Hey, everyone :) So, I am STILL ALIVE here in Ireland! Yay! It is still as gorgeous as ever, if not more than it was! The springtime is starting to happen and we're loving it :) I have done so much since I last posted, I don't even know what I last blogged about...oh well! My best memory, or the one that comes to mind, is Charleville Forest Castle. It was incredible. The castle is supposedly one of the most haunted locations in the world! I did not see any ghosts and witness anything that strange, but some people claim they kinda did sorta. It was so beautiful! I love old buildings so much, all of the little aged details just get me so excited and I can't stop taking pictures...so much so that I took about 1,030 photos in 2 days lol. I went with the photography class, the trip was meant for photo students, but there were about 7 or 8 extra allowed, so I got to go for only 40 euro! SO worth it. We arrived there (Tullamore, I think the town was called?) in the afternoon and then stayed overnight! I barely slept, most people were up and about the castle a lot of the dark hours, but it was FREEZING there! No matter where we were, in the castle or outside, it was so cold! I suppose it kinda added to the experience though-made it more intense! The forest that surrounds the castle is the oldest in Europe and is also supposedly haunted. We wandered around in the forest at night and kinda got lost for a while, which was funny, but we heard what we decided was a centaur right as we were going into the forest. We heard what we thought was another student coming through the trees toward us as we approached the forest path, but then nobody showed up and we heard trotting across the road in front of us(but couldn't see anything) and then it went back into the forest. (They apparently have deer...but I still think it was a centaur.) We stayed in a big open room with 2 fireplaces, which were the coziest thing in the castle and we laid on the floor in sleeping bags :) We stayed until the next day around 3:30 (after we walked to the town in the late morning for lunch, walked back and hung out on this huuuuge tree reading stories outloud, it was fun :) )Apparently, a little girl, named Harriet, fell from the top floor of the huge spiral staircase when she was 7 or 8 years old and she died, so now she haunts the castle. Janine waited in the dark, by herself for an hour or more, calling Harriet, she really wanted to meet her-she loves kids. Janine ended up being the only person to scare me while I was there-I walked upstairs with a group of people and then I walked ahead into one of the nursery rooms with my flashlight and turned and screamed "HOOOOOly crap..." when my light fell on Janine sitting in the corner, smiling back at me in the dark! It was pretty funny. So yeah, the castle was amazing, the stars were beautiful, the fireplaces were cozy, the moss and old stone was gorgeous...I want to go back!!!!!! Perhaps, one day. :) I'm watching Runaway Bride right now, I love this movie! Anyways, other than the amazing castle...I have been doing art, listening to traditional music in the pubs, Monks has music every Friday night, so we're doing that tonight...ummmm we went on a 7 mile walk for Irish Studies which was so gorgeous!!!! Today, for Irish Studies, we took a bus around to some beautiful places, like Yeats' tower and bridge and Lady Gregory's house spot, the house was demolished a while ago, but the grounds were so beautiful! We went into this forest that was the prettiest forest I think I've ever seen...rows and rows of tall tall trees, we took a really cute picture of a group of us and oh man...I'm gonna miss people here! Lately, so many of us have been thinking about how hard it's going to be to leave this place and everyone here...so sad :( Seeing my family and friends at home again will be wonderful, but it will be hard to not be here anymore. I GOT TO PET BABY SHEEP AND SORT OF HUG A MOMMA SHEEP AT THE FANORE ST. PATRICK'S DAY PARADE!!!!!!! AHHHHH!!!!! For actualy St. Patrick's day, I stayed in Ballyvaughan and relaxed with other students who stayed here and then there was a Potluck at Marie's house and then we all hung out at Logue's pub. As for my art: I have been drawing portraits of the students here, I'm loving it :) Absolutely loving it :) I think I stayed away from drawing a lot until recently because I love drawing people so much, but Brad and Suzanne have been drawing and painting people here, so I just wasn't, but mine are little tiny pencil drawn portraits, not charcoal or paint. I want to have them in little wooden frames perhaps, clustered together on the wall to show the mixing of so many different personalities here-I love it! I have 10 done, so I have 17 left to go, which is quite a few, but I think I can do it! I have found that it is so much harder to draw the people I've gotten to know better, I know when their face isn't quite right, which is actually pretty cool, I guess :) They are all different sizes, all small, but not all the same, which I think I really like. Tonight, we're going to Monks for music and then, tomorrow, we go to Gort for gorceries, which I really don't feel like doing...after that, I need to get more portraits done! Ummmm.......what else....uhhhhh...Oh! Brittany and I did a really fun and successful project for Mixed Media, involving us sitting in the photo light studio with our cameras videotaping us making ridiculous faces and noises and then we sped it up by 3 times and played them on our computers, side by side, so it showed us interacting/feeding off of each other-everyone really seemed to like it! :) Let's see...Connolly house has had a couple "Fight Nights," well, one was during the day and I only saw the first one, but it was pretty entertaining. Silly boys and actually a couple girls ramming themselves into each other, just embarrassing. lol Goooosh, there's so much to tell, but I don't even know what else to write about, it's so much, hmmm... ohhh well. Hehehehe, our house, minus Brian (he was already sleeping) made a bunch of really funny music videos with Suzanne's computer (Photobooth video) on the mirror setting, oh my gosh....so fun. I LOVE THE MOVIE RUNAWAY BRIDE SO MUUUUUCH! I don't know what else to write about. I guess I'll just be done for now! At least I'm back on the blog! Love you all!
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