Homeward Bound

Final updates will be written in Illinois.
I am such a happy, lucky girl.

Last Trip

Heading out on our last trip tomorrow to Norway for two days and Croatia for three. I fly back a week from tomorrow!

Originally, we were going to stay in Oslo (the capital) both days in Norway, but when we realized that there is a town called Vangsnes, Norway (and I'm traveling with Chad Vangness) we got kind of excited.

And then I saw this video, which is the train we would be taking to get out towards Vangnes:

And I was sold... We're going to the fjords. We booked a place to stay in Flam (the town names are so eloquent, aren't they?) and we're going to get our outdoors adventure on.
The ultimate goal in the next two days: Getting Vangness to Vangsnes.

Roam, if you want to, in Rome

My 4 Days in Rome:

St. Peter's Basilica, Food, Vatican, Food, Vatican Museum, Food, Colosseum, Food, Roman Forum, Food, Ruins, Food, Friends, Food. Oh, and wine.

Also loved visiting Gwen and Maggie :) who were amazing hosts.

Edinburgh, Round II

I went to Edinburgh, Scotland with my family when they came to visit because the flights were very cheap to go from 6 am to 6 pm and make a 12-hour day trip out of it (so why not?) except for the fact that it was super cold and groggy (apparently last year it rained 290something days of the 365) and, in 20/20 hindsight we probably did most of the sight-seeing wrong as we didn't really look into Edinburgh at all ahead of time.

Also, my camera happened to meet some water in one of those automatic sinks... it wasn't pretty, so my screen was out for the day, and all of my pictures were beautiful, artistic shots like this one:

(never take your camera screen for granted).

The second time, however, we booked a trip to visit Edinburgh on the way to Rome, and we did a better job at being tourists. (We went on a 3 hour walking tour, so if anyone has specific questions about the history of Edinburgh, I might be able to help you out).

PS, Edinburgh is super creepy and most of the tourist attractions are based off of its history of witch hunts, murders, etc. and the architecture in the town kind of goes along with the spooky theme very well if you ask me...

PPS, Edinburgh is also where J.K. Rowling went to university & where she began to write a lot of the Harry Potter series.

FTW.

Edinburgh also is obsessed with the story of the Greyfriar's dog "Bobby" which you can read about by clicking here. (Wikipedia is a reliable source, I swear).

And their national dish is super-gross Haggis, which is a dish containing sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally simmered in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. Nom nom nom?

Barcelona (California Style)

Going out of order here a bit but that's just because

1. I love Spain

2. I just made this video so I'm putting it up regardless

Sorry if you checked this earlier, I mixed a bunch of songs together and one of them violated copyright regulations so the video didn't work. Bummer. But this one should be fine!

Couple things to note:

We stalked the architect Gaudi while we were there, so any curvy building you see is probably designed by that man. And there's about a million pictures of the Sagrada Familia, which is under construction and probably will be for eternity as far as anyone knows.

I also stalked all the food I ate, as you can see in the video. Tapas, gelato, and paella all hold a special place in my heart.

Hiatus

The "study" part of "study abroad" has consumed my past week, but I'm FINALLY (relatively) free! Just turned in 3 major projects today and classes end this week.

With finals looming, I'll be updating while & when I can.

The world's best website

You can access the world's best website (other than this blog) by clicking here.

:)

Visitors #4, 5, 6, 7, 8

The Gunderson Family Comes to Ireland

Studying abroad has been a fantastic experience and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about it, but sometimes - I'll admit - I get pretty homesick. Especially when I start thinking about Kraft macaroni and cheese and my mom's homemade mashed potatoes (must it always be about food? apparently so). So having a little bit of home come here was considerably refreshing and definitely helped with the 'homesickness factor', even if my mom didn't bring along her mashed potatoes. (Though, she did bring me Ranch dressing).

I'm going to throw all the pictures into a video so it's easier to go through them all, but here's a layout of what everything is (some are not necessarily in order, sorry!):

- Dad, mom, & Chase arrive and we go to The Quay's for lunch for them to try their first Guinnesses (or, if your Chase, a Stella in a Guinness glass)

- Campus tour before class

- Pubs, pubs, and pubs

- The authentic Cass Gunderson Dublin Tour after Amy & Cam arrive

- Howth to see the seals and peak view

- Glendalough with my parents to hike for a day

- Trip to the Cliffs of Moher

- Leinster Rugby match

- Powerscourt Estate with Mom, Dad, & Chase to see the waterfall & gorgeous gardens

- Gravedigger's pub (Kavanagh's) to cross off an item on my dad's life-goal list

- Pubs, pubs, and more pubs

Leuven, Belgium: land of the Stella and Sarah Trevor

On our second day in Belgium (refer to Brussels post) we decided to hop a train from Brussels to Leuven to meet up with the one and only Sarah Trevor.

