Orientation Week

Monday 18th August

We were getting collected from L&C at 6.40am for Foreign Student Orientation so we were up bright and early. Orientation was slightly delayed because the breakfast was not ready for us at 7. Everyone collected a coloured folder and a name tag with where you were from on it. My folder was red which meant I would be doing tours with everyone else in the red group. We met some more international students and sat together in the large ballroom. We listened to the President's address and many other welcoming speeches. A microphone was then passed around to every student so you could introduce yourself to the 200 other students, say where you are from and what you are studying. The largest group by far is from Brazil, then Japan and possibly Ireland in 3rd place with 11 students from UCC. Once introductions were over we split into our different groups. George and Kate from England and Aoife from Ireland were with me in the red group with me. We were led on a tour around campus including a visit to the very friendly Foreign Student & Scholar Services office. After the tour we got our Grizz cards. I'm so happy with the picture on it. Money can be loaded onto the card to pay for printing, food or even shopping in town. After lunch we had more talks on the services available to us as foreign student. Which are very impressive. We also had a talk on coping with the culture clash and dealing with homesickness. When the talks were finished at 4.30pm everyone went to the international house for a free welcome dinner. It was really relaxed and nice. Everyone just chatted with everyone. We were dropped home after it. There was a house party going on in our downstairs neighbours house so me, Shannen and the lads decided to call down. We met the lads who live there Jak, Ethan and Daniel. Lots of other international students were also there. It was a great house party. They have huge speakers which make our ground shake! It was good to talk to everyone outside of college too.

Dinner at The International House

House party with Brian, Aoife & me.

Jak, Dervla, Shannen & me.

Tuesday 19th August

Shannen woke me up for orientation. I may have partied slightly too hard! Safe to say I paid for it during orientation that day! We started with coffee and cakes at 8am then had talks on the Global Partners Project, which pairs you with a UM student, and the Missoula International Friendship Program, which pairs you with a local Missoula family. A local police officer then gave us a talk on safety around campus.We also got talks on recreation, managing your finances and banking information. Then we were led to the Curry Health Center and shown its facilities. As my name was not on the list of people cleared for vaccinations I had to see a nurse. She informed that they had not received some of my forms from UCC and that I would need to either get another MMR ($85) or get a blood test done which was $30 so I went with that. I had to wait a while before they could take my blood. This meant I had very little time to eat before I had to go to the next part of orientation, which was verifying our visa documents. I found out later that a few other UCC students also had to get blood tests done because of missing doctors letters. When the visa documentation was sorted we went back to L&C. Me and Shannen made dinner and just hung out that night.

A sign on campus.

Wednesday 20th August

Me and Elliot got up early to get the bus to the Social Security Office to get our numbers so we could work. I took us a while to find it and we had to run across a very big road because we couldn't find pedestrian lights. When we got there our bags were searched for guns. After filling out a form and talking to a lady who worked there she realised we actually needed to have a job in order to apply for a number. So a bit of a wasted trip but at least now we know how the buses work. We went back to campus where me and Elliot handed in applications for jobs before the academic advising meeting at 1. After the meeting we went to Food Zoo with George and Shannen. It's an all you can eat restaurant that you pay to get into. We found some really nice food. I made a salad and added some feta cheese, or at least what I thought was feta cheese! Lets just say I have now tried tofu... and it was as awful as you can imagine. As it was around 4 the dinner service was just starting. The football team arrived in and ah... made the most of the all you can eat offer :P . As I was already there I decided to hand in some references to Food Zoo. It just so happened that the supervisor had actually just emailed me to come in for an interview. She went over my timetable and found shifts which worked around it, which is great. She told me to send in Elliot for an interview too. After stuffing ourselves we went to a meeting about the Missoula International Friendship Program. It sounds really good so me and Shannen signed up when we got home. I hope I get paired with a family with a dog or some other animal. Really missing Mya, my dog.

Some local wildlife.

