This time last year

So on this day last year I boarded a plane to Boston. I actually think it was about this time I was sitting in the airport writing my first blog entry. But now there's other international students going to BC, possibly writing their own blog and thinking all the same things I thought when I was going over there. So I wrote an email to the students going to Boston College from Maynooth and as I was writing it, I became very nostalgic about the whole year, and I think this email really tells you a lot about my year so I figured I'd share it with all of you! Some of it is basic where to get stuff kind of advice and other stuff is about BC and the general culture of Boston. Here it is:


"First of all, you are going to have the best year of your life. I can't even put it into words how much fun I had and how insanely jealous I am that you're going there soon! Here's a few things that might be useful to you when you arrive there first-

I.D
If you are over 21, the only non-American ID bars in Boston will accept is a Passport. However you can get a Massachusetts Liquor licence from the DMV. They're open for strange hours, I think 10am-4pm so you're going to have to go before classes start because you won''t have any time to spare during the semester. I think it costs about $25 and it's worth it so you don't have to worry about losing your passport.

Classes
Because you can take classes that are outside your degree, by all means go for it. But be careful. I took Elementary Italian (I'm a Media and English student) because I figured that it would be a great chance to learn a new language, and anyway, how hard can 'Elementary' be? As it turned out, very. First of all, the book alone was $200 and the online quizzes worth 10% were $70. Seeing as I didn't want to spend that, I spent the semester using an old edition from the library. I was on the back foot already, but on top of that, the workload was crazy. Apparently it's the same for all the languages, so if you're going to do a language, be ready to work at it.

One thing I only realised in second semester was that you really can pick and choose classes to suit your timetable. Classes in BC run either Monday, Wednesday for one hour, Tuesday, Thursday for and hour and 15 or once a week for 2 and a half hours. Make sure you make use of the time at the start of the year where you can sample as many classes as you like to see if the class will suit you both academically and time-wise. Get the course syllabus and look through the assignments and go talk to the professor about the course. They're usually really nice and always willing to talk about the course. If you are interested in doing any media courses email me about them because I did a few of them so I'll be able to answer questions if you have any.

Also, go to class. There's usually marks for participation and attendance. Most of the classes had a rule that if you missed more than 3 classes, the professor could fail you. The once a week classes usually said that you could only miss one. So choose your missed classes carefully, you only get 3. Get used to having a golden week pretty much every week for a year. It's an experience.

Football games.
Get season tickets. You will seriously regret it if you don't. Even if you're not into sports that much, it's more about the atmosphere and college spirit... and singing. So much singing. I think the season ticket is $120ish and that gets you entry for all the home games, so I think it's about 8 or 9 games and everybody goes. The games are usually on around midday on Saturdays, which means getting up early to start 'tailgating' which is possibly the best experience you'll ever have. People pull up their cars in the carpark, open the back, have barbeques and beers. Other people have houseparties, especially in the Mods, which are the senior houses in the middle of campus. You have to be 21 to get in there on gameday. If you're not 21, make a friend in the mods and stay there the night before. You should have at least one Mod pregame while in BC, it's really worth sleeping on a lumpy couch for. The main thing you will notice about BC is the school spirit. Get a superfan shirt, all the students wear them on game day for football, basketball and ice hockey. Get into the spirit of it and go with it. We even have a fight song, it's called 'For Boston' you'll know the words by the end of the year. The phrase "Eagles on the Warpath" won't sound as silly on gameday when it's being screamed at you from all sides in Alumni Stadium.

Bars
Mary-Ann's (Clevland Circle)
Possibly the worse smelling, most cramped, awful place you will ever buy warm beer in, but honestly, one of the best bars you will ever visit. Looks closed down, but is a solid bet any Tuesday, Friday or Saturday night. Usually have to get there early to avoid a que. Every Tuesday is Senior Tuesday, I missed two in second semester, two nights I regret deeply. I'm not sure if it's an organised thing by MA's or if it's just a tradition, either way, if someone asks if you're a senior, just say that it's your last year in BC, so technically, yes. But beer is cheap, rum is even cheaper. Go nuts.

Cityside (Cleveland Circle)
A bit classier than MA's, but still fun. Great for watching games in during the day and they do good food as well. More expensive but they do sell cans pretty cheap so it's still affordable. Show Champions league games so there's usually a few of the internationals floating around and the odd American if Man Utd are playing.

Roggies (Cleveland Circle)
Happy hour with cheap wings and beer during the week until 7ish. They do trivia during the week which is always fun. Really fun for Sports, people get really into the games when they're on here so it has a good atmosphere. The most important thing about Roggies is the Pizza. Served until 3ish in the morning, it makes for a great, cheap replacement for Garlic chips. I think it was $2 for a slice that is huge. Good memories of post-pub banter in here.

An Tua Nua (Fenway)
Nightclub kinda place to get your boogie on. You can get the T there and taxi back, usually about 20ish dollars including tip, so fill a taxi and it's fine. $1 beers until 11, so take advantage of that. Usually gets pretty full so go early to avoid que. $5 cover charge usually, unless you make friends with the Irish Manager who sneaks you in. They did a few promotions involving Jagerbombs, would love to tell you more about those promos but I'm a bit hazy...

