Lexi's Study Abroad Spectacular

  While I was in London, I visited the National Gallery, which is a free art museum in London. We spent our second day exploring London, visiting its museums, and this was our second of the day. When we arrived at the museum, I was surprised by how busy it was outside. There were different street performers and protesters in the area. We saw a violin player, and she was very good, and had drawn a fairly large crowd. Two people were dressed in solid gold and silver and were acting as statues. We saw protests for Iran and for LGBTQ+ rights and beliefs. There was also a fountain outside that I did my poetry reading by, as it was one of the calmer sections of the outside area of the museum. I found this outside area to be just as interesting as the art museum, because I was able to see people interacting in a neutral environment. There were no expectations for anyone in this area, which I think allowed for very open interactions.  At our designated time, we started making our way ...

This weekend I spent some time in London and for as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to go to London. When I was a kid, this was because I was convinced that I would meet Harry Styles while visiting the city, but since then I have grown up, and realized that I would love to see the architecture as well as appreciate the city that so many of my favorite shows and movies were filmed in.  The first place that we visited in the city was Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. This was one of the things that I wanted to see while in the city, because I knew that it was something that was unique to London, and this palace specifically. When we arrived, it was incredibly crowded and we had to fight to get a spot for the viewing, and even then, we could not see all that great due to the crowd. In the image, you can start to get an idea of just how big the crowd was at this event.  The actual changing of the guards took much longer than I was expecting and ther...

  This past Wednesday I went to my first hurling match. Since arriving in Ireland, I have heard that hurling is one of the most popular sports on the island, but I had never heard of it before this trip. Going into the match on Wednesday, I was excited to learn about what exactly was going to happen during the match, but I also had no idea what I should be expecting. I was expecting something similar to field hockey due to the equipment used in the game, but I found that it was its own completely unique sport. I learned that the scoring is the same as Gaelic football, where a shot through the uprights is worth one point and a goal in the net is worth three, but other than that, I have zero idea what the rules are. We were trying to figure out how the game worked without googling what the rules were, or what was happening, and we made it through the game, but I think I would have been able to enjoy it more if I actually knew what was going on, and what the rules were.  I found ...

This past weekend I took a quick trip to Paris. I was with two fellow classmates. We spent time sightseeing, walking around, shopping, and eating. On Saturday, we spent most of our day at the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower is one of Paris' major landmarks, and I can say with complete confidence that it lives up to the hype. I knew that the Eiffel Tower would be pretty, I just did not realize how much I would enjoy looking at it, no matter how much or how little of it I could see. The image above is one of the first photos that I took of the Eiffel Tower, and it is also one of my favorites. The day was so beautiful. We were incredibly lucky with the weather, as it had been raining when we went to bed the night before, but Saturday was all sun. After walking around the tower for a while, we decided to head back to our hotel for a little while.  We started heading back to the Eiffel Tower around 4, to stop to get dinner, a treat, and do some shopping. We stopped and got macarons on th...

  Saturday morning, I was wandering to the Eiffel Tower, and along the way, we decided that we were hungry. It seemed unfortunate to us at the time, but we did not pass any cafes that looked like what we wanted when we were on our way. When we arrived at the tower, we were all starving, so our first priority was finding something to eat. We walked to the other side of the tower, where we stumbled upon a cafe that looked promising. By this point, we were starving and would have eaten anything, but this cafe had crepes. One of the main things that I wanted to eat while in Paris was crepes, because that is something that Paris is known for.  The picture above is of the crepe that I got at the cafe. It was the first crepe that I had ever had, since I am usually scared of trying new foods. However, since leaving for study abroad, I have gotten into a mindset where I only live once, and I should try everything I can while I am here. I tried a fairly plain crepe, which just had banan...

'Twas the night before Paris, and everything was falling apart. We got back from the West, and everything was a whirlwind. I had to pack, check into our flight, and get everything ready to go to Paris the next day. My big plans for the night came crashing down very quickly when one of my travel buddies could not find their passport. This made it impossible to complete the verification steps for the airline, meaning that we could not get our boarding passes. We eventually found the passport, only it was in Dublin, not in Dungarvan. I checked us all into the flight, went to bed, and hoped for the best.  It is a solid 12 hours later at this point, and we are getting on the bus. Everything is going according to plan, the bus was on time to pick us up and left promptly. We were going to take the bus to Dublin City Center, get the passport, then take a taxi to the airport, and finally be on our way to the airport. Only that plan was derailed the second we got stuck in traffic in Kilkenny...