Guys and Girls January 17, 2010

Mo Chara,

I don’t know what it is, but this semester there seems to be a heighten interest in Americans, specifically American girls.  I don’t know if it is because there are more Americans here this semester than there were last semester or if there is a sudden disinterest of Irish girls by Irish lads.  What I do know is that it just seems as if Irish lads are more into American girls this term.

I think part of this interest is because American girls tend to have the attitude of “what happens in Ireland stays in Ireland” and go around making themselves seem easy.  Yet if you were to ask these same girls back in the states if they were easy they would tell you no.  Apparently it is the hot Irish accent that does them in!

But even still, it seems that hooking up with someone seems to be on the thoughts of everyone, American and Irish a like.  (Granted I do know a lot of people here that hooking up with someone is not their top priority, but I am speaking in general.)  When the new group came in last week one of the first questions I got asked was whether I have hooked up with an Irish lad.  When I told them that I haven’t they seemed almost disappointed in me because clearly hooking up with someone is of great importance.  And from the lads side it is clearly important as well.  Monday night I went out with my roommates to a club downtown.  I was enjoying myself and had a good time dancing and just hanging out.  But the almost amusing and simply annoying part was when the club was starting to close.  All of the lads that had not found a girl to hook up with yet were “frantically” running around the place trying to find one.  I had several lads come up to me before I left trying to dance with me, or buy me a drink, or try to kiss me.  One after asking my name and where I was from in the states asked me if I had a boyfriend back home.  Really I don’t mind receiving complements, and I can’t think of a single girl who doesn’t like receiving complements, but complements almost seem shallow and un-genuine when it is clearly obvious that the lad talking to you is just trying to find someone to hook up with!

Granted, I am the girl who has planned her wedding since she was three and I often have the thought of some lad on my mind but I am not a fan of this whole hooking up business or the pressure to be in a relationship with someone just because you are single!  Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to be in a relationship and I really do long to be in one, but I am tired of relationships based solely on appearance.  There is no substance to them, they are self-centered and shallow.  To me it seems that relationships like this end when all the warm fuzzy feelings go away and your true self starts to appear.  And ultimately to me it seems that you are left knowing the person barely more than you did before.  I don’t want to be in a relationship like this but it seems as if it is very hard to escape the pressure of being in a relationship because that is what you are supposed to do.

Personally, I want a God-centered relationship where God is the one being glorified in it.  I want to be in a relationship that has meat to it where you genuinely know the person even if you had to go through a bit of answering and asking random questions to get there.  I want to be in a relationship where instead of being afraid to let my true self out I am encouraged to be that person, encouraged to be the woman who God made me to be.  I want to be in a relationship where you are able to encourage each other in your personally walks with God and to be a loving friend in times of need.  I want to be in a relationship where you are not afraid to goof off and can run around a grocery store pretending to be a spy!  (It is really quite an amusing activity, especially when you are spying on your friends!)  This is the type of relationship that I look forward too, the type of relationship that I am willing to stay single and wait for.

I know you probably weren’t expecting a rant on my views on relationships but that is what has gone through my head the last bit of time or so.

Bethany

Oh Life! January 12, 2010

Mo Chara,

I am glad to tell you that there is life back in Galway again or at least the beginnings of life again!  Classes started up again yesterday and with that brought back all the students.

I don’t remember if I told you or not, but I moved apartments over the holiday because I had an opportunity to get my own bedroom in a different apartment.  I have to say that is has been a nice move.  I feel so much more at home in this apartment than I did in my last and I love the girls I am living with.  It has been fun getting to know them the past few days and I am looking forward to the friendships I will have with them.

Along with new roommates, the new group from my program arrived last week.  Though I haven’t hung out with any of them except for once really, I feel like I am their big sister a bit.  Most of the time when I have seen them I have gotten bombarded with questions; which  I really don’t mind answering the questions since I was in their boat just 4 months ago.   They seem like a good group, but I don’t like with the last group that I will hang out with them much.

