The beginning of the end.

Well, today was my last final exam hoorah! I have finished relatively early, as exams technically don't end until the 21st December, so I got quite lucky I think! Now it's time to salvage what little time I have left in this city, with the new friends I have made. Also did a massive pack up of my room and talking logistics of getting a year's worth of stuff home.

The other day there was the first sighting of snow falling from the sky! Albeit it wasn't like how it is in the movies. It was just little white specs that disappeared in a second and none of the snow stuck because it was raining and wasn't cold enough. Needless to say, all the Aussies were excited and jumping for joy! Can cross that one off the bucket list!

It's such a bittersweet feeling. In 10 days, I will be home again which I am deadly excited about. At the same time, I am feeling such anguish over leaving this city that I have called home for a year. It definitely feels like I've been here for more than a year, and I have really grown to love it, faults and all. I have also come to love the people. I have never met such lovely and friendly people.

I usually am not the sentimental type, and don't care too much for "emotions" and "feelings". I don't think I was too sad leaving home and haven't really suffered much homesickness whilst being over here. But the thought of leaving Dublin actually brought a tear to my eye a few days ago.

Which is really strange because a few weeks ago, I was like "if someone offered me a ticket home this very instant I definitely would take it. A year is probably a bit too long away from home". But now, I feel like the end has just popped out of nowhere and really wish I could stay here just a bit longer.

I also find it really strange that it took me getting out of Australia and moving half way across the world to realise how much I actually do love Australia. The impetus for coming on this exchange was from sheer boredom and wanting a change of scene because I felt Sydney was so boring. But in coming to Ireland, I have really learnt to appreciate my home country and feel like I am coming back a more patriotic Aussie, even though I do now have this connection with Ireland as well.

Going to go to London on Friday to visit Jo and Ped and their new baby Ethan! So excited! It's time for all the goodbyes to start rolling out. Sad days ahead, and many tears too.

xx

9.

Wow it has been ages since I last updated! I am very terrible at updating this blog and just keeping up to date with things in general.

So much has happened since I last blogged. I obviously finished my summer euro trip - twas amazing! I even managed to travel by myself for a few weeks, which definitely was a challenge, but I am proud that I made it through unscathed, and it definitely was fun and rewarding.

As the title may suggest, I have only 9 weeks left. I cannot believe how fast this year has flown! At first when I came back from my summer travels I wasn't ready to go home, but now a few weeks into semester I really cannot wait to go home! I think 6 months is too short, but 1 year might be a bit too long. I think a happy medium of 9 months would be a good time away from home. I can't help but count down the time until I get home, but at the same time I feel bad for doing so and feel I should enjoy the rest of my stay here.

For some reason this semester I have so much work to do! Definitely not as cruisy as last semester. It's probably the subjects I picked, as they all seem to have essays and so I have at least 1 essay to do each week. It really sucks. I should be doing one now but I just couldn't do anymore. I think I'll leave it for tomorrow.

So Halloween is coming up this weekend. I am not really that excited about it. But it's a quite a big thing over here. I'm feeling really anti-social as of late, and I'm not sure why. I really miss the old muck group, I just feel I haven't really connected with anyone here in the new group. It is probably my fault that that has happened and that I feel this way. I have just lost all motivation for socialising.

Dublin is starting to get all cold and miserable. On Monday there were flash floods and the whole city virtually became a river. It was soooo freaky! Not to mention a rude shock as I had been in Lisbon all weekend where it was 25 degrees and sunny. It definitely made it sad to come back to rainy cold Dublin haha! But Lisbon was amazing! Oh I fell in love with the city! Definitely a country I want to come back to and explore more. I really don't understand why it isn't on the top of the list of places to see in Europe. It is absolutely gorgeous! I also got absolutely wasted one night which is always fun hahaha! I think there will just be this moment in my life where I will never fully know what happened.

So next weekend I have tickets to see a Man U game! I am sooo excited! I've always wanted to watch a football match live because the atmosphere is just nuts! And now my dream will come true! Definitely something the bf will be jealous about! =P

Anyways off to bed for me! Bedtime has become a very exciting time because I've started reading the Game of Thrones series haha! I am such a nerd. But it's such a good series! Just started the 2nd book on the Kindle (courtesy of the boyf!). Defs a brill gift!

xx

2 months left...

