weeek 4! new home!

(views from my new home!)

I am having a much better week than last! For starters, I have moved villages. I moved from Kilmurry village to Thomond Village (pronounced tomond. I'm the American that pronounced with with a "th" sound and got made fun of... what else is new!) I am so much happier being in this village. Kilmurry was nice, but it was a big party place. People were constantly blaring music and yelling til about 5 or 6 in the morning. Its a fun place to visit, but not to live in! Plus I'm living right next door to Lauren and Mallory's apartment building now. The 20 minutes commute across campus has been reduced to about 1 minute. It's fabulous! I must say I do miss my old roommates! The good news is that I have an Irish step dancing class (yup, I am step dancing... you can laugh at it. I do everyday. I also have to preform in front of a class at the end of the semester. excellent.) in my old village once a week, so I can stop by and see them! Mare also has a best friend who lives in Thomond so she'll be visiting from time to time! My first night here I woke up at noon and was amazed I had slept the entire time without one drunken interruption! It's so nice! My new roommates are really nice too. I live with all Irish kids again. It's 3 boys and 2 other girls! They are all first years, so I am the oldest. It's so cute to watch them because they all hang out in our common room for hours on end. It brings back good memories from my freshman year at Bridgewater when I first met my best friends now! (woodward, 3rd floor. let's go back?) Speaking of time flying, I can not believe I am already in the 4th week here! I'm already getting upset about having to leave in December. That's going to be a long plane ride home!

This past week was pretty boring until the weekend. We finally felt comfortable to let loose a little more. Thursday night we went out to this place called the Lodge. It's the club near campus that everyone goes too. They let you in free some nights with your school I.D. We started the night off at Mallory's apartment because her roommates had planned a house party. We were all in their kitchen and common room area having some drinks and talking. One of the Irish guys there started asking us questions about America. He said the only thing he knew about American culture was from the movies Grease and West Side Story. We responded, "so basically, you know nothing about American culture." (obviously we didn't stop making fun of him there. We're usually the butt of all the jokes so any opportunity to poke fun at them we take and go overboard with: "yeah, we all coordinate song and dance segments, the girls wear poodle skirts, and when we get angry at each other we snap.") We decided to head out a little while later. We ended up walking there because there was a large group of us. It's probably about a 20 minute walk there. On the walk over there this Irish guy who was at the party came up to me and started talking to me again about American culture. ( I don't know why this was such a hot topic this night. I think we were the first Americans these guys had met.) He asked me if I was a cheerleader. I thought to myself, do I look like the cheer leading type?? I didn't want to be rude so I answered with, "no, I played sports." He then went on this tangent about cheer leading and football players. I'm not sure what American sitcom or movie he had just watched, but I tried to explain that there's more to being American than football and cheer leading. After that awkward struggle of a conversation I waited for the rest of the group to catch up. Lauren, Mal, and I started to have a conversation, not minding the rest of the group. In the middle of our conversation I overheard a different Irish guy that was in our group exclaim, "I love listening to them talk!! I love their accents!!" After I realized he was talking about us, I couldn't help but laugh. It's weird to be told that for once I have an accent! Usually it's us telling them that we love to hear them talk! I officially got the worst pick up line I have ever heard in my life. The kid who was talking to me about Americans and cheer leading, started talking to me while I walked over to the ATM. He said, and I quote, "How about, in American terms, we hook up tonight?" .....yup. He was serious. I nearly fell over laughing, and responded with my go to phrase for awkward situations here, "NAHH". I felt like saying, "How about, in American terms, you F*** off." but Karen and Bob raised me better than that. I walked away to catch up to Mal, and I heard him say to his friend, "WHAT? It's an American term, Hook up is an American term!!" Mallory informed the other boys in the group that he was being an idiot and they walked next to me the rest of the way!
We finally made it to the lodge. This was the craziest place I have ever been too. The line or "que" as they call it, was wrapped around the area sectioned off, and then out to the street. We ended up cutting the line by sliding under the railings, and we made it in quicker. The place was PACKED. We went out on the dance floor and we couldn't even move. People were shoving us all around. My feet hurt so bad from walking over with heels! At one point I got pushed and my ankles rolled in my boots. My feet were so sore I couldn't even straighten myself out. One of the boys in our group came up behind me, grabbed me from the shoulders and placed me back on my feet! Mal switched shoes with me a few minutes later, and I was back in business! We started dancing again, and this one random boy from the crowd came over, grabbed my face, and kissed my cheek. He wished me a Happy something or other. He did the same to Lauren and Mal. He did it 2 more times. Later on we were talking to some of the boys in our group and explaining what he had said and did. They started laughing and informed us that it wasn't an Irish holiday at all. What a clever guy! The boys were good all night about helping us out. We started getting tossed around a lot because people were shoving. Mallory ended up being shoved and fell on the ground 3 or 4 times. They boys instantly picked her back up! They also served as a good means of crowd control. When the crowd got really pushy they would put all of us in the middle of them and stand on the outside of us. We've learned not get on the bad side of the boys! We would be royally screwed without them!

Friday night we took it easy, and just hung out in Lauren's apartment. We headed back to Galway Saturday to celebrate Erin's 20th birthday! We had so much fun! We stayed at a bed and breakfast called the Abbey. It was so cute. We took their family sized room upstairs, that slept 7. It was such a nice place to stay! We grabbed some dinner, and then headed back to the B&B to get ready for the night! We were all in the process of getting ready when we heard the fire alarm go off. We all just looked around confused, thinking maybe it was a smoke alarm and we could shut it off. Finally Lauren said, "Guys its the fire alarm, you can't shut it off, we need to get out." ( we keep her around for her common sense.) We all ran down the stairs and went outside to find that we were the only ones who did! A woman who works there came to shut the alarm off finally. Erin asked her why no one else had left the building, and she told us because they realized there was no fire! Ah, and the world makes sense again! (Silly Americans...)

