My first almost week now in Ireland has been a blur of green, gray, and blue--that would be the incredibly lush landscape and the sky. Having been abroad before, and also I suppose being at least a little more mature than I was when I traveled in '04-'05, I have been able to bypass the homesickness most other students are experiencing, but have also been able to offer others my sincerest sympathies and comfort when I see them dealing with it. God knows I've been there, right, fam?

So I've found myself predictably confused by the cell phones, the electricity outlets, and the course registration systems here, but I've decided not to get too worked up about it. I will figure things out. What I can't figure out, though, is the fact that Galway does not recycle anything but glass; and while they're very good about the glass (they've got separate bins everywhere for clear, green, and brown glass), I've already thrown away enough cardboard, paper, and plastic to make my heart shrivel.

Still, Irish people are way more conscious of the electricity and products they consume, it seems to me so far anyway. Like, there's a €0.22 bag tax at all grocery stores to encourage people (and it works!) to bring their own reusable shopping bags. And in Limerick, where we had our Butler orientation, the landfill was right next to this kind of nice hotel... though I doubt that was planned. And all of the outlets have their own on/off switches so that the circuits can simply bypass them around the room. Water heats up only for part of the day, according to a timer, and heating is kind of done on a room-by-room basis, with residents keeping doors shut, wearing more clothes, and turning off heaters at night to save on heating costs.

People can come by clothing, shoes, and accessories very cheaply by means of these superstores like Dunnes or Tesco, where it's kind of like a mall--a bunch of little stores all within this one department store... I still don't totally get the arrangement between these seemingly autonomous merchants and the Tesco or Dunnes brands. What I found interesting was that upon entering the produce section of the bizarrely organized grocery stores of these departments stores, I couldn't find absolutely everything I wanted--or there would be very little of it left and people took what they could. That's not to say there wasn't selection, because I got a delicious and probably better-traveled-than-I passion fruit from Dunnes, but they were just low on some kind of basic items, in comparison with the ever overflowing shelves of the supermarkets in the States, where Americans insist on this progressively falser, yet reassuring sense of abundance. (I am finding myself more and more drawn to food systems studies....)

While in Limerick, I saw the Limerick Art Museum, featuring one artist's take on Dante's Inferno. This exhibit took up two large rooms, while a third room housed what seemed like everything else the museum owned, a casually jumbled mix of landscape, abstract, etc. paintings, with pencil drawings, sculpture, and photography filling the walls floor-to-ceiling. I also saw the city's castle and cathedral, as well as its history museum, a very cool, eclectic collection of everything from ancient weapons and coins to modern labor strikers' posters and pamphlets and even an old diving suit. This all took place one rainy afternoon with a friend, who along with me had decided to stay back from the Bunratty Castle trip, to which Butler had organized a trip for us. Bunratty sounded a little like the Medieval Times get-up to me, with people in costume and recreated scenes,etc. You can imagine my reluctance to partake. People who ended up going said it was cool, but I was quite happy with my own scenic afternoon.

We got to Galway on Wednesday midday and have been running from one orientation event to the next and to the grocery and department stores for food and bedding and toiletries. I went out last night, though (Thursday night), with two friends, to a pub known for drawing lots of young people, called King's Head. It was a bit less casual than I expected, with plenty of kids dressed to impress, but the music was great--a live five-member band playing quality covers all night--and I couldn't help but dance just a little (even though I know that's not what pubs are for!), especially when they broke out a little Killers and Radiohead. Oh well.

Oh, and I have to mention... basically ALL of the speakers during our orientation could have been professional performers! It was like each was trying to be funnier or more interesting than the last--this, between the university's vice president, the International Student Director, two priests, two members of the Gardi (police force), and various other academic figureheads from the university. It seems a lot of Irish people have a way with words... let's see if that's at all contagious.

One more thing: on the way from Shannon Airport to our Limerick hotel, our taxi driver told us about "the fairy tree" along the highway from Limerick to Galway, and told us to ask our driver about it when we make that trip. Apparently, this tree was placed under government protection several years ago because it was in the way of a highway that was to built (and ended up swerving around it). Some vandals mangled the tree one night and left it quite scarred... but within three months, the tree had healed such that it looked as though it hadn't been touched! Well, our driver pointed it out to us: it was really more like a large dark-wood bush, leafless in the winter rains and cold, surrounded by a short, wooden fence, within a median between the highway and an exit.... I'll admit it was somewhat anti-climactic, especially since we passed it at around fifty miles an hour, but it was still lovely. So lovely, and reflecting on the image of it, there was a certain undeniable power to that little plant.

In any case, I've written probably more than you cared to read, and romanticized even worse than that. This land already has me by the heart, weather and all, and I just can't wait to see and learn more of it.

P.S. I obviously haven't met my Irish roommates yet, since I didn't write a word about them. They, and we think they're women, left a bit of a mess for us to arrive to, but whatever. And my roommate herself is really great--a junior at Mount Holyoke, sooooo prepster East Coast, and awesome. We're getting along really well so far. Rahhhh!!! Stop! Writing!