I don't have scurvy, I have not hidden in bed for a solid day from the cold, and I have showered on a regular basis. I even leave the flat daily. Congratulate me.

Don't have very many pictures. Boo. Been too busy and lazy all at once. So this is a busy and lazy post, naturally.

Notes from Marie's Dublin, Week One

1. My housing? Is fabulous. Seriously. My room is huge. (It might be one of the biggest in the building, because I have all the luck, sometimes.) Also got me some fabulous roomies. So far, so awesome. ALSO, FRIENDS, THIS IS IMPORTANT: I have a roommate who cooks. Real food. Real, good food. MY LIFE. My. Life.

2. There are people from everywhere. So far, I've met American, Canadian, Irish, Scottish, English, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Spanish, Swiss, German and Romanian students. Plus, there's more I'm not thinking of. It's crazy, and also insanely awesome. Like, ARGH SO FAB.

3. McKenna and Eden visited! That should have been number one, but my brain is not on the ball right now. They saw the country, saw my room, saw the sun, because they're lucky. They're home now, but they were faithful and much-appreciated pack ponies!

4. THE DRINK. The Irish drink. Duh. But more than that, they are given drink. By the university. This is wild to me, the American. Wine receptions are all over the place. We had one the second night at housing, my course has one coming up, every society has one. There was also an open bar night thing for the Halls last weekend. They give you wine! They being the school. For free! What? Coming from good 'ole dry campus ASU, I'm in shock and awe.

5. Start class Monday. Had my orientation today. Everything should be fabtabulously amazing.

6. I joined this college society called 'The Hist.' It's essentially a debate team, but they have all sorts of crazy cool speakers, which is why I paid my €5 fee. Some notable speaker this year (whose names you might know): George Takei, Eddie Izzard, Jenna Marbles. Also a bunch of Noble Prize Winners and, ya know, the former Generals and Presidents and Prime Ministers. We also got free coffee and scones. NO BIG DEAL.

7. It's cold. But I'm not dead yet! Pray for me.

Marie's Guide to Packing Like a Pro (?)

This post comes to you compliments of my abiding beliefs that a) I am a packing pro and b) one should share knowledge with the ignorant masses whenever possible.

Seriously, though, I am good at packing. For real. I was the lightest traveler in our group during this summer's Euro-adventure, and successfully dressed myself in semi-socially acceptable clothing for seven weeks using only a single, regulation-sized rolling carry-on suitcase. I also had my not-big-enough-for-my-MacBook purse. I even had reasonably good personal hygiene for the majority (majority = at least 50% of the time. Or just about 50% of the time.) of our trip. This is impressive.

(Also, sometimes, foolish. For instance, I spent three weeks in New Zealand wearing almost exclusively four pieces of UnderArmor gear. When the study abroad website said pack four shirts and two pairs of pants, I took that nonsense to heart. As a result, I still occasionally hear about how I looked like I was sponsored by UnderArmor and a ridiculously dressed human. Be careful about the decisions you make.)

Packing for the move to Dublin is not quite the same as this. While I bet I could pack for the semester using only a carry-on bag, I would be reduced to being one of Those People - you know, the people in class or at work who either have a cartoon-style closet or who legitimately only wear two shirts in their whole life - and I would likely freeze to death and/or melt from the infamous Dublin rain. So. I'm not even trying. In fact, I am packing as many bags as I can, and I am going to the max on weight and size requirements. Again: I really, really don't want to freeze to death.

But I still have a method for maximizing packing efficiency, and I still have tips and tricks to help you, dear reader you, make it to your foreign destination with as little hassle and stress as possible.

best of the best

Now that the trip to end all trips is done and we are all home safe, sound, and in one piece, it is time to reflect on some of the very best moments of the whole shebang. Behind the cut (look! Even my lingo is technologically savvy.), you will find photographic evidence of fantabulous, fairly foolish, fantastically... fantastic? fun. (Alliteration is for the cool kids.)

There is no particular order or segregation by geographical location, because Blogger added them willy-nilly and I am too lazy to attempt to exert order, but the collection was carefully curated for representation of maximum awesome. If you really, desperately need to know where a picture was taken, or under what circumstances, ask me and I guarantee I will know the answer, something I can only do rarely. However, I very much doubt that you will have questions, seeing as NO ONE EVER COMMENTS EVER, BUT WHATEVER, I'M NOT BITTER. (Just kidding about the capslock.)

Enjoy.

(And try not to be too jealous.)

(I was just kidding. Again. Be jealous. It's a reasonable reaction.)