What was intended to be a quick tour of Leuven, a dinner, a beer, and a train ride back to Brussels turned into ... a quick tour of Levuen (check), a dinner (check), a beer (check), another beer (well okay, why not), missing the train back to Brussels at midnight (oops), Sarah Trevor taking a 30 minute nap at the bar (it happens), having a giraffe drawing competition at a bar called Girafe (appropriate), and beers 'til the trains ran again at 5 am.

Here's some lovely pictures from the excursion.

No captions necessary.

It's called "English".

Turns out, I'm not very good at using language when I have a camera in front of my face.

But, um, it, um, happens.

Update for Visitors #2 & #3:

...And Breanne getting picked on at Fitzgerald's Pub (sorry for the low quality).

See yah Sunday!

PS - A good drinking game might be to take a shot every time I say the word "footage" in the first video. I'm betting you will be hammered by the end of it.

More updates to come in the next few days.

Tomorrow, April 5th, is One Day Without Shoes to raise awareness about children around the globe that go without shoes in their day-to-day lives.

Pledge to participate here:http://www.onedaywithoutshoes.com/

Shoeless in class:

via @PostSecret

Spring Break Trip: Brussels

Brussels, Belgium: land of chocolate, waffles, and beer. What more could you ask for?

Well, other than for more people to be fluent in English.

We also took a ~20 minute train to visit Sarah Trevor in Leuven, Belgium (land of the Stella) - but that requires an entirely separate post...

Interesting things about Brussels:

- Brussels is famed as "the capital of Europe" because it is home to European Politics (the EU)

- Brussels has two official languages: Dutch and French. English was on advertisements and we could hear it all the time in music played there, but it was hard to communicate with a lot of people (compared to Amsterdam, where nearly everybody spoke English). There are 3 official languages in Belgium, and the third would be German. Most people that knew English there knew it as their fourth language.

- Brussels is also famous for being the home to this guy, the "Manneken Pis", otherwise known as "little peeing boy". Pretty sure it's very easy to go past this a million times without ever noticing it is there.

Also, nobody could explain to us why there was a sauce called "Americaans" or exactly what the sauce was... But I will tell you... it was delicious.

Americaans sauce is #winning.

Spring Break Trip: Amsterdam

In Amsterdam we also saw The Anne Frank House, which was magnificent. It was very somber and depressing, but probably one of the highlights of the spring break trip because it was immensely interesting and very well-preserved.

We also checked out the Van Gogh museum, which contains the largest Van Gogh collection in the world - however, not Starry Night. Wah wah wah. It was definitely worthwhile, regardless, seeing as we spent 3+ hours there.

We went on a "Free Europe" tour, which actually was amazing and though it took around 4 hours it never felt like it was dragging or reached a lull point. It was probably one of the best tours I've had so far. (It's hard to imagine the tour being too boring if it starts off going through the Red Light District).

Other interesting facts about Amsterdam:

- Amsterdam Stock Exchange is the oldest stock exchange in the world. It is located in the city centre. (Nerdy fact, but we found it interesting).

- Amsterdam is home to more than 200 coffee shops, which are legally allowed to sell up to 5 gm of cannabis per person (even though selling drugs is illegal, apparently the authorities turn a blind eye to this?)

- Amsterdam has more than 150 canals and 1,200 bridges within its bounds. (and the water is replaced thoroughly every 3 days, so there's no bad stenches! haha)

- If the sea level rises even slightly, Amsterdam would be one of the first cities in the world to drown, as its altitude is below sea level.

- Amsterdam has one of the most famous Red Light Districts in the world with window prostitution.

- Some of the worlds narrowest houses are in Amsterdam. When houses were built, they were charged highly by their width.

- Amsterdam has over 1 million bikes but only 700,000 Amsterdammers. Hm.

- Every Dutch person has at least one bike and there are twice as many bikes as cars.

- Amsterdam was the first capital to allow gay marriage (the Netherlands allow this since 2001).

- 75% of the entire worlds flower bulb production comes from Netherlands

Filling in the Pieces

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that the only thing more annoying than someone starting a blog is when they don't finish it.

