The campus is really pretty small, especially compared to what I am used to at URI. There are six or seven main academic buildings, all centered around the library. Our tour guide a couple days ago said that basically all of our classes will be in the same building or two. Regardless, I'm starting to recognize where I am on campus and not get lost quite so badly.
Anyway, here's the pics. This building is the college bar. The legal drinking age here is 18, so basically everything is discussed in a bar somewhere. Actually, I was reading about bands in town, and it turns out that they play in bars so much because there is no actual concert hall for them to perform in. I don't know if any come to this one, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's run by the Student Union and also serves lunch to students. There's a bunch of cafes around campus too and a cafeteria-type place in the library's basement, but this is really popular. To its left is Aras na Mac Leinn...the picture for that apparently got deleted. It's a big glass building that houses all the clubs, societies, student union office, health center, etc.
This is the signpost behind the bar. Exciting, maybe not, but it shows how everything is bilingual. I'm not sure what relevance the little people have...
This is the library. It's technically two buildings, but they're attached. The lighter one on the left houses all the materials for nursing and engineering, I believe, while the bigger building has all of the other books and services.
Again, cool bilingual signs. I think I have to go to Aras Ui Chathail later this week for something. Oh, "Aras" means "the building of," so "Aras na Gaeilge," for example, means "The Irish Building."
This is the school's radio station. They are looking for volunteers. I think I'll look at Sin instead (the school newspaper).
Oh, here it is! This is Aras na Mac Leinn. They're doing some sort of construction out front. The roads look wet...but it's ice.
Some random building. Not really sure what I was taking a picture of. It's interesting, though, how the campus has so many old buildings or traditionally built ones mixed in with all of these new glass and steel ones, like the gym.
This is some random yellow thing that is on the courtyard of the library (it's the roof of the cafeteria, technically, which is in the basement but you can get there from below...built into a hill?). I guess students use it as a reference point, like "Meet me by the yellow thing!"
The building in the background here is called the Concourse, and it's attached to the library too. Like I said, the library is right in the middle of everything. The two towers on the left and right house departments and some smaller classrooms.
This is the building for Irish language classes and stuff. They lost a letter off their sign...
This is the Concourse closer up. 
Some green building. I dunno, it's bright so I took a picture.
The cool castle-y building in the background, An Chearnog, is the oldest building on campus. There's better pics in a bit.
Another sign.
A weird sculpture. I'm just proud to know that URI isn't the only college to put up random stuff that no one understands, like that thing by Lippitt Hall.
The Arts Millenium Building on the right with some houses and offices at the end of the street.
Just in case you didn't realize that you're supposed to walk on sidewalks...
The cars are often smaller and boxier than ours, but sometimes they're the same (I saw a Santa Fe the other day). The licenses are odd, though.
The tower of An Chearnog.
The main sign that you see for directions when you enter from the front gate.
An Chearnog.
One of the inside walls. This is called the Quadrangle. 
One of the other walls.
Random dude in the background here walked over and gave me mean looks until I left. Grump.
A map of the building itself. Forgive my flash.
I think it's amusing that even the garbage cans are bilingual.
The Cathedral on the way into the city. It looks old, but I guess it's pretty new. I tried going inside to take pictures and look around, but there was Mass.
The college's official entry sign. Their logo is a picture of An Chearnog.
Instructions about the parking lots.
And now in Irish!
Even on campus you can see towers from the city.
The Cathedral is right next to office buildings. When I was walking in town, I saw several other abbeys or churches that were fenced off from the streets. One of them was icy, so a monk was salting the roads. I wanted to take a picture, but thought it would be rude. But it was an...interesting sight.
The River Corrib. It was really churning today.
The yellow lines are next to the sidewalk. They drive on the left here, and I've yet to look the correct direction when crossing the road.
Okay. This is the sign for the next picture. Sounds normal, right?
??? Such a weird sculpture. Some random metaphorical woman is busting out of a stone. Okay...
Did I mention that palm trees grow here? Yeah, it's normally a warm and wet climate, so they're all over. Right now they look pretty stupid cause they're all covered in frost.
A street in Galway. Look on the left. Instead of dollar stores, they have "Two Euro" stores.
Johnny Rockets? NO! It's Eddie Rockets!
This is what most of the streets look like in the city center--tiny, bright, and really crowded. Several streets in the middle are like the Ithaca Commons: no cars allowed on the cobblestone roads. On St. Patrick's Day, they apparently close off one of them and let the whole city drink whatever they want there for the whole day, whether or not they're buying from the pubs.
One of the bikers pubs. There's a third painting at the top.
That's as many pictures as I dared take today. They're not great cause I was wearing gloves, but no worries, I lost my gloves an hour later! Ugh. So I went and bought some sweaters and a scarf to stay warm. :)
I've been keeping a list of more funny sayings or actions that are different from ours. Here goes:
- I woke up today at 8 a.m. The sun hadn't risen yet. I went back to sleep until ten. The sun decided to start getting up then too. It's very odd, but it still sets around 5 p.m. That's what we get for being closer to the North Pole.
- People drive on the right at home. They walk on the right too. Here they drive on the left. Guess where they walk? I keep running into everyone because I head to the right. Some guy on the street yelled at me today about it...I think. His accent was strong and he might have been talking to the woman behind me, but he sure glared.
- The hot and cold knobs on my sink (they're separate) are backwards: the hot is on the right and the cold on the left. It took me several days of washing my hands in cold and brushing my teeth in hot to figure this out.
- They usually say "ye" instead of "you," even when saying things like "ye've".
- Words with "th" are pronounced as if that were just a "t". For example, "thirty" is "tirty".
- I actually approve of this next one; it sure simplifies things. Rather than saying "one-thirty," for example, they say "half one."
- They don't say "thanks a lot," they say "thanks a million." When they thank, they mean it, darn it!
We got our TV working somewhat tonight (the remote still doesn't), but most of their shows are just American reruns. So I watched What Not to Wear during lunch and Friends with supper! The commercials are Irish, though, like McDonald's, which advertises its EuroSaver menu. I've been avoiding SubWay and McDonald's because everyone expects me to go there, but I may have to cave eventually. For now, I'm enjoying my tuna fish sandwiches and these deliciously addicting shortbread cookies I found. Maybe when our Irish roommates move in we'll learn some traditional recipes.
That's all for now--I hope to take some pictures of the city itself tomorrow. Good night!
