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...