Europe on a Shoestring

Today was pretty uneventful--I had three classes, bought some shoes, a binder, and a travel guide, and watched reruns of Glee with some Irish girls downstairs. Pretty average, I'd say.

From the looks of the counter down there, my suitemates are planning on having quite a shin dig tonight. There's three bottles of soda and juice and one bottle of vodka, plus the fridge is full of beer. I tend to sleep through the festivities, though, so no big deal.

We think our washer might have finally been fixed, so Amanda (one of the American girls in my apartment) tried washing her clothes tonight. It was taking a long time, so I left before finding out whether it worked or not. We think it might have been fixed because two days ago we woke up and found random parts down on the kitchen table. Who knows if those are the old or new ones, though. Cross your fingers, though--I'm tired of washing clothes in the shower!

We have our first inspection coming up next Wednesday. There's a whole list of places in the house and appliances that will be checked, so we're going to be doing some cleaning this weekend I'm sure and people will need to start washing dishes for once. The sheet that announced it was kind of funny--it said that since they can't inspect rooms with any of us in them, we would be given one minute to dress and get out if they catch us in bed. Good thing I have a 9 o'clock class that day.

Irish class was okay today, even though I tend to dread going to it. We learned a rebel song, which the teacher actually sang at orientation to the college when he was recruiting people for the class. It was a little difficult because the singer on the tape pronounced the words a lot differently than the way our professor told us to say them, but overall it was good craic (fun). We need to have 30 pages of vocab memorized by next week, however, so I'm a little worried about that.

I washed clothes Sunday night in the shower, and they are still partially wet tonight. I have the heater cranking in my room to try to dry them out, but I think it's just going to take a little more time. I can't wait until our washer is fixed, cause it does have a dryer built in so that at least shirts and underclothes can be dried. I had to wear damp underwear today...not so pleasant, although I got soaked walking to class in the rain anyway, so I suppose it didn't matter.

I was thinking yesterday about how I had been keeping a list of funny differences that I found here. I had forgotten until recently about another one: the toilet handles are on the other side. It sounds silly, but it is quite disconcerting to have the handle on the left, not the right. I used to always reach for the wrong side and have to twist back around. It's like crossing the road: I'm finally looking or reaching for the handle in the correct direction now. Although when I cross roads, I do find myself looking back in the direction that cars would come from in America...just in case...

I suppose that's all for tonight. I think a video finally uploaded, so please enjoy! We're staying around Galway this weekend--hopefully with trips to the museum and aquarium and a movie night with some pizza--so I'll continue putting stuff up from Belfast.

Good night!