Sorry, I don't speak Irish...yet

So here are some random thoughts and facts from the last couple of days.
First off, if you are going to live in Ireland, you have to get used to walking everywhere. I personally have really been enjoying walking everywhere, but I guess it could be a big adjustment for some people. With that in mind, Irish food have very little or no preservatives. So when I go to buy food at school, I cannot buy as much as I would in America because it will go bad quickly. With both of these thoughts, you can probably conclude that there are very few larger people in Ireland. I believe I have only seen a couple of obese people here. Well, that's because everyone is always walking everywhere and buying less food (and the food that we do consume is healthier!!)
Speaking of walking, I also learned that most Irish families have one small car per family. And if you thought gas is expensive in America, it is at least $3.00-$4.00 more here in Ireland! 
Yesterday, we felt the effects of Hurricane Earl. It was pouring rain all day! Even the Irish said that it is very unlikely that it would ever rain for that hard for that long.

Outside The Book of Kells at Trinity College in the pouring rain!

In contrast, today was a beautiful day. I saw 2 rainbows that went all the way across the city!

We had a very lengthy orientation today. I learned A LOT about the school I'll be going to and what to expect. We were also informed of many different Irish phrases and words and what the American words or phrases are in translation. Be warned, "pants" in Ireland means "underwear"! There are many more words like that as well.

This is the equivalent to "line forms here" in America.

 Speaking of not understanding the Irish, we just got back from seeing a play tonight at the Abbey Theatre. I have to say, the first half of the play I could barely understand because of their accents and how quickly they were speaking. When I could understand them, they would use words and phrases that I didn't know! The second half I could understand much better because it was slower paced. The play was very good and all the actors were excellent, however, it was very long - nearly 3 hours with an intermission!

Inside the Abbey Theate.

Outside the Abbey Theatre

Tomorrow we have the entire day to ourselves in Dublin. We are going to take the "hop-on-hop-off" bus tour so I'm very excited to do that!!
On Thursday we (the Ulster students) will be heading out to live with our host families! I'm very very excited for this experience! My host family is in Wexford County in the city Gorey. There are also two boys, one is 20 and one is 18. Hopefully they can tell me a little more about the university life in Ireland.