Cork!

Saturday morning at 6 am I joined my friends Shannon, Erin, and Dorte to head to the bus station where we loaded a bus for Cork. The bus trip took about 4 hours so we slept on the bus and then were ready for a day on the town. We arrived at our Hostel, left our things and then decided to adventure. This is only the second hostel I've ever been in, but it was really nice and had more of a bed and breakfast feel to it. We were happy because we ended up having out own room--which was quite convenient!

We then decided to hop on a bus and head just outside of Cork to go to the Blarney castle.. WOW! The blarney castle and the grounds that it is on are amazing. Very beautiful and really cool to see the castle. I also KISSED THE BLARNEY STONE!! :) We were at the castle for a good portion of the afternoon and saw a lot of beautiful waterfalls, flowers, and cool stone structures. When we got back into Cork we stopped at a grocery store and picked up some pasta, garlic bread, and wine. We went back to the hostel and ate a feast..It was quite delicious, but apparently our eyes were bigger than our stomachs--we had a little extra pasta! haha...

Saturday night we headed out! Erin has a few friends that are studying in Cork, which was nice so they could show us around and bring us to only the best places. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun that ended in getting lost and eventually getting back to our Hostel quite late! Cork is a little confusing because there are two rivers and if you don't know which one you are by...you can get quite lost! Apparently the town used to be all rivers and they decided to pave over the rivers and make streets--fun fact.

We slept in on Sunday and then walked around town for a bit. Saw a lot of really cool churches and other buildings. Erin and I then headed to a Munster Rugby match. We got there quite early and got to see the excitement build as the match got closer. We ended up buying jerseys and having a blast while cheering on Munster, who won 27-3. The match was tied at 3 until halftime--Munster came barreling through in the second half! Rugby is pretty big over here and people get really intense with it. We had a BLAST!! Also, turns out Rugby players have really nice legs and are quite attractive, I'd go back! :)

After the match we met up with Dorte and Shannon to grab a bite to eat. We were all pretty exhausted so we just went back and hung out in the hostel and chatted until we all fell asleep. Our bus left Cork at 7:25 am this morning so that we could get back to Galway for class. I took a nap this afternoon and am still a little tired, but had a really fun weekend!

Back to the books for another week! The first choir practice is tomorrow so I'm pretty excited about that. There are a lot of activities starting this week, so it'll be another busy one.

I can't believe Thursday is already October!

One month?!

Last weekend was quite uneventful weekend. It's nice to have some down time sometimes! My friend Silvia and I made chocolate chip cookies on Saturday. Silvia had never had homemade cookies and we brought some to my friend Johnny who had also never had homemade cookies.. WEIRD! They were a hit :) Saturday night we decided to try our a dance club we hadn't been to yet, Club Kharma. It was fun! All the dance clubs here are pretty similar, except we liked it Saturday because it seemed like there weren't as many young students out.

A difference I find between here and Concordia is that a lot of Irish students, especially first years (or freshers as they are called here) go home on weekends. More of the upperclassmen stick around, but I find it odd that the freshers leave. At Concordia I feel like a lot of students stay on campus and that is when I loved being there...not worrying so much about going to class and hanging out more with friends--amongst homework, of course.

This week was back to class! Yesterday I had to go to the immigration office. I was really nervous about this, because the man that came to talk to us during orientation was VERY intimidating and I wasn't sure if the bank statement I had was correct for the information that they needed. So on Monday I got everything ready...Shanon, Suzanna, and I walked to the office together. It was really confusing to get there and we had to stop and ask for directions 2 times--once at gun store where the man clearly could tell we were not looking for guns.. haha! I had to go first, but luckily the man that I worked with was SUPER nice and very chatty. I got all registered and now have another card that I have to carry with me everywhere. The garda (police) could ask me to produce the card at any time. Oh joy.. another thing to hang on to..plus is cost 150 euro and if you lose it 150 euro to replace.. YIKES! But everything went through and I'm not legally able to be in Ireland until December.

Today is societies day. I ended up signing up for more than I had thought, but we'll see which ones I decide to get involved in. I signed up for Choral society (which I plan on definately doing), International Student Society, North American Student Society, Christian Student Society, Dance Society, and Nothing Specific Society. I'm sure picking a few of these will keep me busy! Tomorrow is the volunteer fair and I think I'll take part in that as well!

