October 2006
Galway Journal Entry 3

Céad Míle Fáilte (“A hundred thousand welcomes”, in Irish)! Things in Galway are going well. The semester’s in full swing, Halloween decorations and costumes are on sale, and the weather has been....well....Irish. The Irish love to joke about the weather here, and it’s often said that they experience all four seasons in one day. The biggest difference between the weather here, though, and the weather in Buffalo is that it doesn’t get very cold here. It only gets down to about 30 or 40 degrees in the winter, so it rarely snows. It’ll definitely be nice to not have snow around this winter, but I’m sure I’ll start to miss it by the time I head back home!

But aside from the weather, Galway’s beautiful. It’s a small city, but it has kept its tradition—the buildings are relatively small, and most of them have been here for a long time. The house that the six of us Canisius students are staying in is right by Shop Street, which is a really fun street to walk down. It has all kinds of novelty stores, gift shops, and street musicians on it. It reminds me of Elmwood Avenue, except without the traffic—Shop Street is a pedestrian road.

So, as you read above, there are five other girls from Canisius studying in Galway this semester. We live in a house with 2 other girls—one from Philadelphia, and another from Sweden. We all get along relatively well, although tensions can sometimes run high when there’s very little quiet time. We have a washing machine in the house (it’s actually in the kitchen), and it’s constantly running. The stovetops heat up a lot slower here, too, so making a grilled cheese sandwich takes about half an hour, instead of five minutes. It’s all part of the experience, though. We’ve all learned how to be a little more patient, which is definitely an important thing when living in a house with seven girls.

Above all else, the coolest part about being anywhere in Europe is how close everything is. It’s relatively easy to get to other countries, either by train or plane (I don’t think you’d want to take a bus....especially going from say, Dublin to Berlin). RyanAir is a European airline that usually has cheap flights, so that’s definitely a good resource. Four of my roommates are in Paris this weekend, and are getting back sometime today. None of them have ever been there before, so I can’t wait to hear how they liked it! I’m trying to plan some trips to London, Scotland, and hopefully Italy or Austria, as well. Two of my friends are studying in Europe this semester—one in London, who goes to Canisius, and another in Salzburg, Austria, who I haven’t seen in about seven years! It’s so much fun to plan your own trips and travel, although it can get really stressful. My roommates and I have a feeling that we’ll be getting a bad case of cabin fever when we get back, and will want to plan weekend trips to see the country.

~Liz

Liz's September 2006 Journal #2
Liz's September 2006 Journal #1