Ireland - days 1 and 2
Starting on June 29. Left the house between 6 and 6:30 to drive to the Toronto Pearson airport. There I chicked in my luggage with a girl in the same class as me and then proceded to simply hang around with the mother and sister, outside the little Celtic Learning booth, but not actually merging with anyone else. I was not really even nervous at this point, just kind of "meh, I'm going to Ireland. wOOt."
Then I went through security, leaving the (hah!) securtiy of my family to joing the group of students waiting to board. That's when I started freaking out. The few people who came without knowing anyone seemed to immediately be assimilated into at least one group, whereas I stayed witting on a chair all on my own. A couple people talked to me, but mainly just to ask my name and that was it. A little while went by and I decided to read, since it was something to do other than stare forelornly at the floor. A group of people started playing cards pretty much right under me, and I think they were talking about me/vaguely making fun of me at some point to. Yah thank, I am right next to you, you know. >_<
Anyway, I was trying to remember why had chosen to do this, and wondering why nobody had told me that this was, in fact, a bad idea when I felt a poke on my shoulder. I turned to look and who should it be but....LIZZ!!! So I talked to her for a bit about how freaked out I was to be spending a month with these people and she told me not to worry, travelling people can be fun too. And if I really needed to, I could jump in the water and swim over to Scottland/England and she'd save me. Then she had to board, so I was back to reading my book in the midst of a bunch of SAC-type people who wanted to go drinking.
I ended up not being able to concentrate on my book too much, so I stopped reading and just sat there until we finally boarded at 11:30, to take off at around 12/12:30 am. They played two movies on the flight, but I wasn't interested in the first, and even though I had wanted to see the second one (Music and Lyrics) I was kind of tired, and my headphones are weird, so to be able to hear the people talking, the bass was really loud and was giving me a headache, so I gave up.
The girl I was sitting next to was nice, and was joking that we were going to read magazines and be best friends. At some point though, the plane did something weird and I was in a near black-out state for about 15-20 minutes in which I threw up(into a bag, which I then threw out). Other than that, the flight was ok. But I heard her complaining later about the flight and the fact that the girl next to her had thrown up, so I'm not really sure how much she likes me anymore. If she ever really did. Whatever.
We landed in Dublin at about 11:10 am, local time. We went through the airport, which a lot smaller and less..."woooooo - big and open" than the Toronto one. We got our baggage and loaded it into a bus that would take us across the country to Galway. I half slept most of the way, looking at the countryside. Lots of cows and sheep. One thing that's interesting is that all the houses have their front yards not fenced off as you occasionally see at home, but walled off with gates. I mean, they're low walls, but they're still stone or concrete walls.
Got into Galway, Corrib Village at around 4-4:30 I believe. It was raining, so all of our luggage got wet. We're living in apartment-style buildings. I'm in apartment 51, room 1.
At 5:30 we had dinner at the Corrib Cafe. Sandwhiches. yay. Anyway, when we were done eating, we were to sign in if we were planning on staying in for the whole night, or sign out if we were going downtown. I stayed in. Everone else save...maybe three I think, when pubbing downtown. Yep, I stayed in and felt lonely. And wanted to go home. And wished I hadn't come. It's weird, because even though I know I'm in Ireland, it still just feels like...the States or something.
This morning I woke up and felt really...isolated. Our itenerary sheet says wake-up: 7:30, breakfast: 8:00 and then it says "Orientation, welcome to Ireland, Galway tour and Claddagh". I really had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I had no friends I had hung out with or could ask, so I got up at 7:20, got dressed and saw absolutely no one. Not anyone in my apartment, not anyone outside except actual university students. It felt really weird, and I was really worried that everyone else knew what was going on, had left, and I was missing something important. I ended up hanging around in my room until I heard movement next door and at 8:20ish, the girl in my apartment in the room next to me came out. We both didn't really know what was going on because the itenerary didn't really seem to be happening. So we went down to the cafe and two of our teachers were there. I guess we stood in the doorway looking really lost, 'cause one of them came over. "We don't really know what we're supposed to be doing" I said. His response was, "Well, you're suposed to be eating. So you take a bowl of cereal, and a spoon, and...*mimes eating cereal*". Anyway, we got ourselves some food and asked what was going on and were told that basically we had the day free to do whatever, but be back for dinner and we'd go from there.