Thursday 21st August 

Sign ups for a trip to Glacier National Park opened at 8am. Shannen, Elliot and me really wanted to go and as there were only 32 places we got to the FSSS office very early. We were first in queue so we were delighted. We got the bus out to target from college. Mallory, the lady who'd interviewed us had told me where we could cross the road safely to get to the Social Security Office. We showed them all the forms from Food Zoo, but my visa was not yet in their system so I'll have to go back again. When we finished there we went to Walmart for some shopping. I saw a really nice camera for $199 but decided to check Amazon before buying it. We got the bus to the Southgate Mall. We went to AT&T to finally get our American numbers. I can text and ring people again but more importantly can phone home :) . There are loads of shops in the Mall. American Eagle, Hollister and Aeropostle all have  really good bargains. Safe to say I will be needing at least 2 suitcases when I'm going home! We got some lovely organic homemade froghurt where you could add as many toppings as you liked. There were lots of other internationals out shopping too. When we were all shopped out we went home on the bus. It's great that the buses here are free for students because we really make use of them! There was a party downstairs again that night so we got ready and headed down. It was a really good night again with lots of international students and a few Americans. The Americans are starting to move in now because classes start Monday.We met two of our downstairs neighbours Bridget and Brittany, two juniors from Hawaii. The party went on until after 3.

Some lovely number plates in the parking lot!

 

Flowers at the Mall.

My frozen yoghurt from Roxiberry.

Friday 22nd August

We had a bit of a sleep in as we didn't have any plans other than going to the library tour at 2. I was able to call my Mom at home for the first time since getting here, so I got the news from home. Shannen and me got the bus to college to go on a tour of the library, which is huge. It's the biggest in Montana with 5 acres spread over the 5 floors. There are archives of newspapers and government documents, a 3D printer and more books than you could ever read. I was really impressed when we got to the 5th floor and I saw lots of stuffed birds, carnivore skulls and oddities in glass jars, such as a bison fetus. What impressed me the most though was the row and rows of zoology books! With only a limited section at home I was delighted. I counted 3 shelves of books exclusively about wolves. Shannen, Elliot and me spent at least an hour just exploring and reading different book. I checked out a huge book on carnivorous mammals and one on the wolves of Yellowstone. We got the bus home and relaxed for the evening. I went on Amazon to look for a camera and found a Sony 20mp 35x zoom one for $120! I also got rechargeable batteries, a case, a 16GB memory card, 2 years insurance, a mini speaker and a portable charger for my phone. This all came with free postage as I joined Amazon Prime for a trial and it will get here by Tuesday. Better still it cost less than €200 altogether! Could never find that value in Ireland. Looking forward to being able to take good quality photos, especially with the trip to Glacier National Park coming up.

A sign inside the Library.

Saturday 23rd August

Elliot and me had to go to college early to fill out forms for Food Zoo at 12. I wasn't long learning off my new number because of all the forms I had to write it on. We had lunch there before meeting up with some more students on the way to the River Roots Festival in town. It was pretty cool but kinda strange. The music and dancing seemed similar to Irish music. The band that was playing were great. There were lots of stalls selling all sorts of craft items and loads of food carts. We met up with Ethan and Jak who were having a toga party that night for Ethan's birthday. A few of the girls headed to the thrift shops to try and find sheets and other stuff for the party. Aoife decided she will have a thrift shop party next week for her 21st. The buses finished at 5 so we got that back to campus. Me and Elliot had to complete food safety training from 6 to 9. We watched lots of very American videos on food safety and had a mini quiz about what we learned. The party started at 7.42 (very precise timing here :P ) so we hurried home. It was dark and we heard what I think was coyote howling. It was very eerie. We made it home by 9.20 and I tried to get ready as quick as possible because the party was already started. Shannen helped with my very impromptu toga, aka my purple bedsheet from Walmart. By the time I got down the apartment was already full. Everyone was in togas. The rule was toga or nothing :P . Dan and Jak got Ethan a giraffe cake made of cupcakes, which was really cute. The party filled up really quickly as a lot of other L&C students showed up. Eventually the village assistant shut down the party because there were noise complaints. Me, Shannen, Kate, David, Stine and James came up to our apartment. We chatted and had a game of truth and dare. I was dared to drink Guinness and apple juice by David, which is not as bad as you'd imagine. I dared Kate to eat one of the awful pickles I bought in Walmart (pickles are not gherkins here apparently). They all headed back to their dorms after 3 and we went to bed.

River Roots Festival main stage.

After the toga party!

 Sunday 24th August

Woke up to Facebook notifications that I'd been nominated to take part in the ALS ice-bucket challenge by my lovely sister Claire. I got Shannen up to video and called Elliot over to help with the water lifting. We filled a big bin and a small one full of freezing water from the bath and headed outside. Safe to say that getting ice cold water poured on you is one sure way to cure a hangover! :P I nominated Shannen (which she was delighted about) so we did hers too. In the afternoon we saw that the lads downstairs were trying to start the BBQ. It wasn't exactly working so Jak  decided to try and cook the food inside. 5 minutes later and the fire alarm was going off! Luckily their neighbour Bridget knew how to turn it off. That evening our housemate Sarah from Helena, MT moved in. Me and Shannen helped her move her stuff into the apartment. I had my first shift in Food Zoo that night from 8pm to 10. I was working as a custodian, which meant I was hoovering all of the floor. I felt like I was in Ghostbusters because I was using a backpack hoover. After work I walked home and got ready for my classes the next day.

