In Limerick...

Hello my dear honors friends,

I am now officially started with my study abroad program, after about a week and a half of traipsing around Europe. As most of you know, Sara and I flew out to Spain, where we split our six days between Madrid and Granada. My favorite thing we saw in Spain was probably the Al-Hambra, although I did thoroughly enjoy looking at the grandiosity (is that a word?) of the Royal Palace in Madrid.

Then Sara left me for Turkey and I spent 3 days in Paris by myself. Paris was wonderful. My hostel was somewhat sketchy, but I got out of it alive and with all of my belongings intact, so I can't complain. I packed loads of stuff into my days in Paris and there is still so much I didn't get to see!

I got into Dublin Saturday night and then took a bus to Limerick in the morning, which is where my orientation is being held. We had meetings about living in Ireland all morning and now have the afternoon free so I popped into an internet cafe for a quick break from the extremely cold weather outside! I feel I was remiss in not packing a warmer jacket for this supposedly moderate climate.

Also, Mark would be proud to know that I had my first Guinness last night. It was not as terrible as I thought it would be, although I don't think I would ever drink more than one. I also got a cell phone and it has free incoming calls, so if any of you feel like racking up tons of wildly expensive minutes, feel free to give me a call.

That's all for now. Wednesday we head to Cork and get to move into our apartments. I will be sharing a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom apartment with a kitchen and common room with 3 other people, so I'm content. It's about a 10 minute walk from campus and is actually half of a hotel. The pictures online made it look very liveable and I'm sure it will be an improvement over C/M and Madonna. :-)

I hope that life is treating everyone well and I would love to hear from you all when you get a chance!
<3,
Anna