Chapter Three: The Long Week

(Technical note: I've adjusted it so that you don't have to have a blogger acount to comment. So everyone should say something, even if it's just 'hey smelly, get a haircut').

I've been here for just under two weeks, and I'm doing pretty good. Really, as well as can be expected, which isn't great, but isn't really that bad.

I haven't meant any Irish students yet, which is odd, considering that this is their university; I'm convinced that they don't actually go to school. However, I'm confident this will remedy itself in the next few weeks, as my smaller classes start up, along with clubs and fencing (oh fencing, I miss you).

The weather is still garbage, but walking to school today I realized that it's really no big deal. I'm fully capable of dealing with some moist rain, and the fact is, when it's really bad, it's not like the Irish are immune to it themselves, they're just as miserable as I am. Plus, my room is getting warmer and warmer (or perhaps I'm getting colder and colder, who knows).

My room. Yes, I'm living with The Germans; Ben, Mattaius, and Andrea. They're good people, really nice, who are all hip deep in major mid year projects. I'm told that once those are done next week, we're throwing a "No more essays/Welcome the New Roomate/Ben's Birthday" house party, something they were infamous for last semester-I feel like I've chosen my home well.

Classes are all good. I've settled on four of the six I have to take, the two not having started yet being Welsh History (which is going to be a very small and fun class, if the professor is any indication) and some English Seminar class, which will probably be a film class (what a dork). The other classes I'm taking are The Medieval Castle, which meets everyday for a month and then ends, The Two Irelands of the Twentieth Century, which I view as an investigation into this whole "North Ireland" malarky, The Rise and Fall of Rome, the professor of which teaches the class with a Roman Gladius as a pointer, and Celtic Myth and Folklore, which is just a grand time. Between those classes, I'm going to have two field trips; one around Ireland to see castle sites, and the other to Rome and Greece for 4 days. That, my friends, is why we study in Europe.

I've even made new friends (acquaintances, really) with other international students. A young man from USC, Pat Boyd, and I have become oh such good Friends, though back home we'd probably never speak, let alone be known as 'Pat and Collin'.

So what's bad? I have, literally, 20 Euro in my pocket, and that's it. I have a credit card, but that only works half the time, and then only at larger establishments. So I have no money, which means no shopping, which means no food, warm blankets or comic books (I'll let you determine which of those are most important). I don't want to be a cry baby, I'm sure everything will work out (certain processes have been put into motion) but still, it's kind of lame.

And my feet hurt.

Pat and I determined that this really is as close to America you can get abroad. The most foreign concepts here are really just their position on heating their buildings, and that's a pretty easy one to wrap your head around. That and the fact that T.V. is treated like something to do after the pub, which in my opinion is completely turned around. So far, the culture shock has been pretty negligible. Then again, this might be a false read on the situation; perhaps by next Wednesday I'll be a blubbering heap.

But that, friends, is a story for the future.