First Week of Class

Classes began on Monday morning.

It was a sad realization, but I was pretty excited to see campus on an actual school day and jump into the semester. My first class was a 20th Century Irish History class.  Class? History?! You're putting me to sleep, Jeff! is what you may be thinking. Voyage on, I will get to the good stuff.

As I was warned the lecturer showed up about fifteen minutes late.  Apparently nobody in Ireland is exactly on time, especially not at the University. Unbelievably chill atmosphere. It was a bit stressful wandering around such a large and foreign campus, but it felt 'sound' to feel lost again.  It was nice to stray from the comfort zone that I have back at school. With that being said, I feel like I know my way around campus already, it's not that intimidating.  Study Abroad VERTERAN.

NUI Galway

Since Monday I've had History, International Economics, and my two MIS classes (E-Business and Enterprise Systems). A few of my classes are in the J.E. Cairnes School of Business.  Easily my favorite building on campus; it is relatively new and so many cool places to hang out or meet with groups or be that token foreign kid writing in his blog in the corner of a computer lab.  So school has been solid - can't say much more on this front since it's basically the syllabus week. The class sizes are certainly much larger.  Girls dress up for class. The guys wear track suits or sweatpants to class. Everything else is basically the same, minus the frat bros tossing the football and blaring shitty music in the Quad or the sorority girls trying to sell me lemonade. How I miss home. No class Friday if this schedule works out.

Moving on.  Yesterday was the first time that I saw the sun since I've been in Ireland. In a week. It's been quite depressing and MOIST here in Galway. But the sun finally broke through and it was absolutely gorgeous.  The temperature was around 10 degrees, I'll make you open the extra tab to do the Fahrenheit conversion.  I was finished class by noon so I rode my bike into town and just wandered around the Bay.  I met up with Erin in town and we grabbed lunch at Riordans, which was as awesome as advertised so thanks Emily and Anne. We rode along the bay walk and essentially wasted the day away, frimming around town until the sun went down.  Probably my favorite day in Ireland thus far.

Galway Bay

I joined the Kingfisher Club, which is the gym here at school. It was ridiculously expensive to join for just one semester but it's a pretty impressive place.  They have basketball courts, which was the deal breaker.  Promised myself to come back to the States with the filthiest euro step at Villanova.  I've gotten some good use out of it thus far and plan to get my money's worth.

Galway has continued to be a good time, especially with the influx of 15,000 or so college students over the weekend.  On Monday night I finally came to understand the phenomena that is SuperMacs - a fastfood chain in Galway that more or less turns into a dance club in the waning hours of the night. Bouncers at the door. A McDonalds with bouncers? Socializing in a burger joint ugh Galway sounds terrible.  If only you knew....

I feel like I'm finally settling into my apartment and the city, as I certainly have my bearings after just a few days here.  All of those little things like remembering wifi passwords or using the shower or charging electronics which at first felt a bit intimidating are now second nature to me. I obviously miss home and not being able to watch this weekend football was a tough pill to swallow.  But the people here are insanely welcoming and friendly, I don't feel alienated from Galway whatsoever. So easy to approach somebody and strike up a conversation, they genuinely like Americans.

All is well on my end. Still finalizing my plans for this weekend but hopefully I'll have something exciting to share.  Thanks for reading.

-JD