This past week has been amazing! Sorry for the delay in posts, but I hope to make up for it!
This week began with even more baking success! The roommates are obsessed with cupcakes/muffins so I bought a cupcake tin, ironically when I went out shopping to get away from my testosterone controlled apartment. Then Nathan and Eric agreed to buy the ingredients if I baked the cupcakes so they got chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes with strawberry frosting. Quite delicious if I do say so myself.
Our senior design project is chugging right along. Nathan and I are working on the finite element modelling in ABAQUS, and ran in to a couple bumps in the road with a stolen hard drive and losing all of our papers for our material values. But we now have 3 (woo!) working models, one overly simplified one that's pretty much a cylinder, one that's a simplified arm, and another that's a simplified lower leg. Matt and Eric are working hard on the experiments as well, mostly they're just having to wait for things to be shipped however. We do have a very simplified human arm model, which is a latex glove filled with sand and tied off with one of my hair ties. It was hanging out in our kitchen for a while and all our friends asked if we were doing Halloween decorations.
Tissue engineering has been an interesting class so far as well. We actually had lab this past week (seems to be doing an every other week sort of thing because it was cancelled again today). We were in two groups, I was in the 7 person group and Matt in the 8 person group. We plated our cells and divided them and then put them in hydrogels. I've never done hydrogels before so I thought it was really interesting. We also ran in to some problems with counting our cells so we didn't dilute them any when we counted them. I've never looked at an undiluted sample before, there were so many little cells! It was crazy to count them!
Thursday night was Suit Up night at a club in Galway that was hosted by the Engineering and Law Societies on campus. So we bought tickets at a reduced price and Thursday night Matt, Nathan, and I went. It was a lot of fun, and I'm really learning how going out with guys is so very different from going out with girls! Friday night we had an enjoyable evening in the apartment and our friends came over, we started Sweeney Todd, but had to stop when it was 1 am because Nathan and Eric have been staying up to unhealthy hours watching the Cardinals games.
Saturday morning we got up bright and early to head to Cork City! It was about a 3 hour bus ride down so we got in right around lunch time. For lunch we went to a Gourmet Burger place, seriously the best burger I have ever had. It was delicious! I got something called the Italian burger with beef, ham, pesto sauce, mozzarella cheese, and lettuce. We all loved our food!
Figure 1: The best burgers ever.
Then it was time to head to Blarney Castle, about a half hour away by bus. Blarney Castle is the home to the Blarney stone but it is also so much much more. The Tower is very old and the grounds around are simply gorgeous!!! I fell in love with the place, I seriously could go back every weekend. We decided to first go to kiss the Blarney stone and receive our gifts of gab :) Gab in Irish meaning eloquence, so I don't just talk a lot now, but I speak eloquently as well! Climbing up to the tower the steps could get pretty steep, but there were stops in rooms along the way like the main bedroom, a great hall, a room for the daughters of the house, and the servants areas and kitchen. When we finally reached the top we had a short wait for the stone and then we got to kiss it! It's a little intimidating because you have to lie down and grasp these bars on the wall and bend down, so your back is hanging over open air and then lean down and kiss the bottom stone. When the guy holding me said to kiss the bottom stone I misunderstood thinking he meant I had to kiss the bottom of the stone, and I thought "There's no way I can reach that!" So I asked him, "Which stone?" and he replies "There's only one bottom." I felt pretty silly. Highlight was definitely Eric saying he thought the stone fainted after he kissed it though.
Figure 2: Me kissing the stone!
Figure 3: Posing by the castle.
Figure 4: View looking up at the Blarney Stone.
Next we went to the Poison Garden, which was seriously amazing. The sign was kind of scary going in because it warns you not to touch or smell anything in the garden. I learned a lot about different plants while in there though and superstitions behind them and what illnesses they cause. I think I took a picture of every description in the entire garden :)
Figures 5-11: These will probably be difficult to read, but I found them really interesting.
Next we went to Rock Close, which is a walking path with so many hidden wonders inside! I found it absolutely beautiful :) It had trees and waterfalls and moss, some of my favorite things! I took so many pictures, everyone would walk ahead of me and then have to stop and wait for me to catch up. There were lots of little stories about the sites through out, but my favorite was the wising steps. Supposedly if you walk down them and back up with your eyes closed thinking only of your wish within the year it will come true. So keep your fingers crossed for me!
Figure 12: The greenest clovers ever!
Figure 13: The wishing steps.
We finished up with seeing the Blarney Manor house and some random walking around that took us to a fern garden and around the side of Blarney Castle where there were caves. By then we were pretty tired and decided to head back into Cork. We had a lovely dinner at a pub, I'm becoming quite fond of fish and chips and will definitely miss it when I'm back home! Then we went to some pubs and talked for a few hours. Nathan and I both decided we didn't want to bring our rain jackets because it'd been clear for most of the day, so of course when we leave the first pub it starts to rain. Thankfully it didn't pour and the night was really fun :)
In our hostel we stayed in an 8 person room, thinking that since there were 7 of us the last bed would most likely not be filled. We were wrong. It was the most uncomfortable thing in the morning because we didn't meet him the night before and we accidentally woke him up in the morning since we were all getting ready at the same time. He just laid in the bed though in his boxers without the covers on. It was rather awkward because I think all of us girls did a double take when we looked over, because I thought he was naked at first.
Then we wandered around Cork in the rain for awhile. We caught a bus to Blackrock Castle and observatory. It was a castle turned space exploration information center. We took a tour of the areas that were still castle oriented and watched videos about space exploration. Then we went inside this planetarium that was tiny and watched a video about life on other planets. The strangest thing was that it was narrated by Rupert Grint, or Ron Weasley! It was a very different and fun experience.
Figure 14: in Blackrock Castle!
We headed home after that to relax before classes starting again on Monday. So far this week has been off to a fun and exciting start! But, I am looking forward to the bank holiday next Monday (3 day weekend woo!) and the chance to relax this weekend. I've been doing quite a few trips lately and want the chance to relax in my jammies and catch up on my Game of Thrones reading :) Also things like planning my last semester of classes (eek!) and grad schools and essays!
All my love,
Amy Liz
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