I finally made it...

As of right now, 7.30pm, Ireland time, I have been awake for almost 30 hours straight. No sleep, and a TON of walking.

The plane ride wasn't too bad...it went by a lot faster than I expected it to, and I got to watch Penelope which was a movie I have been wanting to see for a long time. So that was the 10 hour flight from LAX to Dublin...then comes the fun part.

About to land in Dublin.

Our plane from LAX was late arriving in dublin so that made us equally as late for our connecting flight to Shannon. We got in at about 11am, and our plane was due to take off at 1130am. We had to walk down this hall that never seemed to end to go through customs, then walk back down an even LONGER hallway to where our departure gate was. Thankfully the plane had yet to take off, and we sat on the ground for another 45 minutes or so. The flight from Dublin to Shannon was the shortest flight I have ever been on. I kid you not when I say that we took off, then we started making our descent.

After we got off the plane Alix (another girl in my program who was on the same flight as I was) and I got our luggage and went out to meet the guy who was to direct us to the bus up from Shannon to Galway....he was NOT what I expected. He had long hair, red patent leather shoes, an indiana jones hat, and he was just one of strangest people I have ever met. He was talking to us on the way up to Galway about all this random stuff, and half the time I had no idea what he was saying because he spoke so softly I could barely hear him. However, we FINALLY got to Galway and we were met by Monica, the director out here, and she was really nice.

The place we are staying looks nice on the outside, however, its not really that nice on the inside. Some things don't work, the shower is TINY! And thank god I had previous experience with the box shower else I would have never figured out how to get the thing on. As you can see below there is a box in the shower, but to get the water to come out you have to pull on a cord that is next to the right side wall, like you would to turn on a light. It really is the strangest thing. My room is tiny, but I'm not complaining because I don't have to share. It's just interesting to see what is different in the things that are standard in the United States.

My bedroom

The Shower Box

After I took a shower and unpacked I headed to the local Dunnes Store to get some food for the next couple days...let me tell you, this, by far, was the weirdest experience I have had in a grocery store. I felt like a moron standing there looking at pasta sauce trying to decide which one I might like best...they all have different names, and there is NOTHING here that even closely resembles what we have in the States. I couldn't find a cereal aisle, there was, however, an aisle completely devoted to YOGURT. The cookies and sweet stuff was mixed in with beauty products, and they had a really limited selection of fruit, all of which was really expensive. They have a much smaller selection of stuff that we do in the states. I also noticed that a small bag of doritos cost 3 euro...which is about 5.50 USD, and it wasn't even the big bag!

So after my jaunt to the store I decided I would go and walk around, and try and find the city centre...well I didn't find it, and decided I was much too tired to be walking around aimlessly, and in what seemed a not so great area. So I went home and flipped around the telly, and here I am now.