Wednesday 8 June 2011

El último día

Heyho, me hearties! (haha totally stole that from Pirates of the Caribbean xD) It is sad but true: This, today, NOW is my very very very very very very very very last day in Ireland! Oh. My. God. So I thought I just give you a little sneak peek of my current state of mind: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
there you go LOL
If I translated that to Enlish it would probably be something like this: I am freaking out. If you already guessed that: CONGRATULATIONS! you speak excitedish LOL
For those of you who were not able to follow my little ... ahem... "word play" (riiiiiiight^^) let me just explain that I'm a lot of things right now.
I am
a) nervous -> reasons: possible plane crash, potentially delayed flights, potentially missed flight, PROBABLE overweight and the fact that I'll have to wear high heels for the whole day since they are my heaviest shoes and I'm doing my best to get the weight of my suitcase under 20kg.
b) excited -> reasons: don't really know why, it's just this feeling of change and the knowledge that what used to be my "old and normal" life here is going to end and I'm going back into my "previous" life. LOL nvm
c) happy -> reasons: do I really have to explain something so obvious? Fine, MY FAMILY <3 everyone who's part of my family and who's reading this right now: I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, I MISS YOU EVEN MORE AND I'M REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO COMING BACK HOME TO SUCH A LOVELY GROUP OF PEOPLE. Don't go back to annoying me too soon, okay? ;)
And of course my FRIENDS who I unfortunately won't be able to see until next week <3
d) sad -> reasons: Pretty obvious as well, innit? I am going to miss this country so much. And more importantly, I'm going to miss all these AMAZING people that I got to meet here! Guys, you are so important to me and I'm going to miss you like hell! BUT we all know it's not the end, someday somehow we are going to meet again and it's going to be the BEST craic EVER!!!! And here a special shoutout to my lovely host sister: Stella, you're the best! Thank you for everything, I'll never forget you! LOVE LOVE LOVE <3 <3 <3

So, guys, that's all I have time for, I gotta get back to packing and listening to "Friday" :P
See you SO VERY SOON!
Lots of Irish Luckk!!!!
Resa

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Graduation :)

AND here we go again ;) I actually wanted to make this part of my last post but since I'd already written so much on the Obama event I figured it would make more sense to start a new post. So here you go: I'm a full blown college graduate now! Well, if you consider my high school here a college simply because it's called "Beech Hill COLLEGE" and if you kindly decide to overlook the fact that I have still one whole year at school left, then yes. I'm a college graduate!!
And last Thursday was my graduation! That day, my last day of Irish school (*tears in my eyes...* oh wait, I hated that school :P) was supposed to be sports day but due to the awful May weather we are blessed with right now (whaaaaaat a surprise...) they had to make it a normal school day *yay*. Well, for us sixth years it wasn't. Apparently, the schools with the strictest rules (that are mercilessly enforced...) I have ever seen allows the sixth years to dress however they want on their last day of school. And they did. Ooooh yes, they did. Words fail me as I try to describe what most of them looked like. But I can give it a try by giving you one example: One girl was wearing: neon pink, sparkly tights, one ballerina and one ugg boot, a red, sparkly, long sleeved and oversized dress that looked like a santa claus costume and the school shirt (which is usually part of the uniform), ripped and completely destroyed (if I remember correctly she cut of the sleeves?) Seriously, I don't know exactly but I think you get the idea. Oh, and not to forget the most important part of her... ehm... "outfit": She had also put on a pair of pink, glittery fairy wings. WHAT THE FUCK???? Excuse my language, but seriously... that costume thingie deserves it. But she wasn't the only one dressed like that. Okay, yes, she was the only one with fairy wings but the others were no better: One had turned her old school jumper into a cardigan by tearing it apart in the front, pretty much everyone wore neon coloured stockings in yellow, red or green and they all had ripped their uniforms to shreds and wore them as part of their outfits. You can imagine what that looked like o.O
And the best part is, in the evening they were all supposed to dress up very neatly in full uniform. After they ripped it apart??? But well, I guess they all had a second set because in the evening they were back to normal: Navy trousers/checked skirt, light blue shirt, blue-white striped tie and baby blue jumper. Imagine the joy...
Graduation itself was a long and verbose procedure. They had problems with the technics and a lot of people messed up a little bit but that was to be expected, wasn't it? The best part of that ceremony was definitely the free food (CHICKEN!!!) you could get afterwards :) And because the caterers were so super creative they served the mini sausages and mini sandwiches you can get at every single party here. I'm serious, they all serve the same stuff. Not that I don't like it but it's sort of peculiar, don't you think?
Anyways, as the evening proceeded it only got better!! After the ceremony we went back home, changed suuuuper quickly (in like 10 minutes o.O) and went back to school where a bus picked us up and drove us outside town to a little pub called "Jack's". The graduation party there was totally amazing. I'm not going to go into details here but let's just say, two guys I had never seen before took off their shirts (didn't look too bad xD), one guy threw up on the dancefloor and they kicked us out at midnight because that's when the pubs close in bloody Ireland. After that we went back to town to grab some chips and kebab :P and we got home at around 2 a.m. OOOOohh, that party was good craic xD I talked to people I had never spoken to before even though they were in my class! You know how it is, a little bit of beer and suddenly everyone is best friends ;)
But it definitely was a great end to my rather not so eventful school year here! Defo cumin back me lovelies ;)

