Time Flies When You're Having Fun!

WOW! 

I can't believe I only have four teaching days left and less than five days before I return home! The time really has gone by extremely fast here. It seems like just yesterday it was January 10th, and  I was looking in my planner thinking, 

"Oh my goodness, am I really going to be here for eight weeks?" 

Well...I made it!! 

Needless to say, I have had an incredible time in Dublin. More importantly, I've had an exceptional experience at Ballinteer Community School. I really am going to miss all the teachers and students at BCS. Everyone is so friendly and supportive, I love it! Even just today, my supervisor was coming in to evaluate me. I couldn't tell you the number of teachers who made it a point to ask how it went! They were genuinely concerned! It really is uplifting to be working and teaching in such a positive atmosphere. 

As I'm preparing to leave, I am finding it quite difficult to leave my students. I really have become attached to them! I wish I could take them all home with me and continue teaching them. I guess I will have to get used to it since, unfortunately, my students will move on every year. 

In my previous teaching placements, a lot of my strategies and methods were learned from my cooperating teachers or applying methods discussed in my courses. Here, it has been different. Since I was basically on my own, a lot of my methods developed as a result of trial and error. I've learned a lot about my teaching style this way, and I definitely think it has developed over the past two months. I've also picked up a number of great strategies from my cooperating teachers here, Mr. O'Donovan, Mrs. MacAlidan, and Ms. Logue. They really are expert teachers with a lot of great and differing ideas!

Leaving Dublin is very much so bittersweet. However, I am more than ready and excited to see my family on Saturday.... and eat some mexican food.... and take a bubble bath... and warm weather.... and lay on the couch, be lazy, and watch TV, and many, many, many other things!

Oh, and what am I going to do without tea break every day? Maybe, we can implement a tea break into the American school schedules!

Do as the British Do

Well, I have now successfully conquered the first three cities... only one more to go!! Throughout our London trip, HL and I saw these shirts everywhere, so we decided our next stop is Tokyo! Actually, we decided every couple years we are going to travel to a strange, exciting, new city we've never been to. There are so many places to explore, so why not start while you're young?

My trip to London completely exceeded my hopes. It is such a great city! It has a great feel, great people, great food, great architecture, great history, great character, and an even better accent! It actually reminded me a lot of New York, but with friendly people! 

Of course, we visited all the must see tourist attractions. All in the first day, we rode the London Eye, saw Big Ben, Westminster, British Supreme Court, and the Marble Arches.  

After dinner the first night, we decided to go to a couple of the pubs near our hotel. HL was a little upset no one had come up to talk to us, he thought everyone would be interested in talking to us Americans! So of course he took it upon himself to make friends. We were standing outside the public bathroom (which you have to pay to use!) and he just started talking to a British girl! Well.... we all became friends really fast and next thing we know, we are headed to a new bar to continue the night with them. Her name was Charlie and she was with her friend named Tom. Of course, since she was named Charlie, we instantly asked if she had seen the "Charlie bit me, and it really hurt!" YouTube video. She hadn't so we filled her in on its popularity in the US. Here a picture of us with Charlie and Tom!

The second day we had more tourist attractions on the agenda. He saw Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guards, the London Tower, the Crown Jewels, and the London Bridge! They were all so beautiful! 

The third and final day we spent meandering around the city, looking in the different shops, and we also went to the British Museum. I loved visiting all the monuments in London, but even more I loved the London "experience". Of course, it wouldn't have been complete without riding the Tube or a train. Don't worry, that's the only way we got around, and it was crazy! The tube especially. It was always slammed pack with people. I could honestly sit on the tube for hours just people watching! 

Waiting for the tube!

Just an example of the interesting people you will see on the tube!

I was kind of sad to have to catch the plane back to Dublin, but I was excited to get to show HL and Gavin where I have been living the past two months. As much as Dublin isn't my permanent home, I was actually relieved to be back on the Emerald Isle! 

In all, I was extremely excited I got to experience London, but I was even more ecstatic that my brother and Gavin came to visit. I needed to see some familiar faces! Its kind of crazy to think that I only have a week and a half left in Ireland. The time has flown by, but I'll be excited to see all my family and friends!! 

Anyway! In America, Monday was President's Day, and Tuesday was Fat Tuesday! Well, here I obviously still had school Monday since Ireland doesn't recognize President's Day, and Tuesday was Pancake Tuesday! It has a similar concept to our "Fat Tuesday". They call if "Pancake Tuesday" because you are supposed to eat all the sweets in the house before Lent starts. Instead, Joyce said people just make themselves sick on pancakes and get really drunk.... sounds eerily like Mardi Gras to me! Here is my pancake from last night!

