First Day of Classes and Updates

So I have been here in Galway for five days and it feels like a lot longer than that. I got caught up in moving in, seeing the city, going to pubs and drinking legally for the first time, and getting to know the people in our Willamette University-University of Portland group. On our first night I had my first Guinness ever at The Quays and visited a few other bars with our large group (okay it is 11 people but when we all walk into a small-ish pub it feels like a lot).

I think I need to have a whole blog post dedicated to pubs and the different atmospheres at each pub and the experiences I have had at each one. But! Moving on to classes...

So the registration process over here at NUI Galway is very different from the U.S. and has been stress inducing for almost all of us in the group. There are two types of classes, lecture and seminar. Almost all of these don't OFFICIALLY start until the 23rd of this month. So the first two weeks are basically, go to classes and see if you like them but you have no real work and do not have to commit until 2 weeks in. This seems great but it leaves a lot of things up in the air, and since I am a visiting student I am restricted to only certain classes and certain types of classes.

Today I went to a class that I may or may not take (Early Irish Script) which is all about learning to read the Book of Kells (link here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Kells) which I will visit this weekend in Dublin. Then after meeting a nice girl from Hungary who showed me to my class I went to a very large lecture theatre for my Medieval Literature course which I am for sure taking.

The classes however were not the main part of my day. So while this was the first day of classes it was much more focused on exploring campus and the beautiful main Cathedral in Galway. Here is the church from the outside on my walk over.

After I got over how big the church is (it is the biggest one I have ever been in) I lit my first candle in a Catholic Church since I was a kid.

And then the dome...

One of the many beautiful stained class windows.

Another huge pipe organ, I could not believe it.

So that was my first day of classes. I got a taste of the Irish University system and then took a break at the local Cathedral. And of course hung out with some great people in our WU-UP group and had an adventure/fight with the laundry machine, but that is for another night. 

Upcoming blog topics:

Living at Donegan Court

How the Pubs work, will I ever get it?

Dublin!

Favorite parts of Galway so far

Coming up with corny blog titles 101