It's December already?

Whoa! So, I've heard from some people telling me to update my blog since my last post was in October. yelp. Well... we have good reasons for that! Masters degrees!

As of today, all my classes are finished up and I'm busy just writing some papers. This semester I took the following courses ...

1. Labor, Migration and Conflict - Final Paper to be written!
2. Race, Ethnicity: Theoretical Concepts - DONE
3. Colonialism, Conflict and Liberal Intervention - DONE
4. Conflict Zones: Israel-Palestine - Final Paper in progress!
5. Research Methods - DONE
6. Race, Ethnicity and Social Policy - DONE
7. Human Rights and Global Issues- Final Paper to be written!

I've thoroughly enjoyed all of my courses and have learned so much! Claudio, as of today, has finished 2/5 of his classes! Those being Derivatives and Quantitative Methods. From what I gather, he has finals left for Capital Markets, Econometrics, and Corporate Finance. How exciting does that sound? (The answer is not! But he's doing well :) )

Christmas in Dublin is quite nice! here's some shots that I stole from google, since I'm never wise enough to take out a camera and get photos.

Dublin Christmas Market at Stephen's Green

Grafton Street adorned in lights

Popular student hangout, the Ginger Man

I've set myself due dates for the 3 last papers that I have to do, but here's what I get to look forward to during my month long Christmas vacation!

My mom & dad are GREAT and felt bad that we didn't decorate for Christmas and didn't have any plans, so they're gifting us a tour of the west coast of Ireland for Christmas! How wonderful are they?

We'll see sights like these...

Cliffs of Moher

The Burren

Historic village of Dingle

The Ring of Kerry

These partly are for your guys' enjoyment, but also for my motivation.. the quicker I finish these papers, the quicker I get to go see these beauties!

The "Christmas" vacation Claudio and I planned actually takes place in January, because of the cost of flights and things. We'll be headed straight for the sunshine in the Canary Islands! The canaries are basically the Hawaii of Europe, just a LOT cheaper and most Spanish than anything. We'll be visiting Lanzarote and Fuerteventura... which are the two most Saharan looking islands, as opposed to the more lush islands. Here's some photos for everyone who wants to get a case of jealousy.

A little stark, yes, but this is when the new episode "Kill the Moon" on Doctor Who was filmed, so I'm up for a lunar beach escape!

After we get home all suntanned and relaxed, I'll be back at Trinity for my second half of classes. I'll be taking

1. Race, Ethnicity: Theoretical Concepts - (second half)
2. Colonialism, Conflict and Liberal Intervention - (second half)
3. Research Methods - (second half)
4. Forced Migration and Ethnic Cleansing
5. and another elective I haven't decided on yet?

Hopefully you guys are all excited now to see my POST-TRIP photos! Thanks for reading! 

Where else do you think we should go in Europe?

Bienvenue à Paris

Claudio and I caught the travel bug, and decided to go to Paris last weekend! Travel in Europe is quite inexpensive, and since it's our first time on the continent we figured we would check out the most cliché place first.

We took a Thursday night to Sunday morning trip.. so we didn't need to bring much. This is basically all we brought in Claudio's backpack! Those clear cubes came out of my Mary Kay travel bag, but they are so useful when traveling because you can have things separated out and can find everything so easily! 

Here are a few photos from our trip, but you'll find the majority on my Facebook page. 

We're so bad at "selfies" it's not even funny.

We went and did all the touristy things we could. We weren't there for long, and probably won't be back for a very long time, so we wanted to see the essential sites! We used visitacity.com to plan out a rough itinerary for the trip. Our itineraries for the two days are below. We actually flipped the days, skipped the Holy Chapel and the Hotel des Invalides, and rearranged many things, but that's what you're supposed to do while vacationing! Visitacity.com was actually really cool to use because it gives you a PDF with all of the activities' descriptions which was helpful when I didn't remember what was what!

Everyone keeps asking me how we liked our trip. Claudio and I love travelling around, staying in hostels and checking out cities, so Paris was very fun! But, it wasn't as "magical" as I thought. It was a fun city with cool sites, and seeing so many Van Gogh, Monet and the actual Mona Lisa was thrilling! The architecture was beautiful, but I don't have anywhere besides Dublin to really compare it to. Paris is Paris and we had to go. We also got into every single museum for free because we have Irish residency cards, which saved us about $200. quite wonderful!

I won't write a review on the entire city, because there is so many online and I don't have the time. The amount of readings that I am "privileged" to do in my master's degree definitely has consumed the entirety of my time. As a reward for reading my blogpost, you get a lovely Schmidt from New Girl GIF that describes my reading load. 

(or in my case... all year.)

Where should we go next? 

In other words, Munir, are you reading this? 

New beginnings

I've been waiting to write a post for when I began classes, and boy I didn't realize that would make this post so long! Sorry in advance.

