Week 30-31- St. Patrick's Week and Lead up to Spring Break

Monday 16th March-

Back to reality today after our weekend in Seattle. I had my two classes and then off to work for 8 hours. That night I started catching up on homework. 

Tuesday 17th March-

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I was happy to see people around campus wearing green for the day that's in it. I made some Irish scones after class for Shannen's Missoula family. They asked us over for an American Irish dinner that evening. They had cooked corned beef and cabbage for us which was delicious. She had also baked Irish soda bread which tasted just like what you'd get at home. For dessert we had bread and butter pudding and chocolate pie. The whole night was lovely and a nice way to spend Paddy's Day.

Corned beef and cabbage

Bread and rhubarb pudding and chocolate cake

Wednesday 18th March-

I had my regular long day in college today.

Thursday 19th March-

I started off my morning with a field trip around campus for the bird lab. We were spotting and identifying birds both by sight and sound. I don't think I'll be able to go around campus without listening for birds after this class. It's like how I can't not notice squirrels after watching them for my mammalogy class last semester. It was Sarah's boyfriend Austin's birthday today so we had a surprise birthday party for him. His parents and friends called over too to celebrate.

Early morning bird watching

 

Friday 20th March-

That evening Sarah and I headed to the UC Theater to see The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. I'd only seen it once so was looking forward to seeing it again. We met Sine, Ariana and Laine there, girls that are in the Irish studies program. Loved seeing the movie again. It was a nice ending the whole Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies. 

Saturday 21st March-

Kate and I headed into campus at 10.30 today to do our taxes. There was a special workshop for foreign students to file taxes, which was helpful seeing as we'd no clue. Unfortunately the internet was down so there was a big back up of students before us. It was almost two hours before it was our turn. Luckily it only took like 15 minutes to get the taxes filed. I worked on assignments for the rest of the day. Shannen, Sarah, Kate and I went for Mexican food and watched a movie that night. 

Sunday 22nd March-

I have two exams coming up this week so I did a lot of work for them today. I finished my grant proposal for ornithology.

Monday 23rd March-

I wasn't feeling great today, think I'm coming down with a cold. I worked my double shift and was so tired after it I headed to bed early. 

Tuesday 24th March-

Seeing as I'm going away for Spring Break early this Friday I had to reschedule two exams. I have my ornithology exam tomorrow morning and genetics Thursday evening. I found out in rangeland class that I'd done summaries of papers that weren't the ones I was supposed to actually do. So more work to do before Friday. In my recreation class our teacher Libby was missing. She was gone to hospital to have her baby! I studied all evening for my ornithology exam.

Wednesday 25th March-

I had my ornithology exam at 9am and it went ok. Not as well as the last one I'm sure but ah well! It's so nice here that if you will miss an exam the lecturer will help to reschedule it for you. Shannen and I both had to take it early so Kris got us set up and left us to work at it. The level of trust here is so nice. After the exam I had my double shifts at work. I took the night off to relax rather than study for my genetics exam. 

Thursday 26th March-

There was an ornithology field trip this morning at 7 am, but I decided to skip this one. There will be five and we only have to go on three. I still got up early to study for genetics which would be at 4pm. First I had my parks and rec class. We continued with the group presentations and today's group decided to take us outside for an activity. We had an Easter egg hunt while others played games to show the differences of consumptive and non-consumptive recreation. It was Sarah's 22nd birthday so we had pizza, cake and watched Divergent!

Happy Birthday Sarah!

Sorry for the brief post, I've been super busy all week and just wanted to get this up before I head off to San Francisco and Las Vegas for Spring Break! :D Hope you enjoyed it anyways :) - Fiona

Week 28-29 - My 25th Post and Roadtip to Seattle

Well, some of you may have noticed but I didn't put up a post last week. That's because I went away to Seattle for a weekend and didn't have time trying to get all my homework done to write my blog. So this week you get a double post, which is good seeing as this will be my 25th post! I know crazy, right?! Thanks to everyone who reads my blog and keeps me writing!