As far as school goes, I have already attended half of my classes.  I am talking all engineering classes this semester which makes me really happy. (I am especially happy that I am not taking any classes that require me to write papers!)  I am excited about the classes I have attended this far and feel like this semester is going to go better than the last.  I also feel like I will actually understand what is going on in my engineering classes as well.

Talk to you soon,

Bethany

A Wonderful Winter Day! January 2, 2010

Mo Chara,

You know those days you have seemingly every once in a while where you are at complete peace with yourself and life couldn’t possibly be better at that moment in time; I’m having one of those days today!

Today has been quite simple, but quite wonderful at the same time.  I slept in this morning until about half 10 and then got up and got ready for the day and a nice leisurely pace.  It was beautiful crisp winter day out with clear blue skies so I decided to wonder down into town after I had something to eat.  I just strolled from store to store down on Shop Street and enjoyed the cheer atmosphere.  The only purchases I made were the complete novels of Jane Austin and a Dr. Pepper and let me tell you it was the best Dr. Pepper I have ever had!  I then meandered through the campus towards the grocery store where I bought food for the week.  I am now back home and am getting ready to curl up with a nice cup of tea and begin reading my new book.

I know my day might not sound like much, but I can’t think of anything that would make my day any better and that is why I wanted to share it with you.  I have had a wonderful winter day and I hope you do too!

Love you and miss you lots!

Bethany

School craziness, church madness, and a breath of Fresh air! December 31, 2009

Mo Chara,

I am clearly awful at keeping in touch with you!  I keep making promises saying that I would do better and write more.  But clearly I am unable to keep that promise.  So for now on I will just say I will try to do better!

Anyways I hope all is well with you and that you have been enjoying this holiday season with the people who matter most to you.  Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are not about the presents you get, the amazing sales at the stores, or the sheer amount of food you can eat.  These holidays are meant to be for us to take time and reflect on the blessings of God in our lives and to continue to build on the relationships in our lives that will last through eternity.

As nice as it is to get a reminder of what the holiday season is about, I am sure you would much rather know what has been going on with me the past month and a half since I last wrote to you.  When I last wrote to you, I had just gotten back from my weekend trip to Dublin and had 2 weeks left of class.  Well I found out that week that I wasn’t going to get any credit for the two group projects that I had been working on all semester and was frantically trying to finish up.  I would have been fine knowing from the beginning of the semester that the projects were worth no credit to me and know that I was doing the project for my own personal benefit.  However, it is another thing to work on a project and stress out about it though out the semester to find out in the end that the project wasn’t worth my stressing over.  Oh well there is not much I can do about it now!

Along with the two projects that I ended up getting no credit for, I had 3 final papers to write and 3 final exams to study for.  The papers were all research papers, which was fine, however they were completely time-consuming!  It wasn’t like writing a paper for Winford’s AP Literature class in high school where you wrote random nonsense about a novel for 45 minutes.  No these papers required that you actually had an understanding of what you were saying which made making up randomness to meet the minimum requirements for the paper much more difficult.  But according to my mom, who still and forever will edits my papers, the papers turned out well.

I can’t quite say the same about the stupid final exams.  Unlike at WSU or any other sensible college in the US where your final grade is composed of homework scores, projects and exams, your final grade here at the wonderful NUIG is comprised completely off of the score you receive on your final exam.  Which kind of sucks if you have a bad day.  Since my grade were going back as pass or fail, my goal was to just pass the exams.  I felt like on the first exam and my last exam that I accomplished that goal.  I feel really confident that I was able to regurgitate enough information to pass the exam.  My second exam on Design of Concrete, I did not feel that way.  It didn’t help that the class was probably the worst class I have ever taken and that lectures were a confusing mess.  I really have no clue what I was supposed to learn other than the really broad idea of “Design of Concrete.”  Though it seemed that everyone in the class felt the same way so I wasn’t alone in that sinking ship.

I know you love hearing about my rants about school, but I am sure that my story isn’t much different from any other student in the world.  I am sure you would much rather hear about other things going on in my life instead.

