Blogs from County Galway, Ireland, Europe - page 7

Tuesday eve - After visiting a bit and eating twice I went and took an exploratory walk around Ballinasloe. I took some pictures of the house my mother grew up in and of the church she attended. Their house was right next to the church and I remember her telling me about the bell ringing in the morning and evening. Behind the house was a stable and a garden. They used to get free tickets to the circus each year since the circus animals used their back yard for access to the River Suck to water their animals. There had been beautiful weather at first when I arrived in Ballinasloe, then it rained, then it got beautiful again but colder. My cousin has a nice cozy home and we visited in the kitchen while drinking tea ... read more

Ireland day 4 I almost didn't make it to Enis More, I had been still battling the flu I got before leaving Townsville and my back had been aching due to way too many hours of sitting on a bus. I am so glad I went, it was the most incredible day of the whole tour. We woke early and took a bus for 45mins out of town to the ferry which was another 40mins across to the island. I fell asleep on the boat and only woke when it started to get seriously rocky, which was very unhealthy for those of us who were hungover. The lack of fresh air is also bad, but it was crazy cold outside, so we weren't going out. Shannon and I played where's the hidden wrench with the evacuation ... read more

Ireland day 3 Leamena castle (spelt leamach), the home of the dreaded Moira Rooah. Perhaps the person responsible for making Irish people supersticious about red haired people. She was a red haired woman who's husband died and she went into the local pub in town to get a new husband, took himuostairs to see the view from her castle and he had an unfortnate (or fortunate) accident within a week of being married and fell out the window to his death on the rocks below. Not dettered, Moira headed back into town for another husband, this one accidently slit his own throat while shaving....pattern developing? Perhaps a series of unfortunate events even? Haha Anyway Moira went through 20, yes 20 husbands in her time, not to mention the staff she had working for her which she ... read more

I'm sorry that I havent written about this earlier! I have been so busy with school work and time is just flying by! Last Wednesday (March 14) I went to Ireland. I left pretty late at night, so we didnt get to our hotel until about 11:30. It was actually kind of funny, because when we got to the airport and asked when the next bus to Galway is they said that it was at 8:00 the next morning. We slightly paniced, but because we had five people it cost just as much to take a cab. The next morning we got up very early and went into town. We were lucky because the tour company brought a bus to our hotel to pick us up for free! we made friends with the bus driver on ... read more

This is going to be a little bit different than what I’ve done in the past. On my gap year I did a play-by-play of pretty much everything that I did. This time all my writing will be shorter, and hopefully more interesting since I will just be focusing on the main events. I am studying in Switzerland for the spring with SIT, the School for International Training. The program is Multilateral Diplomacy and Social Justice and focuses on diplomacy, economics, political integration (EU), and many other topics that I’m still waiting to find out… :) We will have speakers every day that are professionals from different organizations so it will not be as cohesive a course as what I’m used to at Puget Sound, but more like a series of lectures and discussions. We have ... read more

So I've been pretty busy here between school and figuring out the greater Galway area. Here is a picture update. ... read more

Meeting the other people in my building turned out to be easier and friendlier than I would have thought. We had a knock at the door a few days ago and our neighbors across the hall came and asked if we wanted to have tea. When we came out we discovered that they had intended to ask the whole building so we marched upstairs and went to every door until we got everyone that we could find or had moved in yet. Our neighbors Katy and Ivy were from Ireland but with different backgrounds. Katy is from Tipperery in the south studying medicine and Ivy is originally from Glasgow,Scotland studying art. Our building is pretty diverse. John being the only other US resident is actually here for the whole of college. Wisam is here from Montreal ... read more