So we tried to get downtown, but since neither of us had gone out last night, we didn't know where we were going and thought we had gone too far, so we turned around and came back. We asked the reception information person how to get there, and it turns out we hadn't quite gone far enough. So we went back out and got downtown. It kind of reminded me a bit of Dawson City, only a lot more populated. The buildings are mostly smooth, but there's some stone one, and there are a lot of pink/blue/yellow buildings and the like. We ate in Elle's Diner? Something like that anyway. I had a smoothie that was pretty good. It had banana in it, which normally I don't like, but it was fresh banana. Like, the girl grabbed a banana from a bunch, peeled it and stuck it in the blended. wOOt.
We wandered around for a while. Things were only just starting to open as it was 10:45, and some things were closed all day (Sunday). There were a couple groups of buskers, which is always fun. The main downtown road was cobblestoney and there were a fair few people walking around with hiking backpacks on.
There's also one side street that's just little stand/quiosk things, which was kind of cool. After a while we decided that we'd probably gone through the whole place and we'd have the next week and a half to come back, so we sat on a bench near a park for a while, and then made our way back to the residence. We got lost on the university campus though, so we had to leave and go back via the main street. As we were walking back it started to rain. We were running down the hill into the Village when an empty shuttle bus came by and gave us a ride to the Village centre. We went into the reception building where I paid for internet service, then we waited for the rain to slow down a bit before dashing back to our building. And here I am. I'm pretty sure now I have nothing to do until 6 when I go to eat supper. Bah. I could do homework, but I don't have books. Which is another thing I'm worried about. I deffinately heard people asking how far people were in certain books, but maybe they're in a different class, one where the books are actually available. Because I don't have hardly any of the course materials, partly because my parents were pretty sure they were being provided for us, but also because you can't buy them at Chapters. My mum tried. Apparently they looked at her weirdly, like "why would you want to buy those?". Well, anyway.
That's it for me. 24 days 'til I come home.
Then I went through security, leaving the (hah!) securtiy of my family to joing the group of students waiting to board. That's when I started freaking out. The few people who came without knowing anyone seemed to immediately be assimilated into at least one group, whereas I stayed witting on a chair all on my own. A couple people talked to me, but mainly just to ask my name and that was it. A little while went by and I decided to read, since it was something to do other than stare forelornly at the floor. A group of people started playing cards pretty much right under me, and I think they were talking about me/vaguely making fun of me at some point to. Yah thank, I am right next to you, you know. >_<
Anyway, I was trying to remember why had chosen to do this, and wondering why nobody had told me that this was, in fact, a bad idea when I felt a poke on my shoulder. I turned to look and who should it be but....LIZZ!!! So I talked to her for a bit about how freaked out I was to be spending a month with these people and she told me not to worry, travelling people can be fun too. And if I really needed to, I could jump in the water and swim over to Scottland/England and she'd save me. Then she had to board, so I was back to reading my book in the midst of a bunch of SAC-type people who wanted to go drinking.
I ended up not being able to concentrate on my book too much, so I stopped reading and just sat there until we finally boarded at 11:30, to take off at around 12/12:30 am. They played two movies on the flight, but I wasn't interested in the first, and even though I had wanted to see the second one (Music and Lyrics) I was kind of tired, and my headphones are weird, so to be able to hear the people talking, the bass was really loud and was giving me a headache, so I gave up.
The girl I was sitting next to was nice, and was joking that we were going to read magazines and be best friends. At some point though, the plane did something weird and I was in a near black-out state for about 15-20 minutes in which I threw up(into a bag, which I then threw out). Other than that, the flight was ok. But I heard her complaining later about the flight and the fact that the girl next to her had thrown up, so I'm not really sure how much she likes me anymore. If she ever really did. Whatever.
