Kilmurry village Apt 15, aka Alaska.

I will start this off by saying thank you to everyone that reads this (511 views-only 14 comments tho!), and for letting me know how much you enjoy it; I just hope I can meet the expectations you (or your co-workers...Aunt Mikey) have. I did not realize that when I do not blog how much it is missed. Dad even went as far as Facebook messaging me asking where the next entry was because he "lives for my blog" :] I really do appreciate it and the compliments. I just hope that now that I have addressed them, it does not stop you from sending them my way ;)

I think I left off telling you about my first day of class- which was Monday- Oops.

Tuesday was a prettyyy good day. I did my grocery shopping at the German grocery store called Lidl. It is pretty cheap, and since my last shopping adventure, I have learned to bring a euro coin (for the cart), not to exit through the entry, and to bring my bag for bagging my own groceries. I am like a local now :] I cleaned the kitchen, ran on the treadmill and did 40 minutes on the elliptical after our body pump class. Let me tell you, Body Pump is such a fun class. At first I was cracking up at how ridiculous I felt and how serious our instructor takes it, but once I got rid of my silly giggles, it was a really fun and challenging class. 

Then we went out to the club here called trinity rooms.

Oh my gosh. I will not go to an irish club again. Wow. The guys are totally uncalled for and too touchy-feely. There ended up being about 5 of us celebrating my friend Danielle's 22nd birthday, and I think we were the oldest ones in the club. It was such a totally different experience than what any of us expected. I do not see myself venturing back into a dance club here in the next semester. 

Pubs > Clubs.

Lets see, Wednesday was good. I had my second module of the week- Irish Folklore. I am hoping it is Irish fairytales, but do not worry, I will not be too disappointed if the class strays away from fairytale time during lecture. The class was pretty much all study abroad students and I know, or can recognize all the people in there. 

I did not get to take any fitness classes but yours truly got herself on that treadmill and ran at a prettyyy solid pace for 25 minutes, straight. Such a big accomplishment for me, I usually have to do increments of ten in the 5 speeds. But I was in the 6s for the entire length and the last five minutes I increased from 6.8 to 7.4. I felt pretty prouddd.  After that, I went back to my place, made some food and bundled up for a bit before I had to go into town.

I had to go to my Immigration appointment at the Garda (police office).

We had to take some pictures, post all our fingerprints and basically agree that we would not seek out employment or take federal funds while we are staying here. I also am required to leave by my birthday or I am in 'big trouble'. Oh, and I am not allowed to break the law either- kind of puts a damper on my whole reason for being here, but I can deal.
When I got my immigration card back I kind of laughed (along with everyone else who laughed when they saw their respective ID Cards). She said all you girls hate your pictures; and I said it's just funny, not bad nor good and she looked at me and said "well that's you." 

 --Now I am here to tell you, I do not know what I did to receive these rude comments, but I hope they are just that Irish humor I have yet to understand...first the passport woman at the airport now this...geesh...We all kind of laughed it off though because she had a comment for each of us.

Wednesday night is Karaoke night at Stables (pub on campus). It was hilarious! We all had such a great time...let me just say, I underestimated these Irish boys. I took them for drunks that cant sing a tune, orrr sweet since they are all so vulgar and forward, but danggg, they CAN sing and they choose the cutest songs too. One guy dedicated his version of Jason Mraz's I'm Yours to a girl of his liking, other boys sang Oasis: Champagne Supernova, and there were other cute boys singing cute songs, it was enjoyable for us. 

Karaoke is different here too (who woulda thought thattt...) Everyone -okay mostly everyone- that gets up on stage can actually sing. You can tell which ones were Americans by the show they put on for the pub. It was amusing to see the brave American souls that hopped upthere to embarrass themselves against the Irish.

Thursday I had two classes. It was really colddd and of course, my classes were on the opposite side of the campus! Yeee!  I have noticed that when anyone in Ireland tells you one thing, they mean the total opposite. I asked about 4 people where the Schumann building was. I had an array of answers and once I finally found it I realized they were all wrong. I really don't think it was intentional though because they took the time to draw me maps in the air and stop their friends to ask...maybe I am naive, either way, I ended up finding it. Once I got in the Marketing, networks and relationships class I took a seat got my little notebook out and was ready. People started filing in around me. Once the class started I took a look around the room and out of 10 rows of chairs, 9 were full- like every seat was filled, besides my row. I was that girl yesterday. Sitting all by my lonesome. At least I was not in the front row so everyone saw that I was alone. 

Of courseeee the teacher made us choose groups of 4 to work in yesterday for the rest of the year. I will email her and say throw me in whichever group has 3. I am excited to say that this class only has 3 tutorial classes I have to attend instead of one each week. I think this class will be fun, the lecturer is bubbly and kind of makes it enjoyable and easy to sit through for 2 hours.

 Then I had a 2 hour break- not long enough  (by long enough I mean not worth it because it was so cold) to go back to the room- so I went to the library to figure out my email address and other school related things. Then back to the Kemmy School of Business building for my innovation and entrepreneurship class. I immediately saw a familiar face. Yes!

I am very excited for this class. The lecturer is awesome, she let us out pretty early, made the time fly, and it is a fun topic, so I am pretty happy to be in that module.

 I signed up for the International sports group, other wise known as Gaelic football [not gay football, mom and scott], because I do not think they do any other sport, but it should be fun http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEAbWrdB9XU (I am trying to talk them into letting us play to the background music at all times)

I also bought my ticket to Dublin for St. Paddy's day to tour the Guinness Factory (they will be having green beer) and the parade. That should be fun!

Irish music and dance is a class I attempted attending today, but I do not see myself continuing with it this semester. I learned right quick last year that dancing is not for me, and I am on the fence with learning to play the penny whistle or guitar, but the penny whistle sounds so lame, its like almost as cool as a recorder (which I played in 4th grade)..and remember i said 'almost as cool'. The guitar would be awesome since it is on my to do list (which can be found in my about me on facebook) But someone already snagged their loaner Guitar, so I would have to purchase my own....debating :] (not totally ruled out) Open for opinions...