6 Days of Sun...It's a Miracle.

Well, a LOT has happened over the last few weeks. I've met so many cool people, love most of my classes, experienced REAL Ireland, SO MUCH! I am currently in my room, eating a sandwhich and some pringles. I had one class this morning and one more at 6:00. The I'm finished for the day! The last couple of days have been the same, classes, then going to Hanna's house for dinner with some friends. We've been swaping music, watching movies, making fun of eachother, just haveing a good time (sometimes with some drinks, I won't lie to you). It's amazing how comfortable I feel here. I was so nervous before arriving, and especially in that first week here, but I love it. I don't exactly feel homesick persay, I have skype which helps a TON, and it makes it seem like I'm not that far away. The only time I REALLY feel homesick is when I'm deciding what to eat and I know that whatever I make won't come out as good as what Mom or Dad makes. But I'm getting there!

Last weekend a few of us went on this bus tour to the Cliffs of Moher. SOOOOOO COOL. It was a BEAUTIFUL sunny day, just excellent. We stopped at this place called Caherconnell Stone Fort first which was pretty cool, we just walked around this old stone fort and stuff. Then we went to this castle...I can't remember what it was called. We couldn't go inside but I took pictures. THEN we stopped at this ocean cliff place which was really cool. We ate lunch in this little town and I bought some gloves with sheep on them :-) THEN we FINALLY made it to the Cliffs and they were spectacular. It was very cool. I'll try and upload some pics on here.

The Castle Caherconnell Stone Fort A Dolman The Cliffs of Moher

More Cliffs (How beautiful is that!?)

So that's pretty much it, I went shopping and to the Hunt Musuem the other day and we sunbathed (in Ireland how weird is that!?) in front of King John's Castle. We've really been lucky with the weather. I joined sailing club which will be interesting, but fun.

If anyone's reading this and wants to send anything in the mail, please do! My address is

Jessica Harriman

House # 41

Kilmurry Village

Castletroy

Limerick

Ireland

Pictures are very much appreciated, and I'm doing this thing to decorate my room: Take a blank piece of printer paper and draw, write, do whatever you want on it! Movie quotes, lyrics, pictures, anything! I'm covering my wall with them and I've already got a nice little collage going on.

Love you and miss you. Peace out River Trout.

And So I Arrived...

Haha, so this is my first blog, even though I've been here for 3 days now. I guess I'll give a brief update on what's been happening. I left Logan Airport at around 7ish, I'm not exactly sure. So we took off, I sat in the middle of the middle of the plane (There were two seats, four seats, two seats). Let's see, the plane ride wasn't bad. A bit of turbulence here and there, but nothing bad. I watched I Love You Man and a bit of Wall-E, played battleship and skimmed through their entire music section. They served us dinner, I had chicken, vegetables and rice, with a small salad, roll and cheesecake. It was so cool because the butter was Irish butter and we all freaked out when we saw it. I slept for about an hour and then we landed.

When we arrived at customs, there were a BUNCH of students waiting in one line. So we got in line and then moved to another line, about 4 of us got through and while I was getting my passport stamped they moved our group to the back of the huge line of students. So I got my luggage and went outside to wait with the other kids from my group. It was about 50 degrees outside, but it was nice to get fresh air after a 6 hour plane ride. Eventually we all got into a bus and drove (on the other side of the road ;-) ) to the school where we checked in and got our house and room keys. We live in an on-campus village called Kilmurry Village. It's really quite nice. My house is a bit away from the other PSU students but that's okay. For a while I didn't have any housemates, then Shane came. As of now it's only the two of us, but that will change this weekend when the other 4 move in.

After I got to my house, I unpacked, slept for about an hour (It was like 8 or 9:00 when we checked in), explored the village a bit and just hung out. I felt really lonely then because I didn't have anything to really distract me. But it was new and exciting anyways. At 3:00, all of the PSU students met up to take a bus to Limerck City where our PSU leaders bough us lunch at Dolman's Pub I think it was called. It was pretty awesome. I had seafood and bruschetta with another girl. Lisa and Patrick, Professor Spencer and his wife just showed us around, where to buy certain things and such. Then we went back and I skyped my parents and then went to sleep.

The next day POURED! It was so rainy I was soaking pretty much all day. Our group walked into town a ways and got lunch and groceries and cell-phone stuff. It was so much fun getting groceries, but I had to actually think about things like "If I buy crunchy peanut butter, then I'm going to need bread" I couldn't rely on anything at home like I'm used to. A few friends came over for lunch and we watched Flight Of The Chonchords! So awesome. That night I went to the campus bars and had my first beer! Well, I half of one and some sips of others. The Bulmer Cider was pretty good as was corona with lemon. Heinekein was gross. Haha. There was this live guitarist who was awesome. It was really cool.

It's really hard to get to sleep because of the excitement and all that, but also because kids are partying a lot and they sing really loudly and our walls are pretty thin. It's fine though. I do get to sleep and then I'm out like a light. I don't have an alarm clock though, or rather, I didn't have one (I bought one today) so Hanna had to make sure that I was awake to go to orientation and stuff. We had a pre-orientation on Wed. and today we started our two day "real" orientation. We got some free stuff, always good, and a free meal. Acouple of my friends and I went to Super Quinn, a grocery store and I bought my alarm clock. On the way there we talked with some Irish boys, they were 11 and hilarious! They kept making fun of us, but all in good taste...maybe...:-) So that pretty much leads me here, we watched House today and then it went to commercials and I got so confused because I was expecting U.S. commercials.

It's pretty amazing here. The culture difference and all that, it's what I've always dreamed of doing. I can't WAIT until I get to go to the countryside and to other countries. We've already talked about going to Germany, Paris, Spain, Italy. SAVE SAVE SAVE. That's my motto now ;-) It's almost 12 here, so I should be getting to bed. But I'm not really that tired. Oh well. Hope that was...interesting? Entertaining? Something? :-) Catch ya lataaaa. Peace.