20 Days

I will be flying back home to Boston in exactly 20 days from today.  I can't believe it.  That's really not much time at all.  Time seems to go by faster and faster every year but wow, this semester was one for the books. I think it broke a record it went by so fast.  I've started making a list of memories that I don't want to forget.. from little quotes or inside jokes to the names of people we've met here that I don't want to forget.  I've got 66 written down so far but my friends and I plan on sitting down and adding to it.  That's the scary part I think - forgetting.   I know that I've taken hundreds of pictures and that they're on my computer and Facebook and I have these blogs to go back to and reread but it's the little things like the little orange and white dog that roams around my block freely or the familiar faces we see downtown performing each week or whatever else

Coming here has been such a great experience.. not only because Ireland itself is beautiful but because I have lived life outside of the small St Mike's bubble and because I've lived on my own for four months without the safety net of friends I've known for years surrounding me or my mom down the hall willing to make my next meal and spoil me if I get hungry.  I've had to find my way around a new city, a new country, find the correct bus station and get over the awkwardness you feel when you have to approach ten strangers in a row to ask for directions because you didn't pay good enough attention the first time six times someone told you where your destination was.  Some parts have been kind of scary.. like waking up after dozing on a bus and wondering if you missed your stop and where the hell you are in Ireland (all cows and sheep and green fields look alike... no surprise there but it really makes it hard to try to figure out where you are haha) or getting ready to take my first exam after not having to work hard academically for months (yeah that's my current fear.  more about that next week if I survive..) but mostly it's just been incredible getting to know my new friends here.. especially my Irish roomies and their friends along with the lovely 13 people who came here on the API program with me who have traveled with me, been exhausted with me, put up with eachothers shenanigans,  booked and stayed in weird hostels with me, and everything else we've been through!!  It'll be weird going from living with them to us separating and being in different parts of the country so far from eachother but I have no doubt we'll all reunite at some point or another!!  Preferably in the Cape... at my cottage.. or better yet, when they come visit me in Galway after I move here forever ;-)