Monday 2nd March-

We had a guest lecturer for ornithology today who was pretty interesting and talked about bird vocalisations. After that it was my regular Monday line-up of double shifts. After work Shannen and I moved onto another two episodes of Game of Thrones, including The Purple Wedding! Safe to say Shannen never saw it coming!

Tuesday 3rd March-

Had my rangeland ecology and recreation behaviour classes today, which were uneventful. I was assigned my group for Recreation, where we must read a paper and teach it to the class. We will be the first group to present next Tuesday. We arranged to meet up Thursday after class seeing as we are all pretty busy. That evening Shannen, Kate and I hung out and talked about plans for Seattle.

Wednesday 4th March-

I got my exam from genetics back today in my lab class. Everyone got an extra 3% added on so I got 81% overall. I'd thought I'd done much worse but i got above average so I was happy. After that I had my double shifts at work. I was working with Dave and it was good to get to talk to him. He's really busy with college so hardly ever gets to call over anymore. That night I finished an annotated bibliography which is due for recreation class tomorrow. It was six pages long discussing six papers I might use in my final proposal. I also did some quick revision for my bird quiz in the morning.

Thursday 5th March-

I had my bird quiz which went fine. They are definitely easier than the mammology exams I had last semester identifying skulls! After that I finished my summaries for rangeland, submitted them and had that class. Then i read the paper for recreation and had that class. Afterwards I met up with my group and decided how we would present the paper to the class. I will cover intrapersonal barriers, which are things (like moods or skill abilities) which stop people from recreating. We decided we will meet up again on Sunday evening.

Friday 6th March-

In ornithology we got our exam results back. Kris put up a histogram showing the spread of grades in the class with the average being 70%. The highest was 98.5%, which just so happened to be my grade! Delighted was not the word :D After that class I headed home and worked on my blog and some homework before my Foodzoo shift. Our friends came over that night to play Cards Against Humanity, a game I'd always wanted to play. It's brilliant craic and just gets funnier as the night goes on. I won which made it all the better!

Saturday 7th March-

I had a Skype interview to Spain this morning. It was for an internship at Lobo Park in southern Spain and I got it! I will work there for the summer and collect data for my final year project on wolf behaviour. I'm so excited for it. I will mostly observe their Iberian wolves, but they also have European, Timber and Arctic wolves! Today was such a lovely day, you'd swear it was an Irish summer's day (yes we do in fact have some rain free days in Ireland!). All I wanted to do was get outside and go for a hike but nope, I was stuck indoors all day working on homework and readings. I have to try and get everything finished this weekend for the whole week and hopefully the week after too because we're leaving on Thursday for Seattle! So I did my genetics homework, my rangeland reading summaries and started my ornithology annotated bibliography. That evening Shannen, Kate, Aoife and I went to watch Monsters University at the UC Theater.

Sunday 8th March-

Today was more of the same, working on homework. I finished my bibliography and got my rangeland project methods done. I prepared slides for my part of the recreation presentation because I was meeting my group at 5.30 on campus. I walked off into campus and we sorted out slides for Tuesday. We said we'd meet again on Monday night to finish off our presentation. I met Kate as she was studying on campus and we walked home together. Just as we we're coming up to my apartment we met Eoghan and Shannen on the way out to get Bid Dipper ice creams, so we joined them. You can never turn down an offer of their ice cream, it's so good. After that Shannen, Kate and I went for a walk around the golf course behind Lewis and Clark. We sat for a while and watched the stars starting to come out.

The golf course

Stargazing

Monday 9th March-

I had my morning classes and first shift in the zoo. I started to study in the foodzoo on my two hours off, as I usually do, but decided it was way too nice outside to stay studying. So I went out and sat on the oval studying instead. I have an exam on the special topics we have covered in ornithology lab this Thursday. I've covered a lot of these in my Vertebrate class last semester so I wasn't too worried. It's really nice to sit on the oval when the weather is nice. There's so many people out studying or playing frisbee and football. I enjoyed it while I could before heading back to work at 5. When I finished, I met up with my group and after some technical difficulties got our powerpoint finished. Safe to say after such a long day I was wreaked and went to bed early.

