I'd rather be in Ireland

I've got to start by saying, what a horrible SuperBowl.  I don't think anyone saw that coming, but as us Notre Dame fans say...there's always next year.  I've been in Ireland for a little over two weeks now and, while it seems like time is flying, it also feels like we've been here for months.

The weather is exactly what everyone thinks...windy and rainy just about 24/7.  It's a miracle if the sun comes out for more than an hour each day.  The Irish culture is also pretty stereotypical: what do you do when there's free time? Drink!  Luckily, I haven't had any more nights like the one I had in Dublin, but there's still been some rowdy adventures.  The first morning after my Irish roommates moved in, I woke up with this note under my door:

The really unfortunate thing here is that everyone drinks a lot and their alcohol is insanely expensive.  A 20-pack of Coors light costs about 30euro here, which is roughly $40USD.  So all you kids complaining about buying a case of Natty for the weekend, just enjoy one for me and stop whining.  

This past weekend a lot of the abroad students traveled to Kylemore Abbey and Galway.  The scenery was truly unreal and made the US look like a dumpster.  More pictures will be posted to Facebook but here's a rough idea of what we were dealing with:

A few of us guys have scheduled a trip over Valentine's weekend to go to Scotland and learn how to play some bagpipes.  This weekend, we'll be on our homestay visit where I'll get to see the true life of an Irish family.  

Classes have started here and it's way different from the U.S.  There's basically one or two lectures per week for 50 minutes and their grades are based primarily on two or three assignments or exams for the whole semester.  Every Irish student also knows every class they will take each semester before they even enter campus.  They are very specialized and only take classes that are designed for their major...so they are amazed that us Americans can pick and choose any classes we want. 

Last night, we all got the opportunity to sign up for different clubs/societies that interested us.  I joined skydiving club, racing and motorsport club, swim club, and outdoor pursuits club.  

Skydiving club is going to be insane.  They do jumps every week and have a trip to France to dive their as well.  The first jump is 160euro but after that, every jump is only 20euro.  Stay tuned for some sweet GoPro videos of that.  

Racing and motorsport club meets on Tuesday nights throughout the semester.  We go to a nearby massive racetrack and do real life racing in go karts.  I was told that they go up to 100mph but we'll see how true that is.  This will also lead to some solid GoPro footage.

Swim club is pretty self explanatory...I'm going to get my fat ass into a speedo and try to burn off a Guinness or 2 a few times a week.  More than likely won't have GoPro footage of this...sorry. 

Outdoor pursuits club is for rock climbing, caving, and hiking.  There's a bunch of different trips throughout the semester, but one of the coolest ones is over Easter break when we have the opportunity to go to Malta for the week and rock climb.  From what I've heard, Malta is one of the coolest places on the planet, so that could be sweet.  

I'll end with a few memes that will hopefully make some Bronco fans smile.  It was a rough night, thankfully the beer helped me not truly understand what was going on.  Next blog will come sometime after Scotland. Stay classy everyone.