Tonight the International Student Society is hosting a nightlife tour of Galway so I'm going to take part in that. It should be a lot of fun! Tomorrow is the 250th anniversary of Guinness. It should be interesting to see what kind of celebrations happen here, but they've been publicizing it for weeks (I'm sure longer) here, so I think we'll go to a pub tomorrow night and take part in the Irish festival of celebrating Guinness--Arthur's Day.

This weekend a few of us are heading to Cork and will be taking in some Munster Rugby. I'm pretty excited because Rugby is huge here and so it should be intense!

I can't believe that I've already been here for almost a month--Monday it will be one month exactly--time sure flies!

First Week of Class

Monday began the first week of actual classes. Last week I did attend a few classes, they were core classes for students at NUIG and classes that I have chosen to take. The optional courses, however, did not start until this week.

Most students here take 6 courses, however I am taking 4 that willl transfer back to Concordia. It seems weird the number of hours that I spend in class...There is a lot of outside reading work and it'll be interesting to see how the core courses end up. I am taking Contemporary Social Thought, Development and Change, Sociology of Religion and an Ageing, life course, and wisdom class. Contemporary Social Thought and Development and Change are core courses at NUIG and therefore are huge lectures with a couple hundred people. I am definately not used to that at Concordia! However, my other classes are classes of about 15 and are more discussion based. I will have papers for them and other projects, which reminds me more of the structure that we have at Concordia. I think I like that better! It makes me a litle nervous that for the core courses we just take a big test at the end that is our full grade and there are not other things along the way to help out, but I will just worry about that more as the semester goes on. I think as long as I keep up with the readings and lectures, it won't be as bad as it seems.

I love all my friends here, but I hadn't met many Irish ones, until recently. My new news is that I now have an Irish friend! haha.. I am pretty excited because I am in Ireland :) Last night I made french toast for my new Irish friends and my roommates, so that was fun! I was promised an Irish stew dinner in return!

I haven't done a whole lot else this week. I'm looking at buying my return plane ticket today, so don't worry, I will be back.

Aran Islands

This past week was pretty uneventful. However, on Saturday morning there was a crew of us that left for the Aran Islands!

Saturday morning, 14 international students (including myself) got on a bus at 9:30 am. We arrived at the ferry around 10:30 and headed out. The ferry ride took only about 40 minutes to get to the Aran Islands. I've never been on a ferry before--really wasn't as exciting as I had thought it might be...haha. On the ferry I ended up sitting next to a girl who was also studying abroad at NUI Galway from Wisconsin, but goes to school at Bethel. What a small world! I was wearing my Concordia sweatshirt and when we got off the ferry, another group of people asked me if I really went to Concordia--they were from St Johns and St Bens. Crazy!!

Anyway, we got off the ferry and all rented bicycles. We proceeded on to our hostel to drop off the food and stuff that we brought for the night. After a quick stop there, we headed out on an all day adventure of biking through the beautifulness that is the Aran Islands.

Our first stop was at an old lighthouse. It was a beautiful sight! There were a lot of ruins of the old lighhouse area, but the lighthouse is still intact, and of course a lot of stone walls everywhere. After that we went to the cliffs. The cliffs on the island were phenominal! It was gorgeous!! Quite the hike to get up there, but totally worth it! We then saw the 7 churches, seals, and headed back to town to return our bikes. It was a long day and everyone was just pooped from the biking. I've found that if you're used to riding in Moorhead, MN--flatness USA--a full day of biking up and down hills is not great.

We then headed back to our hostel and the boys made us dinner. Pasta for 14! That night we celebrated one of the boys birthdays at the hostel.

This morning we got up for breakfast and went back into town. I stopped at the Aran Sweater Market. A lot of the sweaters found in Ireland (everywhere) are made on the Aran Islands. They had a lot of beautiful sweaters and it was really fun to see! We then hopped back on the ferry at noon and headed home.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted!

All my classes will start this week and so it'll be interesting to see the difference in teaching methods here.

Me, Linde (Belgium) , Jan (Germany) - My wonderful roommates!