I still haven't decided what I'm giving up for Lent yet. I gave up Cokes for the New Year, so maybe I will just kill two birds with one stone and use that for Lent! 

Bon Voyage!

AHH!! My trip to Paris was absolutely phenomenal!! I want to go back so bad, three days there just wasn't long enough!! There is so much to see and do, and although our days were jammed pack, we still didn't get to do it all! Here is the break down of our days!

DAY 1: We arrived in Paris around 8am, and boy was it cold! I thought Dublin was cold, but I had no idea! Joyce kept warning me, "Haley, you've never experienced this type of cold, it's bone chilling!" and she was exactly right. The high was around 20 degrees the first day, probably a wind chill of around 15 degrees! However, seeing the snow on the ground was absolutely beautiful! We took the bus into the city, and when we stepped off the bus, we were in such a stage of daze, awestruck, and ecstasy, we had no idea where to even go! Thankfully this extremely nice guy that sat next to Hunt on the bus noticed we were lost and decided to help! Ends up, he is from Paris but did a study abroad program at Ole Miss for a year- small world! We were so grateful for Clinton, because he showed us exactly everything we needed to get to our hostel and introduced us to the Metro! We arrived at our hostel, found a place to eat, and started on our adventures for the day. Here is what the hostel looked like, it was called "Oops" and was very clean, modern, and young!

Then we got on a "Hop on, Hop off" Bus tour to get a feel of the city! We started our tour at the Notre Dame, and it was absolutely breath taking! We got to go inside, and a mass was starting. It was really neat to see. If I knew French, I would have totally stayed because it would have been so interesting to see a mass in the Notre Dame Cathedral!

Our bus tour also went to the L'Hotel des Invalides, the Opera, the Grand Palais, the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Place Vendome, the Arc de Triomphe, and also the main attraction..... the EIFFEL TOWER!

The Arc de Triomphe was so beautiful!! I had no idea it was so big! It was in the middle of a round-a-bout so to get to it, you had to go through a tunnel that went underneath the road! Beth, Hunt, and I thought we were about to have to play leap frog across the road, until we figured out you could get there by tunnel! 

Then the bus dropped us off at the Eiffel Tower! The line to walk up it was outrageous, but don't worry we went back another day! 

....and that was all just the first day!! 

DAY 2: We decided to make a trip out to the Palace of Versailles. It was quite a ways out of the city, which I didn't realize, but we met even more Americans on the train! We met a couple from the Boston area who were really nice to talk to! The Palace was absolutely beautiful and gigantic! Unfortunately, because of all the snow and ice, the gardens where closed. Oh well! Just another excuse to go back to Paris! 

THEN! We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower and WALK, yes WALK up it. We could have easily decided to take the lazy, American way out of it and pay to take the elevator (or lift as the Irish/English call it) to the top. There were three sections, you could only walk to the second, then you had to take the lift if you wanted to go to the very top. 669 steps later, we made it! The Eiffel Tower is 1,063 feet tall!

 Views from the first level

The second level!

The very top!

Then, of course we stayed until it got dark to see it all lit up!

DAY 3: We decided to go to the Louvre, which is where hundreds of thousands of famous paintings, sculptures, and other art work are housed. And once again, I was in awe! We were there from about 11am until about 4pm and we didn't even see half of the museum! I got to see so many famous artists' works like "The Wedding Feast", the "Mona Lisa", the "Four Seasons", one of my favorites which I unfortunately didn't take a photo of, "The Abduction of Helen", a sculpture by Canova, "Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss", Michelangelo's "Slaves" sculpture! My camera died about half way through, so I only have pictures of a couple of these! Needless to say, it was breathtaking getting to see all these things in person! Not to mention, we got to see the glass pyramids!

The line! I forgot to mention, the Louvre employees were apparently protesting (I don't know what), so the Louvre didn't open on time!

"The Wedding Feast"

"The Mona Lisa"

"The Battle of David and Goliath"

"The Four Seasons"

....then my camera died! After the Louvre, we went to an amazinggggg Fondue restaurant for dinner. It was a small, hole in the wall place but had so much character! They even served their wine in baby bottles-- it was very interesting! There was a big group of other American students there as well who were visiting from Italy. Ends up two of the girls go to Arkansas, one to South Carolina, and the rest are from the North West area. We went out and had a couple of drinks with them after! It was a lot of fun! But all in all, my trip to Paris was absolutely amazing! I already want to go back, maybe when it is warmer though! I've always heard that the French were mean and rude; however, I was very surprised! Everyone I met (except one lady at the train station) were extremely pleasant!

I leave in the morning to go to London with HL and Gavin!! I can't wait to see them and London! 

Bon Voyage!