The failed BBQ attempt.

Off to work!

The Beginning of the Adventure

Hey everyone, finally getting around to starting my blog. I've moved to Missoula, Montana from Cork, Ireland for 10 months. I'm doing an exchange at the University of Montana for my 3rd year of Wildlife Biology. I plan on travelling around Montana during the year and seeing as much of this beautiful part of the world as possible. Hopefully I'll be able to update every week. Let me know what you think about it. :D

Monday 11th of August

Woke up at 6am and got ready to leave home. Said goodbye to Mya, my dog and left at 6.45 after my last cup of proper irish tea. Mom drove me to Shannon airport, a 2 hour drive. I checked in my bag, it was just over 13kg so luckily I didn't have to pay extra. Trying to fit your life into 23kg is not easy! Had scones with mom while we waited for Elliot (another exchange student), Nicole (our friend) and his parents to arrive. I said a tearful goodbye to Mom and Nic and headed through security. Elliot caught up to me at customs. We boarded the plane together but didn't have seats together. The people next to me let me have the window seat so I was happy. I watched until Ireland disappeared from view. We had loads of movies to watch so I watched the Veronica Mars movie, a tv show I used to love. The food wasn't as bad as I was expecting and they gave us plenty of snacks. We were served dinner while passing over the mid-Atlantic ridge. I loved that I could track where the plane was. The whole flight to JFK, New York was 6 hours.Flying over Nova Scotia was my favourite part. I saw huge forests and marshlands. As we flew down Long Island I noticed most houses had pools. We landed early and Shannen's dad collected us. First impressions: it was so hot! Also, everything is way bigger here. Huge cars, roads, buildings. Shannen was out doing her driving test (which she passed :) ) so we just waited at her house in Whitestone. When she got back we got the subway train from Flushing to Manhattan. We got off in Grand Central station to look around. It's really cool with star signs on the ceiling. From here we continued on to Times Square station. Times Square is amazing! So busy and bright. We explored here, seeing the red steps, the naked cowboy and of course, the M&M factory :P . We walked to the Rockefeller Center and Empire State Building. Myself and Elliot were wreaked as it was now around 2am at home. We got the subway home and fell asleep straight away.

Last view of the Irish sun from outside Shannon airport.

Sitting on The Red Steps in Times Square.

 Two paddys in the Big Apple.

 Tuesday 12th August

Tuesday was museum day. We got up at 8am and got the express train to uptown Manhattan. The museum opened at 10 and was already very busy when we got there at 10.15! Tickets were $22 and this included the exhibition Dark Universe, narrated by Neil Degrasse Tyson, which was mindblowing. We spent over 7 hours looking at everything in the museum. We noticed a lot of the dinosaur fossils were found in Montana! My favourite exhibits were the 2 adult Amur Tigers. Seeing just how big they actually are was unreal. After the museum  we crossed the road to Central Park where we found the Balto statue, a childhood dream of mine as Balto was one of my favourite movies. We had lunch there and watched loads of squirrels.We strolled down 5th avenue to FAO Swartz the famous toyshop. A small sized teddy was $25 which was crazy until I saw the huge ones for around $600! We went home after that.

Selfie with the duckbills.

The Giant Irish Elk.

The Balto Statue in Central Park.

Some of the teddies in FAO.

Wednesday 13th August

We decided to go to a diner for American pancakes in Whitestone. After this we headed to Lower Manhattan and got off at Wall Street. From here we walked to the 911 memorial, which was chilling. The newly built Freedom Tower now dominates the skyline. It was sad to see all the names at the memorial. We went to battery park to get the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island tour boat, which was only $18. We were first on so got a great spot upstairs to see the city skyline. The Statue of Liberty was quite impressive but I enjoyed exploring Ellis Island more. It was very interesting to learn about the many millions of people who passed through here in search of a better life. When we returned to battery park we walked to our subway stop which just so happened to be right next to the charging bull. So naturally I had to grab the bull by the horns... and by the balls. We got the subway to Brooklyn Bridge, which was a very busy tourist spot but unreal to see. It was very interesting to read how it was built. We revisited Times Square to get food in a delicious diner called Sbarro, which our friend Av had told us to visit. When we got home Shannen and Elliot watched The Lego Movie but I was too tired to stay up.

