Everything Else
Trip Start
Aug 23, 2010
1
3
Trip End
Jun 30, 2011
Galway, Western Ireland, Ireland
Thursday, September 9, 2010
written anything so there is a lot to tell. From the last entry it
sounded a bit down but now everything has turned around. No more
awkward moments unless beer is involved. I have moved out of the
hostel ages ago and am comfortably moved into my new house. It's at
the end of a quiet street about ten to fifteen minuets from school
and about twenty minuets from town. The area is called Newcastle,
it's like a suburb that is outside of town. There are a bunch of them
all around and that was the hard part of finding my own house,
because I didn't know how far anything was from everything else but I
do know and its not to bad of a walk anywhere. There is this one part
called Salt hill which is awesome. It's like a Capitolaesque beach
community. Speaking of beaches Ireland has some with sand! And the
water isn't to bad either its about 60 in the water which is fine to
swim around. There is a spot in Salthill called Blackrock which is
kind of a jetty with a diving platform on it. There are two diving
boards and two platforms one 5 meters there other is I think 7 and
when the tide is in everybody is jumping off. The water is really
clear and the shoreline is more like the east coast than the west.
Meaning you can walk out about 20- 50 yards and only be about up to
your chest in water. But this is in Galway Bay so I bet its a bit
different other places. Speaking of other places, two of my room
mates are cousins from Donegal and one is a surfer. He has some spare
boards and suits so next time they go home he is going to bring me
along and take me surfing. I've seen some pics of his local breaks
and it looks so awesome plus the lack of local surfers means almost
empty line-ups. There's a surfing club as well which I will be
joining to go on trips around Ireland and stuff so more about that
later. So more about the house, its pretty cool all the roomiest are
cool right now its just myself and the two lads from donegal and
another guy from Mayo. There's a girl who lives here but I haven't
seen her yet and she has been living here for like a week plus. It's
kinda weird we call her the ghost cause you only hear her and don't
see her. Two more people are moving in next week two first years a
guy and a girl. Fresh meat! So total there will be like eight people
living here. The weather has gotten a little bit worse but not much.
Its gone from always sunny to partly cloudy and raining for 5 minuets
every once in a while. But right now it's nice.
School is awesome as well it's not as
big as UCSC but I like it small you see people you know everywhere.
All of my classes are in the same building which is handy. I'm taking
some cool classes but I just came back from a Medieval Lit class that
was the most boring thing ever! So scratch that one. But I am taking
an Irish Language class so ill be able to speak some Irish when I
come home. Mostly im taking like history and English classes but the
way it works over here is way more relaxed then at home. Especially
the amount of work that students do. Here most of the reading is up
to you and there isn't any homework. There is so many people from all
over the world here and it is so awesome. I'veeee meet frenchies
germans spaniards finnish and more. Trying to keep my distance from
the American hang out sessions of like 20 or more all going to pubs,
its crazy how many hang out together. I'veegot a fair share of Irish
homies so mi pretty set on that. Getting the whole Irish experience
pretty easily just meeting the right people. Speaking of meeting the
right people going out is so much fun here. There;s the pubs which
stay open till 11 and have the traditional bands and other
rock/anything bands then there is the clubs which are just straight
up dance clubs with all the young crew that stay open till 230. The
clubs don't even go off till 12 but when they do its amazing craic!
Last bit of interesting things I can think of is the sports taster I
did this week. For visiting students the put together a little kind a
of intro class to the Gaelic sports. Its refereed to as GA or GAA
which is the association of hurling and football. Football as in
Gaelic football. They also refer to soccer as soccer. But anyways
hurling is so much fun its the fastest field sport in the world and
awful skilled. Basically its played with sticks like a field hockey
stick but with a pancaked head that you use to hit a baseballish ball
called a slitter. So you run around hitting the ball into goals or
over uprights. Its like lacrosse hockey and baseball all in one. I
took to it pretty fast and I think im going to join the club and
play on the first year team but I haven't done it yet. Club day is
next week so I have some time but we'll see how it works out any ways
im signing off check out the pics and I will talk to you again soon!
