't really succeed in commiting anything useful to my memory. Ehh...
When we got back to Limerick, Clem went home but Vera and me took a 'short' visit to Penneys. I love that shop, they always have HP themed stuff, and though most of it I really can't afford, some smaller purchases are okay... So I ended up with a new Hogwarts throw, a HP hoodie-like-thing, a throw that has dinosaurs(!) on it and two tops. After shopping we got hungry and it was really nearing dinnertime rather than lunchtime already so we went to McDonald's and had some really hot wraps. My tongue burned and my face heated up but Vera got it worse, her eyes watered and she kept fanning her mouth and blowing her nose, lol.
Then we came back home (cycling in the rain, yay!) and just chilled out until bedtime.

Clem trying to take a pic and Vera walking in, as always :D

These people must be really crazy,
sleeping in a tent in such a strong wind!

Lunch in Galway

Stupid faces (still the best pic :D )

Galway and the sea (or ocean?)

Our room in the hostel (orange walls!)

Tired girls sleeping on the train

Small but modern and clean train

Railway station in Galway!

not-so-beautiful memorial
Why is this worth visiting?

20-year-olds at the playground :)

A tree branch with the cathedral

The oh-so-famous Claddagh ring
Too expensive to buy one, but still good looking at them

Nice colours!

Best drink to accompany the burger

Breakfast in the hostel

Just got 'em from Penneys

Vera and Clem, busy checking their phones before going out

Saturday - getting some shit done

On Saturday I was still pretty tired but I got up not so late so that we could go to Tesco, do some grocery shopping, go back home, and go to the swimming pool (3400 meters again, this time swimming the plan the coach for UL Swim Club wrote for me). After swimming I went to Sultan's place to meet up with her and Oliver and Pontus for our EFL presentation. As you could guess, we did not really do anything to move along with the presentation but we had fun. I like them more and more each week. Nice guys.
Then I cycled home and it was basically pretty late already so just had some dinner, took a shower and went to bed, reading a bit before sleeping. (I have absolutely zero idea why, but I started re-reading the fanfic Care of Magical Creatures. Well, re-reading it from Capter 28 or so. I am at Chapter 61 now. :D Not much left...)

Deep in work...

Sunday - a crappy day with some productivity

I mean it wasn't even that bad - my mood was (and is still). I just have so much on my mind and I am a generally happy and carefree person, even at home. And here I am not even sad, like, at all. Really rarely. And it just HAD TO backfire I guess. I just hope it will pass soon. I hate not being carefree and happy and loud. (Okay, I don't like being loud. But not being loud is even worse...)
As for what I did, I woke up with a splitting headache so I took painkillers and stayed put in bed for a time, waiting for the pain to disappear. Luckily, it did after a time. Then I had a quick breakfast and started occupying myself with Irish language. I made a nice Quizlet set with all the words and expressions we covered so far. Now I 'only' need to learn all 273 of them. For Wednesday.
Then I cooked a pretty good pork stew for lunch, without looking at a recepie, so I am even more satisfied with the result. My first stew totally on my own. And I made 'galuska' (would call it dumplings or noodle in English, I guess, but not the same thing...) as a side dish, that from a recepie, but it was my very first time ever making that and I was desperate and sure I was going to fuck it up. I did not, though it was definitely not perfect either. Edible and not bad though.
Then I vacuum cleaned my room and watched YouTube videos. Then had dinner.
Meanwhile, Eszter arrived from Dublin with her boyfriend and their two friends who are staying here for a week now. They seem fun people.

I'm an okay cook, I guess :)

*Yeah, the title is again a quote from Steve Earle's Galway girl, kinda (first line)