Food.
Obviously I can't list all of the places, but I'll give you a quick run down of my favourite places:

1: Chipotle (Cleveland Circle and everywhere): Huge Burritos! So incredibly good that they're one of the main reasons I want to go back to the states. Pretty cheap for the size of the burrito you get.
2. Eagles Deli (Cleveland Circle), Unreal burgers, search for Man Vs Food Eagles Deli on youtube. They have a challenge burger that is insane, I can't remember the exact specs, but I do know it comes with a pound of fries. They do real person burgers as well, the fries are unreal as well
3: Applebees (Cleveland Circle and everywhere) They do a two for $20 meal where for $20 you get a starter to share and then get a main course each. They do $4 cocktails as well. Really nice sit down place where we went for our last night in Boston but you don't have to pay through the nose.
4. Fire and Ice (In the City) I think it's Mondays they do $10 dollar all you can eat. It's a really cool place where all the food is uncooked so you bring it to these chefs that cook it infront of you on a huge circular metal thing. Good fun and all you can eat.
5. Fins (Cleveland CIrcle) Really good sushi, but it's a bit expensive.
6. Dunkin' Donuts (Everywhere, literally every 10 minutes from eachother) Amazing, unreal and fantastic. Doughnuts are for breakfast, just fyi. Coffee is ok, but really cheap. Doughnuts are a dollar. If you wanna be all cool and local, ask for a medium regular, which will get you a coffee with cream and sugar. Great hangover food.

Tipping
Americans tip for everything. Bars, taxi, haircuts... The rule is between 18 and 20 per cent of the total bill. The reason for this is that if you work in a bar in the States, you usually get $2 or $3 an hour so they live on tips. It sucks, but you have to do it, especially at the start of the night. If you don't tip well at the start of the night, you're gonna find it hard to get a drink again.



Touristy things
Walk the freedom trail. It's a trail around boston in the footpath that takes you around a load of historic sites in the city, goes through the Italian quarter and up to Bunker hill. There's loads of little guide books you can get that will give you loads of info on the trail as you walk around, do it while it's warm!
Go to the Science museum, it's great craic. It's all interactive and I spent a whole day in there with one of my friends. It is mostly kids, but tell me you don't want to test how many yards per second you can run!

Just to get you ready for the Boston accent, my roommate was from Charlestown in Boston, the real Irish area of boston (watch the movie 'The Town' before you go) we made a video for his secret santa thing we organised. Have a look if you feel like having a bit of a giggle, it is a bit R rated at times and is probably not funny to anyone but us, but it will show you how a real Bostonian speaks. http://youtu.be/pNU7P9KvHWA

Sports
In Boston you support The New England Patriots (The Pats) in Football, The Celtics in Basketball, The Bruins in Ice Hockey and The Red Sox in Baseball. People in Boston are fanatical about their support for their teams. When I arrived a friend of my roommate told me to support those 4 teams and to hate the The Knicks (Basketball), The Jets (football) and most importantly, The Yankees (Baseball). These 3 teams have 2 things in common; 1: They're from New York and 2: I hate them. Jump on the bandwagon, embrace being a Bostonian. But do go see the teams play, especially the Red Sox, BC is really close to Fenway and it's so much fun. The idea of a baseball game is to go with friends, have a Fenway Frank, have a beer and every so often have a look at the game. They are long, usually about 4 hours, but it's more about just hanging out with your friends, enjoying the atmosphere and singing Sweet Caroline (Seriously).


WInter.
It gets cold. Ungodly cold. Cold to the point of "I'm pretty sure I don't have a nose anymore." Snow arrived in late December and was just about gone by Paddy's day (also, get used to Americans calling it St. Patty's Day, it's dumb, but it kinda makes sense when you think logically), you do get used to it though and you have the chance to build a snowman that lasts for literally months, funny appendages and all. Lads, you should invest in a pair of boots for the snow. I got a pair of Timberland-eske boots in Boston for $40 and wore them everyday for several months, including going to Mary-Ann's. Girls lived in Ugg boots and wellies. It's perfectly acceptable to wear wellies around campus during the snow or even if it's just raining. Infact, the only unacceptable thing about wellies is calling them wellies, they go by 'Rain boots' over there. Although the look of confusion you get when you ask about wellies is worth the jokes about your silly Irish words.

Internship Visa
I only found out about this when it was too late, but you can get an extension on your visa if you manage to land a job that relates to your degree. Ask your professors, especially if you're doing any kind of media/communications/journalism because the professors are all involved in working with places like The Globe newspaper or WZBZ radio. BC also holds internship fairs where you can see all the internships there are available. Wear business-y clothes and bring loads of CVs. While you're there get business cards and contact emails and don't forget to Irish it up, they love us in Boston, use it.

Clubs and Organisations
Join one. SImple as that. I played on the Ultimate Frisbee team over there and I made some of my best friends on that team. So many internationals go and only make friends with other internationals, but you're in America, go hang out with Americans. That said, the internationals are always great fun and I have great friends from all over the world now, so just find a balance!

Working
I worked in Hillside Cafe on campus and I'm so glad I did! It was great fun and the people that work in there are mostly students so you get to meet more people that you wouldn't have met. I worked between 10 and 15 hours a week, which gave me about 90-120 dollars a week to play with and it was very do-able. If you keep organised about getting your work done, you can very easily get a job on campus. There's a few jobs in the dining halls and Bookstores. I know a few people worked catering where they could just pick up shifts as they felt like it. You can also work for 'Bull Gang' which is pretty much setting up barriers and getting the venues ready for football, ice hockey and basketball games. The hours for that are pretty strange because it's usually after games which can be late. You can also get work in the Plex, which is the gym on campus. They always look for referees for Intramural games as well, so there's plenty of places to get work if you want one.

So that's all I can think of for the moment, I have to say that writing this has made me very nostalgic for Boston and especially BC. You're going to have the best year of your life, and just know that every single one of the internationals that were in BC last year are insanely jealous of you. I don't know if the international office told you about this, but I wrote a blog while I was there and you can see it here http://conor-leavinghome.blogspot.com/ For some reason the posts come up with the most recent first, so the first entry is at the bottom. Go and have the best year you can, enjoy America and if you have any more questions feel free to email me on crohuir@gmail.com.

Eagles,
Conor"