Claudio and I have tried to be active an see a lot of Dublin County before classes begin. First, we went to the Dublin Zoo!

The Dublin zoo is very unique. It's one of the oldest in Europe, being founded in 1831. The best part of the zoo, compared to the Honolulu Zoo or the Woodland Parks Zoo, is that every animal is unique and has a nice habitat. I didn't see the entire zoo (sorry reptile house) but I can promise you that my moments watching the Orangutans and the Bolivian Squirell monkeys are prized. If you know me really well you'll know that I have a thing for primates, and of the ape family the Orangutans are my favourite. We watched in the Dublin Zoo as one young female reached into the water with a stick and tried to grab a fallen Bunny stuffed animal. She couldn't reach it all the way with the stick, so she grabbed onto a rock, held on, and leaned a good 3 or 4 feet into the water to grab the lifeless stuffed animal. Although I couldn't see her face at the time, I'm sure she was ecstatic. She pulled it out and then rung it out like a dish rag and proceeded to climb as high as she could into the trees so no one would bother her. It was precious, and when we left she was being slowly followed by a few other Orangutans wondering what she was hiding. Claudio took the bulk of the photos, so I'll try to upload some at a later time. The Bolivian Squirell monkeys were just adorable and they we about the size of a guinea pig. Yet, they were SO active. Running around, holding to the edge of the cage and onto the trees. They held my attention for probably twenty minutes. They will be my first stop if I return!

We also went to Dun Laoghaire (done-lury) which is a "commuter town" in Dublin. We decided to go check out their ice cream, because when Pinterest tells you that Teddy's has the best ice cream in the country, you listen. It was a beautiful day when we went, so I got some nice photos!

Dun Laoghaire has a large pier, helping to protect its harbour, which was quite enjoyable to walk onto. Teddys hold the monopoly of the town, and there's even a Teddys stand on the right tip of the pier.

Conclusion: I don't understand the rave about Teddy's. It was basic soft serve, but I think people love it because of the memories it brings of their visits to the small town in the summers.

Claudio and I both endured "fresher's week" at our schools, where all of the societies have booths to get you to sign up. If you're from Brigham Young University - Hawai'i, it's like World Fest but 3-4x as large.

It's quite interesting though, because when Claudio signed up for the UCD investors and entrepreneurs society, his care package included the "hangover cure" and a condom. Thanks UCD for promoting safe sex to all of the 18-year-olds? Well, we're not in BYUH anymore, that's for sure!

Here's a photo from our second day in dublin that a friend just posted:

I had the orientation to my course on Wednesday the 17th and it was really nice to meet everyone in my course. We're somewhere between fifteen and twenty students, 50/50 male/female, 50/50 Irish and non-Irish. About an hour or so of introduction to different courses, we packed up and headed to the pub.  Only two of our professors joined us, but it was nice to get to know the majority of the class over a pint. For me, the means orange soda! I'm getting used to ordering orange or lemon soda by now! I only grabbed on photo, but you can get the jest. 

I had one course on Monday, but today (Wednesday the 24th) is when the bulk of my classes begin. Wish me luck!

Books

Being a postgraduate student, the entire world seems to revolve around books. It seems we all gain knowledge through reading and listening, and it's such an interesting thing to think about. I can't so much as explain my thoughts on the subject, as they are not yet concrete, but books and learning are such a wonderful thing.

Trinity College has one of the largest libraries in the world. They have over 5 million books and receive about 275 additional books a day. FIVE MILLION. This is because the Trinity College library is a Legal Deposit Library and it entitled a copy of every book published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The library system is so big that on 20% of the books are available on the shelf. The rest of the books (especially novels, I've noticed) are available by online request from a book depository in another part of the city. This particular depository in Santry holds 3 million volumes. I received two books from Santry today: The Giver and Divergent - I'm in a dystopian mood.

There are 6 on-campus libraries, 5 only available to access with your student ID (as there are SO many tourists!!). The one public library is the Old Library which holds all of the really old books, including the Book of Kells, a mint copy of the four Gospels of the new testament written by clergy in the 9th century. Because the line for admission to this library is daily about 1 mile long, I still haven't visited. The other libraries are as follows: The William Hamilton Science and Engineering library, the John Stearne Medical Library, the Glucksman Map Library, and then the Berkeley, Lecky and Ussher Art libraries (All connected to eachother, commonly referred to as the BLU).

Seeing all these books really gives you perspective on the importance of reading.

Because Claudio started classes this past week and I do not begin for two more weeks, I have taken up reading. Reading is truly wonderful, but I'm so lazy it seems. Nonetheless, I have made it to finish a few books before my term begins. I started the Giver this afternoon, which I haven't read since 5th grade, and am already 75% of the way done. What are some books that have changed your perspective or life? 

