Classes Begin!

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Today was the first day of classes and the past four days have been a great deal of fun and great to settle in and get to know the City of Galway better.

So far I am liking Galway a great deal more than Dublin, it has the hustle and bustle of a city with plenty of stone covered streets to walk on with many shops and pubs to check out.

Yesterday a couple of girls in the program and I headed down to the coast, north of Claddagh and though I saw many little kids and families swimming (it was probably 65 degrees!) I could only go and touch it, simply to be able to say that I touched the Atlantic from both sides. It was quite windy but absolutely beautiful, it was perfectly clear and you could see the Aran Islands. I just got my camera back so I will be posting pictures soon.

So far I haven't had too much trouble understanding anyone but I will say it is a whole different language when they are speaking with each other, it is quite fast and the words seem to blend together.

Something that is quite interesting is how conservative they are with energy here, all of the outlets have switches that are to be turned off when not in use to completely shut off its flow, as well as if you wish to use hot water you need to turn it on a timer because the water is not continuously heated.

Their food portions are dramatically different as well, a bag of chips or crisps are about 2-3 Euro and are a quarter of the size of what a bag of chips would be in the states, and they are served in individual bags within the bag which are even tinier than our mini bags of chips. Also, on some of the food labels they actually break down of an average individual's caloric intake, grams of fat, sodium and ect. that one should have as well as breaking it down by gender and children. For example a man should have 2,500 calories daily, a woman 2,000 and a child 1,800.

A quite funny story, when a group of girls and I went out on our first night in Dublin I was too full for a pint of Guinness so I compromised with a Smithwick's (or pronounced as "Smit-ticks") which is a lighter beer than Guinness. Later I had migrated to Bulmer's--a hard apple cider, very tasty--which a local had told me was easier to drink and more acceptable for a woman to drink, especially in a pint, because women should drink half-pints or glasses. In my second night in Galway after realizing a girl and I had wandered into a gentleman's pub and the youngest man there was probably 50, we went into a younger crowd pub that is very famous and popular called The King's Head, and met a couple of young Irish men. After we ordered a pint of Smittick's, they began to chuckle at us, explaining that only old men drink that beer when they cannot handle Guinness anymore. So now we stick to the Bulmer's so we wont be laughed at.

Tonight is traditional music night at the pubs so a few girls and I will be listening to that tonight. I have been missing everyone and I hope everything is great back in the states! Love you all very much!

There are some photos from my first night in Dublin which are loaded up on the "Photos" tab above.

There will be many more pictures to come and I had a disposable camera when I went to Glendelough and the Power Court gardens.

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Photos

First Pint
The first pint at The Hairy Lemon!

Comments

[pops]

Pictures
Cool !! Are there going to be any pictures of things other than beer? Can you get a picture of a snake? Have fun and buy the way, you do have classes right??

[pops]

test
r u getting these?

[Aunt Karima]

doing us proud
Madi, So glad to hear that some kind soul actually turned in your jacket/camera. Sounds like your adventure is off to a slammin' start!

[mbondi]

I know, I was talking to another person in my program about it and he said last time he was here almost the same incident happened with his sister's camera. I guess people are more honest here than in the states, because I know if this was in Chicago I would never see either my jacket or camera ever again!