I've been working on updating for a while now, as you can see by the desperation in my last post, but my computer has been freezing a lot over here and with the help of some friends back home (shout out to Jacob, my Apple expert) I figured out that I needed to free up some hard drive space so my computer could run efficiently (so I could make/edit videos and add pictures to this blog!). And thanks to Kyle who oh-so-conveniently bought me an external hard drive to take with me this semester, I have been able to finally clear off enough space so I can edit video and live life pleasantly again.

Nerdy jargon aside, I will be filling in the gap that is "March 2011" over the next few days. Lots of ground to cover, so stick with me.

As always, I promise to load it with pictures and video.

PS - it's not going to be in perfect order, but I will try my best!

It's March, Not February.

If you're an avid reader of my blog (ha, silly you), or even if you're not, you've probably noticed my lack of posting since February.

I AM SORRY.

Here's my excuses:

- My old roommates McKenna & Breanne visited from Spain,

- Followed by my entire family (!) for a week!

- Followed by a trip to Edinburgh, Amsterdam, and Brussels (I just got back Monday night)

- And now I'm getting ready for Kyle & others to come over for St. Patrick's Day

So, it's all very exciting, but it means I'm barely around to do any major editing or blog updates. I'm planning on maybe doing some if I have time before bed tonight, otherwise it won't happen until next week.

If you have Facebook, you can get a sneak peak via photos because all my pictures are up! Otherwise, ... patience is a virtue?

Update to come (soon, hopefully)!

Ben Folds

You can cross this off the life goal list:

- See Ben Folds again. In Dublin. 3rd row.

Here's some video from the show. I have pieces of more, but for the sake of everyone's sanity I won't post all of it. Also, I didn't record it on my flip video (just my regular camera) so it's a little lower quality.

We got to talk with the band after the show.

I look like a little girl on Christmas.

Diana, Toups, & I before Benjamin came out to serenade us.

Travel Quotes & Visitor #1

Catherine Toupin came to visit for the weekend from Norwich, England :)

(We also saw a Ben Folds concert, I'll update with that soon)

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

“You know why you like to travel? Everywhere you go, nothing belongs to you. When you’re home, you’re weighed down by your possessions.”

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” - Robert Louis Stevenson

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

Photos off the coast are from Dun Laoghaire (in County Dublin) and the pub photo is from O'Donoghue's in Dublin's City Centre

I got some mail (and chocolates!) just in time for Valentine's Day yesterday :)

Thanks for making it special all the way across the Atlantic!

London Calling

London Video from this past weekend! Enjoy :)

Cobh, Cork, & Blarney

From our trip to Cork County the first weekend in February!

Cobh - seaport town that used to be called Queenstown, very tiny & right on the water. It's probably most famous for being the last place that the Titanic picked people up from before it crashed into the iceberg. It also has a gorgeous Cathedral that is shown in the video (St. Colman Cathedral).

Cork - Ireland's third most populated city located in County Cork, "The Rebel County". It's a major irish seaport, having one of the world's largest natural harbors.

Blarney - is famed as the site of Blarney Castle, home of the legendary Blarney Stone.

Kissin' Stones. Blarney Stones.

I apologize on behalf of my hair.It rains in Ireland. A lot. And by rains, I mean it "mists" --It's never a "downpour" really, and it's not fair to call it "rain";it's always just enough so that it ruins a good hair day. (...or photos/videos for blogs)
Oh well!
Stay posted, I'll be putting up Cork, Cobh, & Blarney pictures from this weekend in the near future.

Happy Superbowl Sunday everyone! (Comment or e-mail me the best commercials so I can look them up on YouTube! I beg you!)

A Plethora of Pictures

Dublin Pictures

Celebrating Chad's 21st birthday

So... at night, people take you around on chariots in the city to get you around from pub to pub for like 2-3 Euros. Since we were celebrating, we figured we might as well have a chariot race. Team ChadCass lost.

Taking a stroll outside of the National Library.

Dublin's Milkshake bar

They can make any candy into a milkshake. It's amazing. The menu goes on for pages.

University College Dublin Campus

The "Arts Block"

Facing the Library

Inside the Quinn School of Business building (where all of my classes are).

Galway

Diana drinking the world's smallest macchiato.

Nightlife in Galway; At the King's Head

Right in front for the band

Guinness and smiles.

Brian, Diana, Elissa, me, & Bridget

Brian getting tripped by a Leprechaun

Blinded by the light.

Lots of ivy & rocks.

Chad on the other side of the tomb

Countryside

At the Cliffs of Moher

Galway Bay at sunset