Home Away from Home

A few nights ago, one of my friends was deploring the impending end of the semester, and said something that really rang true to me: "I feel like I have two lives, and I miss the home one, but can't imagine leaving this one either." And she's right: I'm settled here now.

This has been the first weekend where I've actually stayed in Galway for quite some time, supposedly to get some much-needed work done, and though I've yet to accomplish very much academically, it has been a wonderful chance to get to really see the city come alive. This morning I went to a market only a few minutes from my apartment, where I purchased an eggplant and three jumbo, super fresh, and still dirty carrots from a friendly old farmer man who threw in the third as a bonus- and it was all only 1.50 euro! I looked around the rest of the stalls and got really excited to show it off to my family when they come to visit (in 20 days!), and also had one little falafel which was delicious. :)

Today was seriously gorgeous, with temperatures in the early 50s, and it was also sunny! So naturally the main shopping district was packed with people and the street performers were out in full force. It only lasted a few hours, which I should have expected, but that made me really glad that I went out to the market to enjoy the weather while it lasted. I talk a lot about the weather, but that's because it's always just so remarkable.

My 'Project 75000' that I've been plodding along at ever since the Letterfrack weekend has been going really well, though I feel like my last post about 'Student Life' sounded fairly forced and muddled, which might have been because I was stressing about getting to my requisite number of words for the day, so I don't think that was a good idea and from now on I'm just going to try not to think about that too much with blogging, if I can. Hopefully this comes across flowingly and natural- maybe I'll go back and edit that last one at some point.

Since I've stayed home this weekend, I do really feel like a resident of Galway. This afternoon I went to tea at the house of a girl from the Writers' Soc, which was lovely, and last night I also hung out with a group of them- something I wouldn't have been able to do if I was rushing off to another Irish county on the first GoBus to Dublin. Irish life is slower and more laid back, and I'm happy to finally be taking part in that.

Before I close out this baby post, I want to tell you a bit more about my little 'home' here in Ireland. I live with three wonderful other Americans in a pretty spacious flat near the center of town. (I love saying 'flat'- it's in the song Galway Girl and just sounds so much more inspirational than 'apartment'.) A lot of other visiting students are living with Irish people, but much farther away from the city center- which has been so convenient for me in terms of everything from grocery shopping to pub hopping to getting to class. So our place is nice, though it does have a bunch of strange quirks, including a kindly landlord who is never there when you need him, but always there when you don't, a temperamental heating system and a washing machine where the dryer function just makes all your clothes hot and damp. The plumbing is also definitely not normal: turn on one sink in any of the rooms, and the shower in the bathroom starts to run. But I love it all despite that, and will likely miss it when I go home and end up letting the water run to help me sleep at night or something.

To end with another quote (parallelism!), I give you this line that appears in the song From Finner: "And we are far, far from home, but we're so happy. Far, far from home, all alone, but we're so happy." It's been in my head a lot recently.

Tomorrow marks the halfway point in my journey- thanks for sticking with me so far.