How to make a 50ft2 apartment efficient!

Welcome to our newly decorated and organized apartment!

A shot of the entire place:

The entry way and kitchen

I added key hooks for easy organization

In Ireland, it's VERY common to have a small trash can for your home.
We have two, on top for general waste and below for recycling

The living and dining

But look at that WALL! That wall is my pride an joy. It's created using cornstarch (cornflour in Europe!) and ware as wallpaper paste with fabric. Completely apartment dweller-friendly and cheaper than painting. My favorite tutorial is here.

"Closets"

Our shoe shelf. Nice to have them organized, even if they're next to the dining table. Note the flowers Claudio gave me!

Claudio holds stake to the left of the window. We installed hooks for bags, as we change a lot. His backpack normally is on the right as well!

Stick on mirrors, drawers, and my free shelving! I may have too many clothes.

Our new yellow bedding:

I'm luck to have found this bedding at Ikea. Apparently yellow is not a common color of bedding? I also need to add a painting or SOMETHING on the wall above the bed.

The Pinterest worthy bathroom:

This bathroom is every woman's nightmare. The ONLY storage is the shelf above the toilet! 

Before I moved to Dublin, I learned about the many uses of the Fintorp System at Ikea. This came in handy and definitely makes me smile everytime I look at it. Top row: a) face lotions b)brushes c)foundations d) eye shadows and mascara. Bottom Row: A) brush and straightener b) short necklaces c) hairdryer d) long necklaces e) bobby pins, hair ties f) headbands. This is so organized, it's much better than a drawer.

For toilet paper and other toiletries, we were able to get a rolling cart. This is useful because we can move it when we're taking a shower, but otherwise is out of the way.

I have to say, Claudio is impressed by how much larger the studio has become when I was able to add hooks and shelving, to help use the vertical space we have available. What suggestions do you have to help out?

Fun Ireland facts:

You walk on the right side, but drive on the left side.

The price you see is the price you pay, all VAT (European taxes) are included in the price marked. 

At the grocery store (or anywhere else, for that matter) plastic or paper bags are not given. Some places have reusable ones for purchase for about $0.75, but otherwise you're expected to bring your own bags. 


**I would love to have better quality photos, but my lovely mother is in the process of mailing my camera charger all the way from Washington State!

Yellow

Fun fact: from what I've gathered, Irish (and possibly Europeans in general, I don't know) only use duvet covers. They don't really use quilts or bedspreads. They also don't seem to use flat sheets, only the fitted the covers the mattress.

I finally got to take the ikea trip I've been planning for weeks. I measured my entire apartment, and basically had to figure out how in expensively I could organise all of our clothing and shoes. (Apparently we have way a lot of both. PSH.)  there were a lot of wonderful ideas, and a lot of vetoing, but the main goal was to make our 25m2 apartment liveable for the next year. After that, my budget was very tiny to make it a lovely studio. However, it sure will be lovely!

I still need to find a hardware store to get some screws, but once I do, I will post before and after photos! The only real hint you get is YELLOW!! Here's a few photos of my inspiration to browse in the meanwhile.

(All images taken from Google and I do not own them.)

Here's an added bonus: Claudio working hard as a handyman for me! :)

Saint Patricks Cathedral and Dublin

Claudio and I finally had some money to explore some of the richness and heritage of Dublin. About a week ago we got to go to the National Archaeology Museum of Ireland, and I tell you it was wonderful! It was huge and everything there was dedicated to the Emerald Isle. There were archaeological finds dating back to 4000 and 5000 BCE. The most impressive thing to me was this history that I knew very little about, presented in a way that was beautiful and impressive. I also learned what bog and peat are...... which is a common thing around here but I had never heard the words! 

We chose to go to the Viking city of Dublin today, where the old wall held the local city south of the River Liffey. (Hey, I sound like I know what I'm talking about now!) We headed over to Saint Patrick's Cathedral, and grudgingly paid the entrance fee (How can they make you pay to go into a church? Why is that a thing?) and enjoyed! The history of the area is very interesting. The cathedral is actually built outside of the city walls, because the archbishop at the time didn't like the Christchurch cathedral because it was a monastery. So around 1000 AD, they build this new little church, then made it into a collegiate church, then into a cathedral. The whole history is actually quite interesting. 

Johnathon Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels and A Modest Proposal, is actually buried in the cathedral along with many many others!

Saint Stephens Green, right next to our flat

This place is so old!

The stained glass here was magnificent

The Great hall of the cathedral

Acting like Tourists

Creepy death mask of Jonathan Swift

Marsh's Library, founded in 1707. OLDER than the USA, you guys. 

Christ Church Cathedral ad Dublinia, the Viking World Museum

Fun fact: Did you know the color turquoise is french for "The color of Turkey" because the people of Turkey adorned much of their mosques with the beautiful hue of blue?