Friday 27 May 2011

The Obama Event

First of all, my loyal readers, I am terribly, terribly sorry for making you wait so long for a new post. But to be honest, it's not ENTIRELY my fault, it's just that really nothing worth mentioning happened in the last few weeks. Just the usual: School (or better, not school since I didn't got half of the time XD), Friends (well, not much happening here either^^) aaaaand that's it. BUT this week, everything is about to change. Or has already changed. This week was super exciting for me and I decided that you really deserve to know every single thing about it! <- you are allowed to feel super special now ;)

Sooo, here we go: MONDAY was probably the best best best day of the week. Without a doubt. Because I, me, Theresa bloody Reinsprecht GOT TO SEE THE 44TH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, BARACK OBAMA OF THE MONEGAL O'BAMAS (they lost the apostrophe along the way;)) WITH MY OWN BLOODY EYES!! How exciting and unforgettable is THAT? And I mean, seriously, NONE of you, I am sure, can say that they have as well so that makes me pretty special, doesn't it? And really, it was totally and doubtlessly an amazing experience. Obama's speech was great, every single one of the spectators was so happy to see him and the atmosphere in College Green in Dublin was... just wow. Really. Most of you probably know what the speech was about and I'm sure you all agree that it was truly great. And because of that, the whole of Ireland is TOTALLY in love with Barack Obama now. And deservedly so. :) I almost felt a little bit Irish, watching Obama and the crowds, I really wanted to believe that I was a part of it. And I guess, living in Ireland for nine months DOES make you a teeny tiny bit Irish. To a certain extent at least. ;)
However, the downside of being able to attend this historic event was definitely the amount of time that we had to wait in order to get access to College Green. We took the bus to Dublin at around half 9, went to get a little something to eat and then made our way to the queue. Or better, the queue for the queue as the amount of people that wanted to be part of the event was enormous. I think some people had actually gone there the previous night and slept out in the streets just to get a better view of Obama o.O So, we queued up aprox. around 1 or half 1 and then we waited. They were supposed to open the security gates at 2 but in reality, nothing happened until well after half 2 :P And even then, we could only walk a few steps at a time as the crowd pushed towards the gates, everyone super eager to get there. We spent around FOUR HOURS in that queue until we finally managed to get past the secret service (YES, that's right, i met people from the ACTUAL secret service!!!! hehehehe by now all of you should have died of jealousy ;)) Finally inside the gates we were still pretty far away from the speaker's desk BUT We. Actually. Saw. Barack. Obama. Live. LIVE! I mean, he was just a tiny splotch on the horizon BUT we could see him. :D And anyway, they had put up some big screens so we could see him better as well. So, the event which did not only consist of Obama's memorable speech but also of performances of certain acts such as JEDWARD (she's got her lipstick on here i come dadadam...), Westlife (What about now, what about today...) and the Irish actress Saoirse Ronan (you might now her from Atonement (Abbitte), she actually lives in the USA and is only 17 years old) meant another two hours of standing. And even when it was over we had to take a huge huge detour around Trinity College because all the streets were closed in order to make Obama's arrival and departure as safe as possible. Therefore, another hour of walking around. And there were still so many people about, it was SO exhausting and I was on edge already and just wanted to get away from the crowds. I think that might have been the closest I ever got to having an actual attack of agoraphobia. And believe me when I say that it was VERY close, indeed.
The next day I really couldn't be bothered to go to school, I was exhausted to the bone and my muscles ached with all that standing straight (standing is, although you might not believe it, a lot more tiring that walking because then at least you move your muscles and they don't get stiff...)
Well, my friendly readers, thank you for sticking with me through this long and detailled summary of the adventurous Obama Event on the 23 of May, 2011.
Is féidir linn, everyone! <3