Only 2 months left of traveling! =( It's going by sooo fast! Sadface.

So right now Maddie and I are living with Ciara back in Dublin! Sharing a very spacious single bed with Maddie haha! Snuggle buddies!

Traveling around Ireland in the "summer" has been so amazing! I find it quite funny that winter in Sydney is still warmer than summer in Ireland lol! Nonetheless, the scenery and views are just breathtaking.

Memorable times:

Galway - awesome pubcrawl with Maddie, Pete and Anna. Going on a whole day hike up a mountain, semi-hungover. Also, alot of the sites in Galway no longer exist, which was really disappointing. It also rained a shitload in Galway.

Kilkenny - Mixed feelings about Kilkenny. I had the best Irish stew so far in a pub in Kilkenny. But there was a bus tour Maddie and I tried finding and were told to go to 3 different, locations to catch this bus; needless to say, we never made it. Maddie and I also became awesome cooks and started to cook for ourselves (finally). We made awesome steak, awesome pasta, and awesome salad.

Tomorrow I meet up with Les in London to start our Europe tour! So so excited! =D

xx

Quick round up

Ok, so I haven't blogged since Izmir. Gona do a quick summary of travels thus far:

Stockholm: awesome city, got the Stockholm card and pretty much visited all the museums there are in Stockholm! Can't say I particularly enjoyed Swedish cuisine.

Prague: city was nice, a bit of a let down though. I had heard so many good things about Prague, but it just didn't blow my mind away. All in all, still good fun. Pub crawl was pretty cool! Also did bungee jumping in Prague - great experience.

Vienna: stayed at Vanessa's. Nice to relax and unwind. Watched alot of SATC and did my laundry. Definitely nice to be somewhere home-ish and have decent food and drink.

Amsterdam: My most favourite city thus far! Loved the contrast of romantic, picturesque scenery and the red light district and drugs. Didn't really participate in the night life, but it just gives me a reason to go back.

Belfast: Beautiful city with beautiful people! History is good to learn about, and it's amazing that the tension is still there, but not as bad as it use to be. I felt it was very educational.

Donegal: This is where Maddie and I are now. Cute and quaint little town. Very, very, very good seafood! Omg! Had the best crabmeat salad last night! Also watched some Irish music and dancing. People here are just lovely! Colder than anticipated.

xx

Izmir - Turkey

Chilling in the hostel on my last day in Izmir with Cara. Shawna left us today, and Jacqui left us on Wednesday. Sad, sad days. My time in Izmir has been so awesome, so adventurous! Cannot even begin to describe everything that has happened here so I'm going to be doing it in bullet points:

• Kindness of the Turkish people - they have been our guardian angels and definitely made this trip awesome
• Cesme beach - scaling walls of hotels to get to the sunbaking area, only to be kicked out 5 minutes after; free drinks (which were delicious!) and food on the beach; clear water and amazing view
• What we believe is a prostitute in the hostel we're staying in - she was creepy
• Finding a hotel (Hotel Anba) that showed the State of Origin! Winning!
• Hamami - Naked woman scrubbing you down, giving you a massage, and basically washing you. In front of everyone else. I never want to shower myself again
• Ephesus - catching the bus to the wrong place, then making friends with the guy on our bus and getting a free ride to Ephesus, which meant double the icecream!; fighting cabbies; on the bus, on the highway back to Izmir when Shawna realises she left her camera, then making the bus drop us off and going back to Ephesus to get her camera, which we did get back (she is the luckiest person alive!). How we got back is another story, so ask me for the details.
• Cheap food - especially bread and cheese
• Watching half of Fight Club in the hostel
• Card games

That's pretty much my time in Izmir. It may not look like alot, but it has definitely been one of my most memorable trips to anywhere. I will be sad to leave tomorrow, but it is time to go and see another part of the world: Stockholm, Sweden!

xx

Istanbul - Turkey

Having an awesome time in Istanbul! The weather here is so good atm: 25 degrees and plenty of sunshine! Yay! The city is also quite nice, not in a modern nice way, but in the way that you can tell it has a lot of history. I really do like it.

