Surprisingly, Ireland’s weather has been nothing but amazing since I’ve gotten here. Yeah, it’s a tad chilly and it rains off and on, but it’s still so perfect. The picture on the left is of the river running through Limerick City, very close to the University of Limerick. We’ve already gone through a week of school, and I can hardly believe it.
The course I’m studying is called Screening Ireland, and it’s essentially about Film in Ireland which is perfect, because that’s my major back home! The class is five hours and although it might seem long we have a half hour break and then an hour long lunch so it isn’t as bad as it seems. Plus, we get to watch movies!
So far we’ve watched In Bruges, Into the West, The Butcher Boy, and Michael Collins. The funniest part of all the movies we’ve watch so far is that the actor Brendan Gleeson (of Harry Potter fame where he played Mad-Eye Moody) is in all of them! I never realize he was such a popular actor here in Ireland.
Aside from school, we’ve already traveled to so many new places and met interesting faces. I’ve mentioned before how we met some hurling players, but now I have the proof with pictures. Hurling is the fastest land sport and seems to be a mixture between lacrosse, hockey, rugby, and a little bit of football (soccer, to us Americans). It is so interesting, and I really want to go to a game!
We’ve also traveled to Bunratty Castle, Kylemore Abbey & the Victorian Walled Garden, the Killary Fjord (a long, narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs created by glacial erosion), and Galway City, and this has only been in the first week of being in Ireland!
Kylemore Abbey and the Victorian Walled Garden were two of the prettiest views I had ever seen. It’s hard to describe the gorgeous view I was so lucky to take in. It was breathtaking. I don’t know if the pictures I took could capture this magnificent view. If I had to say a place everyone should go to in Ireland, this would be it! I absolutely loved this place and the area around Galway in general.
The Killary Fjord was also gorgeous. There was a wishing tree where you can tie a piece of fabric and make a wish on it. I wasn’t able to tie anything, but plenty of the people in our group did. There were definitely a lot of sheep roaming around near the road both by Killary Fjord and during most of the drive through Connemara (an area in the West of Ireland that hosts Galway). They usually were marked with paint in different colors, which I’ve learned is to distinguish which sheep belong to which farmer.
