Cheers!
I am now safely in Ireland and have had my first day of class. Seeing as how I was the last to arrive and everyone else has gone out together, or at least been introduced, I was kind of like the new kid who no one knew and didn't particularly take a liking to, but I'm sure everyone will warm up once the weather does.
All of our classes are held in an absurdly cold lecture room in the basement of a building, but that does help to keep one up at 8:30 in the morning, so maybe it is a blessing in disguise.
The professors all seemed to emphasize that they want us to have a good time while we are here so the work load will most likely not be comprable to what we would have to do in the states - thankfully.
Professor McKay seems great, very charming, and has already in a way helped me along in my career path. I mentioned that I wanted to move to Hawaii to work with Native Hawaiians on (water) rights issues and he directed me to Hawaii legal aid, a non-profit legal group that does work mostly with native hawaiians, he said he used to write their checks, whatever that means, because they are federally funded. He told me to look it up and then we could get together and talk about it since he knows people that work there, how fantastic is that? I guess it never hurts to know and talk to a former US Attorney. I actually think I may know some of his neices or nephews, all prep kids.
Anyway, there is a party - meaning burgers and beer - on thursday at Professor McKay's house he is staying at, so that should be entertaining, hopefully I can get someone other than myself to put down their heineken light and have a guiness and a jameson with me, but who knows, don't know if that is allowed in Kansas.
This weekend most of the students are going to travel around, I think I am going to try to head into Dingle, on the W coast, or maybe into Galway, apparantly it is somewhat of a party town and kids in the past have all had a good time. My roommate Robin is going to Dinlge, so I might tag along, I have found it's more fun to do things with other people than alone, especially when the female to male ratio in the pubs tends to tip in the male direction, which is actually fine for me.
I saw my first attractive Irish man today, unfortunately he was in a car and I had two HUGE bags of groceries and looked like a drowned rat - a drowned rat who just went to the grocery outlet, real classy.
My new friend Mike stopped by today, I think we are going to try to go to that Lame Duck pub tomorrow evening, sounds like fun. Anyway, I should get back to studying and stop all this procrastination - till next time...