Failte means Welcome

So, my first impression of Ireland was chaos. Large, loud families running around all over the place! The 6 hour plane ride must have had over a dozen small children aboard. So when I landed in Dublin the plane was about three hours late, meaning I had missed my connecting flight to Cork. Since it would cost about 25o Euro to get another flight etc, I just hopped on a bus... for 5 hours. I got to see a lot of the Irish countryside though, which is just as green as it is fabled to be. I also made friends with an Aussie woman, so we admired the castles and ruins that we were passing together.

The family I'm staying with is amazing- a single mother Michelle and her four year old fireball Ellie, and her 1 year old "happy pappy" Dylan. We don't have internet in the house as of yet, so I'm currently sitting in a closed-up mall in Douglas, about a 10 minute bus ride away, writing this. All the Irish I've met so far are incredibly friendly and helpful, as well as have the greatest accent! I just want to melt every time I hear it. Classes start on Monday, so hopefully I'll meet some actual Irish students then. I'm also taking an Irish language class, which I'm psyched about. The entire Irish system is, as Michelle warned me, incredibly loose and easygoing. Nothing is very organized or starts on time, with the exception of lectures. Apparently, each course I'm taking is only once a week, so I'm going to have Wednesdays off! Pretty sweet. So hopefully updates will come every Wednesday or so. If I haven't posted anything in a while, bug me because I'm awful with communication :D.

Finally, if anyone has any advice about great sites to go see in Ireland or has visited before, I would love some tips! Until then, I hope you all are having a relaxing vacation back in the US!