End of Week 1

Where I left off was getting on the plane to actually come to Ireland. i can probably skip the parts where I went through immigration, collected my bags, waited for my bus to campus, and then arrived at my village around 10:30 at night. It was a bit of a struggle actually finding my village (dorm), but everyone I asked was very friendly about it and pointed me in the appropriate direction. I found my house and briefly met some of my roommates before heading to bed (I was probably running on two hours of sleep by this point in time).

The next day I finally was rested enough to register who my roommates were, and to be able to navigate around the campus. I live with seven people (three girls and four guys) and they are from different areas around the world and around the United States of America. The girls are from Ohio, Texas, and the Netherlands. The guys are from Tennessee, Hungary, France, and China. The house itself is two stories with a bathroom on each floor and a kitchen/living room for all of us to share. My room is not too big, but big enough for one person to live in comfortably. I have a lot of drawers, a closet, a sink, a bed, and a very long desk to do work on.


The first three days on campus were orientation days, which meant a lot of information about the campus itself, a tour of the place, and my role as an international student there. my favorite part was a treasure hunt that they held in order to help us explore the campus on our own and get an idea of where everything was. We were split up into teams of ten or so, and had to follow instructions on where to go and answer some questions. The highlights of the hunt were trying to score a goal in hurling (an Irish sport that I would compare to hockey or lacrosse on grass), and learning and performing a dance taught by a Jamaican dance instructor at the University's       Dance Academy. My team, unfortunately, did     not win the grand prize, but we had a great time   (I even met another student from CMU!)


Saturday I headed into downtown Limerick for an event performed by the Royal De Lux, a group from France, called The Giant's Journey Limerick. My roommate Selke and I explored some of the shops and important historical sights such as Saint Mary's Cathedral and King John's Castle in Limerick. The thing that stuck out the most to me about the city was that on various buildings there were works of art on the walls. Some of it was surreal, while other works were modern. Once we had made our way to the correct place for the Giant's Journey, we were greeted by a huge puppet that was 7.5 meters tall. At first it was just sleeping, so we continued down the path that it would walk in order to find a place to watch. After a short amount of time, we could hear the Garda (police) sirens and loud music heading our direction. In the distance was the puppet WALKING. she was suspended by ropes, but the puppeteers had to jump from a platform in order to move her legs.

Sunday I went to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. It was absolutely breath-taking. The Burren can only really be described as slabs of rock and cracks in between different layers of rocks. As a fun fact for you, the next Star Wars movie is going to be filmed here (or at least some of it). After several stops along the Atlantic Ocean we made it to the Cliffs of Moher. I had gone on this trip with two of my roommates (Selke and Vince), and we spent the time we had there walking along the cliffs and enjoying the view. I think I can honestly say that I could never get tired of going to that place.

  As an additional "segment" I wanted to tell some fun facts that I have learned about Ireland this week.

#1. The word craic (crack) means fun. I have heard this word probably six times so far talking to different Irish people.

#2. There are six different Irish accents depending on where they live. The most distinct one that I have met so far are the people from Cork. They have a thick accent and talk a mile a minute.