Saturday 9 April 2011

Time for a short lesson in Irish Culture & Language :)

Sooooo, since I've been here for quite a while now I know pretty much everything about Ireland and thought, why not share it with the world? :P
First of all a few general things:
1.) I (very reluctantly) agree with Viki that there are no, I repeat, NO HANDSOME BOYS in Ireland! Absolutely NONE. What a shame :P This whole year seems like a waste haha No, seriously, it was quite frustrating finding out that I was to spend nine months without anything pretty to look at xD
That brings us to point 2.) The girls are not much better looking^^ First of all, most Irish girls are quite un-pretty as well and secondly, They. Dress. Unbelievably. Slutty. Not all of them but definitely the vast majority. One example: Deepest winter, -15° C, me even reluctant to go out at all, them: No tights, dresses that could barely be called shirts and heels too high to be able to even stand upright^^ There's no other word to describe that, I'm sorry ladies^^
3.) The Irish drink way too much. Okay, that's not a secret but it has made my life here quite difficult. Why? Well, with the majority of the Irish population tending to be drunk A LOT, everyone is REALLY strict about not letting you in ANYWHERE if you're not eighteen. They are obviously trying to keep the youngsters from drinking as long as they can, which is, in my opinion, not such a bad thing, IF it would actually work. But the thing is, with such strict rules and everyone enforcing it so adamantly, "drinking" has become some kind of really forbidden thing that everyone wants to do regardless. Or even BECAUSE it is forbidden. We all now, the forbidden things are a lot more tempting that the ones we could do without fear of any repercussions. And there always IS a way to get your hands on alcohol, if you really want to. So, ultimately, the whole "You're not eighteen, you don't have ID, get out of here"-act has kind of backfired. Terribly.

Now, the Irish language - meaning, the Irish English - is a funny thing :) Here are the words and phrases that are used about as frequently as the auxiliary verbs:

1) LIKE haha this word is being used ALL THE TIME. Even by me ;) If it fits into the sentence or not, it is not only used to compare things or to express approval but also if you just need something to make your sentence longer. I'll give you a short conversation to demonstrate the above statement:
A: Hey, what do you want to do today? Like you know, for your birthday.
B: Like I was thinking about like going to the Forum (quick note: the Forum is the only disco in Monaghan). Like I hear that it's really cool, but like I've never been there myself so like I don't know for sure.
A: Yeees, that's like a really good idea!
B: And afterwards we could like go get some chips! Like at the pizza shop or something.
A: Is it like still open at that time?
B: Sure. The forum ends at like three and I was at that shop once like at two in the morning. You know like on St. Patrick's Day.
Do I really need to continue? :P
2.) WEE ;) since it's the Irish synonym for "little" or "small" it's being used constantly. BUT since it also means to pee, it's kind of weird XD
3.) FAIR ENOUGH this expression means something similar to "very well then" and is used ALL THE TIME ;) Man, I'm going to miss hearing this xD
4.) HAPPY ENOUGH if you want to ask someone like "are you content with that" or "is that okay with you" you just say "happy enough?" ;)
5.) GOOD ENOUGH I know, the "enough"-phrases are quite a few ;) This one is simply used when you get asked somthing like: "How are you?" or "How was that party?" etc. - "Oh, it was good enough" ;)

For now, that's about it but I probably forgot quite a few. I'll upload a second part as soon as I think of something :D
Love youS all (btw another thing: the Irish use an additional s to the second person plural: instead of "how are you?" you use "how are yous?" if it's directed at a group of people. How awesome is that? xD I think that's actually my favourite <3
Besitos
Resa

Tuesday 5 April 2011

St. Patrick's Day :)






Hey everyone!
I know I know I know, St. Patrick's Day was a few weeks ago but I thought I'm just gonna upload a post about it to kinda let you know what it was like for me.

