Note: I apologize. This is not my best writing. I am still exhausted.

So after a crazy night of connecting flights and running like a nut through airports I arrived in Limerick. The past day and a half have been a blur of new people and information. I don’t know right now if I can write a deep philosophical piece about what happened because everything was so overwhelming, so I will just give a timeline of what happened and then at the end maybe I’ll develop some thoughts. Fortunately, another student from New Paltz was on my flight which was nice and she’s pretty cool.

We arrived in Shannon at around 630AM. People from the university came to bring us to the village on campus we are staying in called Cappa Villa. I have a room and bathroom to myself and I share a kitchen with some other New Paltz girls. (that was surprising) The disappointing part is no free wifi in my room…tragic! So I went with a lovely girl named Triona who is a Limerick student who works in the international office to meet an orientation and mobility instructor. For those of you who don’t know I am blind so the only annoying thing here is with the way the campus is set up it is very difficult for me to learn to get from place to place independently which is upsetting to me because I like to give a good impression of blind people but as Triona said I came across the world myself, so needing a little help really doesn’t make me look bad at all. I’ve realized that everyone needs help in different ways so if I can’t explore independently that’s ok. I’ll just make sure to go on all the group trips.

Anyway, that was a complete tangent sorry.

So then I had to take a taxi to a store because someone bought me the wrong adapter plug…(thanks Dad) Let me just say, sitting in the passenger seat of a car when you are from America is a terrifying experience…even when your blind…you still know everything is opposite. So then I hung out with my suite mates for a while and took a quick nap. Then we left for a brief orientation and a filling dinner. Unfortunately we almost went to the wrong orientation so that was fun.

Today, after a great night of sleep where I think I pretty much beat the jet lag, we went to a morning of orientation. I was happy because I got to eat lunch with some Irish students at the university who work for the International office. Then I hung out with some people I met on the program. If i have one complaint it is that all of the students on the program are from America. Don’t get me wrong there great and I’m sure I’ll make lovely friends, but I really hoped to meet Irish students. It’s all about new experiences and Americans are not new to me…No offense if fellow students are reading this. That is why I liked having lunch with the students from Limerick. It’s a blind perk that i was assigned an Irish student to show me around. I get to talk to a local more than other people!

After hanging outside on the lawn after lunch, the weather has been surprisingly beautiful, I went to my first class session. An aside about the countryside. Sighted people won’t understand this, but I can just tell how beautiful it is here… and as my friend Lydia said to me when we arrived, “Description update: everything is green.”

My first class was great. I am taking a 3 credit law class. It seems like it will be fascinating and challenging without being overwhelming.

A couple points of interest. Ireland isn’t super different from America. They have TV and hot water…even though sometimes you have to turn it on manually. It’s little things in the language that make it clear it’s different. For example, crack means fun and press means cabinet.

Well, that is it for now, I hope that wasn’t to much rambling. I will post more soon.