Survived Week One!

It’s so hard keeping up with this blog- I feel like my school commitments are relatively easy/not time consuming but there is always SO much to do around here I never have a spare minute to just sit down and type (I am currently writing this on my 2.5 hour bus ride to Dublin- with WiFi because I have already run out of data!! woohoo!!).

This was a big “try it and see if you like it” week for classes. I went to 6 classes on Monday (only being registered for two of them) and immediately dropped the two I had registered for- whoops! I guess that’s why you’re not supposed to register before you try the classes. I am not a history person at all (sorry dad) and this was the worst class I have ever sat through. The professor was SO boring and spoke with such a monotone voice and he said labor weird (this class is literally called Labour in Ireland so you know he said it a lot) and I was just not interested in the information he was telling us at all. The next day I switched into the Pop Culture in Pre-Industrial Europe history class that Una is taking though and I like it MUCH better. The professor seems cool and the material is so much more interesting to me. I also dropped the Introduction to Ocean Sciences class that I attended on Monday. Even though I go to school in the middle of the country, I now have come to realize and appreciate that I have a lot more experience and background knowledge in marine science than I thought. The class seemed like it would just be a repeat of everything I already know and it’s a sophomore level class so as a junior I’d never get credit for it back at ND (also the labs were on Friday afternoons which is no bueno for traveling on weekends…). I really like the Coastal Dynamics class that I am in though, as well as Ocean and Marine Politics. They are so much more up my alley! Half way through the semester I add a Marine Zoology class that I’m excited about too. Not having Thursday class is great because Claire, Una, and I walked to Salt Hill (took about 1.5 hours each way but it was all along the water) and it is so fun just exploring towns around Galway. Also, side note everyone caught the plague this week so it was a bit of a rough start to the semester but we are all thriving now!

I cannot believe how different school is here than at ND though. I go to school THREE days a week!! Each class I have only meets for two hours during the week and all the readings are optional! The Irish kids literally just do not show up to class, all they have to do is sit through the exam at the end of the semester to pass (which is a 40%). I am taking one class with a Notre Dame professor, “The West” in Irish Literature, which is more like a normal class at ND. It’s on Wednesday nights buttttt they really make up for it because they take us out to dinner EVERY Wednesday after our class! I had a three course meal at a nice restaurant last night and all expenses were paid by ND it’s incredible (Dad this is really where your tuition went hehehe). Since we are only in class for 1.5 hours, the rest of the ND credit is made up of mandatory weekend trips around Ireland to immerse ourselves in Irish culture and history.

With that, we went to Kylemore Abbey this past weekend for class and it was amazing. Notre Dame (along with the Benedictine Nuns) OWNS a CASTLE on the west coast of Ireland where they basically wine and dine their big donors and host important executive meetings and it was SO cool to stay there for the weekend. The 1.5 hr bus ride from Galway to Connemara during the sunset was beautiful, and the scenery got shockingly even more beautiful once we got to the castle. It’s located on a mountain overlooking a lake. There are thousands of people that come to visit the publicly accessible parts of the castle but we had special ND passes that gave us free range of the place (how cool is that!). We literally slept in a castle and had every meal prepared for us by the on site chefs.

The night we got there our program director gave us full independence to do whatever we wanted since we couldn’t get into much trouble in the middle of nowhere so we took it upon ourselves to explore outside for hours with our only lights being the stars and the full moon. It was absolutely magical (except for stumbling upon a graveyard by the chapel that part was terrifying). The next day we woke up super early to see the sunrise, but unfortunately the sun was mostly covered by the surrounding mountains. We then had a guided tour of the castle and gardens (Mom you would have LOVED the garden it goes on forever). The afternoon was spent doing a bog run and boy was that something. We rolled up to the Killary Adventure Company in our rattiest sneakers (I’m the only one that brought old gym shoes- everyone else had to buy $5 shoes from Penny’s the day before) and put on wet suits. We were then led to an obstacle course of mud that reminded me so much of the salt marshes in Boston this summer. One by one we swam through the mud and hoisted ourselves up, over, and through different obstacles: lily pads, rock walls, tightropes, rope swings, etc. all while exceptionally slippery and coated in mud. Every once in a while someone would fall off one of the obstacles from so high up and just absolutely plummet deep into the bog it was hilarious. To wash the mud off ourselves at the end everyone went cliff diving into the fjord (except for me… dad this is where you cursed me with your fear of heights. I had to jump off the children’s cliff that was basically a diving board…) Mary, a recent graduate of ND who now works with the Galway program, majored in photography so she has been taking lots of great pictures of us to document everything (see below)! We were supposed to watch a traditional Irish film that night but obviously spent the entire night watching Notre Dame annihilate New Mexico in football instead 🙂 The next morning we went on a beautiful hike up the mountain (it was relatively quick but so steep we were all dying). After soaking in the views a bit we had to hustle back down to go to mass with the Benedictine Nuns, which was a cool and very Notre Dame experience. After that we had our last meal that we didn’t have to cook for ourselves, all bought matching IrelaND sweatshirts (the only reason I’m studying abroad in Ireland honestly…), and then headed back to Galway!

Clearly I’m still not over how cool this weekend was. At first I was annoyed that Notre Dame is making us travel with our program for so many weekends where I could be independently traveling around Europe but after this weekend I understand and appreciate it so much more. Through ND I’m going to experience Ireland in such a unique and special way, it’s an opportunity like no other.

Some random things I’ve noticed: Sheep are literally the deer of Ireland they will just freely wander around everywhere it’s bizarre. Also, I feel like I’m in middle school again when I’m walking around campus. All of the Irish kids solely wear shirts that have “Abercrombie and Fitch” or “Hollister” written boldly on them. I’m embarrassed for them but I guess that’s just the thing to wear here! Also, I’m still so not used to cars driving on the left side of the road. I’ll see a dog in what’s supposed to be the drivers seat and am just shocked for too long before I realize it’s the passenger seat. And there are basically no crosswalks in Galway but it’s so hard jaywalking when you can’t comprehend which direction to look for cars and where they are turning.