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Nearing the End :( – An April Recap

May 12th, 2017 bmdagh18

Hi! Here’s a bit of an overdue recap of the lovely month of April. As I am writing this, I have just finished my last final at St Andrews, meaning my junior year is officially over. But I still have 10 days until my flight on the 22nd. 10 days left in this town, and there are still so many things I want to do!! Wish me luck that I do them 🙁 In the meantime, enjoy this post. April was a fun month.

Cork Kids meet St Andrews

The first weekend of April we were lucky to welcome some long overdue guests to Blackfriars 12. Jack, Maggie and Meg arrived on Thursday looking forward to a weekend of non-stop Scottish antics. What they got was a night of karaoke, afternoons spent watercoloring, misguided Fife Coastal hikes, a tour of the Highlands, and daily gelato (sometimes twice in one day, the scandal!). We went tanning Scottish style- when the weather is slightly over 55 and sunny, so you lay on the beach in your jeans and jumpers taking in the rays. We caught up on all things HC and abroad while sitting on St Mary’s Quad, how very college of us. Although they were here for 5 days, it was still too short. Miss you guys!

Born to Dance!

On April 21st, months of hard work finally came to fruition. I mentioned before that I was a part of the Born to Dance Marathon subcommittee which puts on a dance marathon benefiting the amazing charity Save the Children. My job on the Publicity team was to get the word out through social media, traditional media (posters and email), and sponsored events. The dance marathon itself was 12 hours of non-stop fun and dancing with prizes, photo ops, and other things sprinkled in. I wrote my ICIP (intercultural immersion project) for Holy Cross on our weekly meetings, going behind the scenes of what goes into planning and executing a charity event. As the Four Seasons said, “Oh what a night!”

Birthdays!!!

April showers bring sadness to April babies. But, being an April baby myself, Scotland’s gift to me was some really nice days to counteract the habitual gloom (except April 24th when it actually SNOWED. Not just flurries but massive globs of snow falling from the sky. Scotland is crazy). Casey’s 21st was on April Fool’s Day but I didn’t prank her because I’m a great friend. I decorated the flat with some balloons and streamers. A champagne flavored cake was made by myself and Taylor. It was a fun time. The celebrations didn’t end, luckily, because my 21st falls right at the tail end of the month… a little more on that later.

St Andrews Polo Match

I finally was able to go to an event I was looking forward to for months. I think I bought my tickets in January. The creme de la creme of St Andrews events. The St Andrews Charity Polo match was one for the books. I never have been to a polo match before so I was ready to see what it was like, if it lived up to the hype. I can report it did not disappoint. Buses transported passengers to a remote field in Perth. Lush, spacious and wickedly cold – the grounds were decked out in a large white tent separating general admission from VIP and VVIP. A Tesla Model X was parked on the lawn for curious people to hop in and out, taking pictures with their champagne bottles. Food trucks selling trendy takes on classic foods (truffle grilled cheeses, crab on fries, and halloumi sticks – to name a few offerings) snaked around the back area. A helicopter landed on the field during intermission to promote a veteran charity and everyone tried to convince their friends on social media that Prince William made a quick stop to watch his alma mater play his favorite sport (a lie, sadly). Everyone was dressed for the event but definitely not for the weather. Still the match, the little I got to actually watch, was really interesting. Maybe this will be my new hobby when I return home (probably not – but hey, a girl can dream!)

Greece is the word

Back to the birthday celebrations. I was lucky that my birthday fell right at the beginning of our 2 week revision period before finals. Casey and I discussed that we wanted to go somewhere warm for our last “hoorah!” abroad. I tried to sell her on Greece and after some diligent persuasion, we agreed to spend a week and change in Greece. On the 25th, only a few hours after presenting my ICIP project, we flew to London to spend the night. So I spent my 21st birthday in an airport hotel. Casey bought me little bottles of rose at the duty free shop so it wasn’t all bad. Plus in the morning we were flying to Santorini to spend a week in the Grecian sun – so I’ll call it a pretty great way to spend a birthday 🙂 Santorini was nothing less than amazing. It is so hard to put it into words, so I’ll let the pictures attached below do the talking (although some of the pictures still can’t do it justice). After Santorini we spent a few days getting cultured in Athens and then flew back to London. We we’re in London for only a few hours before we got the Caledonian Sleeper train back to St Andrews, pulling in at 5:45am. It was an amazing recharge before finals.

I think this will be my last recap for the blog. Before I leave to go home (10 days!!!) I will update on finals and saying goodbye. Ugh, I hate that word. Talk to you soon.

xx,

Bridgette

Pics or it didn’t happen

Jack, Maggie, and Meg enjoying their 1st (and certainly not last) Jannetta’s gelato

 

Our tour company thought they were punny – big fans of the Hairy Coo

 

A real life hairy coo!

 

The balloons from our Born to Dance marathon

 

St Andrews Charity Polo Match – it’s an (academic) family affair 🙂

Ringing my 21st year with some sticky toffee pudding at Mitchells

 

Sunset views of Fira, Santorini

 

Pork souvlaki, my kind of lunch

 

I have the sunset at my fingertips

 

Sunset catamaran cruise around Santorini with Casey. I made sure to filter out my insane sunburn that is still peeling 2 weeks later 🙂 (sorry- TMI)

 

Temple of Athena Nike in the Akropolis.

 

Views over (one side of) Athens. The population is roughly 4 million people, not 600k like Siri told me. Never trust technology these days.

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