The 911 memorial with The Freedom Tower.

The Registry Room on Ellis Island.

Thursday 14th August

Slept in until after 11. We spent the day packing and chatting to our friends at home on facetime. For dinner Shannen's dad, Brendan took us to the Copper Kettle in Queens. I had Gaelic chicken which was lovely. It was a really nice way to finish our time in New York.

Friday 15th August

We got up at 4am to get ready for our 7am flight from JFK to LAX. We watched the sunrise from the terminal before getting on the plane. The flight was fine. I watched Chef (which made me really hungry! :P ) and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. L.A lives up to it's reputation of being both huge and smoggy. At LAX we ate our lunches before jumping straight onto our next flight. L.A to Salt Lake City. This flight was full and an old man tried to put his luggage into the emergency stairs in the roof! This caused a delay as the door had to be resealed by security. We were worried because we had under an hour in SLC to get our next flight so we thought we might miss it. We were luck though that we arrived on time even though there was some turbulence. Our plane to Missoula was very small, having around 13 rows. The air hostess was very friendly and the flight was just over an hour long. I enjoyed the view of the mountains, the salt pan and desert as we left SLC. The pilot detoured a little to avoid a thunderstorm. The Rockies are beautiful from the air. When we landed it was rainy. A University of Montana representative collected  us and another international student, Savannah a girl from Australia. He dropped us to Lewis & Clark, our student accommodation. We had just enough time to change before we were collected to go to Walmart. We met more nice international students. We spent 2 hours running around Walmart trying to find everything we needed for the apartment. We set up as best we could and crashed.

Sunrise at JFK.

Our plane to Missoula.

Salt Lake City marsh with the salt pan in the background.

View of University of Missoula campus from the air.

 Saturday 16th August

Stayed in bed till after 11. When I got up Shannen was gone walking with the lads. Dave had arrived the night before from Ireland. When they got back we headed into college to check it out. Such a beautiful campus! It really lives up to the reputation Rolling Stone gave it as no.1 most scenic campus in America. We met Siobhan and Barry (two more Irish students) at the Bronze Bear on campus and headed into downtown. There are mostly only cute little boutiques in the center of Missoula. The main shops are on the outskirts. We had burgers and chips at The Iron Horse Brewpub, which was unreal. We got directions to Albertson's, a supermarket. We all overshopped and had to carry loads of bags, including gallons of detergent the 40 minute walk back to Lewis & Clark in 27*C heat! Never again! At L&C we raided the free stuff left behind by past students. Got lots of stuff for the apartment. In my great wisdom I decided to put on a wash with extra washing up liquid to wash the free stuff. Safe to say that the kitchen floor was soon covered in suds! :P Thank god it's tile! It went everywhere. Myself and Shannen tried to clean it up with towels and scoop it into the sink with cups and pots. We tried to put on a wash again but it just happened again. Scooped more suds out until finally they washed without overflowing. It shall be known forever as the Dishwasher Disaster. :D

Bear paws everywhere.

The Bronze Bear.

Iron Horse Brewpub.

The Clark Forks River.

 

Sunday 17th August

Got up early to go hike the M on Mt. Sentinel with Elliot and Siobhan. The beginning of the hike was tough. I thought I would be ok but I was not accustomed to the higher altitude yet. Missoula is 978m above sea level, and the highest point in Ireland is only 60m higher than that. About halfway to the M it got easier. The view from the M was unreal but we decided to go up higher, almost to the summit, where we ate lunch. We saw some huge coal trains pass through Missoula, each about about 1km long. I spotted a hawk flying over the town. We noticed some signs of a large wildfire on the northern slope of the mountain, with scorched old trees and mostly only young trees. The numbers of crickets on the mountain was insane! I think it may be their breeding time as they were jumping, clicking and flashing their bright colours. We decided to take a track heading south along the mountain instead of coming down the same way we went up. It led us passed an old miners cave, which we later learned was used to teach geologists. After about half an hour of walking we stopped near a ravine to figure out where we were. While Siobhan looked it up on her phone I heard a crack of a twig from the ravine. Luckily it was only a white-tailed deer that jumped out! Obviously spooked by our presence. My first sighting of a large mammal in Montana. Hopefully not the last. Siobhan discovered that we were walking along a fire road which would lead us directly back to Lewis and Clark! We continued on and eventually made it home after almost 4hours of hiking. It felt good to get out and be active. That night we went to Barry's house for a catch up before orientation the next morning.

View from the M.

Geologists in their natural habitat!

The mining cave.

Walking on the fire road.