Ireland – Day 1
January 4, 2010
So, it’s almost the end of my first day in Ireland. Actually, it’s more like the end of a really long, 72 hour day that I spent in California, Massachusetts, and Ireland. Oh, and the sky. It’s Monday night, and I feel like I’ve been up since Saturday morning. That’s not entirely accurate though. I slept a little on the plane and after I got to Ireland, and I probably didn’t wake up on Saturday until around noon. Anyway, you get the idea.
I flew out of LA around 7 on Sunday morning, had a layover in Boston, and then arrived in Ireland at around 6 on Monday morning. The first thing that happened was that my luggage got lost. I had to fill out this lengthy form, and I was totally freaking out, since all my clothes were in my luggage. But at the last minute, someone showed up with my luggage, telling me that they had just saved it from going to Dublin.
I guess this is a good segue into the background of this trip. I’m in the city of Galway in western Ireland with one of my professors and a bunch of other students to study agriculture and environmental science in the west of Ireland. This means that we’re gonna be exploring bogs, which by itself makes the trip entirely worthwhile.
Anyway, when our professor met us at the airport, he took us on a two hour drive to our apartment in Galway, which is in a really nice area. We stopped at a medieval castle, too, which was a nice glimpse into the history of Ireland. The apartment we’re staying in is terrific. I took a nap after we got there, and some amount of hours later I was woken up by a phone call from our professor telling us that we were meeting for dinner. In a completely disoriented state, I met up with the group in our apartment and we drove to the center of Galway to hear some traditional Irish music in a pub before going for dinner. The music was wonderful, and the atmosphere was great. For dinner we had pizza with mushrooms and onions, which apparently is the standard for pizza in Ireland, the equivalent of cheese pizza in the states.
Now I’m back at the apartment, looking forward to this trip. Time to go to sleep.
