Update

I've been home for basically a week, so I think it may be time to update this blog with my thoughts from the trip. I've had a whirlwind time of it since being back in NC, activities including work with my parents, meeting up with friends, graduation, and my coming home/grad party. Since this blog is mainly about Ireland, I'll try and stick with the related stuff.

I'm still readjusting to living in NC, and in the US. Just like I didn't imagine Ireland would be so different to live in, I didn't anticipate the amount of adjustment needed to reaclimate to living here. But it's been a challenge. Everything from food to driving to my wake-up and bed times are requiring extra attention. But I can say it is so good to be home.

When people have been inquiring "How was it?" and "Did you have fun?" the best answer I can come up with is that I really would have enjoyed visiting or vacationing in Ireland, but I did not like living there. Why? I couldn't tell ya. A bunch of things really, that conglomerated to spur my temporary misery. The weather, the attitudes, the education system.. all exhausting after a semester. "But we read your blog and looked at your pictures, and it seemed like you had so much fun!" they would say. Well, yes, I did have fun on those trips, but those traveling experiences were vacation for me. They became the norm only because my group of friends forced ourselves to take advantage of the area around us, and we didn't waste time sitting at home; if we were going to live in Ireland, we were going to live it up in Ireland.

Do I miss it? Sure, sometimes. I miss sitting at the dinner table with Ruben and talking about life and what surprised us about the Irish culture. I miss walking around City Center, or running in the countryside. I miss all of my friends there. I even miss going to the pubs (sometimes). But mostly, I take the experience for what it was- a good opportunity to see the world around me- and I leave it at that. It's good to be home, in the chaos of the holiday season, baking goodies and wrapping presents and taking advantage of cheap American gas prices and even cheaper greasy American food. It's so interesting that most people come home from study abroad experiences, and they always wish they could go back. Frankly I'm glad I didn't love it that much, because then it would be even more unbearable to stay in my parents' house until I could be hired on somewhere.

Speaking of jobs, I am still looking, still interviewing and whatnot, but nothing solid yet. I imagine I won't get into the knitty gritty of it until after Christmas. Who interviews over the holidays anyhow?

Because of my tight schedule, I wasn't able to unpack until yesterday. Crazy, right? Fortunately, I had done my laundry immediately after discovering that Ireland has a very distinct smell. It's not exactly a pleasant smell either. My mom smelled it on me immediately when I got off the plane, and I caught wind of it later in the car. Whew! Needless to say, even my clean clothes were tossed in the washer. When I told Elyse about it, she said she noticed the smell on her clothes when she flew back from Ireland a few weeks ago. Maybe it was the fumes from the heaters in my apartment? Who can know...

There's not much else to say about the great ol' Land of Eire. The Heritage department emailed me one of my class projects, and I have to get on it as soon as possible so I can send it back to be graded. Things are still so busy though, I hope I can find the time to get it all done! Though I will no longer be writing on this blog regularly, please stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for updates... I'm sure I'll come up with more to say.

Finally back!

I will type big entries later, but I wanted to let you all know that I made it home safely last night, after 19 exhausting hours of travel. Thank you for all the prayers!

I guess I'm physically ready to leave...

My first hint was that I just packed all of my stuff in a sickening hour and a half.

15 hours...

I'm on my 15-hour countdown until I catch my bus to Dublin, where I will then catch my flight back to the States. Don't worry, in the next few days I'm sure I'll be reflecting quite a bit, but not just yet...

Wow, yesterday was quite a day. Classes were supposed to be cancelled because of a church holiday, but I had to sit through 3 hours of archaeology presentations anyway. I guess it wasn't that bad. After, I had made plans to see Tiffany, my friend from back home who is living in Castlebar. Since I had some time, I walked to town for the last time instead of taking the bus. It was cold, but oh well. When I got into town, I walked to some of the places I'm going to miss the most- the Charlie Byrne's bookstore, the library, the Anmesty International coffee shop, up and down Shop Street, in and out of art galleries. I was really trying to make myself realize I would never be here again; to be honest, I don't think my brain "gets" it. Anyway, I met up with Tiffany and her friend Ruth, and we went to La Salsa for a goodbye burrito and some catching up. I haven't seen Tiffany in months, so it was good to just hang out. We decided to walk to Quay Street Restaurant, where Ruth works, so she could pick up her paycheck. The place wasn't actually opened, but of course they'd let her in. We hung out at the bar because her boss wasn't there yet, and while we were waiting, Ruth went behind the bar popped open a bottle of white wine. All of a sudden, it's ladies' night at Quay Street. Haha. Not really, but we had fun. They had to run a few errands, and then their ride offered to drop me off at Gleann Na Ri. It would have been wonderful EXCEPT her car broke down on the way. Now it's ironic, but last night it was just annoying. I hopped out of the car and walked the rest of the way home.

It's been planned for weeks that a bunch of us would go out last night because it was sort of like my "last night" in Galway. Sure, I'm here today, but tonight is dedicated to packing and getting my 2 am bus. When I got home, I had messages like crazy on my Skype, and Ruben told me a few people had stopped by looking for me. Oops. I ran around, telling everyone the plan, stopping occasionally to edit a paper or tell a story. We eventually did make it out last night. The plan was to go places we had never really been, so we started at Taaffe's for traditional music. There were ten or eleven of us, I guess, and we usurped a few tables to play cards on. After a few hilarious games of BS, we moved on to get crepes to eat on the way to Roisin Dubh. Roisin Dubh (pronounced "russian dub") is such an interesting place; I think the weirdest people in Galway go there. We stayed there until it closed, all the while people trailing off as they needed to go. Mike, Nick and I were the last three (apparently four people left while I was getting hit on by some 18-year-old), so I paid for a taxi back home.

