Have I told you lately that I love you?

That's how I feel about my computer right now. Because for the first time since last Tuesday (aka the day I arrived in Ireland) I'm sitting in my room on my own computer. I could have kissed the guys at the computer store when they handed it to me. It's quite the day in my life! It's kind of sad how happy I am right now.

Add this feeling to the total fun of last night, and it's been a pretty awesome 24 hours. See, last night I actually did something. I went out. For the first time it was midnight and I wasn't curled up under blankets in my room shivering. I was at the Lodge, well underneath it at least. Kilmurry Lodge is a hotel in Limerick, but the basement is a night club. Nothing fancy, but it's about three minutes from campus by taxi and lots of UL students go there. And now Brittany, Katie and I have experienced it.

We got there around 11:30 pm and found it fairly full - although apparently not so much for those who go there a lot. About an hour later Brian, one of our housemates, told us this was a pretty low turnout. This does make a little sense since people got turned away on Sunday night. Apparently there was a line to get in at 9 and it didn't open for at least another hour. I haven't had that much fun in a long time, and surprisingly my feet never started to hurt, even in my boots. I'd describe everything that we did, but it's mostly self-explanatory. It was a night club, so we danced and drank and talked - and laughed a lot.

And now that I have my computer, I can upload pictures! I have all of my Ireland pictures on the right side of this screen in a slideshow, but I thought I'd post some here so they're bigger:

My home away from home. House 82, Kilmurry Village. And Katie (right) and Lauren (left): my two American housemates.

The University Arena. It was the first place in Ireland to have an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Needless to say, I won't be going in that part of the building very much. Unless Michael Phelps comes for a dip.

My really messy room (note the jeans draped over the chair - their permanent place of residence since they're always wet).

The Living Bridge during the day. Or at least a section of it. This connects the main campus to a completely different county. And also separates me from Brittany.

Tomorrow the plan is to see King John's Castle and the Hunt Museum before going to Dunnes, a kind of all-in-one place. We need food, and of course to look at the clothes they have!

Kim

P.S. On a completely unrelated side note, I think I've watched more "Friends" in the past few days than in years. Odd...

And I thought I was an overachiever before...

I still have no computer. It's been days since I've actually been on one. I never thought I'd handle this as well as I am. The whole being cut off from the world (aka Facebook and cnn.com) thing. But it's given me more time to nap, which is always a plus for me. Except now I feel like I'm sleeping my way through Ireland. Not something I was actually planning on doing, but hey, a girl's gotta do something when she has no Internet.

I've been to all except one of the classes I plan on taking, and so far I think I'm going to like them. The first one I went to was a history class on Irish revolution and independence. I'm not taking it. Not that it didn't sound interesting, but I have no need/interest in taking a class that used to be a second semester senior level class that is now a second semester freshman level class, but still taught by the same lecturer (aka professor but not really) who intends on teaching it exactly the same as he always has. And therefore making allusions/jokes about "famous" Irish people I've never heard of. Talk about yawn-inducing. Plus the fact that I got little to no sleep the night before.

But the other classes seem pretty cool. I have a European history class that's going to involve a little bit of reading (not that Irish students read...), an Irish folklore class that should be interesting, a 19th century lit class (but we're not reading any Jane Austen. He's referenced three Austen books in one lecture - Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Mansfield Park - but we're not reading them. Why?), an Irish political science class, and Irish music and dance. For the last one I get to choose either an instrument, dance, or song to learn. The instruments are either the tin whistle (aka a little tin recorder) or the drum. I'm not interested in singing, and I don't know how I feel about the dance. But I'm not big on the whole playing an instrument either (reference: my three horrible years of playing the clarinet). So I guess dance it is. When Riverdance was big I always wanted to learn how to dance like that, so I guess this is my chance to live the dream of a 10-year-old. Ten years later.

And did I mention that no one reads here? One of my lecturers said he stopped putting together a reading list because it's not like the Irish students looked at it at all. So it was just a waste of his time. And apparently they often don't go to class, choosing instead to stay up until 5 am drinking and singing at the top of their lungs. My Irish housemates think it's weird that I plan on going to all my classes. And reading. So even though I knew I was an overachiever in America, apparently I'm an ever bigger anomaly here. Great. And I had just gotten used to kind of fitting in with the majority of the student population at a school for overachievers (except you Leslie, who somehow manages to never do homework or reading but still passes everything. Did I ever tell you you're my hero?) And boy do they love to party. Not party in our sense of partying once every few weeks, but I mean every night. And "going out" is more of, hey let's go to someone's house and get smashed. Every night. But hey, they all make good use of taxis. It's something every American college student should learn to do. I can't imagine what it's like to be a taxi driver though. I'd get kind of sick of shepherding drunken college students around. But that's just me.

I know I keep saying this, but I really do hope to put up some pictures eventually. Once I get my computer back. Which hopefully is very soon.

Kim

They wear seat belts on the bus?

