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.