Winter is coming

Yeah, I know, this quote should have gotten outdated years ago. Maybe it did. I don´t care, it is accurate now so I´m gonna use it...

Monday of small achievements

After the usual literature tutorial, I went swimming and did no less than 4000 meters! This is definitely an achievement in itself, right? Then I went to Teach Fáilte and had lunch with Vini. On Irish Folklore, we watched a few of the submitted videos, among them the one Vera and me made together. Teacher seemed to like it. Then we had a fecking boring lecture with Aengus; seriously, those 50 minutes are all wasted from the valuable time I spend on Earth.
The wind was really strong when I cycled home so I didn´t really enjoy it but when I got home I made a banana-avocado-ginger turmix and it was delicious, though I might have used a bit too much ginger. In the evening, we watched the most recent episode of The Big Bang Theory with my boyfriend and even had popcorn this time, which was a wise decision as this episode was really fun and it totally deserved some snacks to go along with.

A full rainbow at Lidl!

Tuesday - coooold

So we had some more EFL presentations this week, for example the one from Vini´s group and it was really interesting and even fun. But the weather has gotten really cold, unfortunately. I guess it´s not any colder than what I would have should I have stayed at home in Hungary. But it´s still not nice, I hate cold weather regardless of the country. Especially if it is raining as well.

It's cold, okay, but why do the irish have a DETOX tea? :D
Hungary needs this as well...

Wednesday - rain and fire alarm

We skipped Irish Folklore lecture, as usual, then had Irish language tutorials with Billy, after which we went to Teach Fáilte to have lunch and even met up with Clem there. But shortly after we started eating there was a fire alarm (just an exercise I think) and so we had to go out into the cold and rain. Vera grumpily remarked that with all this raining going on it is basically unnecessary to have a fire alarm. (Yes, we know this is not the case, but still, it was bitterly funny at that moment.) When I finished lunch I read some more from All We Shall Know and I still find it depressing and uninteresting.
At EFL, we had new teachers again, and after class we went over to the library where Vera was working on some essay and Eszter was looking up sources for some other essay and I really didn´t feel like studying at all so I wrote last week´s post on my blog instead, already being several days late. Then we had a sign-up for the weekend trip in Red Raisins; I only signed up because it costed a mere 5 euros. After cycling home alone (the girls stayed for krav maga) I spent a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking, eating most of the sweet potato meanwhile so at the end I had to cook rice too so that I would have some side dish for my meat the next day. Way to procrastinate.

This statue gets dressed up pretty often
but I just realised it is so much creepier after dark

Thursday - minor bike accident

Being surprisingly sleepy in the morning, it took me more time to get out of bed than it usually does. Maybe because this time we decided to get up earlier and actually go to the 9am lecture. But coffee got me out of my cocoon and I was ready for the day half an hour later. Well, apparently not THAT ready, as we only got to the end of the street with Eszter before I succeeded in messing it all up. There´s always a lot of cars out on the streets around this time of the day so we were not surprised to find that we had to wait for long minutes at the crossroads´ stop sign before someone stopped to let us go through - a nice lady. But it was a bad idea, bad indeed, as a black jeep from across the road also decided that it was time to go even though 1, it was Eszter and me who had right of way 2, it was us who the lady driver waved on to go, not the man in the jeep. Anyways, he also started as we started cycling across the road and he was just turning and basically hit me, knocking me over so that I fell to the ground. I was terrified for my knees but when I got up the ground and felt that my knees were totally okay, I calmed down at once. Anything else is secondary to that. I was in one piece though, no broken bones or significant aches, so no harm done. My bike, however, got damaged at the front wheel - it was bent so I couldn´t even push it out of the way, I had to lift and carry it from out of the middle of the road. Then I took the contact of the driver and gave him the phone number of my landlord, told him where the house I stayed was so he could take my bike there and then walked home. My jeans got mud all over them from the fall and my coat´s sleeve was also kinda dirty so I washed them when I got home and talked to the landlord who promised to take me to university with his car since I did not have a bike working so I could not cycle. Meanwhile, I did a quick check on my body and it was indeed lucky that I had my cycling gloves on (I always do) as this way the skin on my palms was not injured at all. I only have a sore right elbow, some pain in my left wrist, a bruise on my left lower leg and one on my right thigh. Apart from these, I am totally okay and I wasn´t shocked or afraid either, with which I surprised even myself.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful after this, I went to TESOL tutorial, then swimming practice, where my lower leg and elbow hurt some but not so much that I couldn't swim.

My poor bike after the incident

I think this lock suits him really well - he's like a rapper :D

Friday - petrol station and Ponliver's

So it was raining all day, a nasty heavy rain, and so I did not want to go shopping far away - and also I did not really want to bike as my usual bike was still not repaired and the spare bike I got was too small for me. Thus, Eszter and me ended up walking to the petrol station at the end of the street (where I had my accident the day before) and doing some small shopping there.
In the afternoon I still had to cycle though, as my EFL group wanted to meet to finish up our presentation. So I got on my bike and cycled to Ponliver's place, apparently a bit traumatised, in fact, since the first few cars I had to pass made me totally scared and on edge.
After coming home, we had a small pre-drinking with the girls at home and then went to Stables, as Friday night is TGIF-party night. :)

Apparently, I like avocados to my breakfast

And this is how I look like every time it is raining and dark and I go out cycling....

Not half an hour after swearing we won't buy any drinks this time

Saturday - rainy bus trip

On Saturday we went to this cheap bus trip I was talking about. Our first stop was at a beach where we had already been the first time we went on a trip here in Ireland, but this time the water was up higher than the last time, so we could not walk on the beach but climbed a small hill instead with Stephen playing the guitar on the way and we even have seen some surfers among the waves. First time I have seen actual surfers in real life (apart from windsurfers which I have seen tons of).
The rest of the trip we basically stayed on the bus as the rain was really heavy and you couldn't see much, we only got off at a city to have dinner in a nice pub. But I didn't really mind as on the bus we had a lot of fun, the driver was a lot of fun and when we stopped at a cliff and most of the bus was stupid (or crazy) enough to get off and walk some, some of us stayed there on the bus and I played the guitar a bit, Hungarian songs mostly cause I don't really know anything else, and the driver also played, mostly Irish songs I think, and it was really great. Even though we (I mean he!) broke the strings. Twice.
And another awesome part of the trip was that I was sitting with Anna, the fourth Hungarian girl, who doesn't live with us and we don't really talk much, usually. But this time we did (okay, mostly I did, but sometimes I actually let her talk and listened) and I got to know her a bit better and she is super nice and interesting. So all in all the trip was great craic. ;)

You can't really see but there are surfers in the water

Me playing 8 óra munka on the guitar

It's raining, you say? WE DON'T CARE!

The lighthouse we stopped to look at

My dinner - I was so hungry I actually paid for food in a restaurant rather than starving

Sunday - essay day and cleaning

I got up kinda late in the morning, then I procrastinated some, cooking rice pudding. Then I translated some stuff for my boyfriend, and finally got to start my essays! First I did the EFL one, writing about that depressing book, then I wrote my literature review for Irish folklore, bullshitting more than I thought I was capable of. In the evening I cleaned the bathroom though it was Veronika who did the vacuum cleaning part. Then I vacuum cleaned my room. By the was my wrist still hurts and it is soooo cold.

Writing two essays from nothing to ready in one afternoon might sound impressing -
until you realise I wrote shit like this in every second sentence :D