So on Friday we visited the Blue Mosque which is just so beautiful! We got there just a bit before prayer time so we wandered and took photos, but at prayer time they kick everyone out so they can start the prayers. But for some reason the security guard let us back in and said we could observe the prayer time. So we went upstairs and sat. Then some other women told us that when they prayer they have to do it in a straight line so that we had to move, and she was like "I'm just telling you now because the other women might get rude with you", so that was sweet. So we moved into this little pocket in the wall in the back and sat there. The woman and her friends were then kind enough to explain everything to us. It took a while but it was a cool experience. I didn't realise how packed the mosque was until I stood up and the whole thing was filled; you could not see any of the carpet at all. Then I looked out the window behind us and they had rolled mats out outside and the whole courtyard was full of people! It was amazing to look at. 

We then went to Ayasofia which is a museum kinda building. That was nice to look at as well. All the buildings here are really pretty. We also spotted a really tall guy aka Shawna's future husband lol! Then we visited the Grand Bazaar. My god these things are soo crowded! The streets in general are just crowded. And it was definitely a grand bazaar. Also the things these men say to you to get you to buy something from them is just hilarious! They would say things like "omg it's an angel! charlie's angels!" or just be very straight-forward and be like "Do you want to spend money? Come here and spend money!" ahahah! It's too funny, but sometimes can be annoying when they heckle you too much. 

Today we went around Taksim square and stumbled upon a cultural festival of some sort. So we watched the people play instruments and dance around in a circle, holding hands and hopping about which was cool. And then they sung the national anthem. The guy behind us was so off key it was really funny to listen to!

Then we went up a main street and went around through the backstreets and looked at jewelery etc. They have some really nice jewellery! They even have jewellery that looked like House of Harlow jewellery, so I'm guessing Nicole Richie copied the Turkish designs haha! Then some animal protest march started happening and so we joined the march for a few minutes. There was a man on his hands and knees crawling around like a dog and even had a leash on! Hahah! He was crawling around chasing a stray dog lol! 

Every night we've been just buying bread, cheese and wine for dinner, which has been sooo good! And we've been playing cards as well, which has been heaps of fun. I learnt a new card game called Rummie/500. I suck at it though, and always come last hahah! It's still fun nonetheless.

Going to go Izmir tomorrow morning. Taking the ferry and then a train for about 7 hours I think. Cannot wait! Beach time! 

Mm that's all I can really think of from the top of my head. I know we have done some more things but I can't remember for the life of me atm. Just really tired because for the past few nights I haven't been able to sleep properly, if at all. So yea. 

Well that's it! Will try update at the next city!

xx

Goodbye Dublin, Hello Europe!

It is officially the end of my first semester on exchange in Dublin. I cannot believe how fast it has all gone! I feel like I only arrived yesterday and I leave Dublin tomorrow to do some hardcore traveling for 3 and a half months.

I finally bothered packing today and managed to fit all my things into 2 boxes! That really excited me because I didn't think my whole life would fit into 2 boxes, but alas it does! Makes me feel insignificant in some way.

Leading up to today was very sad indeed; watching everyone leave and saying goodbye, even though I will be traveling with most of them before they actually leave to return home. Goodbyes are always hard and always sad.

I've been doing alot of thinking lately about my time over here and why I came in the first place and what I was expecting out of it. I came over here to change the constants in my life, to get out of my comfort zone and to see the world. I really thought it would be life changing; that I would have some epiphany of sorts and come back a totally different person. So far, I don't feel that any of this has really happened. Not sure if it's me getting in the way of it, or maybe I came over here expecting too much, or perhaps that it takes longer than 6 months. Whatever it is, I don't feel I have found what I came looking for just yet. Definitely does not mean I haven't enjoyed myself thus far. Perhaps during my summer travels or next semester.

Well I leave tomorrow for the first stop of my europarty - Istanbul, Turkey. I am so excited for my summer adventures! Ready or not, here I come!

xx