Wednesday, August 29, 2012

So far so good

Hellloooo Americans,

Just woke up for day two!  Our apartment is really cute.. There's a full kitchen with a little living room and it's got everything - tv, dishes, chairs, so we really just had to buy toilet paper and soap and towels and things like that.   It's just me and my roommate Kerry here for now, but there are three more rooms so we think Irish students are gonna be moving in sometime this weekend! Today we just have a tour at 3:30 and a welcome dinner at an italian place tonight so that should be fun.  I've still gotta unpack which I'm gonna get to in a minute.. 

Last night after our tour about 9 of the kids in my group went downtown and we found a pub to eat at and have our first guinesses in! That was fun, downtown galway is awesome.  There's a million little shops and pubs and we peeked into the original Claddagh store! 

Anyways I'm gonna try to make today productive!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

I'm here I'm here!

I think I've been awake for 30 hours. I'm pretty sure I'm halfway unconscious so forgive this post but I wanted to write a quick one to let the world know I'm alive and tired but well.  Logan airport was uneventful for the most part except for Jeff sneaking me in the crew/staff lines because he was in his pilot uniform so I kind of got special treatment so that was cool! I got to JFK yesterday at like 12:30pm and my flight didn't leave til 6:30 and I couldn't get wifi or my phone to work so I did pretty much NOTHING for six hours. It was miserable so after three I went and got a massage at the random XpressSpa in the airport hahaah but it was so expensive and now my shoulders are sore even though it was nice at the time.

I made a friend at the jfk airport. Yay.  Her name's Erin and she's studying here in Galway for the semester too, but not through my program.

The flight to Shannon was wicked long but I had a nice lady named Kay next to me. She kept asking how excited I was when I was trying to sleep so that was awkward but she was really nice and we cracked up together a couple times about the airport meal they tried to serve us because it was gross [obv] and then the water they gave us was in a little plastic container with a tinfoil cover on it...aka not a water bottle or cup at all.  I took a pic of it, don't worry I'll post it later.

Going through customs was really easy too, I was kinda surprised. we pretty much just had to show our passport and acceptance letter to NUIG and now we're waiting for one last student to come meet us.. Kevin from API met us at the airport. he's irish and really nice. Him and his wife Finn run it together so they'll be the ones helping me survive for four months on my own here, yay.

anyways gotta go make new friends bye!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Three pounds too heavy..

SO... four days until I leave.  Yikes.  I've filled one bag so far with a ton of stuff and it ways 53 lbs and the limit is 50 so it's now unzipped and laying on the floor waiting to be sorted again but I had to take a break cause I was sweating.  Keith is also packing cause he leaves for Stonehill Saturday and he just came in the room asking for my fan because he was hot in his room.... Uh, no way get your own lil bro!  We did have some bonding time today though because I've started watching Lost and he came in part-way through an episode so then we watched two more together... aw cute sibling time.

Watching Lost.. the show about the plane crash that they keep showing OVER AND OVER.. was actually a terrible idea though because 1- I don't wanna pack, I wanna lay on my couch and watch it. 2- Jack and Boone and Sawyer on the show are all ridiculously good-looking so it's another distraction/reason why I neeed to keep watching and finally 3- it's about a plane crash and i'm flying to Ireland Monday. so that's kinda scary.  But I'm sure I'll be fine and if it does crash, let's just hope there are equally good-looking doctors and guys on the plane/deserted mystery island with me!!! (Sorry Greggy;) )

Tonight's the final family dinner.. we're going to Tremonte's with Adam and Grandma tagging along because I decided I needed one more good filet to eat that I don't have to pay for and because their cheesy potatoes are amazing.... especially if I do end up in a LOST type situation, I gotta enjoy the good meals while they last!!

Countryfest is tomorrow so that will be great. I've only been counting down the days since December... Tim and Kenny on one stage? Yum yes pleeease.  And thanks to Wikipedia, I can look at their setlist and freak out even more because I know all but like 3 songs which were random covers anyways so they don't count. 

The goodbyes have already started but I won't talk about those for now because more are coming and they're gonna suck even though the trip itself will be amazing!
stupid leandro is packed, as promised.



Monday, August 20, 2012

Stupid Monkey

So I got a new duffel bag to take with me when I'm on the mini trips and whatnot in Ireland... and attached to it was a little monkey key chain. I hate monkeys. They're creepy and they eat bugs.  This one is equally as creepy.  His name (according to the key chain tag... or maybe it's the brand name of the bag??)  is Leandro.  So I guess he's some kind of italian monkey? I was going to throw him away, but Leandro might just make the trip to Ireland afterall..

Here's a pic of it.... 





Do Irish people like monkeys?  Do YOU like monkeys?

Sunday, August 19, 2012

One week and counting...

Hey!

So clearly this is my first blog post.. I've never done it before so bear with me as I figure it out!  It's Sunday night - I leave a week from tomorrow HOLY COW.  I haven't started packing yet.. Last night I had my America-themed going away party with my friends so I spent today on the couch recovering :)

 


It was wicked fun, a bunch of friends came and I got to see everyone and more one more time before summer ends.   I'm currently watching Breaking Bad (addicted!!!) so I'm keepin this post short but my game plan tomorrow is to start going through all my clothes and takin note of what I might want to pack.
I guess the goal is to pack the bare minimum then cut that in half... Yeaaaaaah easier said than done.  I am not good at packing, and even worse at packing light so we'll see how that goes.
Thankfully i don't have to buy too much more I don't think.. [thanks again jill noonan for the hair dryer!] but I do need to find a plain white sweater. I dont have one and it's such an essential and I can't find one anywhere - so annoying!

So anyways it's time for me to go to bed! See ya later.