First Week in Ireland

Galway

My first pint of Guinness

After a combined 9 hours in the air and about an hour and a half on a bus, we finally arrived to our home for the next 3 months in Spiddal, Ireland. Our cottages are actually located about 1.9 miles from Spiddal, which is a pretty easy walk (weather permitting). Although it rains a lot (everyday), the rain is not bad--the wind however, is a different story altogether. I thought coming from Nebraska that Ireland winds would be nothing, but they are definitely worse here...although I should not complain since we were able to miss out on the blizzard of the century back in Nebraska.

We go to class on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday from 10:00AM-2:00PM (although most of our classes this week did not run that long) and are otherwise mostly free to explore our area or to walk into Spiddal to eat at a cafe or pub. And yes, my first Irish drink was Guinness. On Monday we toured Spiddal and on Tuesday we took a bus to Galway where we went on a tour before shopping and exploring the town. Galway is the nearest city to where we are and has a ton of history, as we learned on the tour. It was amazing to go walk on the same streets that were there centuries ago and learn the story behind many buildings and some of the crazy events that had happened in those locations. We even visited St. Nicholas Collegiate Church which is over 500 years old and is said to have seen visitors such as Christopher Columbus. Although the stores and pubs in Galway are modern, the buildings that they are in are definitely not. The city is so old and has so much history and character, which dates back to even before the United States was a country!

One of the Stained Glass windows in St. Nicholas church

Everyone that I have meet here has been so friendly, especially the Jane Marie and the others who work at the Park Lodge where we are staying. The first couple of days they made sure to feed us and even give us extra to take back to our cottages for later. After the first week here, I am definitely looking forward to the next 3 months here.

Oh ya, and the ocean is pretty sweet too!