Me, Shannon, Suzanna- In the Quadrangle at NUI Galway

By the Cliffs of Moher

Down by the bay

NUI Galway

Today was the unofficial first day. I went to campus in the morning and got some registration stuff taken care of and got my ID card. I then stuck around campus for awhile and had to hand in my sociology registration form around 2:00. Another guy from my building was also doing the same thing. We went to the place around 12:30 to get a good spot in line and there were already a few people in front of us. I find out Wednesday what classes I got into from the ones that I wanted. I'm hoping for the best...keep your fingers crossed! A good thing is that the one class that I absolutely needed for Concordia does not have an upper limit and so I will be in that for sure! Phew! It was fun to see more people on campus! I will have a few lecture courses this week and then full on class starts next Monday.

Tonight I am going with my roommate to do this dance/workout (Zoomba?) thing on campus. I've never heard of it before, but it should be fun!

The past few days haven't been very eventful, which has been nice because the first week here was pretty packed. We did go to a pub on Saturday night for live music. The streets were packed because Ireland played futbal (soccer) on Saturday. I loved seeing the culture around that! It was a lot of fun and I ended up talking to some Irish people in the pub, which I thought was quite interesting! I love their accents! They are very friendly...all you really have to do is smile and they strike up a conversation...which is LOVE! I also met some people from England...they were pretty cool too.

I'm crossing my fingers that a few people will want to go to the Aran Islands this weekend...I've been looking information up and I'm so excited. If not this weekend, I'm thinking very soon!

ps.. Happy Labor Day! :)

Orientation

Today we had Orientation for all the international students. I am definately on information overload! It was nice to get all the information finally. Tomorrow we'll go to information sessions on the classes that we're thinking about taking and then on Monday we'll start going to our "trial" classes. It'll be interesting to see if the classes I looked at will work. I hope that they are not at the same time, since they were pre-approved by the registrar!

I also found out about getting involved on campus at NUIG today. Let's just say, I really want to do a lot of stuff.. They have something called SOC day coming up which will be nice where all the societies will have information and we can see what we want to do. I'm thinking about possibly doing choir or being involved in the International Student Society. There are also a lot of opportunities to volunteer that I thought could be pretty fun as well. The student life seems like it will be kind of like Concordia with lots to do and a lot of people getting involved. We'll see what comes about with all this stuff. I'm going to figure out my classes first and go from there!

After orientation we walked into the city centre to get a few things. I bought a new rain jacket because I'm getting sick of carrying my umbrella all the time! The weather here is very different throughout the day. It'll be rainy, sunny, rainy and sunny at the same time all in one day. We decided to take the bus home because we were just pooped!

Tonight there is karaoke on campus that a bunch of people from the village I live in are going to. It should be a good time!

Before school starts

Yesterday we went to campus in the morning and tried to get stuff figured out. We stopped by the International affairs office and spoke with Maria Brady. She was very helpful and we got a schedule for orientation and some other information we needed. We found out that the we'll have a class trial period. Classes for all the students don't begin until a little bit later, but they start the classes for International students to make sure that the classes will fulfill what we need for our schools. Interesting concept I thought.

After school we walked to the bus station and bought a day pass to go to Oughterard. Oughterard is a small town about 40 minutes outside of Galway. We got to see a little bit of countryside and walk around this cute little town for awhile. We ate at a little cafe and walked by the river on a path right outside the town. One of Suzanna's and one of Shannon's roommates came last night so we came back pretty early and they hung out with them. We then went to King's Head Pub and saw some live Irish music. It was a good night and we got to know their roommates a little better. Rachel is from Seattle and Dorte is from Germany.

Today we left Galway around 10:30 and headed to the Cliffs of Moher. It was about a 2 hour bus ride. More beautiful Irish countryside (and a little shut eye) It was BEAUTIFUL!! It was a lot of fun to see the cliffs. It was a breathtaking place. It was a little chilly since we were up quite far!

I returned home to be welcomed by my roommates! Linde is from Belgium and will be studying sociology as well. Jan is from Germany. Linde and I share a bedroom and bathroom. Jan has his own bedroom and bathroom.

Tonight we are heading to a celtic song and dance performance. It should be really interesting. Some riverdance stuff !

Tomorrow starts campus tours and then orientation will begin :)

I'm ready for school to start. I've come to realize that I really like a schedule!