Living in Ireland

As I begin to really settle into life in Ireland I am beginning to realize that there are things I have grown accustomed to, things I love, and things I will never love about living here. Enjoy yet another post full of my lists!
Things I have grown accustomed to:
Bringing my own bags grocery shopping
Walking EVERYWHERE
Horrible public transportation
Rain
Great accents
Things I love:
Tea time!
Biscuts (closely related to tea time, they are hard, store bought cookies that are highly addictive)
My blue polka dot umbrella
Cozy pubs
Green hills with little white sheep
Lots of potatoes (it is completely acceptable to have two different potato dishes in one meal...my kind of country)
Things I will never love:
Wet jeans
Wet shoes
Wet socks

Happy Ramblings

Life is going well here in Ireland. Why? Because I am temporarily without school work, making new friends in the CU, and made funfetti cupcakes this afternoon. It is incredibly rainy though. The past two mornings I have been convinced of it being a nice day, which meant not bringing a coat when I left for class, only to be caught in a down pour on my way home. When it rains, it pours here. At least this week. When Caitlin visited all she could talk about was 1) How wet she was, 2) How wet Ireland was, 3) How tired of walking she was. Speaking of Caitlin...Colleen and I are leaving for Scotland on Friday!! I am so excited. Not only do I get to see my sister, but we decided to fly into Glasgow so I can meet up with some of my Scottish friends from this summer. Colleen and I are staying with my host family, and then meeting up with some friends for lunch. I can't wait!

Wicklow

Even though I'm a little late, I want to do a post on this weekend. I went on a retreat to Wicklow (near Dublin) with the Christian Union. It was wonderful! The retreat was for groups all over Ireland, so there were about 80 of us there, which meant I got to both meet new people and get closer to those in my CU. We stayed in a manor right outside a tiny town surrounded by "mountains" (or hills, for anyone outside Ireland) covered in red and orange trees. I think the highlight of the trip was being reminded of who Jesus is. To my non-Christian friends, this might sound a little weird and probably more than a little cheesy, but I fell in love with him a little more. There is something about looking past the habits that grow out of Christianity and right to Christ that is so refreshing. I was encouraged to look again at his life and who he really is. And you should too! Whether you are a Christian or not, I challenge you to look at one of the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) and read it with an open mind. I know I am going to!

Split

I'm split. On one hand, there's home. There's my wonderful family and home where I am surrounded by people who love me. Where the colors are changing and Thanksgiving is in the air. There is Cal Poly, with beautiful sunsets and Avila Valley Barn and Pismo beach. There's Stephanie and Laura, Erika and Sarah, Alex and Amy. There's Taco Bell and basset hounds and waxy Hershey's chocolate. And I miss it. But now I have another side pulling at me. Now there's Ireland. Here there are new friends with wonderful accents, new opportunities and new challenges. In Ireland fall is not only red and orange and brown, but it is set against a constant background of bright green. There are cozy pubs and soup and brown bread. There's shiny euro coins, never-ceasing tea, and lots of rain. No matter how much I love both, I can only be in one place at once. It's hard knowing that the more I invest in people here, the more I fall in love with this incredibly endearing country, the harder it is going to be leave. Despite this, I'm loving getting to know people better, and just praying that I can come back!

Caitlin's gone...

Which means even though my room is cleaner and my bed is now my own, I am pretty bummed. Luckily I get to see her next week as well, but what am I going to do after that???

Sister!

Caitlin's here! It has been great. I met her at the airport, so we had an hour long reunion on the way to Galway, which was perfect. A few highlights have been:
1. Her umbrella dying within 3 minutes of being opened. Picture a thrashing umbrella, wind and rain, and both of us doubled up laughing while people stare. Welcome to Ireland.
2. Mac and Cheese - yumm!
3. Ordering vanilla milkshakes from McDonalds.
4. Surviving the Cliffs of Moher (we survived, despite Caitlin's conviction that we wouldn't).
5. A leprachaun-like tour guide who specialized in inappropriate jokes...which was uncomfortable.
6. Cuddling up to watch the new Grey's Anatomy episode. Now if it will only load!

A Day in the Life

Since Caitlin keeps talking about writing a "day in the life" post, I thought I would beat her to it. Today was an average, but nice, day. I didn't have class until noon, so I decided to give our a apartment a much-needed cleaning. I then trekked to class (Problems in Ireland) to listen to my Jude Law look-a-like professor for an hour. Not so bad. After one more class, I returned back to my freshly cleaned home, which is always a good fealing, called Mom and Dad, and took a walk with Colleen to admire the fall scenery. To top it off, we just finished baking some crumb topping to put on the ice cream that we are hoping to get when the ice cream guy comes by tonight. Cross your fingers, he drives fast!
Oh, and on a totally different (but much more exciting) note, Caitlin comes in two days!!!