Orientation and weather...

Misc. items I have forgotten to cover:
*There are wild swans here in the river! So neat.
*For some reason or another, my sense of direction here is not impaired! I made it home from city center on the first day all by myself! Have navigated to NUI, city center, and back home multiple times without incident!

So yesterday was orientation...it was a long day full of speeches. Of course, it was the most BEAUTIFUL day outside, all sunny and warm and nice all day, and we were stuck in this tiny auditorium from 9:30AM - 4PM basically. We had an hour and a half for lunch which was nice. I sat with these girls who were very nice, and then at lunch I ran into Anne and a few girls I'd met yesterday so I ate lunch with them. I've met many girls from Missouri, and they have all been super nice! After orientation, I went back to Corrib Village with Anne (who lives next door/with the girls from Missouri) and borrowed some of her internet. And boy am I glad I didn't live in Corrib Village, because not only do you have to walk along this really sketchy trail to get there, but the rooms are like prison cells and the internet is terrible!! You have to sign in, only one computer can be signed in at a time, it is slow, and cuts out all the time and then you have to sign in again! It's awful really, but I couldn't really complain at the time because it was free internet. While this internet here is not free, at least it is reliable.

After that I went back home and had dinner with Mary, who just got back from the hospital! She had surgery on her toe to get her toenail taken off because she had dropped something on it and it had gotten infected. It went well and we talked a lot which was nice. She is so sweet and wonderful. I had chicken curry with brown rice. Very yummy and healthy too! She's a great cook for me and won't even let me help with dishes or cooking no matter how much I try to.

Then I went out to Karaoke night at the College Bar on campus. On the schedule, it said it started at 7, so I left arond 6:45 planning to get lost and be fashionably late. But I didn't get lost and made it right on time, and then I found out that it wasn't startingn until 8! But there were a bunch of people there who had made the same mistake, so I sat upstairs with 2 girls, one from Missouri and one from Germany, and we talked for an hour and it was really nice. I eventually convinced them to come up and do karaoke with me, though they were both very reluctant because they said that they couldn't sing. I insisted that that was not the point, the point was to have fun! So they did come down with me and we sang "I'm So Excited" in front of like 80 people we didn't know (and a few that we did) and it was soo much fun! Not the best performance (the song is so long with so many instrumental breaks! I didn't know that!) but it was still fun. I also had a few sips of my friend's Guiness since my throat was sore (singing loudly and screaming to converse with people) and it's much better here! I don't know why, maybe it's Ireland, but I hear it's because they can put more alcohol into it, haha.
Since we were upstairs, when we came downstairs I ran into Anne and her housemates as well as Farzana and Naira (from USC) who saw me haha. Apparently Astrid and Amanda were there too and saw me sing, but I didn't run into them. Anyway, we sat around and talked and I met this girl named Erin who is amazing! She's similar to me in a lot of ways and super sweet and nice (also from Missouri!). She's engaged to a tenor Vocal Arts major back home and we had a lot in common.
All too soon though I had to go home, because I didn't really want to walk home by myself in the dark very late at night. One of the only major problems since I have no roommates. Oh well, if it's after 11PM I'll take a taxi. So I was very nervous at points, but I stuck to the main roads and made it home safely. Fell asleep at 1AM which was an improvement!

Woke up today at 10AM so the jetlag is getting slightly better. Hung around with Mary and her daughter and her 2 granddaughters came over. Very cute. One is 3 and the other is only 7 months and they are adorable.
Then I had to go to school to go to an advisory session on English classes, and as soon as I open the door a freezing wind slams my face. Oh dear. A taste of the true weather in Ireland. 50 degrees, pouring rain, and a ripping wind that turned my umbrella inside out multiple times. Yuck! But I made it to school and ran into Farzana who kindly showed me the way to the building I was trying to get to. The English advisory was short and sweet and I got time tables of all the classes and such. Then went to the Archeology department to get info and time tables (a few archeology classes look neat!) and ran into Amanda on the way back. Accompanied her to the French department, and then struggled against the weather to desperately reach internet!!

And that's been my day so far :) I'm planning on heading back after this and enjoying another quiet night at home because the weather is just so gross. Hopefully the rain will let up??? But I'm not holding my breath haha.

Oh and the graduate student is coming to rent the room on Sunday. Hopefully he will split the internet cost if we can get! I'm sure Mary will be fine with it, but I just wonder if her house is still technology equipped to handle internet...soon it will all be worked out!