Me and about 20 of my friends had rented a bus in advance so we didn't have to rely on the public transport. We wanted to get a good place so we could watch the Parades properly and therefore arranged the bus to start from Monaghan at 7:30. Getting up that day was quite hard but it turned out to be totally worth it! We arrived in Dublin around 4 hours before the Parades started and were able to secure places in the very first rows! The Parade itself were absolutely amazing! I put some pictures up on the side to give you taste but I took many more and I'll show the them to you when I come back! (in less than ten weeks, by the way ;))
The Parade was over surprisingly soon an EVERYBODY went... to get drunk. At three in the afternoon. All the pubs were completely packed, the streets were crowded with people dressed in green, orange and white and as I said, everyone was wasted. A lot. Even 14-year-olds and younger "children" had drunk more than just a pint and were actually lying on the ground, unable to get up anyomre. It seems the Irish use their national holiday simply as an excuse to be drunk the whole day. No matter the age.
Me and some of my friends (Stella, Edu, Tazio, Barbara, Tazio's friend Jakob and Marc) went to St. Stephen's Green Park to hang out. The park was packed as well and they had actual security guards positioned there to check the people's bags for alcohol^^ Inside the park they had guards patrolling and checking groups of people at random for alcohol. They are not that paranoid for no reason...
We stayed in that park until it was time to go home around six o'clock. The bus driver dropped us off at the Shopping Centre in Monaghan and we went to a local pub. Only that it was completely deserted! At first I was surprised but my guess is that all the people were already too drunk to be out any more and had already gone home :P
We stayed out quite long that night because our host mum had said we could stay at home from school the next day anyway! A great night after a great day :D I'm definitely coming back to Ireland for St.Patrick's Day sometime!!!
Definitely worth the trip!

Féach leat níos déanaí! :D
<3

Sunday 13 March 2011

Che Bella Italia!




The midterm holidays held a special treat for us since we got to go to Italy for a week! We really had an awesome time as we saw Milan and - the best part - VENICE!!! The weather was absolutely beautiful although it was quite cold but at least we had loads of sunshine :)
We had to get up really early every day since we wanted to make the most of our time there and we were also walking around a lot but it was worth every single minute of it! I saw more of Italy in this one week than in all the times we've been to Italy before together! I went to Cioccolaterias, Gelatierias, the Duomo in Milan, and saw most of what there is to see in Venice.
However, my favourite part was and is the food! :D After having been living on the Irish diet for such a long time it definitely was a very pleasant alternative :D As we were staying with Stella's family we always had dinner at her place and usually both of her parents worked together to create the most delicious food I've ever tasted! No offense, mommy, but I think Stella's dad is even a better cook than you are :P Then only thing is that the Italian people don't only eat extremely tasty food but also SO MUCH lol I didn't even know that, until we went to Stella's grandma's house once to have lunch there... delicious, but I couldn't finish everything as it really was incredibly much!
I really enjoyed my time in Italy and I'm definitely going to visit Venezia many more times as it is one of the most amazing cities I've ever been to <3



Now, about more recent events:
Mariana's gone :( :( :( :( :( :( :(
She went home last week on Wednesday after Stella and me skipped school for two days to spend her last days in Ireland together. On Tuesday we even went to Dublin to the airport with her and saying good-bye to one of my very best friends here in Ireland definitely wasn't easy. I already miss her so much and Mexico isn't exactly easy to get to from Austria... But we've already made plans for seeing each other again, and I'm sure we'll never lose contact as we've become exceptionally great friends in the past months and know almost everything about each other!
I LOVE YOU, HERMANITA MIA! <3

Wednesday 16 February 2011

Adios exams :P

FINALMENTE my exams are over!!!
It's not that they were too hard or anything, it's just that I'm SICK of studying stuff I won't need again anyway!!
e.g. English - pretty much quite a lot to study and next year I'll be in the English group that's probably the worst of our whole grade. So, you see I'll be much too good for that teacher next year :P
Home Economics - HELL of a lot to study and I don't even have this subject in Austria!! <- ergo: totally pointless!
Maths - don't get me started on that one... I guess I could actually TEACH my TEACHER Maths better than he me... Mostly because he's stupid and I'm superintelligent haha no, but the part of him being stupid is true. Unfortunately. And Ordinary Level Maths is just a joke, I don't learn anything I don't already know and so that's also pretty useless :P
I didn't do French after all cause Maths already was two exams, English as well so I actually already did FIVE exams and I didn't study for French anyway...

So, next week are finally HOLIDAYS <3
My holidays started today since I don't have exams today and neither on Thursday or Friday!
And the best part is, next week I'll finally go to Italy!!!! I'm so happy :D
We'll go to Milan and meet all our Italian friends again and then we'll even stay in Venice for a night!! Yeeeees you can all be jealous ;)
And btw, now I finally now the date of my return:
@ everyone: I want a big WELCOME from all of you on the 9th of June ;) don't disappoint me :P haha xD
Love Love Love <3

Saturday 5 February 2011

And February brings apocalypse...