COLLOSEUM

what in rome

It’s been too long, friends.

You see, we have had an unfortunate lack of reliable Internet connection since arriving in Italy (and yes, it’s been painful and horrible and child of the 21^st century am, because I think I would rather not eat than not have internet – and I really like food.)(OK – I exaggerated. I would rather eat. But I would go down to two meals per day for Internet.), and so you have suffered. I did try, to be fair, but posting to Blogger on your phone doesn’t quite work and the post didn’t go where it is supposed to. So is life.

ANYWAY

Rome.

 FOOD

 VATICAN CITY

 TREVI FOUNTAIN

 PANTHEON

 

 BEACH

Yeah, Rome’s pretty. Incredibly, wildly, gorgeous. The streets are all very distinctly Roman (or Italian – I wouldn’t know), and that’s not a bad thing at all. Also, if I was impressed by the old castles and such in Ireland, I am awestruck by the ancient buildings/ruins/streets/walls that are all over the place here. In Arizona, the 50 year-old houses are old – here, the 100 AD churches are, sure, pretty and big but whatevs. More where that came from.

Meanwhile, my brain is going: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Know what else is fabulous about Rome?

€1 McDonald’s milkshakes!

More on Roman adventures to come. 

pickpocked in Paris, and other adventures

Why, yes, actually, we have been pickpocketed. Specifically, Miles was pickpocketed at the Eifell Tower on our first afternoon in the city. Get this: They snatched his iPod while he was wearing his headphones. It most definitely put a damper on things, and has sort of tainted our perception of Paris. I mean, it's been great and all, but pickpockets. At the icon of the city. We were in London when the Olympics started and the metaphorical anthill spilled open, and managed just fine. Once afternoon in Paris, and...

Anyway!

Let's look at pictures and places, yeah yeah?

 Notre Dame Cathedral

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 Pretty Parisean building

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Eifell Tower 

(pre and post pickpocketing - can you tell by Miles' face?)

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Arc de Triomphe  

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Balancing

 on a chain near the Champ Élyseés

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Outside the Louvre 

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OH MY GOSH IT'S THE MONA LISA

It was not actually all that exciting at all. But it certainly drew a crowd. 

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We've been here about 30 hours, and we've hit all those sites. As is ever the case, our poor feet have been taking quite the beating. Pedometers are almost as unreliable as my brain, so I won't give you a specific distance, but suffice it to say that we've walking more than you have .Unless you're training for a marathon or something equally unlikely and confounding. 

In order to make sure that it is clear that we are enjoying ourselves and not moping about how sucky it was to get robbed at the Eifell Tower and moaning about how much we miss London (LONDON!), here are some of the highlights of our stay:

1. BEING A EU CITIZEN! Yay for red passports! Why? Because they made the Louvre free. Saved €30, right there. It is awesome.

2. The pain au chocolat I bought at one of the only grocery stores we've seen. It was very delicious.

3. The chocolate icecream Jonathan bought at that same grocery store and that we all ate on a bench across the street. It was store brand, but it tasted like Håagen Dazs. Yum. 

4. Paris streets. They are pretty pretty.

5. The receptionist at the first place we stayed at responding to my very broken, very hesitent, most assuredly horribly American-accented query of "Parlez vou engles?" with a "Yes! But your French is very good!" AHAHAHAHA. You are too nice, good sir, but I speak only that one phrase. 

Aaaaaaand tomorrow, we're off to Rome! It's one night on a train away. Yay!

London on the Cheap

(Ok, no. It's not almost free. But is more free than it would be if you stayed in hotels and ate every mealtime and didn't occasionally walk until your feet bled, ok? It is free-ish. )

At this point in my life, I consider myself a fairly proficient traveler. I know that some of you are laughing at me for this belief, but my passport has enough stamps to make me all warm and proud when I flip through it, and that's good enough for me. 

I also consider myself a pretty dang good cheap-o. 

By the time you read this, I will be getting ready to depart the city I have now spent over six collective weeks in over the course of my short but still grey-hair producing life (I FOUND ANOTHER ONE THIS WEEK). And so I know a trick or two about surviving the abhorrent dollar to pound conversion rate. 

Please note that these are strategies that work for me, and that I was raised in such a way that I was seven or something equally ridiculous before I realized that the clearance items were not, in fact, the only items that one could actually purchase from a store. Also, if you're reading this and at any point think, fool, that's not the cheap way, this (_______) is, well. You jerk. Thanks for sharing beforehand.

On with the show!