While I was trying to keep from losing all sanity due to finishing up the semester we had a lot going on at the Church.  The first event was the Children’s Christmas Party.  I had made the mistake of making it know that I have made sets and props for different things for Church and school back home.  This little known fact got me volunteered for making Santa’s Cottage.  I really didn’t mind making Santa’s Cottage, but I was also trying to study for the exam of death at the same time, so I was a bit stressed out.  But the cottage with its gumdrop roof and candy cane columns turned out great.  The children’s party went well too minus the chaos of trying to control 50 children running the room.  The only problem about the party was that one of the older boys let it spill to my 5-year-old friend that her dad was Santa.  We had taken extra precautions to make sure she didn’t find out that her dad was playing Santa and this boy almost ruined everything.  The poor girl just looked so sad when I discovered that she was catching on to who Santa really was.  But being the lying and deceiving adults that we are, we were able to convince her that her dad was in fact not Santa.

The next night was the Adult Christmas Party.  The “Adults” got all dressed up and went out to a nice Italian restaurant out in the posh part of Galway.  As it turned out we had accidentally made reservations at the wrong restaurant and had meant to eat at the Italian place next door.  Oh well.  The food was good though and we had an enjoyable evening.  I even won the prize for worst Christmas present ever!  The only down side to the even was not being able to stay out late with everyone since I had my exam of death the next morning.

The next weekend we had a fundraising event for families in need in the Galway area.  Unlike in the US where at grocery store you have someone who works for minimum wage bagging your groceries, you bag your own groceries here.  However, groups can go into the grocery store and bagpack for customers as a fundraiser, which is what we did.  As much as we petty the poor person at home who has to bag groceries all day, it was a really good, humbling experience.  You don’t realize how much a simple thing like bagging groceries for some can be a blessing.  All in all over the course of 3 days we were able to raise around 2600 euros which is about 3200 US dollars.

The next event was probably one of my favorite things I have done since I have been to Ireland.  Last Wednesday, a group of 3 of us went down to Shop Street in Galway and gave out free hugs.  We had made signs the day before and had sweatshirts on that said free hugs on them.  And for 3 hours we stood outside giving out free hugs to people as they passed.  Minus a few suggestive comments I got, the outreach went really well.  People were so excited to be able to get a hug from someone.  Just the looks on people faces after you gave them a hug made it worth standing outside in the cold.  At one point we had a group of teenagers that joined us in giving hugs to people on the street.  It was such a great experience and so heart warming.

The past 6 weeks or so has been a really rough time for me though.  I have definitely felt my loneliness during this time and have been really homesick off and on.  You don’t realize all the blessing you have in your life until they until they are not there anymore.  My walk with God has really struggled during this time.  I know part of it is because I haven’t wanted to deal with stuff in my life and therefore haven’t been going to God about it.  But another thing with it that I don’t have the same support system here that I have back in Oak Harbor and Pullman.  There I always have people around to encourage me in my walk with God and to jump on me when they realize that I am starting to lag behind.  I don’t have people who do that here.  I also don’t have people to simply talk to when I am going through a rough time.  It makes thing difficult and very lonely at time.  But it is also a defining time, in my life.  This experience is forcing me to figure out who I am, what is important to me, what my likes and dislikes are, where I am wanting to go in life, etc.  It might be tough and painful at times, but I am glad that I am going through it.

Even though I might not have people here who I feel like I can actually talk about what is going on with me personally, I have people who have taken me in and have made me feel at home.  I realized that in 2009, I didn’t spend a single holiday with my family and that the next holiday I spend with my family with probably be the 4th of July in 2010.  This was also the first time I did not spend either Christmas or Thanksgiving with my family.  But for both holidays I had people take me in and allowed me to celebrate the holidays with their families.  Even though the holidays didn’t quite feel the same without my family or being in the states, I was able to celebrate them and not feel completely homesick.  Even as I am writing now, I am getting ready to go over to a family’s house to celebrate the New Year with them.

