Well, one month down two to go! Sasturday marked exactly one month since our group met at the Galway bus station. It seems like I just left home but then it also feels like I have been here for a long time. Anyway, I thought I would add a little bit more about life here at the Park Lodge.

My day yesterday:

downtown Spiddal

9:00AM  - roll out of bed and make breakfast (cereal, oatmeal, toast or yogurt) and go on the computer while I eat.

9:30AM – decide I probably should get dressed. This takes about 2 minutes to figure out which clothes I am the least sick of, are the most clean (laundry is 6 euro per load) and I haven’t worn in the last two days

9:55AM – grab my notebook, pencil, water bottle and cottage key and leave for class

9:55:36 – arrive at the classroom

10:05AM  - the teacher arrives. We sing “the Wild Rover,” a classic irish pub song, go over some Gaelic conversation which goes something like this:

A: hello!

B: Hello to you too!

Classic Ireland weather... half and half

A: How are you?

B: I am thirsty. Pint of Guinness please.

A: Here you go!

B: Thank you.

A: You are welcome

B: Where are the bathrooms?

A: There.

We sing “The Wild Rover” once more and our teacher tells us all about her weekend and intros the topic for the day but then decides she doesn’t feel like teaching that and we are too tired to pay attention so we decide to hunt and gather like Megalithic men and women. 

Spiddal beach

10:30AM - We all change shoes and grab jackets and wander around the Park Lodge property. We found blackberries, hazelnuts, rosehip and sloe berries (disgusting, they make your mouth dry) on the hotel property then wandered down to the beach. The tide was too high to get any shell fish so we meander our way back up the rocky beach and through some wood covered paths into a garden then go back to the hotel.

downtown Galway

11:15AM – Start talking about an actual subject, the Origins of Christianity in Ireland (for the 3^rd time) I don’t take notes because our one assignment for the entire semester is to put her notes in paragraph form, add an intro and conclusion and turn it in and I took notes on the first subject we discussed.

12:05PM – we get a break, run to the cottage ad grab a snack, talk to my roommates, check email, go on facebook and go back to class

12:15PM – go back to class, keep doodling in my notebook, make tentative plans to watch a movie in our cottage, keep doodling

12:55PM – class is over! Go back to my cottage and make myself a sandwich for lunch

1:15pm – read the 30 pages for class later in “Re-imagining Ireland”

1:45pm – take a mini nap on the couch

2:20pm – leave for class. This class you have to get to early because all 29 of us plus the two professors are in the class and there are only 28 desks.

2:30PM – start class, discuss the parallels between the Vietnam war riots and the events of Northern Ireland

trad on the prom

3:20pm – change to comparing about the music class we had in Spiddal last Friday and “Trad on the Prom” we attended last week. Aside: Trad on the prom is a traditional music, dance and singing show that features musicians, dancers and singers from Riverdance, Lord of the Dance, the Chieftains, etc.  At one point with all 9 dancers on stage there were 15 world championships among them

3:55pm – the professors hand out a sheet detailing all our assignments for the rest of the semester which got rid of a couple papers and shortened some others. Class over.

the hotel pub, JP randomly opens it for us 

4:15pm  - meeting in our director’s cottage about our final project which has to relate to our major/previous coursework.  I am working with two others and going to research how computer use differs in Ireland vs. the US in different age groups.

4:30pm – return to cottage, go on computer/read a book

4:45pm – find out our theo prof Brother Colmàn is sick so we don’t have his class this week on Tuesday or Wednesday (that means no class at all for me on Tuesday).

6:05pm – make dinner, ravioli and tortellini with fresh pesto we bought at the open air market in Galway on Saturday

8:30pm – go over to cottage 1 for some fun!

So that was a great day. The other classes we have are much more note/lecture/work intensive.

We also booked our plane tickets and apartments for our 11 day fall break at the end of the month.  We are going to Berlin, Prague and Krakow so if you have any suggestions on where to go in any of those places suggestions would be much appreciated!

michelle