September 2006
My Journey to Galway, Ireland Begins

Greetings from Galway!! I’m studying abroad for a semester at the National University of Ireland at Galway with 5 other girls from Canisius.

On the way over here I was getting a little nervous about how things were going to go, how we were going to find everything in Galway, and how school was going to be, but now I’m getting really excited about all of it. We arrived after a one and a half hour flight to Boston, MA, and then a five hour flight to Shannon, Ireland. We arrived in Shannon Airport at about 5:30 a.m., and found out that the bus from the Shannon Airport to Galway wouldn’t arrive until 8:30 that morning. So we found a place to have breakfast, read books, and checked out a souvenir shop to kill some time.

Finally, I'm here in Ireland!

The bus ride to Galway was gorgeous! Although we were jet-lagged, exhausted, and getting hungry again, we really enjoyed the bus ride. There is nothing like the Irish countryside- it’s beautiful! So, about an hour and a half later, we arrived at the bus stop in Galway. We realized on the bus ride that we didn’t know how to get to Niland House (where we are staying), so the bus driver directed us to an information center down the road.  We got a map and directions from there, and ended up getting lost…..so, it actually took us an hour to get to the house, when we had heard it was supposed to take about 10 minutes. We did find it, though, and we now know that area of Galway very well!  We ended up spending a lot of the day yesterday getting settled, getting groceries from Dunnes, things like that.

Hanging out with Rachel on campus.

After getting about 15 hours of sleep (I don’t think any of us slept on the plane, so we made up for it that night), we walked over to the campus to get a campus tour. The school’s pretty big, which was a bit overwhelming. I’m used to the small campus of Canisius, but I know I’ll get used to it quickly. And if I have any questions, I know I can ask anyone where to go- everyone’s so nice! So after that, the six of us went to explore more, and found some really cool shops that sell all kinds of stuff, everything from clothing and food, to jewelry. We stopped at a pizza place/bar for a late lunch/early dinner. So now we’re just hanging out in the apartment watching some TV.  The jet lag is still kind of with us, but I think our bodies will have gotten used to it by tomorrow. Tomorrow we have our Orientation, which I can’t wait for. I can’t wait to get into classes and start meeting new people- that’s what studying abroad is all about!

~Liz