I think that I have now covered all that has gone on with my life over the past month and a half.  So hopefully you feel all caught up with what is going on with me and what I have been going through.  Again, I am not going to make a New Years resolution and promise to update this every week, but I promise that I will try harder so that I don’t end up writing you another paper explaining what all has been going on with me.

God Bless,

Bethany

how time flies! November 14, 2009

Mo Chara,

Can you believe that is halfway through November already! I’m having a hard time believing that it is!  Time has gone by so quick since I have been here (though that is probably because I’ve been going almost non-stop since September 1!)  and I only have two weeks left of classes for the fall.

I had a good time in Dublin last weekend, but it also felt like we did a whole lot of nothing while we were there too.  There was a lot of wondering around looking where we were going or for food to eat (even though we had our Irish director whose family lives in Dublin leading us around!)  I did get to see the Book of Kells, the Irish version of the white house, a jail and other random sites while there though.

Not much else is going on with me though except for finishing up this term.  You can be praying for me since I have 3 final papers to write, 2 group projects to finish and 3 final exams to study for!  But I am enjoying life currently and am excited about growing deeper in my relationship with God!

I hope you are doing well and that life isn’t too crazy for you.

God Bless,

Bethany

God’s Peace November 3, 2009

Mo Chara,

As I look back on the last few months, I would have never expected to be this busy.  I thought that I was busy when I was at WSU or Senior year of High School, but they are nothing in comparison to being in Ireland.  I have been so caught up in life that I really haven’t been making time to sit, and relax at the feet of Jesus.  This lead to my mental breakdown of this morning.  But before I tell you about that, let me catch you up on the last few days.

The second half of last week proved to be a bit stressful.  I had a midterm paper that was due on Friday that I was having difficulty writing for some reason.  I spent the better part of the first half of the week working on this paper and I had only been able to produce one paragraph which was quite frustrating.  I had resolved that I was going to finish the paper Wednesday night.  Well, while at training for Frisbee I rolled my ankle running down the field and ended up spraining my ankle.  So instead of writing my paper Wednesday night, I spent it tending to my ankle.  I ended up getting the paper done Thursday instead.  Friday afternoon I left to go to Cork for an Ulitmate Frisbee Tournament even though I couldn’t play because of my ankle.  The weekend was fun; the team placed 11th out of 24 teams.  However, I ended up getting sick due to standing out in the cold all weekend long.  Monday morning I woke up feeling just awful.  I was extremely congested and had a massive sinuous headache.  I only stayed at school long enough to work on my group project for Design of Concrete before I went over to a family’s house from church to crash.  It was really nice and relaxing and the family fed me and took care of me.  However, it was when I got back home later that evening that I completely broke down.

As soon as I laid my head on my pillow I started stressing out over life, over my financial situation, over my roommate issues, over school work, and just life in general.  I was wanting to be back in either Oak Harbor or Pullman where I knew I had a support system to rely upon.  I got up to call my mom to talk things over but my mom ended up being in a meeting and was unable to talk.  So I called my dad instead.  I talk with him for a few minutes, but he was unable to talk as well since he was at work.  I finally went back upstairs and pretty much cried myself to sleep.  When I woke up this morning I was feeling about the same as I was when I went to bed.  I was completely unable to process life.  I was crying off and on all morning since I was so overwhelmed.  I knew I needed to just sit and have quite time with God.  So finally after an hour of fighting it, I gave in and had quite time.

As I started pouring myself out to God, his peace over took me.  He made me just sit down and relax in his presence so I could get to a point where I could actually process life again.  It was absolutely wonderful.  As I sat there, he took things one at a time and helped me to walk through them.  He helped me to see that my life is in his hands and that he will provide for me even when I can’t see how.  It was such a good feeling to have God take my life and just simplify it and to be completely surrounded by his peace all the while.

I so easily forget how much I need time with God in order to just get through life.  I need my soul refreshed by him on a regular basis, not just when I am completely unable to process life.

