Dancing in Ireland

Dancing is so wonderful I'm dedicating a whole blog entry to just that. Yesterday I went to 2 Irish dance classes: the beginner and the intermediate.

In a nutshell the beginner is almost too easy, but I don't have near enough of the basic knowledge for intermediate.

(Though my limited knowledge provides for great entertainment when hanging out with Irish friends who also dance, 7's in the kitchen don't ya know)

For those that don't know, the only dance class I've ever taken has been Ms Sally Sherman's Tap/Jazz course the Spring semester of 2011. So as much as I love dance and enjoy it, I really don't have all the fundamentals down, I just learn choreography decently. This semester I plan on changing that.

I'll be continuing with both the beginner and the intermediate courses.

The beginner class meets the hour before the intermediate class so I'll use it as an hour work out that gets my confidence up a bit more to then have my butt kicked in the intermediate course the following hour. Hopefully by the end I'll really be able to dance well. I intend on choreographing for Orchesis for Fall 2012 which I've already started working on down at a pub called Tig Coili while they're playing trad music. :P

(and yes, I go to pubs just to hear music and dance in my own head)

One of the groups that we've seen play down on Shop Street in Tig Coili

Well that's all for now. I'll try to keep up with this slightly better this coming week :P

When the Craic takes ya, go with it!

Well, I'll start off with saying I love this country. It's great craic!! I've been horrible at blogging, and the past 2 weeks have been a real blur! I'm in the concourse at school currently waiting for 18th Century Irish History to start.

The brief rundown of my life in one sentence:

Go to class, go home, have the craic, go to bed, repeat.

Galway is fantastic and utterly beautiful!

So far I have:

• Gone to the coast
• Glimpsed the Atlantic from the East
• Seen trad music multiple times
• Been to mass in the Galway Cathedral
• Danced the night away
• Gone to 2 hrs of intensive Irish dance class
• Met some of the coolest people alive
• Made Friends
• Watched Friends (that show is on CONSTANTLY here)
• Walked all over the city
• Had the greatest pizza at the Monrose
• Played with a puppy
• Found the greatest bookshop ever (Charlie Brynes)
• Found the greatest Hot Chocolate ever (The Chocolate Box)
• Read Oscar Wilde
• Read "Love Letters of Great Women" (Abigail Adams is pretty much the coolest woman ever)
• Learned so much about Irish Culture
• Learned a lot about Irish History
• Integrated history with understanding culture
• Had crazy intellectual conversations about Irish History and Culture :P
• Gone to the Claddaugh Museum (and the only place that legally makes official Claddaugh rings <3)
• Had a "walking tour of Galway"
• Gone to a choral concert at St Nicholas which was just grand
• Enjoyed girls nights in with both my roommates and Berry's

All that and I'm going all over Co. Clare this weekend with my program.

A more complete view check out Berry's blog http://interwebebenezer.blogspot.com/2012/01/great-craic.html?spref=fb (it will also have an explaination for "craic")

Highlights

So after a whirlwind first day on Tuesday, we got up yesterday (at 3pm, the 13ish hours of sleep was awesome) and took a taxi up to my dorm and I got all set up in my dorm. It is awesome. By calling it apartment they really mean townhouse basically! I met my roommate

and one of the girls who live down stairs from us, my roommate and I are on the 3rd floor and it's just the two of us and our bathroom.

We have a pretty awesome house. The first floor has a half bath and a bedroom that's locked so I don't know what's in it :P along with a full kitchen, table with chairs, 2 couches and a tv. Pretty nifty!

Second floor has 3 singles and a full bath, and then the third floor has our double and our full. :)

We (Berry Monique and I) went shopping after

that to get some food which was pretty cool and had a bunch of brands I had never seen which is always cool because I'm a marketing major :P

We had a bit of a meeting then went back to the house (me, Monique, and Micaela) and had some wine and chatted all about our lives. It was pretty great! Another friend that doesn't live with us, Syndey, also came over for that.

This morning we got up and met the group at 9 to walk over to campus and see the shortest way to get there. Somewhat of a blustery morning but it hasn't rained so far today! (Oh, yesterday it was POURING, like all day)

After Orientation we came back and then met up with Berry at the mall which was fun and I got a new phone! WOO! yups. That is all for now and we're going out to dinner with the group in about an hour so I'll put something more up later maybe :P

The Long Day

Today was crazy, by today I mean the last 30 hours that I've been awake for all except 3-30 minute naps. So our flight yesterday was delayed so much that they sent us via Amtrak up to Newark instead of chancing missing the connecting flight to Shannon. So off we went with only a minute to spare and I took my first train up to Newark. We got in only a little less than 2hrs before our second flight's departure. We rushed through checking our baggage and security was a breeze as well, probably the easiest check-in I've had this year. We grabbed a bit of a snack and got to our gate after boarding had started but with plenty of time! a ~5hr flight later we landed in Shannon. Customs at Shannon consisted of someone checking and stamping our passports and walking right through no problem. :) We got our bus tickets at the kiosk and took 5 minutes on the computer so that we could contact the parents :P 45 minutes later we were boarding the bus and then another hour and a half later we were in Galway!! It was raining but it was still incredibly exciting! The country-side is fantastic, and green, and lush, and magnificent! We took a taxi over to Berry's apt since it was dark, rainy and then started HAILING. A little crazy. So we met the girls in the apartment and they are pretty great! Then we went down to Eyre Square for lunch and seeing the area a little. It was good but then we came back to the apartment for a slight nap/relaxing. We went out about 2 hours later and traipsed all over! We walked over and saw Galway Cathedral and took many pictures inside and out and walked across the bridge to see my college too!! It is so completely gorgeous and awesome. We were going to walk up to my apartment but decided it was a little far when it started raining again (thank goodness for LLBean raincoats!) We walked back to Eyre Square and grabbed some delicious soup at Garvey's Pub and Restaurant and are now back at Berry's for the night. I get to check in to my apt tomorrow and then I'll get on my computer and upload pictures etc :) Thats all for now!