Hello from Ireland! I'd put up pictures of my room, campus, etc. except my computer is completely freaking out (maybe it hates the rain here more than I do) and so I can't upload anything. And my camera refuses to charge, so it's completely dead and I can't photograph anything. So basically everything involved in posting pictures hates me.

But other than that I'm really liking Limerick. Two of my house-mates are fellow Americans which is great, especially since the one Irish house-mate we've met--James--we can't understand. Why is it so hard for some people to open their mouths and speak? But he seems really nice. I think we overwhelm him a little bit, but he's warming up to us now. 

My two American house-mates are Lauren from New Jersey and Katie from Michigan. They're both really nice and I've spent lots of time getting to know them (and the city of Limerick) over the past two days. Getting into town is interesting because we have to take the bus. It's not hard, I mean I've used public transportation before just not in KC or Omaha because it sucks in both places. But at least there I know the cities, and where and when to get off (or I'm with my dad in strange cities and he tells me what to do). But here, it's all you. And you have to press a button before the stop you want in order to get off if there isn't anyone wanting to get on the bus at that stop. And when you don't know the city or where you want to go at all that's kind of hard.

I bought a phone yesterday and it has Skype on it. I think that's pretty cool. So now anytime someone is on Skype I can talk/chat with them for free! So I think all my US friends should get it because I'm technically on Skype 24/7 or whenever my phone is on. I still don't exactly have all the kinks worked out with it, but it's still pretty cool. 

We had our first day of orientation today, starting at 9 am--way earlier than I got up yesterday for sure. We learned all about being study abroad students and signing up for classes, etc. and then got tours from Irish students around the campus. I'm kind of hating that Creighton is so small now, because UL definitely isn't and I'm going to have trouble learning my way around. Plus I'm nervous that I'm going to get stuck with some crazy Irish professor who mumbles the whole time. 

Tomorrow we have more orientation stuff; we get to learn about safety on campus. Don't they realize I've lived two blocks south of North Omaha the past year and a half? I think I'm good. But whatev. And then we have a session on study skills (because bad student me never picked those up...oh wait). But we have to go because they pass out the timetable for all the classes afterwards. And going is the only way to get it. Stupid. 

This weekend my plan is to take my computer into this Apple-but-not-Apple Store in the city "centre" so they can take a look at my computer and see what's up. I hope they can just fix it then! And I need to find a hairdryer and straightener. Because it's cold enough in my room as it is without having wet hair to go along with it. And maybe a camera if I can't figure anything out.

I thought I'd share a few odd things I've learned/picked up since I've been here (it's crazy how out-of-place I feel right now!):

A.) They wear seat belts on tour busses? The bus that picked us up from the airport had seat belts built in and a sign on one of the windows reminding people to buckle up. I didn't. Neither did anyone else. I didn't even see the sign until we were on campus driving around. I thought that wasn't safe to wear seat belts on big busses like that? Apparently the Irish didn't get the memo. Or we're just cheap in America and don't want to pay the money to install them on busses...

B.) Things smell funny. At least my room does. It needs a major air freshener. I wonder if they have Glade over here. Hum...that's something I'm going to need to check out. Seriously.

C.) Car's don't stop for you. I kind of remember this fact from Germany, but I guess I was walking in so many pedestrian zones that it didn't really matter on the large scale of things. And they drive fast too. Like, seriously. Maybe not on the highways/major roads and stuff, but around roundabouts and in parking lots/campus streets they just zoom on by you. And when you're walking across the street and haven't figured out which way to look when crossing (because they drive on the WRONG side of the road and it totally disorients you) it's kind of a bad thing. 

D.) I hate being eco-friendly. The whole recycling thing I'm fine with. And public transportation. As much as I miss my car I wouldn't want to drive here anyways. But not having hot water whenever you want and keeping the heat turned down. No way. I get too cold too easily to live with this. Plus, it rains like all the freaking time so you're always wet. All I ever want to do is walk into a really hot room and dry off/warm up. But no. That's not possible because we have to save energy to save the planet. I can't wait to get back to nasty KC summers just so I'm not cold anymore. And eternally wet.

That's really all I have. Hopefully I'll get my Mr. Mac fixed here sometime soon (I hope they don't have to ship it out somewhere to get it fixed...my poor baby!) so that I can update this/check my email and Facebook more often. And hopefully I'll figure out what to do with my camera. I really don't want to have to buy one or something. That seems like such a waste!

Writing soon (hopefully),

Kim

I'm bored. And tired

I've been sitting here in JFK's Terminal 4 for about four hours now. And I'm bored. And I just want to sleep. I feel like I haven't talked all day since I don't know anyone and everyone tends to keep to themselves in airports. I do the same, so I guess I shouldn't judge too much.

The day has gone rather smoothly, especially considering I'm kind of retarded when it comes to reading signs in unfamiliar places. My flight from KCI to Detroit was really full and I felt really sick - probably because it was a teeeeny plane and I was way in the back. You know, right by the loud as anything engines where the wheels go down. I've never gotten motion sickness from flying before, but I guess there's a first for everything.