Bethany

Catching up on Life October 26, 2009

Mo Chara,

I am sorry that it has been so long since I last wrote you.  I have been so busy with school, traveling, and just life in general to find a time to sit down and reflect on what has been going on in my life the last few weeks.  But I will try now to enlighten you as to what I have been up to.

As, I sit here and think, not a whole lot has actually gone on since I last wrote you.  Mainly my life has been consumed by school.  Currently I am questioning why I decided to take two history classes and an English seminar at the same time!  I seem to have a never-ending amount of reading that I have to do for these classes as well as paper after paper that I have to write!  I don’t think I have even had time to go back and look over my notes for my engineering classes (which is what I am going to college to get my degree in!)  Even now as I write to you, I am putting off writing a mini-research paper.  The other thing that I am having a problem with is that my engineering classes don’t have any homework.  I guess you can say this is a good thing not having homework that is, but I find actually learning the material is much harder this way.  Anyways, you probably don’t want to hear me complain about school so I will move on to other things.

You probably do want to hear about my trip to London last weekend though since that is much more exciting than school.  I had an absolutely wonderful time in London.  (Minus getting a bit of a head cold while I was there, but that is a minor detail)  We stayed at a hotel that was located right underneath the Millennium Eye on the River Thames.  It was an amazing location since we were so close to everything.  We even started off our trip by going on the Eye itself.  I would recommend it to anyone who goes to London because you get a fabulous view of the entire city.  That afternoon several of us had High Tea at Brown’s Hotel.  It was probably my favorite part of the entire trip.  We sat for three hours enjoying each others company while being continually served little finger sandwiches, scones, desserts and not to mention tea.  It was absolutely wonderful to just sit and relax like that.  Saturday was filled with lots of events as well.  We started off the day going on a Duck tour which was really interesting, but cold!  After that we somehow managed to move a group of about thirty through the London Tube system over to the Tower of London.  It was really interesting to hear the history behind this world-famous structure as well as to drewl over the crown jewels.  After we finished at the Tower of London we explored the city a bit going to Trafalgar Square and Oxford Circus.  Saturday evening Sarah and I went and saw Wicked, which was absolutely wonderful!  I loved the show so much and would love to see it again.  Sunday was full of more exploring as we walked by the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey and of course Big Ben.  We also went and saw the Mounted Guard and Buckingham Palace.  After lunch (at an Irish Pub of all places!) we went and explored the British Museum.  The Museum was massive and overwhelming.  It would probably take a couple of days to fully explore the entire museum.  After going to the museum we returned back to our hotel to get our belongings and headed back to Galway.  It was a great trip, but I was completely exhausted by the time we got home Sunday night!

I guess the only other thing going on with me is missing my friendships from back home.  I have been completely spoiled by having so many friends who I can have deep meaningful conversation with.  It is something that you totally and completely take for granted until you are without anyone to have a meaningful conversation with.  Yes, I have made friends here, but most of our conversations are very shallow discussing things like the weather, classes, and what we are doing for the weekend.  Conversations with people at church go a little deeper but none of them are really conversations you remember.  At time I feel as if it is just me and God and even then I still feel alone.  I guess it comes down to dependency on God and allowing him to be the friend I need right now.

Well Mo Chara, that is what is going on with me.  I promise that I will write to you again sooner rather than later!  I hope you are doing well and keeping in good health.

God bless,

Bethany

You’ll never guess where I’m from! September 25, 2009

Mo Chara,

I just thought that you would find it amusing the places people have though I have been from.

My frist Sunday at church, I was talking with this man and he asked where I was from.  I told him I was from the Seattle, Washington area in the United States.  He responded back saying he thought that I was from Spain.  I later told my Spanish roommate this and he replied that I was too white to be from Spain!  This last Sunday, again at church, another man came up to me and asked if I was from Brazil!  I told him no and that I where I was really from.  The amusing thing to me is that both of these men are African immigrants and the thing that is throwing them off by my appearance is that I am partly black myself!

I thought that you would enjoy this little story.