UM's Clock Tower

The Oval

The Forestry Building

Tuesday 10th March-

So today we had our presentation for recreation behaviour. My group is going to be the first so we weren't exactly sure how to run the class. It went ok though. We got people talking and discussing the topic. I'm sort of getting used to this whole presenting thing, though I'm still nervous doing them. Safe to say I was glad when we were over and done with! That evening I tried to do my genetics homework for next week, which was an utter fail seeing as we hadn't learned how to do them yet. :P I booked my tickets for Spain, I'll fly out of Ireland on the 8th June and return on the 23rd of July. That's just over six weeks there. It means I'll be leaving Ireland just a week after I get back from America. I'll be doing a very quick round of visits to try and see everyone before I take off again! Shannen and I watched some more Game of Thrones, finishing on The Watchers on the Wall. Such a crazy episode!

A T-Rex on Campus

Wednesday 11th March-

I fit in some study for my lab exam in between classes and work and some more after work. I looked up some stuff which might be interesting to visit on the drive home from Seattle. I found a place called Dry Falls in Washington. It's thought to be the largest waterfall that ever existed although no river run over it now (hence 'dry'). It's five times bigger than Niagara Falls, just to give you an idea. We went to Albertsons for supplies for the road trip. By supplies I mean junk food :P

A lot of junk food...

Thursday 12th March-

My exam was on at 8am and went ok I think. It lasted just over an hour which was grand. That meant I'd loads of time to submit all my homework and pack before Seattle! Shannen and I even had enough time to watch the GOT season 4 finale. Shit went down (literally)! Season 4 has to be my favourite season, it's like there's a season finale almost every episode. We packed up the car, almost forgetting the road map and met Kate, Aoife and Bridget on campus. Then we were off! The drive to Seattle is amazing. After driving through the Rockies of Montana and Idaho you come down to beautiful Coeur D'alene lake before entering Washington. We stopped in Spokane for food. Driving through the eastern Washington prairie was cool, grasslands stretching away as far as you can see. We were even lucky enough to see three coyotes just casually strolling along in fields next to the highway. After the prairie was the Columbia river gorge and crossing over the Cascade mountains. We started up into the mountains just as the sun set. It was just after 10pm when we got into Seattle. This was the furthest west I've ever been. Our apartment was amazing, up on the fourth floor and decorated lovely. Thanks to Shannen for finding it. That night we were all pretty exhausted, none more so than Shannen who'd driven the entire way, so we just headed to sleep.

Coeur D'alene Lake

Little House on the Prairie

Sunset on Cascades

At the Columbia River Gorge

Friday 13th March-

We got up nice and early today and headed to the aquarium. We saw loads of colourful fish, seals and sea otters. They are so cute and a lot bigger than I was expecting. After the aquarium we went to Miner's Landing where the big ferris wheel is. From here we got on a boat for a harbor cruise. Our guide talked about the history of the Seattle skyline and pointed out interesting things along the waterfront while making cringetastic jokes. Apparently the Space Needle is a complete waste of space -_-' . We got to see some sea lions along the way too, just chilling on a buoy. After the cruise we walked to the Columbia Center to go to the observation deck on the 73rd floor. This is the tallest building in Seattle and the second tallest on the west coast. We got some lovely daytime views of the city and could even see Mt. Rainier. We could also see the longest and second longest floating bridges in the world. When we got down we headed to The Gum Wall, passing the library and hammering man statue along the way. The Gum Wall was possibly the weirdest thing I've ever seen. It's literally an alley wall with thousands of pieces of chewing gum stuck to it, making it a tourist attraction. Naturally we added our own pieces to the collection. We went to an Irish pub, Kells, for dinner and drinks. As luck would have it there was an Irish band over for Paddy's Day so we got some live music too. Some women noticed Shannen was wearing a Grizzlies hoody and so came over to chat to us. They are from close to Missoula and so recognised the UM logo. They invited us down to their ranch some time to see a real American farm. They even paid for our drinks when they left, which was really nice! The Irish band was really good and played songs for the Kerry girl (Shannen) and the Cork girl (Me). We stayed out for a while before heading off back to the apartment.