We landed in Dublin at about 11:10 am, local time. We went through the airport, which a lot smaller and less..."woooooo - big and open" than the Toronto one. We got our baggage and loaded it into a bus that would take us across the country to Galway. I half slept most of the way, looking at the countryside. Lots of cows and sheep. One thing that's interesting is that all the houses have their front yards not fenced off as you occasionally see at home, but walled off with gates. I mean, they're low walls, but they're still stone or concrete walls.
Got into Galway, Corrib Village at around 4-4:30 I believe. It was raining, so all of our luggage got wet. We're living in apartment-style buildings. I'm in apartment 51, room 1.
At 5:30 we had dinner at the Corrib Cafe. Sandwhiches. yay. Anyway, when we were done eating, we were to sign in if we were planning on staying in for the whole night, or sign out if we were going downtown. I stayed in. Everone else save...maybe three I think, when pubbing downtown. Yep, I stayed in and felt lonely. And wanted to go home. And wished I hadn't come. It's weird, because even though I know I'm in Ireland, it still just feels like...the States or something.
This morning I woke up and felt really...isolated. Our itenerary sheet says wake-up: 7:30, breakfast: 8:00 and then it says "Orientation, welcome to Ireland, Galway tour and Claddagh". I really had no idea what I was supposed to be doing, and I had no friends I had hung out with or could ask, so I got up at 7:20, got dressed and saw absolutely no one. Not anyone in my apartment, not anyone outside except actual university students. It felt really weird, and I was really worried that everyone else knew what was going on, had left, and I was missing something important. I ended up hanging around in my room until I heard movement next door and at 8:20ish, the girl in my apartment in the room next to me came out. We both didn't really know what was going on because the itenerary didn't really seem to be happening. So we went down to the cafe and two of our teachers were there. I guess we stood in the doorway looking really lost, 'cause one of them came over. "We don't really know what we're supposed to be doing" I said. His response was, "Well, you're suposed to be eating. So you take a bowl of cereal, and a spoon, and...*mimes eating cereal*". Anyway, we got ourselves some food and asked what was going on and were told that basically we had the day free to do whatever, but be back for dinner and we'd go from there.
So we tried to get downtown, but since neither of us had gone out last night, we didn't know where we were going and thought we had gone too far, so we turned around and came back. We asked the reception information person how to get there, and it turns out we hadn't quite gone far enough. So we went back out and got downtown. It kind of reminded me a bit of Dawson City, only a lot more populated. The buildings are mostly smooth, but there's some stone one, and there are a lot of pink/blue/yellow buildings and the like. We ate in Elle's Diner? Something like that anyway. I had a smoothie that was pretty good. It had banana in it, which normally I don't like, but it was fresh banana. Like, the girl grabbed a banana from a bunch, peeled it and stuck it in the blended. wOOt.
We wandered around for a while. Things were only just starting to open as it was 10:45, and some things were closed all day (Sunday). There were a couple groups of buskers, which is always fun. The main downtown road was cobblestoney and there were a fair few people walking around with hiking backpacks on.
There's also one side street that's just little stand/quiosk things, which was kind of cool. After a while we decided that we'd probably gone through the whole place and we'd have the next week and a half to come back, so we sat on a bench near a park for a while, and then made our way back to the residence. We got lost on the university campus though, so we had to leave and go back via the main street. As we were walking back it started to rain. We were running down the hill into the Village when an empty shuttle bus came by and gave us a ride to the Village centre. We went into the reception building where I paid for internet service, then we waited for the rain to slow down a bit before dashing back to our building. And here I am. I'm pretty sure now I have nothing to do until 6 when I go to eat supper. Bah. I could do homework, but I don't have books. Which is another thing I'm worried about. I deffinately heard people asking how far people were in certain books, but maybe they're in a different class, one where the books are actually available. Because I don't have hardly any of the course materials, partly because my parents were pretty sure they were being provided for us, but also because you can't buy them at Chapters. My mum tried. Apparently they looked at her weirdly, like "why would you want to buy those?". Well, anyway.
That's it for me. 24 days 'til I come home.