Bethany

The Wonderful Little Things September 25, 2009

Mo Chara,

Since I last wrote to you, it seems as if my life had been defined by the wonderful little things of God.  It is incredible the way God chooses to show us he loves us and to challenge us.  Some times God acts in big ways and those ways are life defining; but most of the time God acts in little ways and those ways are life changing.

When I last wrote to you, I was feeling quite homesick and lonely.  I really just wanted someone to notice me, to hang out with me.  I remember just sitting in classes thinking “God this sucks,  here I am sitting in a hall with 150 people with no one to talk to, no one to sit with.”   I really just felt alone in a sea of faces.  It was in this time that God started showing me, through little things, how he loves me.

The first way God showed me he loved me was through a girl in my engineering classes.  It was my last class of the day on Friday and I decided to go sit next to some girls that I had seen in an earlier class.  When I sat down the one girl leaned over and said “Hi, I’m Ciara.  You’re Bethany, right?”  I felt like God had answered my prayer right then and there.  As it turned out both of the girls were also new to NUI Galway and had just transferred there.  Really to me it was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one who felt totally and completely out-of-place.  But most importantly I felt loved by God.  I had been calling out to God all week just for some friends at school so I simply didn’t have to sit in a huge lecture hall by myself.  At that point I had given up for the week on for trying to gain the courage to make friends.  It was at that point that God showed up and provided me with some people to be my friends.

But that wasn’t the only time this past week that God really showed me that he loves me.  Another time came Sunday at church.  I had been talking to a woman and telling her that I was trying to figure out to do for Christmas since I am not going home.  Without skipping a beat she told me that I could stay with her, her daughter and son-in-law and that on Christmas we would go over to the pastors’ houses and have a big celebration there.  I just felt loved that someone I had met just a few weeks before was so willing to let me stay at their home so I wouldn’t be alone for the holiday season.  Still another time was my Birthday.  It was just simple little things all day that just made me feel loved.  Things like being stopped in the hallway at school to be told Happy Birthday or coming home to a cake full of candles for me to blow out or one of my roommates giving me a box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates (he doesn’t know that I don’t eat chocolate) or getting a call from a friend across the world.  All of these things were little events but they just made me feel so loved.  On the whole I just felt like God was saying “See, I see you, and I see what you need.  I provided all of these things for you not because you needed them but because I love you and want to show you how much I care about you.”  It was truly a wonderful feeling.

God didn’t just use little things to show me his love though.  He also used them to challenge me.  It started with a message at church.  The message was on becoming the person of your purpose and the message rocked my world.  Looking back on the prophecies from my baptism, I had been totally overwhelmed by them and had no clue how to become the person that I was told I would be.  But the message gave a starting ground for that changes by simply stating that we have to have a positive image of who we want to become and to positively see ourselves becoming that person.  Looking at myself, I realized that I had been looking at becoming the person of my purpose in a negative light.  I didn’t think that I would be actually able to become that person.  The message was a little thing but it definitely got wheels turning in my head.

There are more little things and I could probably go on and on about them, but I think you get the idea Mo Chara.  But I think it is absolutely wonderful how God chooses to act in our lives.  He acts in special, unique ways in each of our lives and it is simply amazing.  I look forward to hearing about the wonder little things God is doing in your life.

God Bless,

Bethany

Treading Water September 14, 2009

Mo Chara,

It is kind of odd, I feel like this experience is like learning to swim.  When I wrote you a little over a week ago I felt like I was sitting at the edge of the pool with my feet in the water.  You are technically in the pool, but you are really getting an idea for your surroundings and are easing into the situation.  This week I feel like I am actually in the pool and learning to swim.  But I am definitely not in the kiddy pool.  It really feels as if I was thrown into the deep end and was told to swim and I am doing everything I can to keep my head above the water and to not freak out.  But at the same time I am glad I am in the pool.  But I should back up so you have a better idea of what I am meaning.

Last Sunday, I felt that I was still sitting on the edge of the pool, it was simply a good day.  I found this great church here that I am looking forward to getting connected in.  The people were so friendly and open and really welcomed me into their “family.”  The only thing that was a bit odd was that everyone that is around my age is married and most of them have children.  But on the flip side, I have no excuse but to focus on God at church since I do not have any guys to distract me!