We found Nemo

A cuttlefish

Harbor Seal

Sea Otters

The Space Needle

California Sea Lions- The Rejects

Mt. Rainier

The Gum Wall

More like gum alley

Saturday 14th March-

So today we spent most of the day at Pike Place Market, Seattle's famous farmers market. From the outside it looks like one long low building along the street, so we weren't expecting to stay there long. When we got inside though we realised that it had five more levels underground,built on the slope of the hillside. We spent most of the day here, admiring and sampling some of the amazing food including some Alaskan salmon. We saw the famous fisherman who throw fish to each other rather than pass it! There was a monk fish on display, so I walked up to it and apparently it was on string because one of the fishermen pulled it, making the fish move and me jump! Much to the enjoyment of the waiting audience :P . There were people playing music along the street and the crowd was bustling. After spending a few hours there we went back to the apartment for a break. That evening we walked back to the piers and the girls went on the ferris wheel. It had been lit up in green for St. Patrick's Day with flashing shamrocks now and then. While the girls were on the wheel I sat by the water and watched the ferries passing by. Seattle has one of the most comprehensive ferry systems in the world, which is useful considering all of the islands in Puget Sound. We then walked to Myrtle Edwards Park to see some of the sculptures and sit on the beach for a while. From there we headed to the Space Needle to go up it for some nighttime views of Seattle.  The Space Needle has a very clear view of downtown and I even found our apartment building. All I had to find was the giant popsicle nearby! We spent a while up there before we went home.

The First Ever Starbucks

The Fish Flinging Fishermen

Downtown Seattle

Sunday 15th March-

Check out was at 11am, so we got up early, packed, cleaned and were out of there by 11.30! Washington, living up to it's name, greeted us to heavy rainfall. Driving up into the Cascades was like something out of a movie, surrounded by clouds with sudden views of waterfalls or sheer mountain faces. We had been thinking of detouring to visit Dry Falls but the rain was putting us off. By the time we got to the other side of the mountains though the rain had eased off so we decided to go for it. We left the highway and were treated to sights of more rural America. Some of the towns we drove through looked like they belonged in a western movie set. As we drove north towards Dry Falls we entered a valley between two towering cliff faces. It took me a while to realise we were driving along the dry riverbed and the cliff faces were its banks! As soon as we found this out Shannen pulled over for a quick photo stop. It wasn't long then until we arrived at Dry Falls. To say I was impressed is an understatement. We stayed for a while to take it in before heading off on our way again. We drove above where the falls once were onto a plateau filled with more small farming towns. We stopped later in a little one called at Edna's Diner for food. The motto outside claimed "7 days without Edna's makes one weak". After our pit stop I had shotgun and we continued on towards Spokane and home. Unfortunately the rain caught up to us near Coeur D'alene and made visibility very poor. The setting sun didn't help matters either. This added over an hour to our journey meaning we made it to Missoula just after 11pm (We jumped ahead an hour crossing into Montana). Our drive home took a total of 10.5 hours. That's like driving the entire length of Ireland twice! I headed straight to bed for my 8am lecture in the morning. :P

Room 1

Room 2

Rainy Washington

One of the small towns

 

Driving along the riverbed

The rivers old banks

 

View from near the top

Bridget, Aoife, Me and Kate

Coeur D'Alene Lake looking a bit rainy.

So of all the big cities I've visited since I've come here Seattle comes in at a close second, right behind New Orleans. I had a great weekend away made all the better by some great company. I would recommend Seattle to anyone looking to visit the USA. Thanks for reading this double post, I hope you enjoyed it! Until next time- Fiona :)