Castle Built for Love

Hello, friends!

As a quick update on classes, I enjoy my professors and I feel that it will be a stimulating and interesting semester as I am entering more of the difficult business classes. During the first day of my management course, my professor asked, "How many Americans do we have in here?" I slowly raised my hand along with one other person, and my professor just responded with, "Hmm...". That's all. What that means? It's up to interpretation. Also, in three of my classes, my final grade is 100% based off of my final exam. Good or bad thing? We will find out.

Astrid, my roommate from the Netherlands, makes a gourmet dinner every evening and says that in her apartment at home she eats together with her roommates every single night. Asha and I, feeling awkwardly rude after making our own sandwiches and eating them on the couch like typical Americans, are finally starting to adjust to that fact and are starting to cook pasta, chicken, and time it accordingly so we can sit down and have a meal together. On our first night here, Astrid quietly asked, "Do all Americans eat sandwiches for dinner?" Sorry guys, I'm not giving Americans a good reputation here in Ireland when it comes to culinary talent. It's hard to remember that when abroad, you are sometimes the first impression of a certain culture to a person and they will correlate everything you do with the general population of your country after a certain situation.

Our living room and dining room. My new home!

It's been almost two weeks since I've arrived in Ireland, and my fellow Americans and I were craving a good old fashioned burger. So tonight, we walked to the closest pub we could find, and ordered a burger. It was just as good as I remember.

P.S. - My Dutch learning is coming along, we are labeling more things around the apartment and I'm starting to learn catch phrases too.

Today we toured Connemara, a mountainous and sheep-filled region in Ireland. It was about 1.5 hours away from Galway, and we once again took a free tour on the bus around for the day and stopped in many cool places. The highlight of the trip was the Kylemore Abbey, known to be Ireland's most romantic castle. I've been looking at pictures online of this castle since I decided to go to Ireland, so my expectations and excitement were very high. It was absolutely stunning. It was built as a symbol of love that a man named Mr. Henry built for his wife on a 1,000 acre plot at the bottom of a mountain. After she tragically died at age 45, he also built a beautiful church on the property and buried her there because he couldn't stand the thought of her being buried in the "cold, hard ground". D'awwww.

Here it is! The Kylemore Abbey, Ireland's most romantic castle.

I am very grateful that these big Ireland attractions are so close to Galway, it has been awesome to take advantage of our weekends and to go see these sights. The bus guides are always a little quirky, but their knowledge of Ireland is very vast and they always have interesting things to say. Here's a few more pictures from our trip today.

An Irish "Fairy Tree", where locals tie ribbons meaning different well wishes and prayers based on things going on in their lives. Pink means newly weds, clothing articles mean a sick child that needs prayer, and a blue ribbon means the birth of a son.

Tomorrow I will attend Catholic mass at the beautiful Cathedral in Galway, I'm excited! I can't wait to go to my first Irish mass.


      Newly Discovered Cultural Differences/Travel To Do's:

• Midges = Ireland's version of mosquitos. Now that's something I can really relate to.
• Not every tour is worth the euros - if you can look at a castle from the outside, maybe that is good enough too, read reviews before you pay for it!
• Don't run around abandoned castles when it's raining, that stone can get pretty slippery.
• Buy a sturdy umbrella, and have an extra one for backup in case your first one rips from the wind.

As always, thanks for reading!