Monday was when I got into the pool.  It was also the “first” day of class.   I say first lightly.  I technically had five classes.  The first class only lasted about 15 minutes.  Pretty much it lasted long enough to tell us what class we were in.  My second class didn’t meet since seminars apparently don’t start until the “second” week of class.  My third class was not in the room that I thought it was supposed to be in, and when I found the correct room, there was a sign on the door saying that class wasn’t starting until later in the week.  For the sake of my sanity, my fourth class was actually legitimate and we had an actually lecture.  My fifth class I went to and found out that it wasn’t starting until the “freshers” got here.  (Oh did I mention that the first years start the week after everyone else)  Anyways it turned out to be a rather frustrating day.

Tuesday was when homesickness set in.  It was a wet, rainy, and gray day.  I was so frustrated in trying to figure out how the irish school system works, my pants were soaked through from the rain, the purse that I had really wanted to buy was no longer was gone, and to top it off I couldn’t even call my mom to talk things out since it was the middle of the night for her.  I just felt alone.  I felt like I knew no one.  It was pretty much just me and God, but God can’t physically hold you when you just want to cry, which was want I was wanting.  I finally called my program director who talked me though my the emotions that I was feeling.

I was feeling better about life by mid-afternoon and ended up going out to a pub with Sarah (who is my roommate, sorry I did not make that clear last time).  That proved to be very humorous since we got hit on by a 60-year-old man as we walked through the door.  But we enjoyed ourselves and watched the football match which Ireland won!

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday where on the whole uneventful.  At times they were a little frustrating since I still do not have a grasp on the Irish school system, but I was able to make it to most of my classes which was quite exciting!  (I know it doesn’t seem that difficult to go to class, but it was much for of a challenge than it sounds.  First off the classes do not meet at set times during the week.  One day I can have class at 10, the next day the same class it at 2 and the next it is at 12.  To top that off the classes are not located in the same room each day either!)  There were a few highlights though.  The first was Thursday night, we went to this show called “Trad’ on the Prom’” which consisted of traditional Irish music and dance.  Most of the people who preformed either used to be apart of River dance or Lord of the Dance or where world champion dancers.  It was amazing to say in the least.  The second was the spotting of an extremely attractive guy who happens to be in several of my classes!  I know, it is such a silly girl thing to say, but it sure makes me excited to go to class if I get to look upon his beauty in the process!

Saturday was a long day, but it was absolutely magical!  I went on a bus tour of the Cliffs of Moher and the Burren.  On the way to the cliffs we explored the Burren, which means the rocky place in Irish.  Along our travels we came upon old castles, famine walls, a matchmaker festival and a fairy fort!  I was clearly most excited about the fairy fort, it was absolutely magical and I wish we could have stayed there longer than 10 minutes.  But we also got to go see a tomb that was 5600 years old, making it older than the pyramids.  It was incredible to try and figure out how these people constructed this tomb without all of the modern convinces we have today and how it was still standing today.  We finally ended up at the cliffs which were a sight to be seen.  These cliffs tower over 700 feet above the ocean below and are made out of limestone.  It was absolutely breath taking to be standing seemingly on the edge of the world.  Though I do have to say that Sarah and I were greatly amused by the signs placed around the sight to keep people safe from falling off the cliffs.   On the whole the tour was amazing and we were glad that we had spent the money to go on it.

I know as classes get finalized and I actually make friends that things will come together and I won’t feel as if I am treading water, but until that happens I will keep on trying to swim.  I think that I have almost mastered the doggy paddle but that is questionable.  Right now I am looking forward to making new friends (which requires that I move outside of my comfort zone!) and getting connected into this community, you can be praying that happens sooner rather than later.

Well Mo Chara, I am off to bed.  It is going on 11 here and I have class in the morning.  I hope you are doing well and all if fine with you.  Until next time.

Bethany