Kerry Marie In Galway

So my first two days were not what I was expecting them to be. My flight left around 7pm NJ time and landed in Shannon at around 2am NJ time (6am Ireland time). I sat in the airport with my CEA advisor (Brian) for 5 more hours, waiting for the rest of the students in my program to fly in. By the time we got on the bus headed towards Galway, I was absolutely exhausted. My roommate did not arrive the same day I did, so I spent my first day shopping for necessities (sheets, blankets, towels, etc.) on my own.

Thankfully, on Wednesday morning, my roommate Jessica made it in to Galway and to our dorm room just in time for our first orientation. We walked with Brian and the rest of the students in our program to campus and in to town for brunch. Jessica and I stopped on our way back to our dorm at this supermarket-kind-of-thing, where we bought pay-as-you-go phones and our first 6 packs of beer. The weather had improved from the steady rain that morning, so we walked in to Galway City for dinner and ate at this beautiful restaurant/wine bar. I had sea bass, veggies, and potatoes, and Jess had seafood linguine. After a cup of coffee and dessert, we walked around a little bit and found a cute little pub with outdoor seating, where I introduced Jessica to Smithwick's. We had two pints each, and then walked home.

This morning, we woke up entirely too early (around 8am) to get ready for our second orientation. Besides being absolutely tiny, the shower is actually pretty nice. Even though this orientation was long, most of the speakers were actually pretty funny - one Gaelic Professor even got the entire room to sing along with him (in Gaelic) to this Irish rebel song. We made our first trip to The College Bar after orientation ended, then walked back to the dorms. Jessica and I made another trip to Dunne's (the shopping center across the street from my dorm) to get stuff for our kitchen (her second trip, my fourth - I swear, everyone at Dunne's is going to know me by name by the end of this trip). After a short nap, we got ready and went to the restaurant in the dorm complex (Scotty's) with two girls in our program. We met up with the rest of the group after, and went down to Salthill to see traditional Irish song & dance, which was absolutely amazing. I'm getting ready for bed now, since I have to be up early again tomorrow to register for classes. Jessica, Jenna, Kaja and I are planning on going on a pub crawl tomorrow night :)