The Irish think it's spring now but for me February has only brought an atmosphere that worryingly resembles those of "The Day After Tomorrow" and storm forces that would have blown me away easily if I had not gained much too much weight in those past five months. Especially yesterday and the day before: The temperaturs were of a comfortable 10°C but the wind was so strong it made walking a very difficult task. Finally today the storm has ceased to shake our house to its foundations and a persistant rain that actually comes straight from the sky and not out of a dangerously perpendicular direction gets our hopes up that we might have actually arrived in spring. Seriously, I desperately need some better weather conditions after a winter with a MASSIVE (warning: may contain traces of irony) amount of snow and temperatures that demonstrate the conditions of an arctic winter.
So, let's hope together that I might actually catch some rays of sunlight these days and maybe even get a little tanned - although I will admit that this is very unlikely.
Well, the storm is over now but I am left with a little souvenir that reminds me of the apocalypse mood that has dominated these past days: A proper, very uncomfortable cold that immediately rose my expenses for tissue paper in tremendous heights and leaves me with a face that's a mixture of red and white and the need to spend the whole day indoors. I was nearly inclined to take advantage of that since I have to study an enormous pile of stuff for my pre-exams next week (especially home economics and I don't know NOTHING yet o.O) but I turned out to be too busy with doing nothing than actually studying. Well, we all know I'm a tini-tiny bit lazy. Or maybe quite a lot. But I just... don't want to. Period.
I love you all <3
Resa

Saturday 22 January 2011

Eine Kuh macht muh - viele Kühe machen MÜHE!

Heey people!
Hope you're not too confused by the heading in German but it's just so fitting for what I am about to tell you:
Yesterday I was staying at Simone's house and it's not just any house - it's a farm! And they have cows there. So last night I helped Simone, her host dad and her host brother Christopher MILK the cows. Not as much fun as it sounds like. I had to cover my whole body so that I wouldn't get TOO dirty and then we went to the cows. And I can tell you, it was TERRIFYING!!! haha
There are cows on your right and on your left and you have to reach between their hind legs to reach their udder and I was just incredibly scared they would kick me! So I asked Simone to tell me which ones the nicer cows were that wouldn't move too much :)
So, in order to milk them you have to clean them first, then put on the milking machines, then take them off again after some time and then disinfect the udder. And all that for every single one of them o.O It definitely was an experience that I'm glad I made ONCE but milking cows in a temperature of -10° is not exactly my cup of tea.
After the milking Simone and me went to the birthday party of Bernie, a girl from our school, and it was sooo much fun!!! The two of us sang "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia in Karaoke, danced the Hokey Pokey and were simply having fun with friends! :D
The perfect Friday night! :D
RESA

Thursday 6 January 2011

Happy New Year!!!

Sorry guys, I know I'm a little late but here's my Happy New Year to you!! I hope you had a great time partying and I'm looking forward to the next one which I can finally spend with you again!!! I didn't do much since most of our friends are already gone: We just went to the Italian restaurant and afterwards went to the park with some remaining friends. Not much at all. But it was fun anyway ;)
Apart from that the holidays are quite a boring time for us. We don't do much, only on Sunday Stella's family (her mom, her dad, her sister Gioia and Claire, the American girl they are hosting) came to visit and after Stella showed them the amazing town of Monaghan Stella, Mariana, Gioia, Claire and me went to the cinema to watch Love & other Drugs. My review: It was a good movie but I wouldn't say it was the best I've watched this year. Oh well, actually so far it was the only one but you know what I mean :D
Monday and Tuesday Stella spent with her family in Dublin while Mariana and me stayed at home. Tuesday we did some cooking: Mariana made mexican CHILAQUILES and I was brave enough to try a piece of original Mexican chili: I just tried a tiny tiny bit but that was quite spicy so I can imagine how the whole thing would taste ;) But now I can definitely say I'm a fan of Mexican food :D
I did some Griessnockerlsuppe myself which Mariana like a lot so next week I'm going to cook it for the whole family, I hope it turns out good!
Yesterday we went to Dublin to pick up Stella and did some shopping as well: I bought really gorgeous High Heels, a skirt and Pyjama panties ;)

And the most important thing: Viki & Klara finally booked their flights for April!!! I'm SOOO HAPPY that you guys are coming, I miss u soo much <3 <3 <3 <3
LOVE YOU LOADS
Resa