Feb 29th-Mar 3rd R.A.G. week and The Gathering

R.A.G. week stands for raise and give week and is an infamous week for many eurpoean universities. it is a week where the main focus of thousands of students is to raise loads of money for different organizations and to drink large amounts of alcohol...i dont think i can emphasize enough their love of drinking (also known as having a good craic. craic meaning night/drinking/social experience in general). most of the time rag week is full of concerts and different events happening throughout the week. this year was different though. apparently these rag weeks were getting absolutely out of control. students were treating it like a spring break at school. the drinking would start at noon, meaning no lectures were being attended, and go on well into the night when a concert would be. school boards decided this was too much (surprising considering they were irish). our entire rag week was condensed into one night and was called The Gathering. lectures for this day were cancelled, the drinking started at noon, and a car park was set up for a day of concerts. here is a video from one of the concerts (oh, and first time for me using my video camera, thank you daddy!):

in this video is my roomie aoife (blonde hair), her sister breege, and her boyfriend barry...(oh, and this would be described as "a very good craic!")



overall i felt the week in general could have been a little better. i guess i had been a bit let down after the hype of it all. the gathering was a great day though. at this stage i began to realize just how close aoife and i were getting and it was nice. my roommates thoughout my college experience have always been my closest, most dearest friends. the kind of friends who you realize will be in your life forever. it was beginning to become clear that this semester would be no exception :)