Night Out

Today, a couple of us headed down to a church in a nearby hotel called Calvary Church.  It was very tiny, but a lot of fun.  The Pastor was an American too.  Afterward, we headed home and had French Onion soup for lunch.  Now we're just hanging out until 4:45, when we're headed out onto the town.

We'll be eating at a nice Italian Restaurant in town and then go to see a show similar to Riverdance.  It should be a lot of fun, and I'm really looking forward to the food (sometimes it seems that all I do is talk about food on this blog ;))

Our homework load is definitely picking up now.  I actually have work to be doing, go figure.  I actually feel like I'm in college now.  Sort of.

Sleepover!!!!!!!!!!

Today was a very peaceful, relaxing day.  My site visit group came over for tea in the afternoon, and we discussed the outline for some of our papers on the different places we've visited so far.  It was fun to just hang out over cups of tea and talk about the history of this amazing place.

Right now, we're all cooking our dinner.  Actually some of my roommates are cooking and I'm the designated DJ for tonight.  We're making stir fry with a fruit salad and curry cheese fries (apparently a very Irish dish... go figure).  It smells delicious in here.  My professor and his wife, the Cosgroves, are coming over for dinner tonight.  We even bought three liters of Coke for the special occasion!

Tonight, all the girls are sleeping over in our apartment!  We're going to watch Penelope and Pride & Prejudice, make facial masks out of oatmeal and bananas or some crazy concoction like that, make chocolate chip cookies, and just hang out.  Tomorrow, I'm making pancakes with Melissa for everyone.  It should be a blast!  But we do have to get up early in order to go to the Aran Islands tomorrow, our first outing since coming here to Galway.

Popcorn and Pancakes

Today, we've just been relaxing at the apartment.  Yesterday, I got to go downtown Galway shopping in the tiny Irish stores.  It was a lot of fun to wander through the pedestrian-only part of town.  My friend Kate Meredith was extremely excited to find a Polish store there that sold her favorite Polish juice.  She spent the summer in Poland on a mission trip, so she was nearly sprinted through the mall when she saw the sign for the store.

This morning, I made pancakes for my apartment, but they turned out more like crepes with the Irish pancake mix.  Then, this afternoon, I made my box of Macaroni & Cheese, and we all shared in the cheesiness and American goodness of food from home along with a liter of Coca-Cola.  Right now, we're all just hanging out watching movies and eating popcorn.  On Thursday night we're going to have a sleepover with all 20 girls in the FISP program in my apartment.  That should be a blast!  And tonight we're grilling fish fresh off the boat.  I'm not really a big fan of fish, but if I'm ever going to try it, Galway is the place.  Goodbye for now!

Slowing Down

We moved into our apartments (ours is called Gratton House 7) on Saturday.  I have five roommates, but the apartment is HUGE!  I even have my own room.  There are two floors, two bathrooms, a living room, three bedrooms, and a tiny kitchen.  This is probably going to be the nicest place I'll stay during college!  My window looks out over the Atlantic Ocean, and we did our homework yesterday on the beach.  My roommate and I (Melissa) even found three snails on the beach, Gratton House 7's new pets!  Their names are Big Daddy Craic (pronounced "crack"), Craic Junior, and William Butler Yeats.  Craic is an Irish word for good fun or laughter, just in case you were wondering.

We cook our dinner in groups, and our apartment is with an apartment of boys downstairs.  Last night, one of my roommates, Katie, made this awesome pasta sauce with noodles, veggies, and bacon.  Today we're all busy cooking a beef soup with potatoes, carrots, onions, and all sorts of other stuff.  We definitely don't go hungry around here.

These next couple days are going to be class days.  Tomorrow Dr. Cosgrove starts to lecture again on Foundations of Christian Thought.  I'm reading Beowulf for that right now, drinking a cup of tea.  It's been nice to be able to settle down and unpack for a while, even though we'll only be here for two weeks.  I was a bit sick of living out of a suitcase and constantly moving around the country.  Tonight, we're going to take a study break with a movie and some popcorn!

Pictures

Picture Explanation (Because they're in random order)

1.  This is one of the Skellig islands, but it is a bird sanctuary.  It's this huge rock jutting out of the sea, literally swarming with bird.

2.  This man was the captain of our boat that took us out into the Atlantic to Skellig Michael (the island with the monastic site)

3.  This is where we picnicked on Thursday afternoon.  It was gorgeous!

4.  This is me and Kate Meredith (one of my roommates in Upland)

5.  Gallarus, the ancient church/oratory we visited on Thursday

6. The Gap of Dunlow.  We hiked between these two mountains following the river.  It looked like a scene out of Lord of the Rings

7.  Some of the FISP students enjoying the view during their hike.  They are looking down at #6

8&9.  The boats that took us out to where we started the hike through the Gap of Dunlow.

The Skelligs

Yesterday (Friday) was probably my favorite day so far, but first I have to tell you about Gallarus which we visited on Thursday.  That day started off with an insane game of Rugby on Inch Beach.  I have several bruises on my shins and knees from that, even though we played in sand.  We continued driving along the coast, and our last stop of the day was Gallarus, this tiny rock church built over a 1000 years ago.  At first I found the hollowed out pile of rocks to be pretty boring.  After all, we had just been driving along the dramatic Atlantic Coast with huge cliffs dropping off into the sea.  But then our leader, Ruth, reminded us that without this tiny, ancient church paving the way for Christianity in Europe, we probably wouldn't be Christians today.  If that pile of rocks hadn't been built to glorify God, we would still be pagans, worshipping the Celtic gods and goddesses.  The history of that moment hit me hard, and I loved just hearing my group sing the Doxology and Come Thou Fount in that tiny room of stone.

The next day, we headed out to two islands called the Skelligs on a fishing boat piloted by to Irishmen.  The Skelligs are two rocks sticking out of the sea, one a bird sanctuary covered with thousands of birds and the other an ancient monastic site perched high up on a cliff.  We climbed over 600 ancient, stone stairs built by the monks to come to their living place.  It was one of the most beautiful, wild places in Ireland that I have seen.  After wandering around the monastic site, we headed back down the steep cliffs to our boat.  On the way back, we were followed by a dolphin!  Our whole group just laughed and smiled as it jumped out of the water along our boat.  It was such an awesome site and a fun day.  I even got a video of the dolphin.

Today, we leave our hotel in Kellarney and head to apartments in Gallaway for two weeks.  I'm not sure when I will get internet access again, so this could be the last update for a while.  I'll try to upload pictures to the blog as well, but that takes a very long time with this software and my slow internet.  Anyway, hope you all are having an awesome time and getting ready to go back to school.  We're off again here in Ireland!

Lord of the Rings

Today, we went on a beautiful boat ride up a river and through the lakes of Kellarney followed by a seven mile hike through a mountain gorge.  It was just like something out of the Lord of the Rings, especially the boat trip up the river.  The hike was amazing, with beautiful misty mountains and sheep wandering through the rocks and flowers.  There were waterfalls everywhere too, feeding the river.  It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.  Today, I got to eat Chinese food for dinner too, followed by chocolate cake for my roommate's birthday.  We then wandered around the town, stole Brayton's scarf, and got ice cream.  Tomorrow, we will head up to Dingle to go the beach and maybe learn how to play Rugby from our awesome bus driver Ryan.

I'm falling more and more in love with Ireland the more time I spend here.  The culture is amazing, with an incredible depth in history and identity.  And the countryside is even more spectacular.  I can't wait for tomorrow.