Week One

I had my first class on Monday, the Food and Wine Pairing class. I'm really looking forward to learning about wine and my professor is relaxed and knowledgeable. He has travelled the world as a wine tourist! That's his job! Can you believe that actually exists? Talk about dream job...

A few nights ago a lot of the second semester kids got together. There's a picture of us all above. There are about 60 students this semester, and last semester there were 150! This semester more than half of them are American, and last semester there were only approx. 15. I was a little disappointed to learn that they're all American because I didn't study abroad in Ireland to hang out with other boring Americans haha :) They seem like nice people though.

Emily and I are planning our trip to Poland in March. We are hoping to stay with Adrienne's friends who live there which would be really amazing if that worked out. Also Mom, Adrienne has friends in Paris, Christy and Bill, so maybe when you come we could take a trip to Paris and stay with them! We might even be able to fly out of Paris. We can figure it out later.

So those of you who don't know, Easter is really late in April this year which means my university has no breaks in between this semester. We go for 12 weeks straight, and then we have 2 weeks of spring break. After the spring break we have one week of no class for "revision" week before exams start, and then the next two weeks are exams in May. That's FIVE consecutive weeks of no class that I could potentially be here with nothing to do :( Don't get me wrong, I would love to travel the world during this time, but my finances are a little low...or a lot of low :) So what I'm trying to do is instead of stay in Ireland for my exams, I'm asking my professors for an alternative exam that I can turn in either before the end of class or via email once I'm home. This way I'll come home end of April, save a bunch of money, and get to celebrate my 21st birthday at home! I'll update ya'll when I know what the end results are.

On Sunday I had a DELICIOUS dinner with my Irish host family, Pearl and Mervyn. They are really great people, both teachers who enjoy music and travelling. They have 3 kids who are all out of the house, their youngest is 23. We had a nice time visiting and eating and Pearl made a melt-in-your-mouth pie that was similar to a giant malt ball. Wow, it was amazing. It had layers of chocolate with homemade whipped cream and maltballs on top. I'm going to ask her for the recipe and make it when I'm home. Dad, they gave some great insight about how we should travel together when you come visit. They suggested renting a car in Ireland for a few days, and then leaving the car and going to Scotland without one. We'll talk more later, there's a LOT to plan! Very exciting :) They also said they want to take me to their beach trailor in Donegal! They showed me pictures of the sandy beach and huge caves that they are right next to. We'll probably go in April because that's when the weather is better. Less rain and more SUN!

I hope everyone is well and has been enjoying their January. More later!