I woke up this morning to the typical grey skies of Galway. I have class at 2. I need to print and turn in my papers to the Heritage office before or after that. Since I'll be stuck in my room and the airport for the next 24 hours, I'm sure I'll be posting again at some point.

Erasmus Party

If there's one thing I can say about international students, it's that we fall in love with each other real fast. I'm not exactly sure which student was responsible for organizing the affair, but last night all the Erasmus students gathered together for a goodbye party. At first, I wasn't really looking forward to it. I'm not sure why, maybe it was the location, maybe it was the fact that I'm not great friends with some of the international kids, maybe because I thought no one would show up. But I talked to about 20 people over the course of the day yesterday, and everyone said they were going, so I figured I would too. Attendance took a little while to pick up, but eventually, almost every foreign kid in Galway was there. Turns out that I am actually the first student PERIOD to be going home, so there was an unspoken "say goodbye to Katie" agenda. It was completely endearing. I know I've mentioned that I'll miss these people, but last night while I was watching everyone hugging and the girls crying and groups toasting to how we've changed each other's lives, I was struck with this sudden emotion of pre emptive nostalgia. Not only will I never be able to do this with these people ever again, but I'll never really be able to do it again at all. I'm leaving college, and for someone who loves being a student, this is really unsettling. But! I know that I'm moving on to "bigger and better things," haha, and I have to trust that with that will come people like these. Maybe I'll keep up with these people; there have already been talks about a reunion, and some of the Europeans are already planning trips over to see us, like Ruben and Stephan.

After the party last night, I walked home with Darin, my across-the-hall neighbor. We chatted for a while, and that chat ended up with us sitting on the floor in the hallway between our doors at 6 am, talking about memories and life and school and how he had changed this whole experience for me, and how we were going to miss each other. For as long as I live, I will never ever forget that conversation. Along with the foreigners planning trips, I've also made rough plans to go up to UW-Platteville and see all these guys again (if you remember, there are 8 Platteville men that I'm friends with). But who knows if they'll carry through. It's a possibility that we're just saying it to make each other feel better, when it's really like signing yearbooks "Keep in touch!" or saying "We should hang out sometime" to people you secretly know you'll never contact again. But the friends I've made here- Darin, Mike, all three Nicks, Carolin, Stephan, Stephanie, Ruben, Anso, Garrett, Derek, Charlie, James, Fabien, Trevor, Brett, Brandon... I've fallen in love with them, and for the girl who doesn't easily give her heart away to strangers, I don't know how I'll ever repay them for that gift.

Birthdays, birthdays everywhere!

I meant to mention yesterday that both birthday celebrations went well! We took Stephen to La Salsa and then to the Quay's. "We" included about 15 people, and "we" took up almost all the seating on the upstairs floor. The French girls made him a little cake, and we were gifted with cinnammon churros by the ladies working at the restaurant. After we had hung out long enough, to the Quay's we went for Steve's official birthday drink. Since everyone is absolutely swamped with work, no one stayed out too long. We all attempted to hang out in the birthday boy's apartment, but I had to get home to do some work.

Yesterday was Stephanie's birthday celebration. She actually won't turn 21 until Sunday, but she's flying back to Hamburg this weekend, so the party had to come early. Stephen and Stephan ended up having to work or something, so it was just Stephanie, Caro, and me who went to the aquarium in Salthill. It wasn't the best aquarium I've ever been to, but we had fun anyway. I love aquariums, and Stephanie is studying marine biology here at GMIT, so we all bugged out like little kids seeing fish for the first time. Hilariously, I ordered salmon and Caro ordered monktail at dinner later. Hahahaha. Speaking of, we had reservations at The Huntsman Inn, a swank little restaurant that Stephanie first tried when her mom was visiting last month. The guys joined us for a night of laughter, reminiscing, and great food. If you're interested in looking at pictures (not like I haven't posted enough recently), here's the Facebook link!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2070361&l=c0b29&id=44104357

Itinerary change

I will be back in NC this time next week! How cool is that?! Tonight I was sitting across the hall talking to my WI neighbors, and they just happened to check their flights back home, only to find out that one of their flights has disappeared and now they're having a bit of a mess figuring out how to get home. Listening to all of this, and remembering back to last weekend when we missed our flight to Germany, I decided to check my flight, too. I am so glad I did. I'm not sure if my flight was changed, or if I somehow initially misread my departure time, but I'm actually leaving Dublin at 8:55 am, not 11:55 am like I thought. Soooo, the original plan was to hop on the 6 am bus from Galway to Dublin airport and then catch my plane. NOW I have to get the 2:15 am bus, which puts me in Dublin three and a half hours early. Geez. That gives me plenty of leeway in case my bus is late or something goes wrong, but I am not looking forward to going that early. I could get a hostel on Tuesday night, but then I'd have to pay for that and a taxi to the airport, so I'm saving a bunch of money by leaving early on Wednesday morning. Anyway, not that big of a deal, I'm just glad I checked!