This is a Journey, not at Destination

So St. Patrick's Day. Where to start. Technically it started at 9:30 am. My roommates and I joined some friends from our hall, and ended up starting at a friend's who lives about a 40 minute walk away. We took a taxi since we didn't want to carry everything for the walk. After hanging out there for a while, we walked into town for the parade. The parade wasn't exactly what I was expecting, but was cool to see none the less. People on stilts, dancers, bagpipes, the whole package :) After the parade was over, we retired back to our friends house for a few hours before heading into town for the night. Let me just say right now, downtown was crazy. I'm not sure I've ever seen that many people in one place in my entire life. I'd say 80% of Galway was somewhere in town. It was awesome! It was a day that I'll never forget, that's for sure :)

Group picture from St. Patrick's Day :)

Galway Girls!

Now that St. Paddy's Day is over and done with, it's finally starting to hit that I only have so much time left here. It's making me sad that I'm actually going to have to leave here! This is one of my last weekends here in Galway before the serious traveling starts. The weekend after this I'm in London, next weekend is hopefully Austria, then Germany, then Scotland, then exams start. It's going to be a crazy couple of weeks, that's for sure. I'm just praying that everything works out the way I want it too!

The past few days have been the first in the 2 1/2 months that I've honestly been homesick. Almost to the point that I thought "I want to go home". The only thing I've wanted was to cuddle up with my dog and my cats, which sounds pathetic, I know. I called my friends Tyler and Erika and my roommate from home Courtney, and thankfully they were able to snap me out of it. What would I ever do without them? I seriously am missing them like crazy. After talking to them, I realized that I'm so lucky to be here and that it's shouldn't be all about what's happening tomorrow, but about what you can do today. This whole time here is a journey that I'm supposed to grow and learn from. Don't worry about what you can't change and learn to let things go. If you never let go of the bad things, you'll never be able to truly experience the wonderful things that are going on around you.

Erin Go Bragh

Connemara, RAG Week, Papers, and Planning

Ok. Sooo there's a lot to cover so I'm gonna try and summarize everything without going on and on about it all! haha

First- RAG Week. Rag stands for Raise And Give, which is a week-long fundraiser for local charities around Galway. While it does raise a lot of money, it's kind of become a "spring break" for students. Most of the Irish students skip classes all week, drink all day (and night if they're still walking), and some dress up in crazy clothes and costumes. On Monday, the first day of RAG week, there was a MASSIVE mob outside our building. And when I say massive, I mean upwards of 300 to 400 people. It was like there was a rugby game going on outside our building with how loud it was! Bottles were being thrown, people were climbing on everything, some fights broke out, and someone managed to light a tree branch on fire! It was crazy! That is till the fire department and the Guarda (police) showed up and started arresting people. I was told that our "celebration" even made the Irish news!

Notice the smoke?

Next up is my trip to Connemara. My friend Matt, roommmate Kelly, and I took a tour of Connemara, Cong, and Kylemore Abbey. So far this may have been my favorite thing I've seen. The tour was more for the scenery than for things to do. The Abbey was built by a man for his wife after they both fell in love with Ireland. Their story is actually quite tragic considering their child got sick, so they moved to Egypt, where the mother got sick caught some Egyptian sickness and died. After they left, Nuns converted it into a school for girls who wanted to become nuns. It's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. The building itself is so grandiose and beautiful nestled into the mountains and woods. It was epic. The Abbey also has a beautiful garden. Though since we went while it was still too cold for flowers, it didn't look at all like the google pictures. But with some imagination, you can imagine how pretty it would have been.



Kylemore Abbey



The Abbey's Gardens sans flowers :(

















Now onto the papers and planning section of this rant. My roommate Paige jokes that every other conversation we have is about homework, which is kinda sad, but true. I have more papers to write all at once than I would at home. It's kind of awful. 8 papers (2 of which are done and turned in at this point) plus a multiple choice final, and 2 in class essay finals. This should be interesting. Even though the papers are a big pain, I have to say I am enjoying most of my classes. 2 of them are  "kill me now" classes, but other than those I actually like my classes' topics haha.

As for what I'm planning, there's actually a lot. I'm going to London March 26-28th with some friends. Then possibly out to Austria to visit my friend Kat for a few days, then onto Germany to visit Bernadette, a native German friend who lived in my hall last year :) Scotland and the Ring of Kerry are also on the planning list and are happening sometime in April, which I'm super excited about as well. I'm also trying to plan the EPIC trip my sister and I are going to be taking at the end of April when she comes to visit. And by epic I mean we're going to a ton of places in like 16 days. Paris, Amsterdam, Munich, Berlin, Venice, Rome, Switzerland, Austria, and of course Ireland are all on our "to do" list. Now if only Holly would get back to me on what she wants to see....hahahaha. :)

I would also like to add in that my parents are awesome. They've sent me packages with Mac and Cheese (which I think I've already explained doesn't exist here), breathe right strips (since my nose has been ridiculously stuffy), and thin mints!!! Which I was SUPER excited to see. They're totally my favorite Girl Scout cookie :). AND in the card that came witht the package I got yesterday, I was informed that I'm finally getting my own car, aka my Mom's old one, which is totally ok with me. I love that car! Can I just take a moment and say I'm excited?!?!

Now seeing that next week is St. Patrick's week (yes, its St. Paddy's WEEK here), I'd like to finish as much homework as possible so I can enjoy myself! I'll leave you with a pretty picture :)

Slán go foill