Wednesday, September 4, 2013

One Week

Well, it's been a week in Galway and it has been awesome!  While there is a lot of different things, there's nothing absurdly crazy different.  I didn't have any type of "culture shock" that I was expecting. But, everything is made of brick or stone, people drive on the left, iced coffee doesn't exist, and perhaps the weirdest thing of all, is everything is smaller.  Whatever you order, coffee, food, water, whatever, portions are not as big as in the USA.  "Doggie Bags" are not a thing -__-

People are friendlier though.  When we go to pubs, it isn't uncommon or weird to walk over and introduce yourself and talk for 20 minutes.  Oh, and people use the phrase "good craic" or "what's the craic?" (pronounced crack) all the time.  It basically means, "good stuff," or "what's up?"

The week hasn't been without struggle though, and I blame that on Fairfield -___-     The visiting student course listings are't published until we get here, so, we can't register until we're here.  So, we have to go to each class, find out about it, send it to study abroad, and have them approve it.  Add in the fact the study abroad is horrible at responding to email, and then add in that some courses are canceled, moved, or changed WITHOUT WARNING, making it very very difficult.  Finally- the laundry at my apartment is a joke.  My roommate opened his washer (side loading) and the water poured out.  The dryers barely work as well, so I'm just bringing my laundry to the cleaners.

Aside from those two things though, it's amazing.  The people, food, water, sites, shops and of course pubs, are the coolest things in the world, 10/10!