We had a few drinks before heading out for the night. We ended up walking down the main stretch in Galway. They had club promoters up and down the streets! We knew it was going to be a good night! One of the promoters brought us to a club called Coyote. Similar to Coyote Ugly in the states. They had American flags everywhere, we felt pretty comfortable. Except for the fact that we were literally the only females in the place. The club was filled with guys aged 25 and up. Needless to say, we attracted a little attention walking in, being six 20 year old girls. We went up to the bar and got one of the guys sitting near us at a table to buy Erin a drink for her birthday. We took pictures with some of the other guys sitting up near the bar. Then decided to check out the downstairs. It was a dance floor and then they had a mechanical bull. Erin hopped on the Bull for a celebratory 20th birthday ride. It ended rather swiftly and even left a bruise the next morning! There was a group of guys from a Bachelor party dancing on the dance floor. We dared Kim to go out and dance with one of them. Soon a few more of his friends came out and danced with her. When I looked again she had so many of them around her I could barely see her! We all started laughing and then went out to join her. They played a song from Grease, which made us all start laughing more! All though we weren't hating the attention, we decided it was time to try somewhere else. We walked back down the main stretch and found another club promoter who told us he could get us in and get us some free drinks. He brought us over to the club, but it wasn't open yet. He handed us a free card and told us to wait. We decided to make a pit stop at McDonald's. One of the better decisions we made that night, American fast food has not disappointed us once since we've been here. We walked back to that same club after McDonald's . On the way we met up with a club promoter who started talking to me about the states. He asked if I watched baseball. I asked him who his favorite team was and he responded with the Yankees. I told him, "Wrong answer" and walked away! We finally got back to the club and realized we wouldn't get in for free and we would have to pay 5 euro. We knew there was another club down the road that was letting people in for free and decided to go there instead. It turns out the promoter we had to get a stamp from was the Yankees fan from earlier. He came up to me and told me he was just kidding and he doesn't even watch baseball! I started laughing!I told him I was kidding as well, but next time someone asks him that the answer should always be Red Sox! He walked us to the club, it was called Cuba, and we got in for free! It was really fun in there and they played a lot of good music! I noticed the club had three bars in it and suddenly was hit with a brilliant idea! I dragged Erin to each bar with me and asked them if she could have a free shot for her birthday! 2 of the bar tenders were happy to give one out, but the 3rd one was a jerk! He practically yelled at us to go away unless we were going to pay! We shook off the rejection and went downstairs to keep dancing! We ended up leaving the club around 230 and headed back to the B&B!

(Laur & I before going out!)
(the series of events of Kim dancing with the Bachelor Party, she's in there somewhere!)

(erin bull riding!)

The next morning we woke up to the smell of a full Irish breakfast and ran downstairs to eat! It was so delicious! After breakfast we decided to head out and shop for a little before going home. I had fallen in love with a ring I saw in one of the shops earlier so I figured I would go back to check it out. I was so disappointed that the shop wasn't open when we went back! I'll have to find another one somewhere else! We headed back to Limerick absolutely exhausted.

I planned on having a relaxing Sunday night, and head to bed early. I was in my PJ's when I got a text from Lauren asking if I wanted to go to the Lodge with her and some of the boys. I jumped out of bed, got ready, and headed out. Let's just say we had a very long and interesting evening out. I was exhausted when we were leaving, and I took my heels off for the walk home. One of the boys looked at me and told me that wasn't a smart idea, but thinking I knew everything I continued with it anyways. We had almost made it all the way home when all of a sudden I heard one of the boys say "Ow that hurts!!" I turned to see what he was talking about when I felt something smash on my neck. I was covered in egg. I had it in my hair, all over my shirt, in my ear, down my jeans, and in my shoe. I wasn't even upset though, I just started laughing! I'm surprised I wasn't upset, but at that point I was so slap happy that it just seemed like the funniest thing ever. In the process of hysterically laughing, I stubbed my toe on the concrete. It hurt really bad but my main concern was getting home. I walked the rest of the way covered in sticky egg. When we got home we decided to hang out in Lauren's apartment for awhile. We go into the elevator and Lauren's roommate looked down at my foot. He yelled "OH MY GOD KELLEY YOUR FOOT!" I looked down and I was standing in a pool of blood from my toe. Her roommate got me a band aid, cleaned out my cut, and bandaged up my foot! He told me to take the bandage off and clean it the next morning and put some antibiotic ointment on it because it has a good chance of getting infected if I don't. He also scolded me for walking barefoot, and said that the blisters I would've gotten from me heels wouldn't have hurt as bad as this! (I wasn't kidding when I said we would be in big trouble without the boys!) The night doesn't sound that fun to an outsider, but it was one of those you had to be there nights. It's one we talk and laugh about all the time now.

I think I am taking it easy this week, staying in, and getting some sleep! I have my full day of classes today, and Irish step dancing tonight! This weekend we plan to go to Cork! We don't have to pay for accommodation because we'll be staying with one of Lauren's friends from home! I'm looking forward to another fun weekend!

oh by the way,

Happy 20th Birthday Er :)