We landed in Detroit early, but had to wait for the plane occupying our gate to leave, so we just sat there for forever. And then once we pulled into the gate, no one up front moved, meaning us losers stuck in the back had to sit there even longer. I only had an hour between flights in Detroit, so by the time I bought some juice from a stand and ate some trail mix (I was soooo hungry. Probably because I ate like a fifth of a bagel this morning and nothing else) it was pretty much time to board. Sorry dad, this means no Red Wings' paraphernalia. No time.

I managed to sleep pretty much the whole way to JFK, thank God, or I think I would have lost what little of the trail mix I managed to eat during my first layover. I was in the emergency exit row, meaning I had like twice as much leg room on my second flight. Amazing. It's a good thing we didn't have to use the emergency exit though, because I'm fairly sure I would have totally freaked out. I read the directions multiple times though just in case something happened.

When I landed in JFK I had to go from Terminal 2 to Terminal 4. In theory this is extremely simple. You just hop on the AirTram station and ride it around for a few minutes. In reality I almost died. See I had to switch my own bags - meaning that I had to lug my collectively 80 lb suitcases plus my backpack, which I swear weighs as much as I do - all the way out of Terminal 2, across a street, up a huge ass ramp, across another street, and down about 100 yards before I finally found an elevator to take me up to the track. This really doesn't sound too bad until you take into account what I was wearing: 3 1/2 inch heeled boots, a long sleeved T-shirt, a sweater, a blazer, and a coat. All my heavy stuff that wouldn't fit into my bags. Lets just say that I felt sorry for the people I stood next to at the Aer Lingus counter when I arrived. Ew.

But I had plenty of time to cool off at the counter, since I got there at 1 pm and they didn't open until 2 pm. Thanks. Awesome. But I was too tired to go anywhere so I stood there for an hour. In my huge boots. And now my feet really hurt. But I did talk to this really nice Irish lady who was in front of me. We were the first two in line. She said she didn't understand how we Americans lived with such crazy weather. I really don't know how we do either, to tell you the truth, but I felt sorry for her. She said the coldest it's been where she's from in the last hundred years is -4 C (aka 24 F). Not exactly Death Valley or anything, but still, it could be a lot worse. It turns out she just got back from this like week and a half long Caribbean cruise. Lucky. It sounded amazing. While I was stuck in Kansas City/Omaha suffering through our bipolar weather.

Once the counter opened, I got through really quickly. And then found something to eat again as I was sufficiently hungry once more. $11 for a baked ziti and bottled water. Outrageous (plus the $7.95 I'm paying in airport WiFi right now. Stupid). I sat next to some pretty interesting people though, which entertained me for a while. The first people I sat next to were these two women (I think one of them was a pastor or something). They sat there gossiping about all the people who made them mad at church. A very Christian thing to do, obviously. I don't know if there's anyone at their church who they didn't badmouth. I didn't know who they were talking about but it was still funny.

The next people I eavesdropped on were much more interesting. Apparently they were independent paparazzi or something who lerk around JFK waiting for celebrities for them to stalk and abuse. And they must lerk a lot because they knew one of the flight attendants eating right next to us. Pretty well from the sound of it. But I gained some very useful knowledge. For instance, did you know that 'Britney' used to fly commercial but now she has a huge head and doesn't, but recently did for some reason? And Toni Collette is married, so when stalking her flights, you have to look for her married name on the list or you won't find her. And apparently something big happened very recently, but they didn't know if their photos/videos were going to make it onto TV (TMZ, Extra, ET, Access Hollywood, etc) but look for it in US Weekly. They weren't sure if it would make TV. They don't watch TV. It's sleezy, but they're not.

And now here I am. With another hour before my last (!!) flight boards for Ireland. Trying not to sleep. But hopefully that means I'll be able to on the plane.

Hopefully next time I post something it will include pictures!
Kim

The Night Before

Well, this is it. I leave in less than 12 hours. I don't really know what to think, which kind of freaks me out. Oh well. There's nothing I can really do about it now! I'm sitting here on my bed looking at my two suitcases holding all of my worldly possessions, or at least the ones I've deemed important enough to lug across the Atlantic. I can't believe this is all I have, especially when I consider the box after box that I lugged into my Swanson room in August. Where did all my stuff go?!

Tomorrow I leave at 6:11 am, an ungodly hour if you ask me, and from there I fly to Detroit, then JFK, then Shannon. Where the next five months of my life await me. It's all kind of hazy for me. It doesn't matter that I've talked to Brittany multiple times since she's been in Dublin. It still doesn't seem real.

I know I'll have fun, but I just want to be there already!! I hate traveling. Not the flying part, but the airport part. Why can't everything just be nice and simple for people like me who easily stress out? So I'm just trying to not think about that part, and roll with the punches as they come tomorrow - when I'm half comatose from getting up so early.

But that's really all my brain can process right now. So until I have something more interesting to say, and perhaps pictures from the Green Isle,
Kim